You can't have a rational discussion with someone who denies the value of rational discussions.

That's not quite true. You can't use evidence to convince a machine that runs on anti-induction, but luckily humans are at least somewhat intuitively swayed by evidence, even when they claim not to be.

Not quite what I am saying.

I do believe in the truth of empirically reproducible results. However, other than stating facts I do not see how these results force me to believe in anything. It is my belief system or personal philosophy that makes me conclude a interpretation of those facts.

For example:

Evolution is seen by many people through the lens of materialism/atheism. That means that while studying evolution these people ASSUME the world has no creator and and is purely physical and closed system, free from anything super-natural....and so on.

In that way, any discovery in biology is treated in this interpretation and millions of dollars of research money is used to search for evidence in that way.

Something as so fundamental to us as consciousness and free will is ignored as illusion because it doesnt fit into these peoples world view of a purely mechanical universe. Where did they get this idea that the universe is purely mechanical and material?? NOT from science, it is from their personal philosophy or belief system. Everything in science is interpreted towards that end.

Those who believe in intelligent design also have their assumptions, and will look at evolution in that way. They will tend to be looking for evidence of a super natural involvement in biology, and dedicate their research dollars in that direction.

For you to accept the intelligent design bias and not see your bias is amazing.

Science is neutral, it is your belief system that interpretes these 'facts'. The real argument is in the varying philosophies, not in the actual data of science.

The consistent downvoting of your posts should give you some indication that your arguments are not going to be well received here. I don't intend to continue this discussion further for the following reasons:

• I don't believe you're here to genuinely arrive at truer beliefs. I think you're here to try and convert us.
• You did not answer the one direct question I asked you to answer (which, among other things, leads me to conclude the above.)
• Other people on this site are far more willing to refute your arguments and will do a better job, and have been doing so.
• I don't think you have enough background (have read enough of the sequences) in why I (or LW in general) believes what we believe for you and I to be able to have a conversation productive enough to be enjoyable to me. Most of the ensuing discussion would probably consist of me spending 15 minutes looking up exactly which of Eliezer's posts refuted the point you made in your most recent post, and linking you to it, at which point, you probably wouldn't read what I linked to anyway.

Yes, that's a good point. In the rank-and-file there's a lot lower acceptance of evolution in Islam. This undermines my point somewhat. I suppose one could point out the general lack of acceptance of science and more reactionary settings of a lot of Islam, or point out that anti-evolution sentiment is less major among prominent Muslim scholars and the like, but that's a much weaker argument, and wouldn't change the fact that my statement as stated is empirically false.

At this point, your argument really doesn't amount to anything other than apologetics. In this context, we've looked at every single thing that we know for sure is designed, and we can see simple common patterns (which moreover are patterns that make sense for designers to use). It is possible that you are missing part of the point so lets make it clear: most of what I've talked about above has nothing to do with "good" or "bad" design. Products that really suck (e.g. Windows ME) show the same basic patterns. The only one of the above that hits on the quality of the design is efficiency. Things like reuse are simply habits of design.

At this point, you are claiming that something is a philosophical presupposition, but even without that class of presupposition, we get the same result by simply looking at the designed objects around us. To then claim that no matter what we see it may or may not be designed makes the claim unfalsifiable.

To focus in on those sporadic examples of design that we do not understand and to leave everything else that seems so complicated and fine tuned for life is the ultimate example of how a philosophy is driving your view of science and the world around you.

They aren't sporadic examples, they are the entire tree of life. To use just one example from my list- we see essentially no examples of reuse of the same designs or parts of designs. And this is true not just for examples in specific body parts (such as the panda's thumb, or the mammalian eye) but for whole species. In isolated areas like Australia and Madagascar, species have filled nearly identical niches to the niches filled in much of the rest of the world, exactly as you'd expect from evolution, and not what we see human desigers do.

At that point, you have a deity who is not only making things not as a designer would be likely to make them, but you have a deity that is making things in a way that is actively deceptive. The deity has made life which down to the last detail looks old and evolved.

It may help to ask yourself what it would take for you to accept evolution. Is there any evidence that would do so? If not, the problems of philosophical presuppositions would seem to be if anything an issue of projection.