[Argonavis (William)]

I think the ID thread was seriously OT and should have been moved some time ago, but it did generate a bit of discussion.

Where ID is coming from is to see the creation and evolution as too preposterious to be an accident, so it must have been designed. Both are wrong. Th univese is not an accident. It evoluted following known physical laws without any outside intervention, or at least all the evidence points this way.

The organic chemistry in the interstellar medium, the miller-urey experiment that created amino acids from some fairly basic chemistry would all indicate that the chemistry of life can self assemble and replicate. There is now a substantial body of science on this. Precisely how is still a problem, but it needs a scientific approach of falsifiable hypothesis and experimentation to find this out. Belief will not help.

The diversity of life and the winnowing impact of natural selection directs evolution in certain directions. Again, it is not an accident. Convergent evolution of different species has been proved, and there is documentation of how some species have changed and evolved both during historical times and through the fossil record. That is why creationists spend so much time and money on trying to "disprove" the fossil record. Viruses, with thier short generations, evolve in response to natural selection. Bird Flu, anyone?

The mechanisms of evolution have been observed. It is a very small step to assume that this accounts for our own origins.