[RightWingNilla]

Neither the TOE, nor ID, nor "the aliens dumped a zoo into the ocean" are stated in any way that I can see that would permit one to verify one over the other.

TOE says random mutations are the cause of diversity - and guess what you see when you look closely at the genomic structure of organisms? A jumbled, jury rigged mess that seems to work despite its woefully inefficient "design". IOW it looks like the culmination of a whole bunch of random events at the DNA level- unequal crossovers, duplications, substitutions, retrotranspositions, pseudogenes etc.

Now thats good enough for TOE. The observations fit the theory perfectly here. Can I completely rule out the possibility of an incompetent designer? I guess not. I would just rather not believe in such a thing.

[dark_lord]

TOE says random mutations are the cause of diversity - and guess what you see when you look closely at the genomic structure of organisms? A jumbled, jury rigged mess that seems to work despite its woefully inefficient "design". IOW it looks like the culmination of a whole bunch of random events at the DNA level- unequal crossovers, duplications, substitutions, retrotranspositions, pseudogenes etc. Now thats good enough for TOE. The observations fit the theory perfectly here.

Heh. Have you ever seen a software system that has been fixed, patched, enhanced, updated, upgraded, and modified over a period of thirty years? It has a name in the industry. Its called "spaghetti code". Hmmm. Sounds exactly like what you just described.

Can I completely rule out the possibility of an incompetent designer? I guess not. I would just rather not believe in such a thing.

But of course the system after 30 years hasn't really been "designed", now has it? It has instead been hacked, kludged, and munged. (Nicely descriptive words, aren't they?) Its amazing how much old software systems resemble nature.

[CobaltBlue]

I think of natural selection as being a variation on free will. God gave us the ability to screw up all by ourselves in order to be surprised by what turns out, pleasantly or not. He's enormously pleased by platypi. ;^)