Design naturally implies teleology: to achieve a future state to meet a prior purpose.
Design can therefore be characterised in these terms, but what about design itself.
Thus this comment to a video by Behe:
I think his definition of design needs work.
Design features the bringing together of components, whether they be parts, assemblies, systems, or systems-of-systems to interface in a way not predictable by the components themselves. That is, that cannot arise from the operation of the component taken in isolation.
With parsimony this is the mark of mind. Coordinated across components it denies random 'trials'.
The other problem that foolish 'component' level natural selection skips over is the concomitant change in interlocking supporting systems, themselves not dependent on the primary function in question, but are essential for the function in question.
The eye for instance. To work it would need continuous congruent changes in the skeletal system, muscular system, autonomic nervous system, and its component parts, the endocrine system, the brain's 'software' to turn the electronic signals into smoothed images, the balance system and its multiple parts, the blood supply, the operations of eyelids, tears, the presence of eyebrows, motor coordination (e.g. for throwing a ball at a target).
All these complex systems, sub-systems and 'systems-of-systems' (system congregates) must be coordinated and in step to allow the eye to
function and to be 'selectable'. Darwinism is early-Victorian gross morphology fantasy that is at
best naive, at worst ignorant, implausible and finally impossible.
