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Herein lies the problem of I.D.

The belief in the existence of a Designer (caps intended) has been one based on faith. Faith, by definition is not proof or provable.

The statement: "If 'a' is so; then 'b' must be true", more simply; "See the beautiful complexity of this watch? There MUST be a watchmaker who made it"), is not theory.

It's supposition. "Pre-theory" if you like. Not the stuff of science class. There is a cutoff.

Personally, I cannot imagine Lamborghinis, Reuben sandwiches, Maui and Harry Reid are simply the result of an unfeeling cosmos clacking some quarks together at random. They are all sublime and wonderful examples of a watchmaker's art.

Well, not Harry Reid. But you get my drift...

The belief in the existence of a Designer (caps intended) has been one based on faith. Faith, by definition is not proof or provable.

The fact that "IDers" *have* to rely on faith clearly indicates that they can't rely on actual evidence for their position, because they have none.

They are all sublime and wonderful examples of a watchmaker's art.

So are snowflakes. You can make the argument that God made every snowflake. But quite obviously He did not do so in the manner implied in Genesis. A "Special Creation" of every snowflake.

Life is beautiful, but species came about via evolution, which many Christians think was Gods most elegant creation.

You wrote, "It's supposition. "Pre-theory" if you like. Not the stuff of science class. There is a cutoff."

I want to respond to the "pre-theory" moniker and its value, but first some science 101 hated, as always, by the armchair philosophers of evolution.

Scientific investigation begins by considering a problem, an observable phenomenon, or the like, a prodding occurrence that compels the investigator to wonder:
(a) "IS this so"
and (b) "WHY is this so."
Observation, accompaning by contemplation, leads the investigator to construct an investigative approach to understand the two questions, and to seek an answer to them. As a work in progress, the investigator develops a proposed explanation, a HYPOTHESIS.

Repeated and varied testing is conducted to test the metal of the HYPOTHESIS as a working explanation and answer to the two questions. Over the course of investigation, the investigator reaches conclusions as to the two questions and the HYPOTHESIS, sometimes scrapping the HYPOTHESIS, sometimes fine-tuning the HYPOTHESIS, sometimes concluding in his/her own mind that the HYPOTHESIS is such an unvaryingly correct explanation, even against negativizing testing that he must share his research with the larger scientific community.

The larger scientific community depends on the proponent for important preconditions to further testing and development. Take, for example, the cold fusion proponents that held a press conference out west a decade or so ago. In their case, what was wanted, what was needed, and what was, apparently, missing, was a carefully recorded course of investigation that could be examined by others and could be tested by others to fault and failure. The essence of error there was to propound a technological development without basic supporting scientific groundwork.

But, when the groundwork is presented along with the HYPOTHESIS, the scientific community can join the researcher in the search for the value of the explanatory HYPOTHESIS. Some join this search animated by professional jealousy: "my hypothesis, which stands in stark contrast to his, is the eminently more reasoned and sufficient explanation" or "that explanation discounts the value of scientific discoveries I, or my mentors, or my school of thought can be credited with propounding.." Others come from the basis of open curious investigatory interest. All come to challenge by testing and analysis.

When the HYPOTHESIS withstands the community's testing and analysis, in scientific didactic, it is called a THEORY. This connotes a reliability and consistency of the HYPOTHESIS as an answer to and explanation of the the answer to the two questions. THEORIES in science are not the end of the road for explanatory HYPOTHESES.

Over time such HYPOTHESES and THEORIES can be shown to be so universally operative, so durable in their application, that their explanatory value has the influence of a LAW (like the laws of gravity, thermodynamics, etc.).

Variations in the investigory model described above, seeking the early coronation of an idea that has not even been tested to hypothesis as a LAW of the universe reflect a short-cutting that is difficult to explain as an effort to improve the science. It has happened, as the cultural war developed over Darwin, over the questions related to geological timescales, and over astrophysical time spans, that some have sought to discount the critiquing of their ideas and hypotheses by premature elevation of those ideas and hypotheses to the level of highly reliable THEORY or generally governing LAW.

Now, to get to your specfic comment, which was "It's supposition. "Pre-theory" if you like. Not the stuff of science class. There is a cutoff."

One question would be "who says there's a cut-off?" Another would be, "why does that person get to decide that a cut-off must exist?"

Consider the following scenarios: a body riddled with bullets, found in a warehouse on the waterfront; tree rings indicative of stunted growth during a two or three year period of the life span of the tree; a turtle sitting on a wooded fence post. To dispose of questions that want to be asked in each of these instances as pre-theory is worse than bad science, it leads to scientific moronims ("Fred died of a sudden infusion of lead" or "Fred sprang some leaks"; "the turtle was hatched on the fencepost" or "the turtle climbed onto the fencepost").

Pre-theory, as you call it, is so much more than that. The calculation of trajectory, for example, in the forensic investigation of Fred's untimely demise is just so much make work as a pre-theory. It really doesn't help answer the question what Fred had done to upset the mob boss.

In the same way, as you have already surmised, pre-theoretical modeling that follows a trajectory back from an irreducibily complex system to the existence of designer offers a value that would only be rejected because of an unscientific bias.