I think there’s a middle ground here. Instead of the randomness of natural selection or the “outside” influence of intelligent design, why can’t design be an inherent property within the system?
A long forgotten field of study called General Systems Theory started to wrestle with these issues before it became appropriated by certain government types with a different agenda. The objective of that field of study would span the various pin-headed objections on both sides.
GST is more in the spirit of math and physics, where it is believed that it is possible to describe, predict and control complex systems by discovering the right sets of mathematical equations. That, for example, a tantalizing clue came from finding that the same set of equations governed the activity of bees at the entrance to a hive and the movement of molecules at the air-liquid interface was the sort of thing they hoped to find more of in their research. But alas.
Then along came chaos theory some 20 years later. Some of its claims challenge ideas about general systems theory. They also challenge our more statist notions of God.
Also, the notion of control of human events by God that power controversy over ID are themselves pretty naive. Critics need to ask themselves just what they mean when they trash ID.
As for “inherent properties within a system”, John Von Neuman, late great Hungarian mathematician, made a similar proposal many years ago when he suggested that our ability to understand complex math is determined by our genetic and neural make up.
Anyway, my point is there is a lot that is ideologically simpatico with ID in mainstream academia. You just need to look for it.
ping