Actually, if science has proven anything it is that knowledge is NOT static, everything you think you know is "true" for the single moment you know it and no matter what you read, like a computer, it is obsolete the moment it was printed.

I agree that the natural “systems” of earth (water cycle, molecules, stuff that works together) is kept working by the laws of physics. But what started them? What made the laws of physics work like they do? How come humans developed, with minds and consciences, rather than some other type of creature? Why does conscience exist? You can’t explain everything through physics and chemistry. I’m definitely ignorant of a lot of science, because I haven’t learned it yet, but the strongest case for a designer is that there are things that can’t be explained by science. Sure, we can explain the firing of synapses, the neurons creating memory, the impact of events on our brains, but can we explain why some things are right and some are wrong? Not really.

You’re all over the place with your questions. First, if you’re misty-eyed over "why" and “the meaning of it all”, take a philosophy class. Second, plenty of answers are already out there (yes, you clearly haven’t learned a lot of this yet). Read books. The puzzle of consciousness, for example, has been studied for decades. There’s a mountain of published, brilliant work out there. As there is concerning the story of human emergence. Third, of course there are things we don’t know. There are always things we don’t know. Science thrives in the unknown because it presents a challenge to study it in hopes of turning it into something we do know. We’ve done this throughout history, and it’s led to numerous discoveries and answers to ages-old questions. Including those many thought were beyond understanding.

Your “strongest case for a designer” consists of pointing out gaps in our current understanding, then believing this somehow leaves room for a hidden supernatural entity you just pulled out of your ass (what’s the evidence for that?). “Too vast for our understanding, it must be spooks” isn’t a case, it’s a retreat into medieval ignorance. Nor are you defining what’s meant by a designer, or even design. If you’re going to argue from a position of design, present a coherent theory that provides a way of detecting it. Design clearly implies intelligence, but what criteria is used to measure "intelligent" apart from "designed"? (Intelligent compared to what?) What's the methodology for determining a “good design” blueprint ? What are your alternative explanations for my bad design examples, other than mumbling “the ways of the great designer are many and mysterious”? This all-purpose escape clause may excuse one from having to explain design where there isn’t any, but it solves nothing and gets us nowhere.

Humans can’t synthesize vitamin C. We have to ingest it. Yet we still carry the gene for the final pathway step. Unfortunately it’s non-functional because of deletions. WTF - why is it there? Evolution explains it brilliantly and beautifully. What’s the “design” explanation?

The fact that there phenomena we cannot yet explain does not constitute evidence for design at all. And re consciousness, a better question than how did the universe begin is how are we aware of it?

Maybe not “proof that a supernatural being designed the universe”, but it does seem like pretty strong proof that science isn’t all there is. And answering how we’re aware of it would also lead to the existence of a “god” of some sort, who had a hand in the making of conscious, moral humans in a world perfectly suited to them.

Uh... sorry, but this world is NOT perfectly suited for humans. First of all, it’s over 70% salt water. Second, if I dropped you naked in the middle of the Amazon, or the African Sahara, or the Arctic circle, or the Australian outback… how long do you think you’d survive on this planet that’s so perfectly suited for you? The only thing this world is perfectly suited for is diseases and parasites. They pretty much run the planet.

It’s perfectly suited for the entire ecosystem that humans live as a part of. Tell me, what would a world perfectly suited for humans be like in your opinion? I’m actually curious.

If morals are conventions, then where did those conventions come from, and why are most of them so universal across nearly all cultures, even ones with very limited contact with the outside world?

Morality didn’t “come from” anywhere. It’s inherent - we’re coded for it. And it’s not unique to us. Many other primates demonstrate morals, reciprocity, fairness, and protocols for reconciliation after disputes. Humans are social mammals that live in groups - we've been refining "right" and "wrong" for thousands of years by learning what it takes to maintain a civil society. Many of those lessons have been painful ones.

When you say “science isn’t all there is”, what else is there? What other method do we use to solve puzzles, answer questions, figure stuff out? Reading tea leaves? Astrology? The Feelies? Woo woo? Inventing gods to worship because we’re so bewildered by our surroundings? Throwing bones? How do we find answers?

@Piet Puk... Neither perfect nor very well designed, honestly. If “god” were an engineer, it’s doubtful he’d get hired anywhere. Examples of extremely poor design are widespread throughout biology, for example (including our own terribly designed bodies). The vast amount of vestigial traits, wastefulness, excess complexity and redundancy where simpler solutions could easily be applied... it’s not pretty. If you imagine a planet in your mind and wonder what life would look like if it were produced by the extremely messy process of evolutionary tinkering through adaptation… you’ll end up seeing exactly what we see here on Earth.

Why do you think our bodies are terribly designed? Could it be that maybe we’re just not meant to be using them the way we are, as in sitting all day, overloading with sugar, trying to make our lives less strenuous when in fact it’s often better to actually use our bodies?

@memyselfandI: No. Far too many examples to cite here, but I’ll give you one: The insides of our eyes are a complete mess. The retinas are backwards. Photo receptors point to the back of the head where there’s no light. For this work, photons have to push between all our backward facing cameras to reach the receptors at the other end (which are pointing at the dark). Because retinas are flipped the wrong way, we have blind spots in both eyes. Worse, the retinas don’t get enough blood. To compensate, blood vessels spread to the front of the eye, obscuring its vision (we can now laser burn some of these away to see better). This chronic lack of oxygen/flipped retina has led to the plague of eye issues and vision ailments we all know, none of which would exist if our retinas were oriented properly. No designer building an eye from scratch would piece together this disaster. Cephalopods independently evolved similar eyes with one exception: retinas face *toward* the light. They have high resolution vision we could only dream of. Octopus and squid don’t require glasses like half the human population.

“Look at the way the water fits in this puddle! The hole must have been intelligently designed!” - Bee

Ah, Douglas Adam's puddle analogy. A great way to illustrate the short-sigtedness of the 'perfect universe' theory.

@Bee... Except that everything doesn’t. Some organisms have structures that meet their needs, but are extremely clumsy and inefficient. The inner life of ruminants could’ve been made so much easier if they were designed with the right enzymes from the start - doing away with pointless multiple stomachs and ridiculously complex digestive routines. The bacteria rabbits require to break down cellulose is located at the end of their digestive tracts. It’s excreted along with valuable proteins. So they have no choice but to eat their own droppings. Problem solved: the proteins are metabolized, the supply of bacteria is kept up. From an evolutionary perspective, this is well understood. From the view of a designer, it is bizarre. Certainly an all-knowing designer could’ve come up with a more efficient (and less disgusting) way of getting the job done. I can go on…

If everything works well together, why are there floods, earthquakes, bush fires etc.?