I agree that the author has a willful blindness towards evolution when speaking about "mini-ID". I came across this quote:
"The important scientific strategy of rendering theories testable by finding independently justified auxiliary propositions does not work for mini-ID. We have no independent evidence concerning which auxiliary propositions about the putative designer’s goals and abilities are true."
It could just as well be rendered:
"The important scientific strategy of rendering theories testable by finding independently justified auxiliary propositions does not work for evolution. We have no independent evidence concerning which auxiliary propositions about mutation and natural selection’s goals and capabilities are true."
But of course, I already agree with the ID side of things.
"The important scientific strategy of rendering theories testable by finding independently justified auxiliary propositions does not work for mini-ID. We have no independent evidence concerning which auxiliary propositions about the putative designer’s goals and abilities are true."
"It could just as well be rendered:"
"The important scientific strategy of rendering theories testable by finding independently justified auxiliary propositions does not work for evolution. We have no independent evidence concerning which auxiliary propositions about mutation and natural selection’s goals and capabilities are true."
I'm not sure why you think the two statements are in any way equivalent.
The Designer is assumed to be an intelligence capable of designing and producing such changes in DNA that humans are the result. ID assumes that we can identity the result of that bit twiddling through the bit twiddling and subsequent production techniques. For us to differentiate between a natural process and the Designer's work we necessarily need to know the Designer's goals (ID relies on identifying intent) and abilities (manufacturing indicators). Since these are necessary to define a difference between naturally occurring and designed features they are valid requirements for auxiliary propositions. As Sober explains in his article those auxiliary propositions need to be independently evidenced to avoid problems in logic. On the other hand, both mutation and NS have been examined closely enough to give us a fair bit of independent evidence from which to propose predictions.
Your restatement is not equivalent to Sober's.
"But of course, I already agree with the ID side of things."
The bias is obvious.