Evolution vs. Intelligent Design/Creationism

[Mole]

No, no, it's just that natural selection is the superior explanation.

Perhaps I might add that Natural Selection is true and Intelligent Design is false.

However this first became apparent in the middle of the 19th century and until then there was no reason to think Intelligent Design was false.

 

[Polaris]

One of the main arguments of ID is that only a small fraction of possible universes can host life, and therefore life's existence in the actual universe proves that the universe was designed for life to exist. This argument operates on the baseless premise that if there is an unlikely state of affairs, the unlikely state of affairs implies the existence of a creator. This leads me to wonder why proponents of intelligent design focus exclusively on the odds against life's existence when there are things in this universe far less likely to exist than life. In fact, this universe or any other possible universe has an exactly 1 out of however-many-possible-universes-there-are chance of existing; any universe would be as unlikely to exist as it could possibly be. Which means that the fine-tuning argument is a form of begging the question; any possible state of affairs would necessarily prove the conclusion if the premise were accepted, but the premise is without support.