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I want to point out that Intelligent Design, as described in the first post, is talking about the origin of life on Earth, whereas the theory of the big bang is referring to the origin of the universe, so it's sort of like comparing apples to origins (pun intended) to put them on the same footing. Accepting or denying the Big Bang doesn't need to have any bearing on whether or not one accepts or denies Intelligent Design.
However, in many people's mind it does. This is, I believe, due to the fact that most people who believe in Intelligent Design *actually* believe in a much more restrictive "biblical design" theory, and such people carry legions of unspoken assumptions along with the phrase "Intelligent Design".

I can flat out say that I do not believe in a 6000 year old universe, and that the theory of the Big Bang (theory being used in the more technical and exacting definition of a scientific theory-- as opposed to its everyday use) has a lot of evidence. The mathematical model that underlies this theory has a singularity in the distant past, and so breaks down. I believe that the universe was once of extremely limited volume and expanded outward rapidly, but I don't have any firm beliefs about what happened earlier than that.

As far as ID is concerned-- well it's possible, but I've yet to see anything that I would call evidence. I don't buy the argument of irreducible complexity, but that's mostly a matter of faith, and it's based in part upon a pattern I've observed that seems to work like this: Somebody says "this is an example of irreducible complexity" (for instance the eye), and then the scientific community responds (sometimes this takes years) with "no it's not"... and then they proceed to come up with a reasonable sets of guesses that the intermediate forms could take:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye
The section on the evolution of the eye talks about it. There are then counter arguments like this one in answers in genesis:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter10.asp
But most of the counter-arguments that I've read (such as the last one) rely primarily upon the use of faulty analogies. I find such arguments less than convincing.

I believe that all examples of "irreducible complexity" that are brough forward will go through a similar set of stages and eventually end in the "science has a reasonable set of intermediate forms" stage.

Demski's arguments on the other hand are more subtle, and I've only looked into a few of his papers. He seems to be making the argument that certain patterns found in nature are most likely evidence of an intelligent design. Possible. I don't yet have a good handle on his criterion for deciding such a thing. At the moment it seems as if he presupposes intelligent design and then his criterion is "designed" to find evidence of design.

Still, in all, I'm an evolutionist.

Since I'm explaining my position, I'd also like to explain how I see the gradations in the theories, so I would also like to draw attention to the distinction between the Theory of Evolution and the theories of biogenesis (the origin of life). Evolution is an observed fact. Speciation, in the laboratory has been observed. Whether evolution was the mechanism by which our current diverse set of life-forms developped is another question. I do believe the mechanism was evolution. The most compelling evidence to my mind arise from endogeneous retroviruses:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses

The creationist rebuttal is that retroviral implanting of DNA is NOT random, and so one would expect a large proportion of creatures to have similar DNA fragments in similar locations. This counter argument has yet to convince me for a variety of reasons (having to do with distribution of retroviruses-- consistency of the location of retrovirus fragments with the proposed evolutionary tree-- and a few other reasons), but their concerns shouldn't be ignored.

So... in short stretching back several billion years this is what I believe:
At some point the universe was extremely tiny and expanded outwards rapidly

The earth formed as part of a large scale process that took billions of years

At some point life appeared on earth (I don't have any firm beliefs about HOW this happened... possibly simple biological molecules formed on the earth, possibly panspermia, possible some other mechanism)

Life proceeded to evolve

Eventually we showed up

I just typed this reponse.

I'm with TheoKosyu on the other option thing. That's why I haven't posted in here.

And I'm also with grey wanderer on comparing Intelligent Design and the Big Bang being a more or less moot point.

First, I would like to say ID does not neccessarily mean God or any of that religious stuff. It simply mean someone or something out there had created the world as we know it. That someone or something is up to that individual's believes, it can be God, some unknown alien race, or even some kid playing Sim. =P

Second, if you want new options on the poll, please feel free to post some of these theories and have some supports for them. 3nodding

P.S. - Thanks grey wanderer for pointing out that ID does not neccessary contradict the Bing Bang theory. However, when people speak of the two, they tend to go against each other. Most people like to view ID as the theory of the creation of the whole universe. At least I was exposed to it that way.

Well, considering that ID is theology and not science, I'm gonna have to go with any other possibility.

Those are the only other theories I can think of at the moment as well, and the BB is much better supported in terms of evidence comparitively. TheoKosyu, please post what other theories you had in mind, and at least make a basic outline of them. Otherwise, there really seems to be no point to what you're saying...

There is a problem with you saying ID. You need to define it.

Honestly, this is the biggest problem facing people who want to argue about the subject. Just what does someone mean when they talk about ID?

It all comes down to what ID was created to do. Depending on your point of view, this was either to replace and strengthen the creationist movement, argue against evolution, or argue against methodological naturalism. In practice, it attempts and is used for all three of these.

I'm not going to cover the argument against evolution part here. That is for another day.

In order to strengthen the creationist movement, it uses science. Or at least, gives the appearance of using science. ID arguments tend to be a lot more sophisticated than your standard creationist ones, which tend to be older than a lot of the people using them today, and to have been debunked scientificialy just as long ago. As such, it stands, or maybe that should be stood, a far better chance of getting into the mainstream as scientific than the rather obviously religiously based creationism.

As an argument against methodological naturalism, it is an insistance that natural laws alone are not enough to explain the origin of man. Or maybe not the origin of complex life. Or maybe just life itself. Or the earth in its fortunate position in the solar system. Or the galaxy. Or the universe. At one of these points, you need to inject the supernatural, and you are now an ID advocate.

Actualy, for the purpose of the ID movement, it doesn't even have to be supernatural. As soon as you inject an inteligence into the development of man, you are an ID advocate. It is just inteligent design, not supernatural design. That inteligence is normaly thought to be supernatural, but for the longest time the insistance that it didn't have to be was a battle cry that attempted to wedge the idea into science.

When claiming someone to be supporting ID, the people making the claim only need to show that they believe in some form of creator, interferer or guiding inteligence. Virtualy anyone with theistic or deistic ideas falls in this catagory. ID, in this sense, includes everyone from theistic evolutionists to young earth creationists. People who have flatly contradictory views get lumped into what has become known as the Big Tent movement.

For this purpose, you can define the belief behind ID as being;
How many millions of beliefs can get lumped into that?

Today you will find YEC's putting forwards arguments based off of the work of people who accept the modern scientific ages of the universe. This is a form of the wedge strategy for such people; use the people closest to the scientific norm to gain acceptance, then slowly work till the extreme views can be brought in as well. Such a gently-gently approach seems doomed, particularly with recent developments, but the attempt has serious skewed the perception of what ID actualy is.

ID is so often used in the sense of the Big Tent term that the name has become meaningless. Something that can be applied to Ken Ham and Kent Hovind with equal accuracy is obviously a bankrupt and bunk term. Unless you use ID as a far more specific term for a particular scientific view, saying that someone 'believes ID' or 'accepts ID' says nothing about their actual beliefs. They could be a fundamental christian or a Raelian. They could even be an atheist who accepts the idea of inteligent, or directed, panspermia as possible (such as Crick).

You can have a specific scientific definition of ID, but not everyone will accept it. People from different areas of the tent will want to be included, and eventualy the definition has to be stretched out to fit the whole bunch again, other than those who reject the concept and who protest when they are lumped in by those who want to destroy their arguments against the movement.

In the end, the only specific term that ID can refer to is someone who supports the movement and its goals. The primary goal, at the moment at least, is changing science to allow supernatural answers to problems. In other words, to make the scientific method effectively bunk as a means of discovery, harmless towards religion and easy to manipulate towards political or social ends. This isn't truely a scientific, or even a philosophical stance, but a social one. It is a movement to change how the scientific society, and as an extension society as a whole, operates.

As for the big bang...

But something would have had to led to the creation of the aliens if they had made us... It makes me think of hitchikers guide... the whole earth as an experiment thing. I mean, yeah that could be a possibility, but it still doesn't answer the beginning of everything, including what created the "thing" that created us.