Evangelical Outpost has a good primer on plausibility structures, especially with respect to Intelligent Design versus naturalism:
Everything that we believe is filtered through our plausibility structure – a belief-forming apparatus that acts as a gatekeeper, letting in evidence that is matched against what we already consider to be possible... Plausibility structures can prevent us from forming beliefs that are inconsistent with experience and evidence. But they can also have a negative impact, preventing us from forming true beliefs about reality. This appears to be the case within a broad segment of modern science. By accepting a plausibility structure that is limited to purely naturalistic explanations, many in the scientific community have imposed self-limiting and irrational criteria for explaining reality.
The truly ironic thing is, Evolutionists cannot seem to recognize their assumption that the mere introduction of Intelligent Design into the study of Origins would require them to delve into the religious and moral implications of such an introduction. One of the points made here, with reference to the work of Stephen Mayer, is that science is perfectly capable of exploring Intelligent Design completely removed from any such implication.
