If not supernatural, then where did the designer come from? Evolutionary processes? Did the designer always exist? If so, that would transcend space/time as we understand it and put the designer on a supernatural plane.
Behe argues that this tiny flagellar motor needs all of its parts to function—is “irreducibly complex.” Such systems in our experience are a hallmark of designed systems, because they require the foresight that is the exclusive jurisdiction of intelligent agents.
But this is provably false. And note that the scientific method teaches that if you can falsify a theory, then you have to either discard the theory or amend the theory. You only need one negative to destroy a theory!
How is this provable? Witness the use of genetic algorithms and chaos theory in problem solving when the solution space is "infinitely large". Where you can have literally trillions, quintillions, or actually mathematically provably infinite solutions, yet you can use genetic algorithms and chaos theory to find idealized solutions extremely quickly.
The fact that you can solve "infinite" problem-sets with evolutionary approaches would lend credence to evolution as at least a viable hypothesis. And it would also break-down Behe's assertion, for we know that ultimately anything living is a combination of 4 basic genes. And beyond that of just two fundamental particles of matter: quarks and leptons.
Knowing that we can solve infinite-space problems with evolutionary approaches, it does not stretch the mind too much to think that - in literally billions of years, with literally quintillions of generations of basic bacteria, the ones that evolved the genetic defects that gave rise to the flagellum would succeed.
All that said, what facts are present for ID to rest upon? Presented by you was Mr. Behe's conjecture that because there is complexity in life, that such complexity is a-priori evidence of a designer! Yet we see complexity in the repetition of Mandelbrot sets (indeed, they are even used to simulate artificial worlds) when in fact they are a naturally occuring numerical set.
So what facts - other than a philosophical belief that "because life is complex it could not have arisen via evolutionary approaches" - exist to support ID?
But this is provably false. And note that the scientific method teaches that if you can falsify a theory, then you have to either discard the theory or amend the theory. You only need one negative to destroy a theory!
In other words, it can't be tested but its been tested and proven false. At least you are admitting that ID is testable.
If not supernatural, then where did the designer come from? Evolutionary processes? Did the designer always exist? If so, that would transcend space/time as we understand it and put the designer on a supernatural plane.
ID doesn't address the designer. If you see a mouse trap on Mars and determine that it was intelligently designed, that still doesn't tell you about the nature of the designer. Its out of the realm of science at this point.
I think you are missing the point of irreducible complexity. There are systems in a cell that require all the parts to function. If one protein is missing or altered, the system will fail. Therefore the system can not evolve through random mutations and natural selection because that would require a gradual progression. The only way around this is for there to be a different function for the system at earlier stages in the evolutionary process.
If you (or anyone) can use an algorithm to show an evolutionary pathway to the flagellum with each intermediate step having a function that would be advantageous to the organism, then irreducible complexity would be falsified. Its been 12 years since Behe wrote Darwin's Black Box and no one has been able to come up with a solution so far.