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Look in the astrology column of your newspaper--people are constantly writing in to report the success of their astrological predictions, and in far vaster numbers than astronomers are reporting successes in predicting large-scale orbits using einsteinian mechanics.

Now compare that to the success you'd get from haphazard guessing. You'll find them well within statistical parameters.

So you say. And so you might be able to show--in a sterile laboratory, observed by cynical scientists with no personal interest in the outcome of tests. What has this to do with the real world?, where the observer and the test are interacting, and nearly every afficionado of astrology reports substantial success?

Just like new data will no doubt come along and prove the ID theory accurate, and the macro-evolutionary theory innacurate, eh?

You're asking me if that's what I'm saying? It's not.

Really, but it's ok for science to investigate SETI sans any trace of encouraging positive forensic evidence?

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I was arguing about your claim that Einsteinian mechanics was "infinitely superior" to Newtonian mechanics.

Which it is, from a purely scientific perspective. Einsteinian theory can predict everything Newtonian theory can, plus a whole lot more. The fact that there are situations where the extra work involved in applying Einstein's theory doesn't justify the small increase in accuracy that you'd get, has nothing to do with what I'm saying.

If there are situations where Newtonian mechanics is the better tool, than Einsteinian mechanics are plainly not "infinitely superior". If it was "infinitely superior, we'd never employ Newtonian mechanics.

[Unlike ID, SETI isn't a theory; it's a means of testing a theory.]

Well, of course it's a theory, and I can state it: "There exist living entities on other planets".

And then there's the counter-theory, which is that we're alone. SETI is just a tool for helping to decide between the two.

And ID has a countertheory--naturalistic macro-evolution, and ID research would have much the same attributes as SETI research.

ID is quite carefully (craftily, I would have said) not claiming to know what might have caused macro-evolution: just that it would like to consider it legitimate to look for signs--just like SETI wants to look for signs, without claiming to have pre-conceived notions as to what those signs might look like, or portend.

The "signs" that ID points to are the features of living organisms that, at present, have been unexplained by evolutionary theory.

So let me see if I have this straight--SETI gets a place at the scientific table because there's absolutely no encouraging positive forensic evidence it can point to, but ID loses it's place at the scientific table because it can point to vacancies in the forensic evidence for evolutionary theory.

Remind me not to vote you into a schoolboard position in my district. Your approach will not fend off ID for a microsecond.

So you say. And so you might be able to show--in a sterile laboratory, observed by cynical scientists with no personal interest in the outcome of tests.

This sort of thing has already been investigated, and when astrological predictions are of such a nature as to actually mean something definite (which is pretty seldom to begin with), the results have been no better than haphazard guessing. Unless you're seriously trying to argue that astrology is valid, you're not making any point with this.

If there are situations where Newtonian mechanics is the better tool, than Einsteinian mechanics are plainly not "infinitely superior".

Infinitely superior as a way of explaining reality. That's what the context of this discussion is about.

You're still making the wrong comparison between ID and SETI. So far, I don't think any scientist has proposed an actual theory that there are living beings on other planets. What they're doing is gathering data that will either show directly that there is, or will help to formulate a theory about whether or not there is. SETI itself is not a theory. You can not compare it at all to ID or macroevolutionary theory. The more you insist on making the comparison, the more muddled the discussion is going to be.