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Both start with no evidence and propose finding the evidence by looking for created features among natural features. So without the whole complexity red herring, the difference is? Either you can differentiate the natural from the intelligently created or you can't. Either both are science or neither is.
Not really.SETI looks for signals that can be differentiated from known natural sources that have features of an efficient, regular or simple artificial source. These are compared to known characteristics of artificial sources, their ability to be reproduced from technology
ID points to complexity alone as evidence for a claim of an "artifical" source of design plan. It ignores the evidence of chemical and physical laws producing a multitude of complex systems.
SETI observes signals, experiments to understand if the signal could come from a known artificial source, predicts possible signal characteristics and mechanisms to produce such a signal. The requirements are specific:
Any signal less than about 300 Hz wide must be, as far as we know, artificially produced. Such narrow-band signals are what all SETI experiments look for. Other tell-tale characteristics include a signal that is completely polarized or the existence of coded information on the signal.
Narrow-band signals, say those that are only a few Hertz or less wide, are the mark of a purposely built transmitter. Natural cosmic noisemakers, such as pulsars, quasars, and the turbulent, thin interstellar gas of our own Milky Way, do not make radio signals that are this narrow. The static from these objects is spread all across the dial. SETI faq
ID simply says it is complex thus it is artifical. Why? It's artificial because it is complex. That's not science - that's fallacious logic.
A few points. First, why are they looking for extra-terrestrial intelligence without any evidence that such life exists? Second, why do they think it's possible to distinguish evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence from natural signals? Third, would finding such a signal really prove the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence? Fourth, why do they choose to look for certain specific types of evidence for extra-terrestrial life?
The first answer is that they look at the vast complexity of the universe and find it improbable, given their assessment of the odds, that human beings are alone as the only intelligent life in the universe. This is very similar to ID proponents looking at life and finding it improbable that evolution alone can explain everything that we see. In both cases, it's an opinion based on a probability assessment rather than any evidence at all. For the record, I look at the odds, even assumming that the universe works via entirely natural processes and think it's entirely possible that we are the only intelligent life in the universe. At the very least, I take a look at the Fermi Paradox and apply Occam's Razor. Perhaps that's the perspective that allows me to see just how much SETI is based on faith and belief rather than evidence and why I see so much similarity between the two.
The second answer is that they believe that purposefully created things exhibit characteristics different enough from randomly generated natural effects that the artificial or created can be sorted from the natural. This is the same assumption made by ID advocates -- that biological features purposefully created can be distinguished from those biological features created as a part of a natural process. At it's core, it's an assumption that the natural can be distinguished from the artificial or created because the purpose and intelligence behind it's creation distinguish it from natural phenomena.
The third answer is that it wouldn't "prove" anything to scientific skeptic. Any signal of the sort being mentioned here could always be the product of some unexplained natural process. Just as the evolutionist can dismiss any example of irreducable complexity by saying that we just haven't figured out how it evolved yet, the ET skeptic could claim that any simple ET signal is the product of some natural process that we haven't discovered yet. So in both cases, even if you find the evidence, it doesn't prove the case. It simply increases or decreases the odds.
The fourth answer is that the ET signals they are looking for are based on their own human assumptions about what they'd do if they were designing such a signal and, more importantly, based on what they know natural signals look like. They are looking for signals that look "not nautral". The ID advocates are looking for biological features that are "not natural". The SETI entusiast can't tell you for certain what an ET signal would look like just as the ID advocate can't tell you for certain what a created biological feature would look like. It's the same idea. We know what natural looks like and know what some artifical or created things look like so let's find things that look "not natural" or like other things that we know are created.
Feel free to correct me if any of the above answers are straw men in your opinion.
If I want to put a real skeptic's hat on, I'd say that both are matters of faith. And by the standards of many ID critics here, SETI certainly doesn't look any more like science. So why does SETI get considered science and ID doesn't? Because while SETI involves faith and/or wishful thinking, it doesn't involve God.
ID points to complexity alone as evidence for a claim of an "artifical" source of design plan. It ignores the evidence of chemical and physical laws producing a multitude of complex systems.
That's like saying that SETI points to the vastness of the universe, alone, for a claim that extra-terrestrial intelligence exists. In many ways, they are playing the exact same odds game from the other side. The ID advocates look at the complexity of life and get a gut feeling that natural processes, alone, can't explain it. As a result of their odds assessment that errs on the side of improbability, they also have no trouble believing that ET intelligence doesn't exist and SETI is silly. Evolutionists, on the other hand, look at the complexity of life and get a gut feeling that natural processes, alone, can explain it. As a result of their odds assessment that errs on the side of possibility, they also have no trouble believing that the same thing has happened all over the universe and that ET intelligence just must exist.
Both are positions of faith. Neither position is based on any hard evidence that what's being believed in actually exists. Both sides are playing the odds as they see them.
ID simply says it is complex thus it is artifical. Why? It's artificial because it is complex. That's not science - that's fallacious logic.
What I think that really is is a straw man. What ID claims is that there are types of complexity that can't be explained naturally. They cite not simply complexity but irreducable complexity, and that's important. Evolution suggests a process by which we get from there to here via evolutionary steps. The reason why ID looks for evidence in complexity is that a complex process that cannot be explained as resulting from evolutionary steps would be evidence for intelligent design. It's the flip side of what SETI people are doing. They see the random complexity of signals as being natural and thus see a pure and simple signal as signs of artificial intelligence. But in both cases, skeptics can site a natural process we just haven't discovered yet and, in both cases, it's fundamentally a matter of looking for something that wouldn't be explained by existing natural theories. Whether it's a search for simplicity or complexity is irrelevant and a red herring.
Reduced to the same sort of straw man, I could claim, "SETI simply says it is simple thus it is artificial. Why? It's artificial because it's simple. That's not science - that's fallacious logic." Would that be a fair assessment of SETI in your opinion?