To all,

First off, I must make a correction to my second post to this thread.

Looking at it from my strictly layman’s point of view, for decades the term Darwinism was synonymous with the term Evolution, and, obviously, vice versa, and Creationism was an anti-Darwinism/Evolution religious belief you learned about in Church, at Sunday school, or during Religious Education classes at school
But now there is a new kid on the block: Intelligent Design (I.D.), but I am so used to regarding Darwinism and Evolution as one and the same, in my second post to this thread I mistakenly wrote, “Evolution or I.D.? For me, both are currently unproven.”
Of course, to allow for the fact that unlike Creationism, I.D. does not deny the existence of Evolution I should have written, “Darwinism or I.D.? For me, both are currently unproven.”

I have read the article Bernard posted above (and for which I thank him) but I have to be honest and say that because my knowledge of the science of Evolution has never risen above the glossy coffee-table-book level (I include The Blind Watchmaker in that category), I am not able to fully understand all that it says. However, a couple of lines have really captured my attention.
I quote, “Evolution is not the outcome of purely random processes; rather, there is a “selecting” process, which picks up adaptive combinations because they reproduce more effectively and thus become established populations. These adaptive combinations constitute, in turn, new levels of organization upon which the mutation (random) plus selection (non-random or directional) process again operates.” Unquote.
Now, to my unspecialised way of thinking this implies that Evolution has ‘a sense of purpose’, i.e. it knows what it is doing…
Then, further down the article appears, “Mutation and selection have jointly driven the marvellous process that, starting from microscopic organisms, has produced orchids, birds, and humans.”
You can see the question coming, can’t you? When, where, and, most important of all, how did those microscopic organisms come into being? How did something inanimate become animate?
Much as I’ve mentioned before, to prove that Life originated by Darwinian Evolution or Non-I.D. we are faced with the problem of spontaneously creating Life in a laboratory, which I think I’m right in saying is an impossibility because it is a contradiction in logic.

Moving on, from the contents of the variously authored posts to this thread and others that have touched on the subject of I.D. it appears to me that we would all get a better understanding of things if we could establish what is meant by I.D. I get the impression that some posters hold the view that it is nothing more than Creationism under a more, how shall I say, modern guise. Whereas to others it is a valid theory (with no connection with Religion) explaining many of the aspects of Evolution that Darwinism cannot explain (when I read that there are flaws in Darwinism I like to assume I am reading the truth).
I now find myself writing this under the impression that some people attack I.D. because they are failing to distinguish from Creationism. So, may I make the suggestion that those here who are opposed to I.D. inform those here who are not what they understand I.D. to be or mean.

One last point, I am acquainted with the Scientific Method and can see and happily accept the argument that I.D. is not strictly speaking a scientific theory. However, I do not see that this entirely negates it – unless, of course, one is confusing or paralleling I.D. with Creationism.

MJT