Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

I don't really see how introducing aliens helps matters, it merely pushes the problem back one step - so that the origin of the aliens would face similar issues - presumably - though since these are hypothetical aliens it becomes impossible to evaluate, beyond the recognition that it just postpones rather than solves.

Well aliens is a broad category, I was thinking of the kind that Vallee talks about which seem capable of altering reality. Perhaps spirits rather than aliens, though I don't think there's always a hard distinction between the two.

IDers do talk about irreducible complexity, but it isn't clear how that aligns with evolution through successive mutations. Does the Creator of Everything allow evolution to proceed but then tack on a flagellum onto a micro-organism? Why would the Fine Tuner(s) decide the Cambrian is just the right time to throw in some extra organisms into the mix?

I'd also consider that no ancient scripture, from anywhere in the world, makes proper mention of these "hints" showing the Hand of God. As the Catholic Theologian Feser aptly notes:

What is at issue is the context in which such events could be known to be divine revelations -- and, in particular, whether such events could by themselves constitute evidence for the existence of God for someone who didn’t already know that God exists.  For there are different sorts of miracles, and different sorts of context in which they might be interpreted.  Suppose God miraculously caused the English words “I, God, exist” to be written in the dust on a certain car’s windshield -- but that the car was parked on a small side street in a neighborhood where most people spoke Mandarin, nobody was particularly religious, and the words appeared in the middle of the night when no one was around to see them.  This would, needless to say, be a pretty ineffective way of revealing himself.  There would be nothing about the evidence that those who come across it would be at all likely to see as miraculous.  It would just seem to be a silly prank, unworthy of a moment’s attention.

All that said I do agree that life's origins as well as the body's relationship to consciousness are not things that can be explained via a materialist view of evolution. And I would think it plausible that the being(s) who set the constants to the universe to allow for the presence of life also introduced some initial spark of life.

OTOH the beings that tweaked our world's evolution don't seem to be at the same level of power nor wisdom. Whether it was entities in the subtle realms ("ultra-terrestrials") or visitors from other planets, the evidence IDers note seems like something we will ourselves one day be able to accomplish. Maybe I'm missing something though?

I will admit I am more skeptical of arguments relating to evolution than I am fine tuning, mostly because the latter seems far more accepted and far more clear in what the issue is. You can find an easy to comprehend argument about fine tuning in Forbes Magazine, whereas the very idea of irreducible complexity seems more up for debate.

Feser again:

The trouble is this. The problem information poses for naturalism has nothing at all to do with complexity, probability, etc. All that stuff just completely muddies the waters and gives the naturalist an occasion to dismiss the real problem. Indeed, it makes it harder for the naturalist even to see what the real problem is. So when ID people go on about this stuff and throw in all this mathematical hoo-hah, that might impress the rubes, but it allows the naturalist wrongly to pretend that the issue has crucially to do with whether Dembski (say) has got his probability theory straight. It's just a gigantic dust cloud and time waster.

Or take Behe's idea of "irreducible complexity." Insofar as he's talking about the idea that there can be certain properties of a whole that cannot be accounted for in terms of an aggregation of the parts, I have no problem with that much. Indeed, that's just part of what the notion of substantial form is about. However, the Scholastic analysis of such "irreducibility" -- hammered out over the course of centuries -- is far more nuanced than anything you'll find in an ID writer. Furthermore, what this tells us about the origin of an "irreducible" feature is a more complicated matter than ID people suppose, because the principle of proportionate causality allows what is in an effect to have been in its total cause in ways that are not always straightforward. So, while the general idea Behe is pointing at has some value, it doesn't go very far, and it doesn't necessarily have the implications for specific cases that he thinks it does.

In effect, even at its best ID is like a guy who's reinventing the wheel and so far has been able to reconstruct a single spoke. At it's worst, it's like a guy who's trying to reinvent the wheel and so far has decided that a square shape for it would be good.

To be clear I'm not a Scholastic, and I do think Feser understates the issues people have with the complexity of philosophical arguments for God, but I think his criticisms of ID as a field does have some merit.