>Are you implying that the methodology of science allows us to
>investigate causes other than natural ones?
Yes.
>If so, how?
Intelligently-caused patterns leave distinctive traces or indicia,
namely, specified events of small probability. Scientists in
such fields as archaeology or cryptography, and detectives
of all types, routinely find these traces, sift them from the
natural background, and assign them uniquely to intelligence.
SETI researchers know what they would consider unmistakable
evidence of intelligent causation, should it ever turn up in
their radio telescopes -- specified events of small probability.
A series of prime numbers, for instance.
We can detect intelligent causation. We do so regularly.
As Bill Dembski puts it in his forthcoming monograph,
"Entire industries would be dead in the water without the
ability to detect design."
About the only place where intelligent causation is controversial
is historical biology and cosmology. Guess why.
Paul Nelson