[ml1954]

Intelligent design can be studied and taught without resorting to human creation traditions and beliefs...

What's there to teach?

Since the fossil record shows a steady and continuous progression from simpler to more complex life over billions of years, the so-called Intelligent Designer must be very actively creating new species after new species over this time.

According to this "theory", every time a new species is created, the Intelligent Designer has done it.

And this is supposed to be more beleivable, or comparably believable, to evolution by natural selection? Not in my brain.

[Blueflag]

You have two discernible flaws (?) in your statement below. If not flaws, then two points with which I take issue --

"steady and continuous progression from simpler to more complex life over billions of years, the so-called Intelligent Designer must be very actively creating new species after new species over this time."

(1) "steady and coninuous." Ahem. Just a little disingenuous there? Over the billions of years there is a readily inferable 'evolution' of life, but I would hardly call the fossil record continuous, and certainly not contiguous. There are important and numerous gaps in the fossil record AND there are amazing shifts in the various genomes across Kingdoms all the way down to Genus that are really difficult to support via natural selection's historical evidenciary trail. You catch my drift -- the fossil trail and the genetic trail are not substantially steady, continuous or contiguous per the scientific method to reach a valid conclusion(s)from the data that all life evolved by "chance".

(2) "Intelligent Designer must be very actively creating new species after new species over this time."

He could be, or more correctly has put a set of processes in place that (like the laws of Physics) enable the metabolism of life to build out His design. Indeed God may have directly intervened to create hummingbirds, sea cucumbers or man. Or He may have just set it all in motion with a perfect, intelligent design.

I leave you with this final point -- if there is a God, then He has the power to do what He pleases. WHY must scientists be atheistic in their pursuits and thinking? Why can't science legitimately assume the existence of God and then work to understand His intelligent design?

Is it because, fundamentally, these scientists are atheists?

[Grig]

"And this is supposed to be more believable, or comparably believable, to evolution by natural selection? Not in my brain."

If in some distant future mankind was to 'terraform' some planet to make it earth-like, don't you think the ecosystem would be built up in stages, starting with the small and simple creatures at the bottom of the food chain and eventually working up to the the top? It would be the logical way to do it. Since then the fossil record shows that same kind of progression, why would be unthinkable to consider that there was a design behind it?

If human evolved, how is it that we evolved abilities that go far, far beyond what is required for survival? Can evolutionists map out a mutation by mutation progression from one species to another, with every mutation creating a superior life form, better able to survive than the previous?

Both theories require the exercise of faith in things that can not be pr oven.

[frgoff]

You teach what ID is, an explanation of observed phenomena that cannot be explained by classical neo-Darwinistic evolutionary theories.

ID occurred as a RESPONSE to OBSERVATIONS that COULD NOT be explained Darwinistically.

You teach what these observations are. You teach why Darwinistic models cannot explain them. You teach why, therefore, the idea of ID came about.

In other words, you teach it like you do the various theoretical modifications you find occuring in physics all the time.

[Buggman]

According to this "theory", every time a new species is created, the Intelligent Designer has done it.

Thank you for demonstrating that you don't understand ID in the least.