Begging the question?

Recall a rule of the syllogism: When all the premises are true and the syllogism is correctly constructed, a syllogism is an ironclad logical argument. We are not dealing with that here because we are making a claim of certainty from one of probability. Let's use the black swan example you referenced: This is like saying swans observed are only known to be white. Therefore, all swans ARE white. Besides this, the premises are very problematic.

My response to any attempt that this intelligent design argument is simple; just replace "intelligent agent" with "flawed, imperfect, sinful agent" :) This is just as "true" and will cancel out the logic for any god one is proposing.

Equivocation: "Using an ambiguous term in more than one sense, thus making an argument misleading." In Premise 1, "certain patterns" is an ambiguous term. In Premise 2, "those patterns" is misleadingly equated (equivocation) to patterns observed as being intelligently designed.

Thank you for your swift responses. I asked this question because it is common for ID proponents to point to molecular machines as implying design. It is not my argument, I am trying to figure out how to respond to it. I have seen animations of cellular machines and they are truly amazing and seem to give most people a strongly intuitive sense a designer must be responsible. Secondly, evolution argues from analogy that similar morphology indicates common descent. That is how genetic tests work. My DNA closely resembles that of my parent's so it is likely I am their descendant.

So it seems like the above argument is (??) a cogent inductive inference. I have that correct? So my best response would be to question the premises and not it's form? After all, science makes use of induction, "All the swans we've seen so far are white, therefore it is likely the next swan will be white", which is a cogent inductive inference. Thank you for your time.

Right off the bat:

Premise 1:

Certain patterns in nature are only known to come from an intelligent agent

.

This is most certainly a petitio principii, as it conclusively states what has never been proven. I would counter this by citing the volumes of evidence that show how various patterns in nature evolve through natural selection, etc.

Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. Norton, 1986.
Perakh, Mark. Unintelligent Design. Prometheus Books, 2004.
Young, Matt and Taner Edis. Why Intelligent Design Fails, A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. Rutgers University Press, 2004. Robert T., ed. Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics. Philosophical Theological, and Scientific Perspectives. MIT Press, 2001. Shermer, Michael. How We Believe, Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God." 2nd ed. Freeman, 2000. Smith, George H. Atheism, the Case Against God. Prometheus, 1979. ( and a hundred more)

The rest of the syllogism is entirely Circular.

The best argument against ID is to cite the results of a Case Western study:

According to a study from Case Western University, over the last 20 years there were 20,000,000 scientific papers published out of which 150,000 dealt with evolution. Out of those 150,000 peer-reviewed papers approximately 88 were on Intelligent Design and submitted by Christian Mechanical Engineers and not Evolutionary biologists. It is important to know that teaching Intelligent Design in public school is illegal in this country and the UK.

From ID books I have read, such as Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer, the main argument for Intelligent design is more like this:

….......

DNA is a form of encoded information (not just a pattern, but actual encoded information, using a type of language, analogous to the code in software, that is read by molecular machines in the cell and translated into instructions for the formation of various molecular substances that form the basis of the living cell.)

No known natural process has been observed to create information, and the only known source of information creation is intelligent agents (humans who use language to create books, software and the computers that read it etc.)

It therefore follows that the most likely explanation for the existence of the encoded information in DNA is an intelligent agent and not a blind, unguided, natural process .

….......

I think this is a sound argument and a very strong one as well. As far as I know, there have been no scientific studies or experiments showing natural processes creating information. Patterns maybe, but not information and especially not a complete information processing system that not only gives rise to information, but that can read and interpret that information as well.

If anyone knows of a study in which natural processes give rise to information, I would really like to see it, as I open to new information myself and so far I have found nothing like that in my own research on the subject. Here I will point out that mutations in the genome can and will sometimes rearrange, delete, copy and paste or duplicate parts of the information content in the DNA, but this is not the creation of new information such as would be required for the development of novel body features in a creature, such as an eye or limb where there was none before. The information to describe these features has to come from somewhere. So far I don't believe science has observed a natural process that can achieve this.

One of the points ID proponents make is that SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, scans space for incoming information, as a sign of an intelligent agent. No one is going to receive encoded information coming from space and just say: 'Well, its just nature giving rise to information, nothing unusual about that.' They are going to consider it a great discovery and breakthrough in the search for intelligence. Why do scientists not respond the same way when hey find information encoded in the cell? Perhaps because they have a prior commitment to materialism and are unable to allow for an intelligent agent to have designed the information and information reading systems in the cell.

The problem is with Premise #2, which is an empirical question. The syllogism is logically valid, but the facts are wrong.