Christ D

But this question, “How does the design inference improve our understanding of how the universe works?” can be answered. It would improve our understanding if it were true, we could go from asking if the “design” has a purpose to asking what is that purpose. In fact, in a sense we already do this by saying, in not entirely metaphoric terms, that the design purpose of an organism is to leave more copies than its competitors. Life resembles some sort of sim game to see which designer can win dominance of an environment.

However, since its not true, we can’t find any real other purpose than survival of the fittest. You’d have to go back to the watchmaker argument. With a watch you might discover something about the person who made it — in fact scientists do stuff like that with anthropology all the time.

Also, I would question this claim: “Even if evolution is shown to be false, the ID approach is only one out of a vast number of possible answers to the question of origins, and there is no reason to assume that ID is the correct explanation by default.”

Okay, name some others. If you ever get into a debate, be prepared to be challenged on that point.