In that case I agree.
What I'm claiming is that intuition, when it really is valuable and reproducible, is generally a distillation of a set of empirical rules-of-thumb that can be formulated rationally. So if we can really detect design by intuition, we should be able to describe a rational process for detecting it. Dembski and his acolytes have so far failed to do so. You probably make things, right? If so, haven't you ever achieved the same functionality with a different design? I know I have. Likewise, I have also used a similar design feature to perform very different tasks -- just as you probably have.
Sure. On the other hand, I generally evaluate the two designs, and either pick one, or if they both have merits, settle on a logical set of rules for when to use one rather than the other. Why would I choose one wing design for all birds - from hovering birds to soaring birds to birds that don't fly at all, and from big birds to tiny birds - and then another design for bats, from big fruit bats to tiny myotis bats, from bats that eat fruit all day to predatory bats, and even vampire bats that suck mammalian blood? Form should follow function.
Of course, you could argue he did all the birds on day 4 or whatever (too lazy to look it up), and by day 6 he had a better design, which he used for the bats. Except there are some things he did with the birds that look way better than what he did with the bats - hollow bones, the sternum, the feathers. So maybe he, contrary to the fave creation myth on FR, did the bats first. But then, why not incorporate that superb echolocation system he cooked up for the bats for the nightjars (birds that fly around at night eating insects).
Look closely at the 'design', and very little of it makes sense. It's much less plausible if you look at the living world in toto. You could, I suppose, invoke a brilliant but extremely forgetful, or quixotic, or maliciously playful designer, but when I propose that a class on ID should look at these aspects of the supposed design - Loki as designer, if you like - all of a sudden the proponents of the supposedly scientific nature of ID throw up their hands in horror and use words like blasphemy.
That is, BTW, the reason why I don't accept the separateness of ID and creationism. The former is a Trojan Horse for the latter. It is possible that a few people like the Trojan Horse for its own aesthetic qualities, and not because it's full of hostiles, but IMO they're unwitting souls being taken for a ride.
While I certainly understand why an ardent evolutionist sees a connection between creationism and ID, it makes no logical sense why they would rule out design a priori. The one and only reason for ruling out a Creator or ID's designer is that the naturalistic assumptions of evolution would be refuted. Therefore evolutionism must abandon objectivity and deny what we observe rather than explain it.
Again: you're not providing arguments against design, you're simply saying that you would have designed things differently.
The problem with that point of view is that, at root, it validates the idea that a designer is a viable explanation for what we see, even if it's only to claim for yourself the mantle of "better engineer."
So if we can really detect design by intuition, we should be able to describe a rational process for detecting it.
Oh? Can you describe for us the means by which scientists could detect human fingerprints on the splicing of jellyfish genes onto monkey DNA? Would scientists be able to tell the difference between "natural evolutionary processes" and the fact that humans were in fact responsible for it?
Look closely at the 'design', and very little of it makes sense.
It is not valid to use one's own ignorance as an argument against design.
That is, BTW, the reason why I don't accept the separateness of ID and creationism.
That's your own private bias, then. It's not a statement of science, but of personal opinion. Your opinion ignores, however, the undeniable fact that humans are even now engaged in Intelligent Design. And, given that Intelligent Design is quite obviously possible, how can you possibly state that there is no way it played any role in life on Earth?