So who says we can't have meatyness on the offtopic board, eh?
From my perspective, Intelligent Design is basically Creationists trying to apply science to God's methods. That is, they're trying to find a more detailed description of the process of creation itself.

I'm a believer in evolution. I'm willing to accept that the human body - even though it looks like a remarkable piece of biological engineering, came about purely by chance (with the help of survival of the fittest). Over the course of billions of years, errors made when copying DNA have on occasion lead to improvements. These improvements have cascaded to create fully functional biological machines of great sophistication (although I do believe that lifeforms are more than biological machines - see here for more thoughts on the subject).

While we can use the fossil record and radiocarbon dating (or whatever other dating method is used) to measure the rate of evolution, it's only a rough guide and does not measure mutation-rates in depth (especially the useless mutations). One experiment that could be done is to build a self-contained colony of one species of rapidly multiplying animals that's large enough to avoid problems associated with inbreeding and expose them to increased levels of radiation. The rate of mutations (both useless and useful) could be measured over the course of several generations. If we have a record of how much radiation the Earth's surface was exposed to over the course of Earth's history, we could compare that with the increased radiation of the experiments to see if the rates of mutation match the rates of appearance and disappearance of species in the fossil-record. Personally, I don't approve this experiment because of the animal cruelty involved, although a very small number of lucky animals would have evolved into superior species. However, if we wait a couple of years, the science of Genetics might have advanced enough to be able to simulate this all on a computer, but if those religious zealots escalate their conflict, we may not have a couple of years to wait.

And finally, would a creator really want to create one of these?

As for religion, I believe it's just philosophy stapled to a culture. Some religions have similar philosophies but have appeared different because of the local culture that their believers were exposed to. For example, if you abstract Christianity, Judaism and Islam and strip away their culture, you end up with something similar. I also believe that although science and religion are two separate topics (the former being based on reasoning and proof and the latter being based on faith), faith in science is sort of like a religion. Unless you know everything there is to know about each and every branch of science, you just have to have faith that scientists aren't trying to pull a fast one on you. Atheists may really have a religion that's basically faith in science without them knowing it. One thing that they hope for is that the secret of biological immortality will be discovered before they die. There's no set timetable for innovations in biology - they just hope this one Holy Grail will be reached before they die.

@The Ginger Penguin
Here's a link for Flying Spaghetti Monster.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:48, Reply)