Ringo writes:
Science is the process of going from data to conclusions.
All that you are decribing here is "data analysis". Science involves data analysis, of course, but so do many endeavors outside the world of science. Science is much more than just data analysis!
The opposite would be to start with the conclusion and try to find data to confirm it.
Science is actually somewhere between the two extremes that you have described. Science proceeds by abduction; it starts with one or more theories (which could be viewed as "potential conclusions") and collects data in an attempt to prove one or more of these theories false. Hopefully one theory will be verified and will be tentatively concluded to be correct.
That's exactly what creationism and its bastard child ID do, the opposite of science.
I agree that creationism and ID are not science, but not for the reasons that you have given.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." — Albert Einstein
I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. — Erwin Schroedinger
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