Evolution assumes that organisms exist with all the complexity that they have and how those complexities interact with the environment (i.e. their "application") - all by chance.
First of all there's a lot of confusion in this sentence.
The theory of evolution is not about pure chance. I don't know where you learned about evolution, while the processes may be unpredictable, they also are not purely random. Natural selection for example is the exact opposite of random chance, as selective pressures can "direct" a population's evolution in response to environmental pressures.
Second, when I say "application", I'm specifically referring to the application of knowledge based on the theory of evolution to solve real-world problems.
For example:
- The aforementioned scenario I described where the knowledge of the evolution of genomes is applied to detect functional regions of said genomes.
- The construction of phylogenetic trees to track pathogens and determine the origin of disease outbreaks.
- Utilizing an understanding of selective pressures on populations of organisms in the administration of antibiotics, pesticides, etc.
If what is observed <snip>
Your example effectively implies that those involved in the diagnosis of human remains have no understanding of physiology of human beings. It's an incredibly odd example given that those trained in the study of human remains, the recognition of things like diseases or variations in populations is precisely something they would be scrutinizing.
I took a paleontology course in University and one of the things I remember being most impressed with was the sheer amount of analytical work that goes into scrutinizing the remains of organisms. This includes not only the study of the bones themselves, but studying behaviors (via analysis of trace fossils), population sizes, environmental conditions, and so on.
I think you're not giving the fictional paleontologists in your scenario any credit.
So moral of the story is you can not make assumptions on evidence you don't have. Thus the same thing you accuse the ID people of not having - (by the way).
I never accused "ID people" of not having evidence. And I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth to that effect.
What I said, for clarity's sake, is the current state of ID science sits at a failed hypothesis. And that IDists have yet to come up with an empirically verified methodology for detection of biological design in organisms.
If you believe otherwise, point me to where they have done so. And for the record, I've read literature by Behe, Dembski and Meyer, so I'm familiar with their respective works.
