Help me understand Intelligent Design

No it does not. The question certainly can be dismissed in a few words.Did the meteor ~65 million years ago that struck off the tip of Yacatan do so by design?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

No, that's not a legitimate scientific question. It's a philosophical (and perhaps theological) question. Science deals with cause, not with purpose.

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But that ISN'T the real central issue. The REAL issue is whether Sermonti's cliam, repeated by Behe was true or false. And Bottaro took that issue head on. It is false.

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Sermonti's claims about the taxonomy of these bugs are false. I mentionned this in my response if you paid attention. But it ISN'T the central issue. The central issue is, why does it look like a leaf, by pure chance. How does an insect mutate an "advantage" randomely. I'm not questionning the fact that mutation + natural selection causes evolution to occur. But can "randomness" as a principle explain this how specific complexity AND highly specific puporse of the said complexity ? This is a legitimate question.

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It is also false to suggest that Bottaro did not address the issue - although there was no detailed explanation because it is so well known:

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t is really not hard to imagine that a thin, brownish insect may gradually evolve into a stick-like mimic (center left picture), or that a green insect living among foliage may evolve to resemble leaves (right). This conclusion is further strengthened by the existence of many gradations of stick- and leaf-like crypsis in living
insects.

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And he's right. A greater resemblance to a tick menas a greater chance of not being noticed by a predator. Even a diguise that will nt bear direct examination may be able to pass a casual glance. This is a wel-known issue which is why Sermonti made the claim that he did. Mimciry is no mystery - but mimicry can't work if there is nothing to mimic - an insect can't be mistaken for a leaf if there are no leaves

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Absolutely, I know he's right. But how can we claim this process is random ? There is your real question..what part of it is so difficult to grasp?

Then I guess I don't see the relevance of what you're saying, here. "Purpose" exists in our minds, not in the world. It's just a label that we apply to things, not a property of things themselves. Mutations are always random, a fact confirmed by population studies on organisms. There is no "question of design." If things in the natural world look like they have "purpose" to you, that's something in your mind, not in the world. Why do things look like they have design to you? Because you've chosen to look at them that way.It really is just that simple. Why wouldn't it? If systems were being generated with entirely random characteristics, wouldn't we expect a range in complexity just as we would expect a range in any other characteristic?And if we had a process where, every generation, we discarded the ten least complex systems and applied modifications to the survivng systems, wouldn't we expect an upwards trend in complexity?Your mistake is your assumption that randomness and complexity are somehow anathema. The flaw in your argument is that you cannot support that assertion. It very much does answer the question. Is it just that you don't understand selection, or something? Leaf insects don't look like leaves because they eat leaves; they look like leaves because some birds who eat insects don't eat leaves. It's random. We know this from population genetics.

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No it does not. The question certainly can be dismissed in a few words.

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Did the meteor ~65 million years ago that struck off the tip of Yacatan do so by design?

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If you seriously rationalise my objections to randomness with that kind of "apples & oranges" answer, then I guess you didn't give much thought to the question.

Because mutations occur randomly. It's just that simple.Are you asking how we detect randomness, or something?

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No, that's not a legitimate scientific question. It's a philosophical (and perhaps theological) question. Science deals with cause, not with purpose.

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Causality is becoming gradually outdated you know.

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Sermonti's claims about the taxonomy of these bugs are false. I mentionned this in my response if you paid attention. But it ISN'T the central issue.

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It IS the central issue of the article you linked to. That is the chosen subject. You can't legitimately complain about the article just because it deals with a subject other than the one you wanted it to.

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But it ISN'T the central issue. The central issue is, why does it look like a leaf, by pure chance.

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That is a peripheral issue to the subject of the essay. It isn't central at all. And the answer - as I pointed out - is that it ISN'T pure chance. There is a selective force favouring camouflage as defence from predators.Thus the non-random element is the selective force which influences which traits are passed on to future generations. The mutations are "random" (in the sense that the probability of their occurrence is not related to their usefulness) but selection ifnluences whether mutations are retained and spread through the gne pool or lost.

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There is no "question of design." If things in the natural world look like they have "purpose" to you, that's something in your mind, not in the world. Why do things look like they have design to you? Because you've chosen to look at them that way.

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It really is just that simple.

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That is a philosophical statement at best, which is incurrate for a simple reason. I'll give you an example,pain...it's there both a reason and a physical purpose for pain, we both know the spinal nerve gates control the flow of pain messages from the peripheral nerves to the brain. The whole process can be explained neurologically, but it has real "purpose". If it didn't serve this purpose it wouldn't be there in the first place. The problem is that on a philosophical level, people will use "purpose" as an imaginary phenomena when it's convinient. But no, your own anatomy shows you purpose is real. Your isolading fields here my friend. That observation was not very objective on your part.The notion of "need" warrants the notion of "purpose". If need is real so is purpose..

Why?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Your example doesn't really mean anything. "Pain" only has purpose in your mind; it's just a model you use to connect the cause of pain with the effect of an action taken to avoid pain.But it works just as well to consider it another way - organisms respond to pain because there's a selection pressure against organisms that don't respond to pain; organisms that do not avoid painful actions or situations tend to be killed by those actions or situations. There is no need. There's only organisms that responded to pain and lived; and organisms that did not respond and died. Your thinking is backwards and teleological, you're reasoning about the cause from a basis of assuming the effect; if you think forwards, the evolutionary explanation makes perfect sense and the effects flow naturally from their observed causes.

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Your mistake is your assumption that randomness and complexity are somehow anathema

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Your mistake is to assume I do. But randomness and purpose however, are anathema. It's a root question.

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Your example doesn't really mean anything. "Pain" only has purpose in your mind; it's just a model you use to connect the cause of pain with the effect of an action taken to avoid pain.

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But it works just as well to consider it another way - organisms respond to pain because there's a selection pressure against organisms that don't respond to pain; organisms that do not avoid painful actions or situations tend to be killed by those actions or situations.

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Sorry but it does, it makes no sense to say purpose is imaginary on an organic level. Because what is puporse, it is to serve a fonction, to have a role. Organisms play specific roles and fonctions, that is purpose. It's the action for which a thing is specially fitted or used or for which a thing exists. Like the chair your seating on. It has a purpose, it was designed to play the role of holding your backside as you answer this thread, or else it wouldn't be in your house. But what you say is inacurate even on the most basic subatomic level.But your mistake is that you confuse "purpose" with the philosophical notion of "meaning" or "significane". Then apply that mistake to your misunderstanding as it pertains to evolution. But it the "Meaning" and "significance" that you give things that are from your own mind, yes. Not purpose.

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No, that's not a legitimate scientific question. It's a philosophical (and perhaps theological) question. Science deals with cause, not with purpose

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No actually, because purpose is intrinsic to every organism. Therefore to ask the question is legitimate.

If you insist that they are, then you've defeated your own argument. We know for a fact that mutations are random; thus, they must be without purpose. No, it does, for the reasons that I've outlined. Cause and effect exist; but that doesn't mean that the purpose of the cause is to have the effect, except on a tautological basis where purpose is defined as the effect of a cause. But that purpose is contained in my mind, and the mind of those that made it, not in the object itself. Purpose is defined in context, not in the object itself. That's why a urinal in a restroom has the "purpose" of being a receptical for human wastes, but the very same urinal - with no modification whatsoever - hanging in an art gallery loses that purpose and gains the purpose of being an item of cultural interest, an object d'art.How can you say that purpose is not imaginary when objects gain and lose purpose based simply on a change in how we think about them? Purpose is located in our minds, not in objects. It's irrefutable, no matter how often you say "that isn't so." Subatomic level? Can you show me the "purpose particle"? If you've defined "purpose" as simply the relationship between cause and effect, then its no wonder you see purpose where purpose does not exist. But such a definition is meaningless.

That's a bold statement, but certainly not one supported by any evidence. You're obsessed with purpose, clearly; it's no wonder you find it everywhere you look. Your mind is closed to any other possibility.