Barbarian observes:
All of this went on long before the doctrine of "intelligent design" was invented. The creationist habit of claiming things discovered by science is a particularly unfortunate one, from the standpoint of reputation. So far, "intelligent design" can't do anything at all. You're just trying to borrow from real science.
The concept of intelligent design has been around longer than Darwin.
Nope. The Dover Trial thoroughly examined the claims of ID and found it was just the lastest disguise for YE creationism, which is no older than the 20th century.
Intelligent design's prediction of finding function for the majority of DNA was validated and evolutionists claim the majority of DNA is useless was debunked.
That's false too. When I was an undergraduate in the 1960s, scientists were already talking about the functions of non-coding DNA, long before creationists invented "intelligent design."
(argument that non-redundant English doesn't fit rules of grammar)
Barbarian chuckles:
Neither does "you ain't fooling nobody." But everyone understands what it means. You see, the huge redundancy in English makes such sentences intelligible, even if they don't fit the rules. This is, as I told you, why there is less information in your sentence than in a random string of symbols.
I think this is straying from the OP of "what is design".
It probably wasn't a good idea for you to bring up "information", then. As you see, it isn't very good for "intelligent design."
Specified complexity, not indistinct simplicity, are the requirements to infer design.
The problem is, no one can find "specified complexity", unless they've decided in advance that it is. Would you like to test that idea?
Barbarian observes:
Notice that Paley had to use a human-made artifact to make his point; if nature had produced it, no rational person would have inferred design:
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? -William Paley
And therein lies the failure of ID.
His point is still valid.
His "point" is that natural objects are signs of God. But as you see, he had to use a human-made object to make the point, because natural objects don't show design.
I could substitute a sandcastle to illustrate it.
Another artifact. You see where this is leading you?
Had he known about the functional gears on the planthopper's legs he probably would have used those.
He might have, if he was unaware of other biological stops of less-evolved nature in arthropods. But since simpler versions exist, it seems rather foolish to argue that they couldn't.
We could even use a heretofore undiscovered alien object to detect design using specified complexity. SETI is looking at electromagnetic radiation to infer an intelligent agent at work.
Precisely because it would be an artifact made by another intelligent creature, not a natural thing.