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You are defining EVERYTHING CONCEIVABLE as being intelligent design, a priori. This is absurd.

No more absurd than assuming the opposite, a priori. In fact, it is more reasonable. Wherever there is data available for reason and senses to comprehend it is reasonable to assume the data is fashioned in such a way as to make itself accessible to comprehension and evaluation. Hence natural selection, mutations, and the like, are all manifestations of organized matter behaving according to predictable laws. I would expect this in an intelligently designed universe.

I've never doubted the presence of natural selection, mutations, new species, and the like. But I seriously doubt they account for all that is behind the history of the world as we know it. I also doubt their scientific usefulness.

The only thing the ancient astrologers recorded was the movement of the planets and stars.

They directly observed the movements of the planets and the stars, and they directly observed the behavior of people at the same time. They noticed recurring patterns of behavior at certain times of year and recorded that, too, over more than a thousand years of direct observation on the part of thousands of people. I would not be surprised if the foundations of astrology involved as much or more direct observation than Charles Darwin and all who have followed in his footsteps.

"You are defining EVERYTHING CONCEIVABLE as being intelligent design, a priori. This is absurd." (me)

"No more absurd than assuming the opposite, a priori. In fact, it is more reasonable." (you)

I don't assume that intelligent design is false; I know it is untestable, because it IS. I can make no scientific claims to it's truth or falseness. Science is an a posteriori method, not an a priori one. And when you define everything conceivable as being intelligent design, then there is NO WAY to test that. It cannot be a scientific theory, no matter how much you twist and stretch every word used to describe your claim. You were much less incoherent when you used to argue for YEC.

"Hence natural selection, mutations, and the like, are all manifestations of organized matter behaving according to predictable laws. I would expect this in an intelligently designed universe."

No, you ASSUME it because that is what you WISH to be. Organized matter following predictable laws and processes is perfectly consistent with a universe that *just is*. It is also perfectly consistent with a universe that was created by 1, or 2, or 1,000 designers. They could have been good, evil, indifferent. They could also not exist. All of this is consistent with the universe we see.

"They directly observed the movements of the planets and the stars, and they directly observed the behavior of people at the same time. They noticed recurring patterns of behavior at certain times of year and recorded that, too, over more than a thousand years of direct observation on the part of thousands of people."

Nonsense. They made it all up. That is why they almost never made accurate detailed predictions. They only ones that were predicted consistently were the very vague ones. Just like the astrologers of today.

"I would not be surprised if the foundations of astrology involved as much or more direct observation than Charles Darwin and all who have followed in his footsteps."

Well, since you don't believe in the utility of having to test ideas, I am sure you do believe that.