It's essentially no different from the SETI example that was being presented earlier. If we get a signal that appears to be of intelligent origin, the first thing we'd need to do is rule out all natural explanations for it, to every extent possible. Many investigators have said in advance that one tell-tale sign of intelligent origin is if the signal consists entirely of prime numbers, because there's "no known" natural phenomenon that would produce prime numbers exclusively. But all that's liable to the same objection you're raising against ID theory: How can they know that no one will ever come up with a viable theory that could account for a naturallly occurring signal consisting only of prime numbers? The answer is, they don't. It's just a question of probabilities, as is the case in most areas of scientific investigations.
[Scientific theories generally don't deal in absolutes like that.]
They often do. Energy is conserved by every physical process. Entropy of an isolated system never decreases.
Those aren't theories you're quoting.
But that's beside the point. ID isn't a scientific theory so it's free to make whatever kinds of claims its wants.
Circular reasoning.
And SETI isn't a scientific theory. I consider it an engineering effort, or perhaps one of discovery, or (cynically) an exercise in PR by NASA, but it isn't a scientific theory.
Those aren't theories you're quoting.
No, they're statements of theories. You said that "scientific theories generally don't deal in absolutes like that." I was showing that in fact science does very often make absolute statements like the ones I mentioned. But they are not outliers. In fact I'd say science usually is making absolute claims. Newton claimed that *every* pair of masses *anywhere* in the universe attracted according to his law. Evolution makes the claim that *all* present earth life descended from prior life and so on back to some universal common ancestor.
Circular reasoning.
I made the claim that ID isn't a scientific theory then concluded that because it isn't, it need not be constrained by the forms of a scientitific theory. How is that circular?