Is my rock designed?

Well then, enlighten me. How would you know that the hypothetical space ship was designed by some intelligence and not spat out by the sun?How would you detect design?

The onus is on the ID camp to explain how to detect design since they are the ones who say there is such a thing in nature. Dr. A, or any other person in the real science camp, is not an IDist so he has no such responsibility to explain a design detection mechanism or method, seeing as how sceintists don't claim for there to be design in nature.....

Because it's a spaceship. With reference to the processes actually known to produce things.For example, since whenever we know how spaceships (and other machinery) are produced, it turns out to involve design, we would infer design in a spaceship even if we hadn't seen it produced.On the other hand, if we see (for example) a wombat, then since whenever we know how an organism is produced, it turns out to involve reproduction and variation without design, we would infer the same for the wombat even if we didn't see the mummy wombat giving birth to it.And, in the case of rocks, I know how igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks are produced, and it doesn't involve design, so I should classify the rock itself as undesigned. Of course, it might have been shaped into an arrowhead or a statue or whatever, and I know that those things are designed, since whenever we are able to check, a flint arrowhead has a flint-knapper and a sculpture has a sculptor; so in that case I should identify the material as undesigned but the form as designed.But what if (you might ask) I encounter a class of thing entirely outside of my experience? Well, in that case I should try to see if I could see one of them being produced.Of this method in general, we may note that it involves possessing actual knowledge, that it is a straightforward application of the scientific method, and that it leads to conclusions that are true; and for these reasons it will never appeal to the ID crowd who claim to be in the business of "detecting design" --- a method that works can obviously has no allure for them. And yet it does allow me to identify a spaceship as designed while you are unable to think of any reason why it wasn't "spat out by the sun".

Already answered that one, mate.

Rephrasing your question, since we can tell that a spaceship or boat or car or ballpoint pen is designed just by looking at it, obviously we can detect design, so why can't we tell whether a rock is designed?The answer is that we *can* tell whether a rock was designed. It wasn't.But just looking at things and classifying them as designed or not designed is not very scientific and probably very error prone. For instance, was this designed (it's a termite mound): ID claims an analytical or algorithmic procedure for detecting design. We'd like someone to describe this procedure on something like a rock, but it doesn't have to be rock, we could choose something else. could can you describe for us how one might apply this procedure in order to tell that the termite mound was not designed but this was (it's modern art): Not to distract from your question or the topic, but it might be worthwhile noting that much of what ID purports to do is not the detection of design but of evidence of the work of an intelligence. Most of the evidence people leave behind is not designed. It often isn't even created with intent, as when you leave footprints in the sand.--Percy

Actually, we can detect design, and also detect those things that have not been designed.The latter is the more important point. It is absolutely clear that living things are not designed. It is absolutely clear that rocks, sand dunes, tree rings, galaxies, mountains, are not designed.The issue is the utter nonsense called "Intelligent Design".There are people that make claims that there is some universal designer, but they have never presented any evidence of that "designer" much less that that designer is in any way intelligent.

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I have found a rock. Nothing special about it. Its just a rock. As far as I know anyway, I am no geologist.

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Anyway, I want to figure out if this rock was designed or not.

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How can I use ID theory to figure out if my rock is designed or not?

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Archaeologists infer intelligent design from rocks routinely to determine whether a stone which is shaped in a particular fashion, is actually just a stone or perhaps a tool used by a human. Edited by Portillo, : No reason given.

Yes, they do. But how would the ID crowd like to do it?When an archaeologist finds a stone tool or a clay pot s/he puts that in the "designed" pile while putting a goat's skull or a tree root into the "natural" pile. But creationists are in need of a different criterion.

We don't just "infer" it, we spend a lot of time working out those details and learning the subject. Some archaeologists spend their entire careers studying lithic technology.In graduate school one of my professors had a room full of various "rocks" picked up from streambeds, alluvial fans, and other areas which can produce items that appear to be artifacts. By studying both the natural ones and the manufactured ones he, and many other archaeologists, are able to come up with guidelines for determining whether particular items are "designed" or not.Study some archaeology and you might learn something. That might take a few years though. Archaeology is not always as easy as it looks on TV.Where are the studies and guidelines established by "cdesign proponentsists" to do the same thing?What we see is the exact opposite of science. Instead of science we get catechisms, and instead of empirical evidence we get opinions. When we ask for evidence, and for rules to differentiate between design and non-design, we get either gibberish or silence.What we don't get from creationists, and what has been asked for many times on this thread, is scientific methods for distinguishing design from non-design.

There is one other important point that needs to be stressed, and that is that the designer when it comes to such artifacts is a known and verifiable entity; the designer is humans and we also have additional evidence from multiple lines that the designer did exist at that time and at that place.So far not one of the Intelligent Design supporters has presented comparable evidence of the existence of their Designer.

Yes, there is that too.The science of "intelligent design" seems to be missing a lot of the elements one would expect in a real science.Starting with evidence.(See signature, below.)

Circular argument. ie You know that the hypothetical space ship was designed, because it's a spaceship.The entire basis for you argument seems to be that:1) Intelligent design does in fact, exist.2) You know that rocks are not designed because you have knowledge of how they are formed.
(Which I totally agree with...though i must state that this is just *one* way in detecting design.)I'm however curious, if ever you were to come across an object that was built by an intelligent agent, using methods outside your knowledge base.How would you infer a designer?Edited by SavageD, : No reason given.Edited by SavageD, : No reason given.

You would not infer a designer.A designer is only a possibility when there is a very good reason to think that there was a designer.For example, you MIGHT be able to conclude there was a designer if you came across a spaceship. Note the emphasis on MIGHT.Before we conclude that there was a designer we need to examine those parts that correspond to known designs. How is it unlike things we know are not designed like rocks and critters and galaxies?

That is not a circular argument. I wouldn't call that the basis for my argument. But knowledge of what kind of things are designed forms part of the method. Quite so, how else? Again, this observation about rocks is not the basis of my argument, merely an example of it. Different methods wouldn't be a problem. A car fabricated by nanobots or Oompa-Loompas would still recognizably be a car.The problem would come if I came across a different kind of thing to anything I'd seen before. And, as I said, there'd be nothing to do but try to find out how that kind of thing did in fact come into existence.

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But how would the ID crowd like to do it?

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The same way the archaeologist does it. Edited by Portillo, : No reason given.