Teorias da Evolução dos animais e do homem (darwinismo)
       Teoria do Design Inteligente

 O design inteligente não nega a evolução, mas aponta para a possibilidade de um ato volitivo de um agente consciente, um designer

The theory of intelligent design does not reject “evolution” defined as “change over time” or even universal common ancestry, but it does challenge Darwin’s idea that the cause of major biological change and the appearance of design are entirely blind and undirected.
Nor does the theory seek to insert an irrelevant religious concept into biology. Intelligent design addresses a fundamental scientific question that has long been part of evolutionary biology: is design real or illusory? Indeed, part of what Darwin set out to explain was precisely the appearance of design. With current materialist evolutionary theories failing to explain many of the most striking appearances of design in Cambrian animals, including the presence of digital information as well as other complex adaptations, the possibility arises that these appearances of design may not be just appearances after all. The Darwinian formulation of evolutionary theory as opposed to the design hypothesis, coupled with the inability of neo-Darwinian and other materialist theories to explain the salient appearances of design, would seem to logically reopen the possibility of actual (otherwise apparent) design in the history of animal life.
Either life arose as a result of purely undirected material processes, or a guiding or designing intelligence played a role. Proponents of intelligent design favor the latter option and argue that living organisms appear designed because they really were designed. Proponents of design argue that living systems exhibit telltale indicators of prior intelligent activity that justify this claim, indicators that make intelligent design scientifically detectable from the evidence of the living world.
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In other words, our uniform experience of cause and effect shows that intelligent design is the only known cause of the origin of vast amounts of functionally specified digital information. It follows that the large infusion of such information into the Cambrian explosion points decisively to an intelligent cause.
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Thus, based on our current experience of the causal powers of various entities and a careful assessment of the effectiveness of various evolutionary mechanisms, we can infer intelligent design as the best explanation for the origin of the hierarchically organized layers of information necessary to build the animal forms that arose in the Cambrian period.
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Intelligent design theory can also help explain the sudden appearance of complex anatomical structures and animal body plans in the fossil record. ^[...] For this reason, the sudden appearance of new animal forms contradicts the expectations of most materialistic evolutionary theories. Neo-Darwinism, in particular, did not expect the sudden appearance of animal forms. As Darwin himself insisted, "Natura non facit saltum" ("Nature makes no leaps"). However, intelligent agents can act suddenly or discreetly in accordance with their powers of rational choice or volition, even if they do not always do so. Thus, the sudden appearance of Cambrian animals suggests at least the possibility of a volitional act by a conscious agent, a designer.
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However, the concern he raises about intelligent design theory not citing a mechanism still worries people. In fact, I get asked about this issue quite often. People will ask something like, "I can see your point about digital code providing evidence for intelligent design, but how exactly did the designing intelligence generate this information or organize matter to form cells or animals?" Or, "How did the intelligent designer you infer imprint his ideas on matter to form animals?" As Asher puts it, "How can a biological phenomenon, even if designed, simply exist without an actual mechanism?"
To help clarify things, several points need to be considered. First, intelligent design theory does not provide a mechanistic explanation of the origin of biological information or form, nor does it attempt to do so. Instead, it offers an alternative causal explanation involving a mental, rather than necessarily or exclusively material, cause for the origin of this reality. It attributes the origin of information in living organisms to thinking, rational activity of mind, not to a strictly material process or mechanism. This does not make it deficient as a materialist or mechanistic explanation. It makes it an alternative to such explanations. Proponents of intelligent design do not propose intelligent causes because they cannot think of a possible mechanistic explanation for the origin of form or information. They propose intelligent design because they think it provides a better, more causally adequate explanation for these realities. Given what we know from experience about the origin of information, materialist explanations are the deficient explanations.
There is a different context in which someone might want to ask about a mechanism. He or she might want to know by what means information, once originated, is transmitted to the world of matter. In our experience, intelligent agents, once they have generated information, often use material means to transmit that information.
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Although the theory of intelligent design infers that an intelligent cause played a role in shaping the history of life, it does not say how the intelligent cause affected matter. Nor does it have to.
There is a logical reason why we cannot, without more information, determine the mechanism or means by which the intelligent agent responsible for life imparted its design to matter. We can infer an intelligent cause from certain features of the physical world because we know that intelligence is a necessary cause, the only known cause, of those features. This allows us to retrospectively infer intelligence as a cause by observing its distinctive effects. However, we cannot establish a single scenario by describing how the intelligent agent responsible for life arranged or impressed its ideas on matter, because there are many different means by which an idea in the mind of an intelligent agent could be imparted or grounded in the physical world.
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But unlike strict Darwinian materialism and the New Atheism built upon it, intelligent design theory asserts the reality of a designer, a personal mind or intelligence behind life. This defense of design restores to Western thought the possibility that human life in particular may have a purpose or meaning beyond temporary material utility. It suggests the possibility that life may have been designed by an intelligent person, indeed, someone whom many would identify as God.
Unlike Francis Collins' theistic evolution, however, intelligent design theory does not seek to confine the activity of such an agency to the beginning of the universe, conveying the impression of a decidedly remote and impersonal deistic entity. Nor does it merely assert the existence of a creative intelligence behind life. It identifies and detects the activity of life's designer, and does so at different points in life's history, including the explosive display of creativity on display in the Cambrian event. The ability to detect design makes belief in an intelligent designer (or a creator, or God) not just a principle of faith, but something to which the evidence of nature bears witness. In short, it brings science and faith into true harmony.

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