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In all likelihood, biologists would realize rather quickly that the sequence was out of place, simply by comparing it to other pig genomes.

Testable, falsifiable. So ID is, in this case, scientific.

The ability to determine if something is non-natural is based on our familiarity with our surroundings. We are able to pick out those objects that look out of place.

Fine. IOW, "familiarity" translates into being able to describe the path from here to there, and to identify anomalies based on that expectation.

Another important tool of design identification is knowledge of the designer - has the designer been known to frequent a specific area, in which time frame was the designer there, what is the probable use of the artifact (designer's intent), what tools were available to the designer and what were the capabilities of the designer at that time.

This is not necessary. A familiarity with our techniques provides a set of first-level tests, which are justified by the fact that the product of any designer, human or otherwise, is subject to the same physical laws.

In your scenario, if we were confident that humans do not have the ability to insert genes into a genome it would be very difficult for us to assume it was designed...

But of course, humans do have that ability. And if humans do, there's no reason why any putative designer cannot use essentially the same approach. All you've really done is to affirm the validity of the ID hypothesis. As I try always to clearly state at this point in the argument, verification of such a hypothesis is still required.

If nothing is known about the designer it becomes very difficult to differentiate between the designed and the non-designed particularly if the designed artifact is marginal.

Implying that some things may not be marginal at all, which is pretty obvious when you think about it. As for the "marginal" cases, we can note that archaeologists have developed a set of tool/non-tool criteria for ancient stone tools, so the methodology for distinguishing between design and nature has precedent in similar contexts.

However, in no case do we analyze the 'complexity' of the object, nature provides far too many instances of complexity to assume that complexity requires a designer.

Complexity and information aren't the same thing. IIRC, Dembski's arguments have more to do with the latter. The SETI folks seem to have succeeded in making a scientific connection between information content and intelligent sources, so again there seems to be a precedent.

I don't think anybody is denying that we can identify human or even another organism's design as long as we are familiar with the designer's capability, opportunity and intent.

My point was that every technique we currently use to identify design is based on the previously mentioned knowledge or the assumption that other 'alien' designers will create artifacts similar to ours. Even SETI uses this assumption. They are not looking for a complex or information filled signal, they are looking for a signal on what we feel is the most likely frequency to reach us. If we determine this frequency to be the most effective then other intelligences will probably utilize that same frequency.

Now this does reinforce the idea that ID can be science if they use the same assumptions of limitation for alien intelligences that SETI uses, but is this what ID is proposing?

ID is proposing that there is a method that will enable us to determine if the genome has evolved or if it has been designed. Before this methodology can be considered useful in any science it has to pass testing. Does it reliably provide true positives while minimizing or eliminating false positives? Can it be used to differentiate between natural and designed objects outside of the genome? Can it be used rigorously?

The ID hypothesis is not simply stating - 'it looks designed so it must be designed' - it is stating that there is a rigorous scientific method that can be used successfully in different circumstances.

For this to be true the method must be able to function equally well in a wide range of conditions. It has to be able to tell if a rock is really a hammer or just a rock. It also has to be able to tell if the 'information' our atmosphere receives from the Sun is designed or natural.

If we apply our current design recognition methodology to 'rocks' in an attempt to determine human design, we must know a number of things, no single one of which is sufficient to make the determination. We need to know that humans have frequented the area and when, whether or not those humans were capable of producing an artifact of this level as well as what tools they had to create the artifact. Of course the reason we singled out this particular rock from a host of others is because something about it looked out of place when compared to our knowledge of naturally occurring rocks.

When we apply this same methodology to the genome or to the 'information' being transmitted from the Sun to Earth it is of no help.

The only intelligent role model we have is ourselves. Currently, we can not create life from chemicals (if we could there would be no doubt that abiogenesis is possible). All we can do is substitute one gene for another, making us mechanics not true designers. This does not help us determine if the genome is designed or natural, as we have no knowledge of a designer on which to base our decision. Even if we extrapolate our own abilities into the future where we can produce a genome from scratch, the genome we create would only look out of place if we intentionally make it look so, or put our stamp on it. We do not see this in the genome, there are nothing but similarities; all genomes look to be 'in place'. Additionally, there are no tool marks that we recognize, we have no idea if a designer was available at the start, we have no idea of a putative designer's capabilities or his intent. Perhaps the designer intended on growing a loaf of bread and things got out of hand. Would that make the genome designed or a product of natural evolution? This may sound like a silly question, by my intent is to show the difficulty in design determination using our current methodology given that the capability and intent of the designer is unknown .

Your argument that the methodology used by archaeologists proves that ID can be scientific fails when considering the genome. ID needs to use some other methodology to determine design in something like the genome; it requires a methodology that can verify or falsify the ID hypothesis.

So far all ID has come up with is an argument from incredulity - the genome is too complex to be anything but designed -, Dembski's CSI and an inference engine that has been show to produce many false positives, and Behe's IC which has been shown to be an unfounded assumption and a simple restatement of the argument from incredulity.

ID as it stands right now is based on a false assumption - that nature cannot produce complexity that 'appears' to have intent. Much has to be fixed before ID can be considered a science.

[In all likelihood, biologists would realize rather quickly that the sequence was out of place, simply by comparing it to other pig genomes.]

Testable, falsifiable. So ID is, in this case, scientific.

You're missing the point. For the most part, the "ID movement" very carefully *avoids* making any testable hypotheses. And the few times it has, they have *already* been falsified.

This is *why* the ID folks are so reluctant to stake out any actual position, construct any actual theory. Until they do, ID isn't science, it's a mere belief.

In order to be taken seriously, and deserve a spot in classrooms, etc., the ID folks will have to BOTH come up with an actual scientific "theory of ID" (i.e., a system of explanations which both make testable predictions and which can potentially be falsified), *AND* have that theory be actually validated by having been tested against the evidence and found to be consistent with the evidence AS A WHOLE.

Until then, they can hold their breath until they turn blue, but that still won't make their unsupported (and for the most part religiously-based) beliefs into *science*. The IDers want to pretend that their notions are science, in order to dishonestly gain the respect that scientifically validated theories rightly have earned.