I won't bother to reprint your whole post. Just read it again yourself and you will clearly see that nothing more happened here other than the creation of a devise by INTELLIGENT DESIGN. The engineer had a goal in mind. He programmed the code to select with a GOAL in mind. Anything which did not advance toward the GOAL was deselected. Anything which advanced toward the GOAL, was selected. Intelligent Design, through and through! Design, Intent, Goal, Intervention, all directed by INTELLIGENCE. Next?
It was an evolutionary algorithm. The researcher did not directly do the selection - the algorithm did that. More explaination is found here: http://www.netscrap.com/netscrap_detail.cfm?scrap_id=73
It is unremarkable that a microprocessor can perform such a task--except in this case. Even though the circuit consists of only a small number of basic components, the researcher, Adrian Thompson, does not know how it works. He can't ask the designer because there wasn't one. Instead, the circuit evolved from a "primordial soup" of silicon components guided by the principles of genetic variation and survival of the fittest.
So no it wasn't intelligent design. The end solution was not known, and in fact is not understood. How can an intelligent designer not understand their own design huh?
This is exactly a design generated by an evolutionary process.
"Thompson's work is not aimless tinkering. His brand of evolution managed to construct a working circuit with fewer than one-tenth of the components that a human designer would have used."
That still does not negate the fact that an infinite combination of matter over an indefinite period of time could reasonably produce the proverbial monkey at typewriter striking the number 4-0-6.