Letter to the Editor

[Darth Wong]

If evolution were to fail, it would become worthwhile splitting ID into cases, each of which has predictive power (though in aggregate they have no prediction whatsoever) and falsifying the individual cases. It'd be a pain in the ass, and if anyone could come up with alternatives it'd be great. But to say "I don't know" and STOP... that's ending inquiry more than working with subsets of a class of theories which in aggregate predicts nothing.

No one ever said that you should STOP after saying "I don't know", you idiot. We're only saying that you shouldn't pretend you have a scientific theory when you don't. Basically, ID theory has one postulate: "not evolution". That is not a theory. That's no more of a theory of biology than "not relativity" would be a physics theory.

I think 'no predictive power' is a suboptimal strategy because on the one hand, people don't get the importance to science; and on the other, it's a conglomerate of individual theories, which muddies the water.

And you think that telling people they have no evidence will work better, when they can invent "evidence" out of thin air at will and then tell people you and your ilk are living in denial? That's a LOSING strategy if I ever saw one.

I think 'Failure of Imagination Fallacy' is a good strategy, and it is closely related.

Yes it is, but if you don't at least try to explain to people what's philosophically wrong with ID rather than humouring their asinine belief that "anything but evolution" is a meaningful scientific theory, then you are ceding crucial territory for no fucking reason.

It is not necessarily a WRONG one. It is definitely a BAD one.

And so DracheIdiot brings out the exact same logic typically used by religionists to support belief in God: the fact that you can't technically prove an idea wrong just by showing that it makes no sense and has no value.

[Lord Zentei]

Or will you not begin to consider the possibility of an intentional version of panspermia?

And specifically on this: if you are referring to your proposed scenario with alien primogenetors, you are NOT replacing evolution in that case, since the primogenetors presumably evolved somewhere. You are merely adding a new feature to evolution, you are not replacing it.

I know it's been a while (yesterday), but I have referred only to (nonexistent) proofs that OUR life did not evolve, not that evolution is in principle impossible. IIRC, even Behe admits that evolution is in principle possible; he just holds that it doesn't explain our particular case, because unlike 'real evolved creatures', we have irreducibly complex structures.

That the proofs are nonexistant is the crux. As long as you are making comparisons with scenarios with proof on the one hand with scenarios without proof on the other, you are comparing apples and oranges. If the proofs were not nonexistant, the processes and/or intentions could be scrutinized, at least in principle. As long as no evidence exists and we insist on maintaining the postulate of ID, we have to assume that both the process and intentions are inscrutable; and this is a departure from science. As long as we have nothing to support them, our claims have no plausibility, scientifically speaking. And as long as out claims have no scientific plausibility, they get cut out by Occams Razor - we would be more honest in admitting our ignorance and not burden ourselves with preconceived befuddlements in our search for the truth.

And really, what kind of evidence could you come up with to oppose abiogenesis and evolution as a general phenomenon?

In the general phenomenon, one could show that small adaptions cannot add up over time, for instance. That would kill evolution as a theory.

[drachefly]

It is implausible as long as you have no supporting evidence. It is not IMPOSSIBLE that there is an invisible dragon in Carl Sagan's garage either, mind you.

I have no supporting evidence for the assertion that there is a dog in Carl Sagan's garage (presumably some Carl Sagan who is still alive and so would have a garage), but that assertion is not implausible.
What makes the difference here?

We know that dogs exist; dragons, if they existed on Earth, would probably have consequences we do not observe. Furthermore, dogs are known to frequent the abodes of people, while Dragons... well... is the dragon actually smaller than the garage in question?
How is ID doing on this score? We know that intelligences exist, and they can have the ability to manipulate genes. If other intelligences existed, they would not necessarily have consequences we do not observe.

No one ever said that you should STOP after saying "I don't know"

Great. It seemed that in the event of evolution's utter failure, you were ready to go off and still not suspect any intelligent intervention, which would seem to me be (aside from resuscitation of evolution) the prime avenue for inquiry.

We're only saying that you shouldn't pretend you have a scientific theory when you don't. Basically, ID theory has one postulate: "not evolution". That is not a theory. That's no more of a theory of biology than "not relativity" would be a physics theory.

ID has one postulate: some intelligent actor influenced our development. That basically boils down to 'not evolution' only because we can't think of any alternative. Aside from "I don't know", if you count the lack of a theory as a theory.

I think 'no predictive power' is a suboptimal strategy because on the one hand, people don't get the importance to science; and on the other, it's a conglomerate of individual theories, which muddies the water.

And you think that telling people they have no evidence will work better, when they can invent "evidence" out of thin air at will and then tell people you and your ilk are living in denial? That's a LOSING strategy if I ever saw one.

"They said evolution couldn't make X. It can. They said evolution could make Y. It can. They said evolution could make Z. It can. How many times do they get away with this shit?"

Of course sitting on the defense is a losing strategy in a debate.

I think 'Failure of Imagination Fallacy' is a good strategy, and it is closely related.

Yes it is, but if you don't at least try to explain to people what's philosophically wrong with ID rather than humouring their asinine belief that "anything but evolution" is a meaningful scientific theory, then you are ceding crucial territory for no fucking reason.

There are plenty of philosophical problems with ID without having to resort to the very specific problems that are the least relevant -- that it provides no way of determining the mechanism (which is shared by many accepted theories, including ALL fundamental theories) or that it is vague (which is a great argument against using it as a basis of inquiry, but not against its veracity).

What other philosophical problems does it have? Let's take it from the most useful.
1) theologically, forcing yourself into belief in god by process of elimination doesn't have that ring of devotion to it.
2) just because we can't figure out how evolution might do these things, doesn't mean it can't (there's the argument from ignorance fallacy)
3) why would an omnipotent intelligent designer make things look so much like it had been produced by evolution? (note, only works on the case of omnipotent intelligent designers who did not extensively use evolution as a tool)
4) Irreducible complexity arguments rely on probability being an absolute barrier. In a really really huge or especially in an infinite universe, really really unlikely things can happen; and only once is needed.
5) If you believe in Irreducible Complexity, then you had better NOT believe that genomes are capable of having parts deleted... oops, that's all that many creationists think genomes CAN do.

It is not necessarily a WRONG one. It is definitely a BAD one.

And so Drachefly brings out the exact same logic typically used by religionists to support belief in God: the fact that you can't technically prove an idea wrong just by showing that it makes no sense and has no value.

In case you didn't catch it, I said the idea was a bad one (emphasis not added because it was in the original). If we could get religionists and Id-ers to say that belief in God and ID were bad ideas, we'd be in such great shape, wouldn't we?

[Lord Zentei]

It is implausible as long as you have no supporting evidence. It is not IMPOSSIBLE that there is an invisible dragon in Carl Sagan's garage either, mind you.

I have no supporting evidence for the assertion that there is a dog in Carl Sagan's garage (presumably some Carl Sagan who is still alive and so would have a garage), but that assertion is not implausible.
What makes the difference here?

We know that dogs exist; dragons, if they existed on Earth, would probably have consequences we do not observe. Furthermore, dogs are known to frequent the abodes of people, while Dragons... well... is the dragon actually smaller than the garage in question?
How is ID doing on this score? We know that intelligences exist, and they can have the ability to manipulate genes. If other intelligences existed, they would not necessarily have consequences we do not observe.

Since we are talking about alien primogenetors for which no evidence exists, we are in invisible dragon territory, not dog territory.

[drachefly]

In the general phenomenon, one could show that small adaptions cannot add up over time, for instance. That would kill evolution as a theory.

In the light of homeobox genes and such capabilities of launching abrupt changes, I don't think it would be that fatal. Evolution can still make BIG jumps, all at once. They're just riskier.

That the proofs are nonexistant is the crux. As long as you are making comparisons with scenarios with proof on the one hand with scenarios without proof on the other, you are comparing apples and oranges. If the proofs were not nonexistant, the processes and/or intentions could be scrutinized, at least in principle. As long as no evidence exists and we insist on maintaining the postulate of ID...

You do realize that Behe is attempting to produce such proof? The fact that his attempt is ill-founded means only that he won't succeed; and criticism of that attempt is great.

It's like the blueprints for a time machine, where there's a little black box saying 'insert time machine here'.

[drachefly]

Since we are talking about alien primogenetors for which no evidence exists, we are in invisible dragon territory, not dog territory.

Fine. The assertion that there is a previously unidentified species of insect in Carl Sagan's garage. Happy?

[Lord Zentei]

In the general phenomenon, one could show that small adaptions cannot add up over time, for instance. That would kill evolution as a theory.

In the light of homeobox genes and such capabilities of launching abrupt changes, I don't think it would be that fatal. Evolution can still make BIG jumps, all at once. They're just riskier.

Too risky for evolution to rely on it to exclusion. Besides, the cascade that the homobox gene switches on has to change too, unless you start out with the genetic information. Anyway, you are nitpicking "small" vs "large"; I obviously was referring to the typical creationist BS about microevolution not adding up to macroevolution.

That the proofs are nonexistant is the crux. As long as you are making comparisons with scenarios with proof on the one hand with scenarios without proof on the other, you are comparing apples and oranges. If the proofs were not nonexistant, the processes and/or intentions could be scrutinized, at least in principle. As long as no evidence exists and we insist on maintaining the postulate of ID...

You do realize that Behe is attempting to produce such proof? The fact that his attempt is ill-founded means only that he won't succeed; and criticism of that attempt is great.

People are also seeking "proof" for a diety - the search for proof by itself is not enough. I could be searching for proof that the Moon is mostly made of cheese, for instance.

It's like the blueprints for a time machine, where there's a little black box saying 'insert time machine here'.

And that is precisely the point: the crucial aspect of the theory is an inscrutable black box. Therefore, it is not scientific.

[Lord Zentei]

Since we are talking about alien primogenetors for which no evidence exists, we are in invisible dragon territory, not dog territory.

Fine. The assertion that there is a previously unidentified species of insect in Carl Sagan's garage. Happy?

No. You are talking about something whose capabilities exceed humanity's by a huge margin. An insect doesn't come close.

Moreover, this vastly superior species has had to evolve and tinker with the Earth's biosphere so we won't have to invoke evolution to explain that biosphere.

[Wyrm]

@DW: It's a good thing you countered Dracheidiot about Bayesian probability before I read this thread, otherwise I would've flamed the bitch back to the stone-age. As of now, I'm relatively calm.

@Dracheidiot: In Bayesian probability, theories are allowed some vagueness in their predictions, but the theory always is penalized for this vagueness. Usually, it means that there is a lesser reward for making correct (if vague) predictions than a competing theory that makes correct but sharper predictions.

Evolution looks like it makes vague predicitions, but it actually excludes a very large number of organisms from the space of all possible organisms. (Darwin makes some assertions on organisms, if found, would be absolutely fatal to his theory.) This number of excluded organisms becomes even larger when we have a prior history of life for evolution to work on. We therefore award it richly with higher posterior probability when it makes correct predicitions.

ID, on the other hand, postulates that it is possible for an intelligent designer to put any kind of organism together, and there's no prior restriction to the kind of organisms such a designer would put together. It therefore makes infinitely vague predicitons on the kind of organisms we should see, and therefore, is not rewarded for its "correct predictions".

Let me underscore this point to make it clearer. Any organism that may be assembled from nonliving matter falls under the design priniciples of some intelligent designer (ID being purposefully vague on the nature of the designer to cover any organism). Therefore, the space of possible observations is never restricted, and therefore the theory makes no predicitions. Only by proposing a designer with specific design principles can predictions be made, as it restricts the space of possible observations, but the IDers are not doing this.

Also, you're deluded if you think that the IDers, if they win, will continue by trying to pin down the nature of their intelligent designer. They'll simply say, "See? Science proves God! DISCUSSION OVER! Now get on your knees and worship his cock, bitch!"

And next time you decide to go into a death-spiral, leave Bayesian probability out of it.

[petesampras]

Great. It seemed that in the event of evolution's utter failure, you were ready to go off and still not suspect any intelligent intervention, which would seem to me be (aside from resuscitation of evolution) the prime avenue for inquiry.

Suspecting something is not a scientific theory. Scientists often have hunches and suspicions about things, they do not consider those theories. A theory needs a clear mechanism to generate predictions. For ID to have this we need the motivations, methods and abilities to be specified. Without these it is a hunch, not a theory.

ID has one postulate: some intelligent actor influenced our development. That basically boils down to 'not evolution' only because we can't think of any alternative. Aside from "I don't know", if you count the lack of a theory as a theory.

I thought ID believed life was created by an intelligent designer, not some intelligence influenced our development. These are two very different theories. You can't lump them together. You would still need to assign motivations/methods/abilities to this intelligence, in either case.

As discussed in the A.I. thread an intelligence has little meaning without considering motivation. There is a famous quote that rocks are pretty smart if you consider their motivation to be to sit around all day. That's a bit of a smart ass statement, I'll admit, but the fundamental point stands that you can't have an intelligent actor being part of a scientific theory without some specifications of it's motivations.

[/quote]

[Darth Wong]

Great. It seemed that in the event of evolution's utter failure, you were ready to go off and still not suspect any intelligent intervention, which would seem to me be (aside from resuscitation of evolution) the prime avenue for inquiry.

I hate to break it to you, but "suspect" and "scientific theory" are two different things. You can suspect whatever you want, but until you have some kind of meaningful theory, it's no better than saying that Nature simply has a mysterious tendency to create intelligent life if the right conditions are present. At least we know Nature exists, and that theory is just as well-defined as this "intelligent designer" bullshit, without needing an imaginary term.

ID has one postulate: some intelligent actor influenced our development. That basically boils down to 'not evolution' only because we can't think of any alternative. Aside from "I don't know", if you count the lack of a theory as a theory.

ID is also a lack of a theory, dumbshit. In case you hadn't noticed, every "proof" of ID consists of trying to poke holes in evolution theory.

And you think that telling people they have no evidence will work better, when they can invent "evidence" out of thin air at will and then tell people you and your ilk are living in denial? That's a LOSING strategy if I ever saw one.

"They said evolution couldn't make X. It can. They said evolution could make Y. It can. They said evolution could make Z. It can. How many times do they get away with this shit?"

Why don't you try actually using that? They'll simply bring up another one. As far as the average person is concerned, you can explain away 50 species, but if they bring up a 51st one that you can't explain, you lose.

There are plenty of philosophical problems with ID without having to resort to the very specific problems that are the least relevant -- that it provides no way of determining the mechanism (which is shared by many accepted theories, including ALL fundamental theories) or that it is vague (which is a great argument against using it as a basis of inquiry, but not against its veracity).

You are completely full of shit. Show how "all fundamental theories" lack a comprehensible mechanism.

[Darth Wong]

It's funny how DracheIdiot says he's not an IDer, but he actually subscribes to most of their philosophy. The only reason he's not a full-blown IDer is the fact that he knows how dishonest they are, and he adds extra definition to the ID theory so that it can generate falsifiable predictions.

Small wonder he thinks we should focus on that particular weakness of ID; it's the only one he understands. He clearly doesn't understand the whole concept of what distinguishes a scientific theory from a half-baked lay theory, so he figures it's not "relevant" and does not represent a real weakness.

[petesampras]

I have a question sort of related to this topic.

If evolution was to accurately model 99.9% of species on the planet, but we were to discover that one species does not fit in with evolution, what would that mean?

I'm sure the ID brigade would take it as proof that evolution could be scrapped, but surely a theory which is accurate for 99.9% of cases still has merit.

I just bring this up in relation to the idea of discovering a species which falsifies evolution.

[rhoenix]

If evolution was to accurately model 99.9% of species on the planet, but we were to discover that one species does not fit in with evolution, what would that mean?

I sincerely hope you don't have the bombardier beetle in mind.

To answer your question, how would finding one life form that doesn't share common traits with any known terrestrial life form falsify evolution?

[Dooey Jo]

The supposed basic ideas of ID can be made into a somewhat interesting thought experiment, if you're honest about the whole thing. However it means that extraterrestial designers would be a hell of a lot more reasonable than divine ones, and the IDiots naturally don't want that, they want to reinforce their religious beliefs, so they play dishonest instead. Of course, that ID is anything but poorly disguised Creationism is painfully obvious when you ask the average non-"Ph.d" fundie. Their definition of what ID is at least more honest: "It's the science that God created the world and that evolution is false."
(And that's also the definition of micro-evolution according to some, but that's another story)

If evolution was to accurately model 99.9% of species on the planet, but we were to discover that one species does not fit in with evolution, what would that mean?

It would mean we either have to revise the theory to also account for that one species, come up a different theory which can adequately explain 100% of all species, or find evidence that there is something strange with the species. It could for instance be a forgery, or have been placed here by aliens. That would not need a completely different theory if the species had undergone evolution on its homeworld, in fact the theory would need no revision at all. We would need a theory to explain how it got here though...

[Lord Zentei]

GHETTO:

Since we are talking about alien primogenetors for which no evidence exists, we are in invisible dragon territory, not dog territory.

Fine. The assertion that there is a previously unidentified species of insect in Carl Sagan's garage. Happy?

No. You are talking about something whose capabilities exceed humanity's by a huge margin. An insect doesn't come close.

Moreover, this vastly superior species has had to evolve and tinker with the Earth's biosphere so we won't have to invoke evolution to explain that biosphere.

Hell, even claiming that you have discovered a new kind of insect has no plausibility, scientifically speaking, unless you produce evidence.

[petesampras]

If evolution was to accurately model 99.9% of species on the planet, but we were to discover that one species does not fit in with evolution, what would that mean?

I sincerely hope you don't have the bombardier beetle in mind.

To answer your question, how would finding one life form that doesn't share common traits with any known terrestrial life form falsify evolution?

Please re-read what I wrote, and you will see that you have completely misunderstood the question I am asking.

[Darth Wong]

If it was just one life form (let's say that it's based on different base pairs, so it obviously couldn't have evolved from our common ancestor), I imagine some form of extraterrestrial origin would be proposed as the most likely explanation.

[drachefly]

Since we are talking about alien primogenetors for which no evidence exists, we are in invisible dragon territory, not dog territory.

Fine. The assertion that there is a previously unidentified species of insect in Carl Sagan's garage. Happy?

No. You are talking about something whose capabilities exceed humanity's by a huge margin. An insect doesn't come close.

Not yet, but it is hardly unreasonable to suppose that our capabilities will get there in a cosmically short time. And most of that is the technology to get to a different planet. Genetic engineering? Not very engineering-y yet. Chances it will be in a hundred years.

If we suppose evolution is possible, then, we conclude that in fact the insect does come pretty close. ;)

Moreover, this vastly superior species has had to evolve and tinker with the Earth's biosphere so we won't have to invoke evolution to explain that biosphere.

Yes. As I've said before the minimal ID position I am referring to does not say that life could not evolve; merely that specific features of actual life on Earth could not have evolved, thus THIS life did not evolve. It permits life to evolve which has no such features.
This is, minimum, the third time I have said this.

As for relevance to the more general field:
Behe admitted the coherence of this position much when he said the intelligent designer could be aliens. I dimly recall another quote in which he said it more explicitly; but as I can't dredge it up I'm not going to ask you to believe that. On the other hand, after sifting through many many quotes, I have seen none in which he says that evolution could not produce life. He does say things like 'evolution is dead', but outside of context it's hard to say whether he meant as a general phenomenon or just as an explanation for life on earth, which is the usual way it is meant.


I think we're wasting our time here, since we agree absolutely on every point of genuine relevance; and I haven't seen either side say anything new in some time; and what has been said is frequently ignored or forgotten (e.g. above), which I think we can all agree is extremely annoying.

I thought in the beginning we could have a little academic discussion deconstrucing the exact failure modes of a godawful theory, but it was not to be. We did have a little discussion of strategy, which was moderately useful.

Argument, I won't miss you.

[Lord Zentei]

No. You are talking about something whose capabilities exceed humanity's by a huge margin. An insect doesn't come close.

Not yet, but it is hardly unreasonable to suppose that our capabilities will get there in a cosmically short time. And most of that is the technology to get to a different planet. Genetic engineering? Not very engineering-y yet. Chances it will be in a hundred years.

If we suppose evolution is possible, then, we conclude that in fact the insect does come pretty close.

No. I'm distinguishing between what is possible and what is scientifically plausible vis a vis being a postulate in a theory. For the latter there is a simple requirement: "show me".

Moreover, this vastly superior species has had to evolve and tinker with the Earth's biosphere so we won't have to invoke evolution to explain that biosphere.

Yes. As I've said before the minimal ID position I am referring to does not say that life could not evolve; merely that specific features of actual life on Earth could not have evolved, thus THIS life did not evolve. It permits life to evolve which has no such features.
This is, minimum, the third time I have said this.

I'm aware of that. You don't seem to get that in the absence of demonstration of evidence that requires such a postulate, there is no point to it, nor is is scientific. Worse, with the continued insistance on using such a postulate despite such a lack, the "minimal" ID is just as pseudomystical as the "main" branch of ID.

As for relevance to the more general field:
Behe admitted the coherence of this position much when he said the intelligent designer could be aliens. I dimly recall another quote in which he said it more explicitly; but as I can't dredge it up I'm not going to ask you to believe that. On the other hand, after sifting through many many quotes, I have seen none in which he says that evolution could not produce life. He does say things like 'evolution is dead', but outside of context it's hard to say whether he meant as a general phenomenon or just as an explanation for life on earth, which is the usual way it is meant.

Behe says a lot of bullshit. I couldn't care the less.

<snippa>

Argument, I won't miss you.

Whatever.

[Darth Wong]

What a load of steaming bullshit. DracheIdiot started by saying that it was not a critical flaw of a scientific theory to have no mechanism at all, even though the lack of a comprehensible mechanism means no predictive ability. He later pretended that he was saying all along that he agrees it's a big problem to have no predictive ability, but he was just talking about the best way to attack ID's flaws.

In other words, we've gone from "not a critical flaw" to "not the critical flaw that we should be attacking, because there are better ones to go after". Nice backpedaling, moron.

[rhoenix]

Please re-read what I wrote, and you will see that you have completely misunderstood the question I am asking.

Alright, I'll take it from the top. Admittedly, I posted last before I went to sleep last night.

If evolution was to accurately model 99.9% of species on the planet, but we were to discover that one species does not fit in with evolution, what would that mean?

In this case, you'd have to be more specific than "finding one species that does not fit in with evolution." This implies that this species in question shares no traits in common with other known terrestrial life forms, while still being a complete life form in its own right.

I'm sure the ID brigade would take it as proof that evolution could be scrapped, but surely a theory which is accurate for 99.9% of cases still has merit.

In this case, do you mean evolution, or ID as the theory that is accurate 99.9% of the time? This statement was unclear on that count.

I'm going to presume from your wording that you meant evolution - in this case, to the best of my knowledge, scientists have not found any species that does not fit in with evolutionary theory.

I just bring this up in relation to the idea of discovering a species which falsifies evolution.

The idea is an intriguing one, given the mechanism. However, for this to occur, it would likely mean the life form in question didn't evolve on Earth, which would open up a very interesting can of worms.

[Wyrm]

Moreover, this vastly superior species has had to evolve and tinker with the Earth's biosphere so we won't have to invoke evolution to explain that biosphere.

Yes. As I've said before the minimal ID position I am referring to does not say that life could not evolve; merely that specific features of actual life on Earth could not have evolved, thus THIS life did not evolve. It permits life to evolve which has no such features.
This is, minimum, the third time I have said this.

The bolded postulate is the sticking point. IDers have yet to come up with even one instance where evolution could not have made certain fetures found in modern life forms, and dispite having a criterion "irreducible complexity" under their belt, they have (a) failed to come up with a satisfactory definition of it that actually fits any known system, (b) when they have named a life-system that is "irreducibly complex" in the past, serious biologists quickly found evolutionary pathways that showed how these so-called "irreducibly complex" systems could evolve.

Given that they have failed numerous times to select out even one reason why Earth-life could not have evolved is pretty good evidence that they don't have a theory.

I thought in the beginning we could have a little academic discussion deconstrucing the exact failure modes of a godawful theory, but it was not to be. We did have a little discussion of strategy, which was moderately useful.

There has been discussion of the failure mode of the ID theory. The principle one being that it's not a theory. That's a pretty clear failure mode. Only you fail to accept it.

[Wyrm]

@DracheIdiot: I will not be snookered into a PM war with you. If you want to debate, do it here.

[drachefly]

Okay, I'm going to clarify some things. Don't reply without reading the whole thing.

Part the first:
The bounds of what is Evolution can be summarized as: "Where did all this life come from? Matter does it to itself by following natural laws." Anything that fits within that criterion would generally be considered Evolution.
This does not leave much room for anything else. If we remove the 'to itself' restriction, we get "This other matter acted on it.", which is in itself already ID. If we remove the 'by following natural laws' restriction, we get an extranatural entity which might as well be God, so we get creationism.
Thus, it looks to me like the dilemma of Evolution vs. ID is not false. This is what I was getting at with my 'immediately concede' post. If a third way can be found, then ID would have to beat it as well.

Now, even though it's not a false dilemma, it's STILL an argument from ignorance, because you can't exclude every possible variant evolution would have.
Alternately, it IS a false dilemma, with future as-yet unknown versions of evolution being the missing third option.

Either way, doesn't matter, it's a fallacy. ID loses.

Part the second:
The number of ways of being alive is extremely large, but in principle finite. If due to nothing else, the number of reasonably stable configurations of matter in a given space is finite. Only a tiny fraction of these would count as being alive (incidentally, DW, cream cheese is not alive).
Therefore, a finite but extremely large exclusion factor on ALL alternatives would push ID to the front. As stated earlier, this degree of exclusion is impossible:
ID loses.

Part the third:
Theories in science have two main origins: other theories, and data. Prime examples of the first are statistical mechanics, the theories of Relativity, Quantum Electrodynamics. Of the latter sort would be empirical results such as Boyle's law, the existence of radiation, and Rutherford's model of the atom.
Such theories are short on explanation and long on prediction, and live or die by the evidence. Rutherford's model in particular lacked any sort of mechanism for its operation other than the rankest handwaving, and defied integration with any prior law.

It is as a theory of the second sort that ID proponents are attempting to push ID. As such, it is not their lack of mechanism, but their lack of evidence that means:
ID loses


There are other ways ID loses, but these are all those that were mentioned.