How are the first cause and the design argument different?

These are two different religious arguments to justify faith. The First Cause argument attempts to prove there must be a God, because the world must have been created. The argument for Intelligent Design attempts to prove that living things were created by God. A variation on this is the attempt to prove that although life certainly appears to have evolved, each stage was predetermined by God. Both arguments are dismissed by research scientists because they do not fit the facts.

Interestingly, some of those who would deny the evidence of science insist that the answer is in the First Cause argument but others who would also deny the evidence of science challenge this as sophistry and back the design argument. However, even some of the arguments put forward for the design argument are examples of sophistry. Take, for example, the claim that D.M.S. Watson was a reluctant believer in evolution. D.M.S. Watson said, when the study of evolution was still in its infancy [1929: 'Adaptation' published in Nature], "Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or is supported by logically coherent arguments, but because it does fit all the facts of taxonomy, of Paleontology, and of geographical distribution, and because no alternative explanation is credible." After two pages of further discussion he went on to elucidate further: "If so, it will present a parallel to the theory of evolution itself, a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." As Watson stated, it is naturally true that no one had actually observed evolution taking place or that evolution could be proven by the application of philosophical argument, but it does fit all the facts in a way that no alternative hypothesis could. Unfortunately, some creationists have taken the two separate statements out of context, concatenated them and omitted what Watson was really saying, to create the impression that Watson, and by extension modern scientists, only accepted the theory of creation quite reluctantly.

Variations on the design argument, in the context of biblical creation and evolution theory, are presented at: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation