Because we have extensive knowledge of people writing things and making markings.We also have knowledge of markings being made by natural forces. And we can know, from our knowldege of how natural forces make markings, that the cuneiform tablet I showed you was at least 99.99% unlikely to have been made by nature.
It would also have to do with where we found these tablets; finding them in an obvious human settlement with other tools and such would also give us great reason to think they were man-made.
We'd have come to the same conclusion about it if we found the thing on Mars instead.
I take it you have no idea what a designed organism would look like compared to an evolved organism, which was my question.
I'm not among those actively promoting the theory, but I'd say that a designed organism would be one whose features no fathomable naturalistic explanation could explain, just as with the tablets.
"We also have knowledge of markings being made by natural forces. And we can know, from our knowldege of how natural forces make markings, that the cuneiform tablet I showed you was at least 99.99% unlikely to have been made by nature."
The thing that convinces us is our knowledge of human writing, not the processes of nature.
"We'd have come to the same conclusion about it if we found the thing on Mars instead."
Maybe, maybe not. Without the examples of other designed tablets, we wouldn't be able to conclude squat. We need to know SOMETHING about the designer. We need to know something about the nature of design. There needs to be an objective way to say what *design* is. There is none.
"'m not among those actively promoting the theory, but I'd say that a designed organism would be one whose features no fathomable naturalistic explanation could explain, just as with the tablets."
That's why ID is not science; it can only make statements about things we can't explain yet. It gives no other explanation than *the intelligent designer(s) did it*. Arguments from ignorance and incredulity are not science.