I'll list some scenarios below. What I'd like is for you to fill in your best rational, scientific response--what's the most reasonable thing to assume is happening? (And maybe, why?) If you need more information before making a decision, go ahead and say that.
(Note: These are all entirely hypothetical and purely for fun and to make you think about ID. No trick questions. Your responses will not be graded.
)1. Scrabble tiles on the table. Suppose you see some scrabble tiles on the table at your house. You don't know anything about where they came from or how they got there. If you see the following, what do you infer about how they got there?
a. All the tiles are face down.
b. The tiles are jumbled randomly, some face up, some face down. There are a couple hundred tiles altogether. Among the face-up tiles, you can make out the word "H E L M" in a jagged diagonal line, more or less in sequence.
c. All of the tiles are face down except for 5 of them. Those 5 are aligned on a horizontal line, right next to each other, and spell out "HELLO".
d. Suppose the situation in c, and in addition, you live alone, your house has been locked all night, and the table was bare when you went to bed.
e. Suppose the situation in c, and in addition, you personally dumped the tiles out of the bag onto the table seconds ago, and watched them land that way.
2. Moon landings and asteroids
a. The first moon landing occured on July 20, 1969, in the evening. Suppose on the evening of July 20, 2005 (but not at the same time or anything), a largish meteorite impacts the moon and is observed from earth by interested astronomers.
b. Suppose it impacts the moon on July 20, 2019 (exactly 50 years later), and it matches the time of the moon landing to the minute. Suppose also that it impacts fairly close to the original site--just a few miles away.
c. Suppose it impacts the moon as in (b), and suppose furthermore that there was an ancient Islamic prophecy that said, "In the day that they first leave their homes and set foot in a foreign land, they will not know Me. But after a week of weeks and one more, a star will fall from the sky and then they will then know that there is no God but Allah."
d. Suppose that sometime in the coming year, a dozen or so largish asteroids (over the course of a day) impact the original moon-landing site and the chief research facilities for space exploration in the US (so, NASA takes heavy damage), Russia, China, and every other spacefaring nation. Suppose at the end of the day, nobody on earth is capable of launching anything sizeable into space for at least a year or two.
3. Origins. (Utterly biologically nonsensical, and to my knowledge unreal, situations. Tell me where you think the new species came from.)
a. Suppose a new species of bird is discovered, and scientists verify that its DNA is almost entirely similar to the pigeon's, with a few slight changes. The birds look slightly cuter than pigeons (slight change in the shape of the head and position of the eyes), but there isn't much difference beyond that.
b. Suppose a new species of bird is discovered. It's a lot like a pigeon, but it has tiny arm-like limbs.
c. Suppose a new species of bird is discovered. It is a lot like a pigeon, but instead of flying by flapping, its wings are fairly rigid and it has an incredible secondary resperatory system that allows it to fly like a jet. It's awfully fast.
d. Suppose a new species of bird is discovered. It looks completely similar to a pigeon on the outside, but it has an internal organ that looks like a second brain. It functions like a bilogical version of a computer, deciphering symbols, parsing equations, and it gives the birds the ability to instinctively solve partial differential equations. (When they see one, after a few minutes of thinking, they instinctively inscribe the answer on any available surface.)
e. Suppose a new species of bird is discovered. It looks a lot like a pigeon, and its DNA is identical except in one tiny region. The small changes in that region result in the bird producing proteins that don't do anything, but are shaped like the word "HARVARD". (They aren't visible under a microscope, of course: the shape is determined using some high-powered math.)
f. Suppose an analysis of the bird in (d) shows that its DNA is almost identical to a pigeon's--a few slight mutations to pigeon DNA activate a sequence that codes for the new organ.
g. Suppose a new type of creatures is discovered. It looks utterly unlike any animal on earth--something like the evil offspring of a frog and a bat. It flies, swims, can cling effortlessly to the smoothest surface, responds instinctively to human thought, and can be trained to talk. When they are fully adult, they seem roughly as intelligent as an 8 year old human being.
