[stremba]

First of all there is no such thing today as "Darwinism". Let's get that straight. The modern theory of evolution is not the same as Darwin's theory, and nobody looks at Darwin as an infallible source. Call it evolution, not Darwinism. Second of all, evolution doesn't inherently assume that there is no higher power. Evolution makes the procedural assumption (the same one made in all science) that supernatural phenomena are not necessary to explain observed data. This is called procedural materialism and it is an essential part of science, since there is no way to test a supernatural phenomenon. ID (or creationism which is what it really is) is perfectly compatible with evolution. Evolution assumes that at one time, life began. It starts with the first simple life form and explains how that simple single-celled developed to form the wide variety of organisms seen today. Nowhere in the theory is there a statement that "God doesn't exist." Evolution is neutral with respect to God because science can't say anything one way or another about the existence of God.

[Iris7]

I agree about 99% with you, Stremba, only calling "evolution", as you put it, weak on the "random variation" side and not the "natural selection" side.

Obviously something very remarkable is happening down on the biochemical scale. Deadly variations aren't the rule on this level as one would expect with random variation. Since one would expect so many, many more killing variations than surviving ones if truly "random" changes are occurring at a rate sufficient to produce the non-deadly variation we observe - surely you must agree with this - we are missing not a few, but nearly all of the puzzle, and are therefore theorizing in advance of the data.