1) If the Intelligent Designer is beyond the natural universe then it is
indistinguishable from a supernatural deity. That's what supernatural
means after all; "beyond the natural." If, however, the Intelligent
Designer is part of the natural universe, this does not solve the ultimate
question of origins, because how did the natural Intelligent Designer
originate? Did they evolve or were they too created by an Intelligent
Designer? And was that Intelligent Designer natural or supernatural? Ad
infinitum.
2) The article assumes that design is obvious. However, design is obvious
only if we have prior experience for that design. All the examples of
clear design given in the article were man-made. We recognize man-made
design because we have experience of all those types of man-made design.
We have no previous experience of natural design; that is, we cannot point
to any natural object and claim with as much certainty as with a man-made
object that it is clearly designed. All we can say is that it might be
designed, in which case we have to be able to justify any claim of design.
3) In order to justify a claim of design, we have to be able to describe
what constitutes design and what would not. The question would be very
simple: What would a designed natural object look like and how would that
compare to an undesigned natural object? The only criterion offered by the
article is complexity, but that is insufficient, because evolutionists like
Dawkins claim that complexity can evolve naturally. So what other criteria
could there be?
Kevin L. O'Brien
"Good God, consider yourselves fortunate that you have John Adams to abuse,
for no sane man would tolerate it!" William Daniels, _1776_