Actually, that’s what Dembski was working on. Ways to
determine whether an item is designed(flint arrowheads, electro-
magnetic receivers, electronic signals, wall paintings, etc.) and see if the
mathematical techniques derived could be applied to
bio. systems.
I still don’t understand that as the understanding of the basic cell,
and the DNA and its’ attending structures get’s more and more
complicated with its functions, and controls, that it is
considered as evolved with no outside help. Yet a simple
electromagnetic wave, if it appears to hold some sort of
code is considered a sign of intelligent life. I guess
DNA is no longer considered as being a type of code.
Couldn’t an electromagnetic wave have “evolved” having passed through
so much of space? Don’t tell the SETI folks that, they
would lose much of their “sexiness” and funding.
He can work on it all he wants. Evolution is a computational algorithm. The genome is a finite string. Any finite string can be reached very quickly with a simple ratchet algorithm that accumulates successful tosses of the die. As a mathematician, he should be embarrassed proposing otherwise.
The "code" is not what SETI is looking for. SETI looks for a carrier signal, most likely one with no "code" at all. Such signals are commonly made by humans, but never yet observed in the absence of humans.
Archaeology involves the same kind of search for objects matching ones known to have been produced by humans but not known to be produced in the absence of humans.
Since we have no examples of intelligent designers of life systems with which to compare, we have no living objects known to have been designed.
Some ID proponents argue that we are beginning to design life. Interestingly, the kinds of things we do to increase the yield of crops, or their resistance to disease, are precisely the kinds of things we don't find in the absence of human intervention. The genomes found in living things form a nested hierarchy matching the presumption of common descent.