I agree--- such algorithms demonstrate that applying the model of natural selection outside of biology and inside biology has usefulness. But IDers, as opposed to some Creationists, don't dispute that. But as anti-IDers, I think you should admit that design inferences of the sort used in ID have TONS of applications outside of biology, reverse engineering being just one example.
The question ID wants to answer in the affirmative is whether ID has application IN biology or cosmology. Even Daniel Dennett in his book "Kinds of Minds" admits that design inferences are useful in biology as heuristics.
I'm sure you've heard it before: archeology, SETI (whther the SETI people like it or not), data-mining and police detection all employ design inferences. In the case of each of these besides SETI, such inferences are uncontroversially justifiable because human beings constitute intelligent causes.
In the case of reverse engineering, the engineer looks at a natural artfact and acts as though it were designed, simple as that--- he uses the design inference as a useful heuristic.
Now, does the use of evolutionary algorithms as heuristic prove that "that naturally selective algorithms can yield organization and increased complexity in a system - contrary to what many critics of natural selection theory wrongly believe."
Although one might argue about the role of the human designer of the "pre evolutionary algorithm" I'd agree with you that they DO prove such algorithms can do just what you say.
But IDers don't claim that they can't--- what IDers claim is that SOME examples of complexity are irreducible and SOME are highly specified (which, granting the IDers their premises, is not the same thing as being highly complex)and that these bear the earmarks of purpose. In other words, the design inference is positive rather than negative. Think of Hillary and her "lucky" Cattle Futures pick. The design inference in this case is an inference to the best explantion. It does not eliminate the possiblity of Hillary having struck it rich through sheer dumb luck, but it does offer a more plausible hypothesis-- that she had inside information. It's the difference between shooting an arrow and painting a circle around it, and calling your shot, aiming at a target and hitting it dead center. In both cases, the odds were against hitting the place where the arrow eventually hit. But in the latter case, we can say that the archer had skill, just as we reasonably infer that Hillary had help.
It seems to me that self-organization types like Stuart Kauffman and Stephen ("A New Kind of Science") Wolfram have something not too different to say--- they just explain that purpose differently. One of the problems wih evolutiuonary algorithms serving as proof, contra Wolfram, for pre-biotic evolution,is that it's proven very hard to make them without building into them some form of pre-existing capacity for self-replication.
Of course, that's not to say it won't be done.
Today, what we have to worry about is not the evolution of man, but the evolution of machine i.e. the Cornell Skynet project: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May05/selfrep.ws.html
This claim has yet to be verified with scientific rigor; certainly many phenomena once thought "irreducible" have been found to have many elements where empirical methods have determined the presence of evolved traits (the vertebrate eye and blood-clotting cascade are two that come to mind). It seems to me a bad assumption to assume irreducibility in such systems. If IDers really have some honest research that can find this sort of thing out, they should submit it for professional peer review, to the ones who actually have proven expertise in the biological sciences. I can't really critique that sort of work either way - it's way outside my field of expertise.
ID may or may not be comparable to SETI (many here will argue it's not), but remember, SETI has never claimed to have found anything. IDers are free to look for what they want and submit their findings like anyone else - I would be quite fascinated if they actually did come up with something that met the rigorous standards of practical research.
My hunch (and it's only a hunch) that they won't find anything, though - if only because past experience has shown that God isn't in the practice of leaving 'secret messages' in nature that conclusively prove His existence; it seems quite apparent that He has left the assumption of His existence to faith and faith alone, and that natural laws are the most common tool He employs to enforce His will. I do believe that God did "intelligently design" the universe; I think it's also quite apparent that science doesn't have the ability to prove this, though. Time may prove me wrong, but I don't expect to see this happen in my lifetime.
No, they don't. The design inferences you presented in your post are based on a model of the designer (i.e. in most cases humans or in the case of SETI, aliens who are assumed to be similar to us).
ID on the other hand explicitly denies the need for a model of the alleged designer. They want to 'detect' design without knowing anything about the designer such as his limitations, his methods or motivations.
And that's the difference between ordinary design inferences and the "Intelligent Design Inference."