He is saying that politics is winning and paying for the information it wants from science. Science is being sacrificed.

Well if it's not science, what is it? Some sort of quantitative philosophy? After all, he does want to use numbers. But if he is using numbers, it should be possible to quantify the "intelligence" necessary to design an amoeba, for example. First of all, it will only take a finite intelligence to design anything finite, so it will be impossible to prove that the intelligence was God. It should be possible, though, to determine how "intelligent" a genetic algorithm running for N generations with M members would be, though -- remember that the "intelligence" used to create a product need not imply sentience. It would be interesting to know if the extrapolation of genetic algorithms to planetary populations and geological timescales would be capable of producing an amoeba, but no one seems to be researching that question.

You are confusing support with prove

I am talking about there being some evidence for a hypothesis. If there cannot, even in principle, be any evidence against a hypothesis, then it makes no sense to speak of there being any evidence for it.

You are confusing support with prove. The hypothesis that the universe is designed can neither be falsified nor proved. It can however be strengthened by observations which are consistent with the hypothesis and therefore support it.

The hypothesis of design would suggest that creation has a beginning, and the current observations confirm this. It would suggest that creation be very finely configured at the outset to evolve in a manner where life becomes inevitable, and again the observations agree with this. Finally, the hypothesis would suggest that creation has an end, and again the very latest observations are consistent with this

It is not merely the fact that it cannot be falsified which supports the presupposition that the universe is designed.

If it cannot be falsified, it cannot be supported by anything except a prior commitment to believing it.

For example the universe having a beginning (big bang), an end (instability caused by the mass of the higgs boson) and coming from nothing (quantum mechanics), have all been taught by the Church for centuries, often in the face of bitter opposition.

An indefensible epistemology is not vindicated just because it happens to reach a conclusion supported by a good epistemology.

It is not merely the fact that it hasn't been falsified which supports the presupposition that the universe is designed.

For example the universe having a beginning (big bang), an end (due to the instability caused by the mass of the higgs boson) and coming from nothing (quantum mechanics), have all been taught by the Church for centuries, often in the face of bitter opposition.

Additionally, we now find that complexity, which includes life, is a necessary part of the evolution of the universe from low to high entropy. Far from being a random occurrence or a superfluous by-product, life is a necessary outcome without which the universe cannot evolve. This suggests that the universe has been uniquely configured at its inception so as to make life indispensable.

"It has been made abundantly clear since the seventeenth century that, from the perspective of science, the world is not intelligible."

The word "intelligible" must not mean the same thing to Dougherty that it does to me.

If so, those who presuppose an intelligent designer find their presupposition increasingly supported by scientific discoveries instead of being contradicted by them

They say so. I have looked at those same scientific discoveries, and I don't find the support they claim.

Of course I'm talking about intelligent macro-design (i.e. the cosmos) and not intelligent micro-design (e.g. DNA). The latter is a god-of the-gaps argument which is vulnerable to falsification as scientific discoveries advance.

I agree that no recent discovery has falsified ID of the sort you're defending. But a presupposition is not supported merely by not having been falsified. It is supported by explaining something that is otherwise inexplicable. And by "inexplicable" I do not mean "not yet explained."