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I read it.

It does not say what creationists hope it says.

It does NOT posit an intelligent designer (much less ZAP!). It is some word games but NOT an acknowledgement that ID as used by creationists is even slightly valid.

It says MAYBE someday there can be a testable theory:

>> to work towards “establish[ing] fine-tuning as a sustainable and fully testable scientific hypothesis, and ultimately a Design Science.” <<

Fine. If such is the case and we can discover the design steps then, guess what? It becomes a refinement to TToE. Perhaps a needed one.

But the only way classic ID can be “tested” is to meet and interview the designer.

You are pretty funny.

“But the only way classic ID can be “tested” is to meet and interview the designer.”

You make it out like ID is the only thing that has to be tested by knowing the designer. I would posit to say that ALL aspects of science, which you believe are testable, were created by some unknown source,... so how are they testable? Point me to one example in science where a designer has been interviewed... and I’m not talking about just applied science.

You don’t need to know who the designer is to know something is designed. For example, ATP synthase - if you were to discover a highly efficient motor that performed a necessary functions with precisely arranged parts, and perfect chemomechanical coupling, would you be allowed to infer teleology? What would prevent anyone from making the inference?

The questions are rhetorical – it is the dogmatic adherence to naturalism (no design) in biology that prevents the inference (regardless of the truth).

”But the only way classic ID can be “tested” is to meet and interview the designer.”

Neither theory of the origin of life can be tested scientifically. That’s why the constant cry of “science!” in response to claims of intelligent design is so foolish. Over time we have developed an undeserved and misplaced faith that “science” can answer every question. That’s just absurd. Science is not some all-powerful arbiter of truth. In fact, in many cases it is wholly incapable of determining what is true, because “science” is nothing more than a methodology for studying what is currently observable. That certainly doesn’t mean, of course, that materialistic scientists don’t frequently try to force every square peg of a question into the round hole of “science.” It’s the classic saying that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

However, when it comes to origins there is a commonly-used methodology that can be applied to the question of the origin of life, and that is the application of deductive reasoning and evidence. Courts decide weighty issues every day, sometimes involving life and death, without necessarily having direct observable proof. They make these decisions by weighing evidence and applying reason and logic. When that approach is taken to the question of the origin of life, the evolutionary theory is found severely lacking, and intelligent design is clearly the more likely explanation.

We know DNA has the following

1. Functional Information
2. Encoder
3. Error Correction
4. Decoder

These 4 items are basic and necessary. It is a closed system dependent on all operations to be functioning. You have information in a symbolic representation and a reading frame code. But beyond this, a formalization of semantic closure would need to be in place prior to the first cell. Put simply, a message assumes a protocol (agreement, set of rules) between the sender and the receiver, to help correctly encode and interpret the contents of the message. A simple example would be codons; they only represent amino acids if you have the system in place to interpret the functional relationship of the medium (aaRS). To state the obvious, this cannot just happen by accident.

Furthermore, the code and the functional information do not depend simply from the chemistry which allows protein synthesis. Proof-reading, error-correction, editing and splicing, are not reducible to simple chemistry. Carrying out the genetic code is not reducible to chemistry. (Of course, they need that chemistry to work, but that is all another concept.)

Moreover, the first cell would need the ability to reproduce - and the many items necessary for this to occur would need to be already encoded in the DNA. This, along with everything else, would require forethought from the very beginning. The design inference is obvious.