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betty boop: "Here you impute to me a question I did not ask.
Not "insistently."
Not at all.
What on earth is going on here?"

Sorry, just trying to be brief.
But you certainly do insist that there are "questions" about evolution, "questions" which involve the idea of an Intelligent Designer (G*d), "questions" which boil down to: "does G*d control and guide the processes of evolution?"

Which, if you'll just give it a moment's thought, you'll realize boils down to: "Does G*d exist?"

Um, the question, 'Does God exist' is not inherent in the question, 'Does God guide, or did God design the process of evolution', because a Deist would be able to ask both questions without overlap. Here's what I mean: a Deist (like my long dead Grandfather) holds to the notion that God created the Universe and then stepped away from it to let it run, kind of like a watch maker makes a watch, winds it up and lets it run without constantly changing the position of the hands on the face or rewinding every few minutes.

But I think you've hit upon the essence of why this is often a heated discussion, this conflating of the theory of evolution and the existence of a Creator of it all!

You and I seem to agree on something fundamental to the discussions, that there is nothing about the process of evolution which precludes God having set it in motion. And nothing in the running of the process precludes the potter, er, I mean the Creator from intervening on special occasions, to perhaps cause a phase shift here and there, or add some aspect tot he Creation which The Creator had in the original design to be added when a crucial stage is reached int he unfolding evolutionary process.

A young earth creationist will argue against this notion because to sustain the YEC position requires excluding probably as many points of evidence which corrode the theory as a strict 'non-God impelled' evolution believer must ignore to continue a rigid hold on origin of the species. Neither of those positions is sensible, given that we do not near enough data points to prove either and therefore the position is held on faith or guess, or obstinance (Professor Dawkins as case in point).

Other than entertaining, these 'discussion' tend to expose internally for the readers points around which reality has yet to edit. I just return to the Biblical promise that 'God is, and He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.' It would be nice if we could have these discussions without becoming quite so personally agitated. And my friend bert is fond of pointing that out at our occasional lunches.

I did not ask the question, "Does God exist?" To me, it's an idiotic question, in that only an idiote or nabal would ask it. In the classical and biblical literatures, these terms refer to a person who falls away from Reality into a dream state where reason itself is held in contempt; and "the fool who says in his heart, 'There is no God'" respectively. The very question "Does God exist?" is an atheist's taunt to stir up theists. [And the atheist's very next statement will be, "Prove it!"] The question can only arise in a person who is spiritually closed.

Yet as Voltaire put it, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Go figure.

Or as Descartes argued, "the idea of God is the prior condition in the human mind for the possibility of any other idea, even that of the ego itself."

Heaven forfend, but I am referencing philosophy (and psychology) — again!!! We cannot have this!!!

If materialist science cannot handle a problem, then the problem does not exist. This seems to be the lesson you would teach us, BroJoeK.

You seem to hold the proposition that there is no design in nature, that all natural phenomena are what they are as the result of an endless train of accidents; that all causation emanates from within the 4D-spacetime natural world — even though a raft of mathematicians and physicists have already told us that there is no known source or cause of biological information arising in material nature. But that's okay, because Darwin's evolution theory is safely only about apparent design, not the real thing. Thus a "designer" — whoever or whatever — is not needed....

Or so goes the logic.

Just my two-cents' worth....