Intelligent Design

In my world Intelligent design is underwear that won't ride my butt crack, but in the "now" world it's a hot and heavy topical and valid discussion. I saw the last few minutes of an Intelligent Design discussion on Larry King and thankfully he had Deepak Chopra on as a guest to counter the bullshit that was flinging. Mr. Chopra has carried this discussion on to his Intent Blog. Good, thought provoking stuff.

How can whole systems appear all at once? The leap from reptile to bird is
proven by the fossil record. Yet this apparent step in evolution has many
simultaneous parts. It would seem that Nature, to our embarrassment, simply
struck upon a good idea, not a simple mutation. If you look at how a bird is
constructed, with hollow bones, toes elongated into wing bones, feet adapted to
clutching branches instead of running, etc., none of the mutations by themselves
give an advantage to survival, but taken altogether, they are a brilliant
creative leap. Nature takes such leaps all the time, and our attempt to reduce
them to bits of a jigsaw puzzle that just happened to fall into place to form a
beautifully designed picture seems faulty on the face of it. Why do we insist
that we are allowed to have brilliant ideas while Nature isn't?