Thank you for your posts!
mine: Intelligent Design: An hypothesis wherein certain features of life v non-life/death in nature is best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. yours: Intelligent Design: A hypothesis wherein given features of life v non-life are explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
You’ve substituted “given” for “certain”. The word “given” indicates something specified in advance whereas “certain” is something definite but not specified. The intelligent design hypothesis is not “closed” to future discoveries. We can continue with that understanding or alternatively, go back to the word "certain". Also, you’ve dropped the “/death in nature”. Perhaps you are just being economical with the words, but the “/death in nature” was to keep the discussion from drifting into artificial intelligence as well as setting the boundary for the next most likely "issue" in this definition of ID: what is life v. non-life/death in nature.
All of this nit-picking will help define what is "on" the table v what is not for the Lurkers who may be following the discussion.
I have no problem with your caveat that ID is not "closed" to future discoveries. Any one hypothesis will nonetheless specify a given feature or set of features. I excluded "/death" because it is redundant. Everything is a feature of life v non-life. I excluded "in nature" because it is irrelevant, and the broader definition won't be an impediment for our purposes.
So, once again, is this our definition:
Intelligent Design: A hypothesis wherein given features of life v non-life are explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
If your answer is "Yes" then we can proceed.
I really shouldn't jump in here, but I can't help it. Permit me to offer a different formulation of the issue. If it's not helpful, disregard it and I'll continue to lurk. As I see it, the central hypothesis of ID is the assertion that there are features of living organisms which -- in principle --
cannot be explained by evolution. I emphasize "cannot" because it leaves out those features, perhaps a large number, that have not yet been explained. "Not yet explained" is quite different from "cannot be explained."
If such truly "inexplicable in principle" features are identified (and I see the search for them as a worthy subject for investigation) then the ID hypothesis becomes scientifically respectable -- in my always humble opinion. But I think it's premature to be proposing various agencies as possible causes of ID when the subject for the ID hypothesis (truly inexplicable features) hasn't yet been identified to the satisfaction of anyone outside of the narrow ID community.