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These arguments based upon statistics and probabilities are using incomplete sets of data. For example, if you wanted to determine the probability of A from an incomplete set of A, B, C, D, you'd conclude A occurs 25 percent of the time. However, if more data crops up expanding the set to A, B, C, D, A, A, A, A ..., you'd be wrong.

That may well be true, but that seems to be assuming the premise. [First of all, I am neither a mathematician nor do I play one on TV. I am a lawyer. But I do know something of the danger of assuming one's own premise.]

The argument given above assumes not merely that the data are incomplete, but unrepresentative. For example, all polls are incomplete, but statistics theory assures us that, if we are careful in our approach to the data, the data should be representative and therefore the 'incompleteness' is irrelevant.

Thus, to carry the day, you have to show that the data upon which the ID theory is based are unrepresentative. Of course, this is on the order of the evolutionists' shooting themselves in the collective foot, since they use the same data for their theory.

The argument given above assumes not merely that the data are incomplete, but unrepresentative. For example, all polls are incomplete, but statistics theory assures us that, if we are careful in our approach to the data, the data should be representative and therefore the 'incompleteness' is irrelevant. Thus, to carry the day, you have to show that the data upon which the ID theory is based are unrepresentative. Of course, this is on the order of the evolutionists' shooting themselves in the collective foot, since they use the same data for their theory.

Awesome argument that carries the day. We use the data at hand to extract a representative sample. If we're told the data at hand is incomplete, then it is incomplete for anyone and for anyone's theory.

That's why it is, imho, best to deal with the observable, the testable, and the historically recorded. If there is a disconnect between the observed and the theoretical, then it's only honest to say that there's a disconnect.

(Aside: Pasteur's observations concluded that "spontaneous generation" was an impossibility.)

Thus, to carry the day, you have to show that the data upon which the ID theory is based are unrepresentative. Of course, this is on the order of the evolutionists' shooting themselves in the collective foot, since they use the same data for their theory.

The idea upon which the ID crowd hang their "theory" is that certain things could not come about naturally and were thus designed. They typically cite vertebrate blood clotting without realizing that biologists have already worked out the evolutionary steps of the clotting cascade (The Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Clotting) and discovered it is not irreducibly complex. IDers also claim the eye is too complex to have evolved naturally, but even Darwin showed how eyes evolve (How Could An Eye Evolve?). So, as you can see, as the knowledge base gets larger, the number of systems that appear to be "irreducibly complex" shrink. Would you like to lay odds that biologists will one day work out the evolution of every such system without recourse to inserting an Intelligent Designer in the process?

The problem with ID guys goes even deeper than their misuse of data. The ID claim is that no method will produce certain structures. When shown a method, they just ignore the demonstration.

ID also seems to analyze biological evolution theory as a theory of going from Point A to Point B; while in fact evolutionary theory only says than one goes from Point A. (One can retrodict that one got to Point B from Point A but not that Point A must always lead to Point B.)