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If a software programmer were to examine Windows XP and make predictions about an earlier iteration of Windows, would this prove the program has evolved by itself (without intelligent influence). We are well aware that the programmers at Microsoft pale in comparison to the program of bio-diversity, with it's ability for self-replication, self-repair, sophisticated error correction, redundant methods of insuring viability...

The only reliable observation that we can base a theory on is the fact that life is adaptable to the environment. However the evidence points to the fact that these adaptations were already written into the code.

Take a callous for example. We normally don't have callouses. We only develop these protective coverings when the environment warrants it. After the environment no longer warrants the callous, our pre-programming allows those genetic traits to turn off. Finch beaks are the same.

There has been no success in creating a new species, even with our intelligent programing influence, which I can assure you holds more sophistication than 50 billion years of Random Mutations & Natural Selection. We are talking about one species change, not millions that would be required for RMNS + time. Reconsider your perspective by considering what the scientists data is, rather than what they interpret it to be.

The Intelligent Design science is making strong headway into perspective change.

If a software programmer were to examine Windows XP and make predictions about an earlier iteration of Windows, would this prove the program has evolved by itself (without intelligent influence).

Actually XP has evolved, and some would say without intelligent influence.

The current form of Windows is the result of marketlace selection rather than intelligent design. What you don't seem capable of understanding is that the source of change (whether random, lawful, planned,or the result of devine intervention) doesn't matter. What matters is selection, which determines which changes survive. The rules of selection continue to operate even if variation is "intelligently" planned.

As a conservative, you accept that economies cannot be successfully planned, you know that wealth cannot be "intelligently" distributed, you know that you cannot predict the marketplace in detail.

But somehow you believe that a designer (who for political reasons, absolutely cannot be identified as God) can plan the whole intricate web of life, with all its interactions.

If you believe it was done by God in one poof, fine. But short of this, there is no way that life can be designed without the operation of selection. Just as Windows could not have reached its present form in one poof.

If a software programmer were to examine Windows XP and make predictions about an earlier iteration of Windows, would this prove the program has evolved by itself (without intelligent influence).

No. However, we could reasonably surmise that the code had indeed gone through several iterations/version, and wasn't simply poofed into existence. From analysis of the existing code and code from previous eras, we could also reasonably surmise that Windows XP, Linux, and FreeBSD all have a common ancestor in Berkeley BSD.