On better formulations of the design argument: please realize that this post was aimed a couple particular fallacies that are worth being aware of. I never claimed to be refuting the best arguments for intelligent design. As I said, Sewelle is a small fish, not necessary representative of the ID movement.

On N.T. Wright: As a matter of fact, he isn’t in my references because I read some of his work and decided it was rubbish, not even deserving comment. His entire argument is that the disciples couldn’t have come up with the belief in the resurrection, which is a beyond silly notion. I do address it briefly, though, citing William Lane Craig as the source, and I’m not sure what putting Wright’s name in the footnotes would have added.

In some ways, I like these paragraphs because they show an actual understanding of what physicalists believe. But obviously, the “four forces explain everything” view isn’t the only alternative to intelligent design. There could be a fifth force, or special effects found inside blackholes, or influence from dark matter, or (as Roger Penrose proposes) some yet-understood aspect of quantum mechanics that explains consciousness, and a hundred other possibilities besides.

So the alternative to an appeal to intelligent causation is an appeal to some unknown phenomena?

For the rest, your argument seems pretty vague. A better enunciation of the design argument is that specific phenomena, such as specified complexity, which appear in the products of intelligent minds are also found in natural systems. A reasonable interpretation of that evidence is that natural systems may be the product of an intelligent agent and, in the absence of a demonstrated naturalistic mechanism, it is reasonable to suppose that it is so.

Since you are appealing to unknown undemonstrated phenomena to try to overturn that interpretation of the evidence, it can be concluded that only one party in this discussion is actually doing science. The other is appealing to blind faith.

I wonder if your critique of historical grounds for Christian beliefs is this substantial. Remember, if N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God isn’t in your references then you haven’t really engaged with anything.