Is Intelligent Design Religion in the Guise of Science?

Intelligent Design is not religion in the guise of science. The term is self-explanatory and does not imply God or religion.Hijacking a self-explanatory term is different from inventing a new concept. "Do creationists use Intelligent Design to disguise their beliefs?", is a separate question.The investigation of whether nature has developed through design seems a scientific enough one to me.Whether it should be proposed in 'our' classrooms is a political question which I wouldn't comment on, not being from your country.

The intelligent designer/designers may be no different from the laws of nature. Both are intended to determine what shall be.Not knowing where the laws of nature came from has not caused science to throw them out. Why should the concept of intelligent design be any different?

Wouldn't a simple way to deal with this be to say, "if your theory is called intelligent design, then we will discuss intelligence and we will discuss design but we will not discuss theology"?Throwing the whole thing out looks like a convenient way of avoiding challenging questions about evolution.

I meant the intelligent designer need be no more divine than the laws of nature.See my reply to Modulous Message 15. It's easy to avoid semantics. Take the term "intelligent design" at its face value.

How did you arrive at this conclusion?

I am aware of the political games being played with regards intelligent design. I think the games are being played on both sides of the argument. Some scientist seem to prefer arguing against YEC (so much easier and much more fun), and promote the misuse of the term "intelligent design" to shoehorn into creationism, other theories involving design.The literal meaning of the term "intelligent design" is not teleology. All that is required for intelligent design is intelligence and design. I think some scientists welcome the confusion in the terminology as it makes their task of rejecting some awkward questions that much easier.

Scientists should be questioning the definition, not accepting it because "somebody said so". The reason they do accept it is to avoid debate. It allows them to be ambivalent about the term "intelligent design" and paint as creationism theories which are not.The infinite regression issue is not specific to intelligent design. The laws of nature have the same problem.

With that stance you've got an uphill struggle persuading a lot of people about the impartiality of your scientific methods.If a group of druids suddenly got together and tried to sell druidism as evolution, would it be acceptable to claim that 'drevolution proponentsuids' have 'admitted evolution = druidism' and therefore it is not science? If you did, I'd be just as suspicious of your motives as I am with your reaction to intelligent design.

I can see you are reacting to the questions of intelligence and design on the basis of where they came from, or who asked them, rather than their absolute content. That would not give scientists credibility in my opinion.

She said... Sounds like you may be suggesting she get "on message".There is little point debating the politics of a situation using technical references. If Molbiogirl's comment can morph into the opposite of what it says then her argument is a little too flexible for my liking. But political counter-strategy masquerading as scientific argument and rigour only appears as corrupted science.The fact that such a poison chalice as "intelligent design" even exists poses a fundamental question for science. It has chosen to pre-empt a theory for lack of confidence in scientific definition. It is as if science could be undermined by the ramifications of its own definition of intelligent design, and so accepts one which avoids the problems.