Keith Devens .com

What is the "Theory of Intelligent Design"? Is there more to it than "God Some Intelligence did it."? If we assert that "Some Intelligence did it", what have we learned? How does this assertion help us to understand how life changes over time? What does it tell us about dealing with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or the risks associated with the introduction of genetically modified plants into the environment?

I'd like to see the lesson plan a Science teacher would use to teach Intelligent Design... I really would.

There is a science to "randomness". It's called chaos theory and explains how seemingly complex and random results can come from very simple systems. The smallest of variations in the inputs can yield extremely different outputs over time. It's already been shown that some natural systems are chaotic. Fractals are examples of very complex forms being created from very simple equations. I do agree that it does not exclude the possibility of intelligent design, however.

Mike:

You just completely missed the point of the above. The belief that life arose from nothing, through random processes, with no intentionality, is a religious belief. (Sensing calls it a "philosophical" or "ideological" one). IDers decide, based on the wonderous complexity of life, that it's more likely that there was intentionality involved in the creation of life, and that it's unlikely or impossible for life to have arisen through random processes. It gives you a different ideological starting point^[1], but it doesn't affect any of the examples you bring up.

David:

There is a science to "randomness". It's called chaos theory and explains how seemingly complex and random results can come from very simple systems.

Wrong. Chaos theory doesn't apply to randomness. It applies to deterministic systems in which, like you say, small variations in inputs can lead to large variations in outputs. The randomness is only apparent randonmess, completely unlike the actual randomness integral to all areas of the theory of evolution.

I think this introduction to Chaos theory is excellent (first result for "chaos theory" on Google). It begins this way:

The name "chaos theory" comes from the fact that the systems that the theory describes are apparently disordered, but chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order in apparently random data.

Invoking chaos theory doesn't do anything to address Sensing's points.

Wikipedia has a more technical definition of chaos theory:

Chaos theory, in mathematics and physics, deals with the behaviour of certain nonlinear dynamical systems that (under certain conditions) exhibit the phenomenon known as chaos, most famously characterised by sensitivity to initial conditions (see butterfly effect). Examples of such systems include the atmosphere, the solar system, plate tectonics, turbulent fluids, economies, and population growth.

Incidentally, I've never heard anyone try to apply chaos theory to evolution before. Though, Wolfram thinks his experiments with finite automata might have some bearing on the subject (and I disagree).

Footnotes:
[1]: though, ID scientists may do more, as if Behe is right he's proved it impossible that certain irreducibly complex systems could have evolved piecemeal, and if Spetner is right he's proved the chance of (creative) evolution is so statistically infinitesimal that it's not even worth talking about