"Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc."
(Of Pandas And People as it was first drafted.)
"Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings."
(Of Pandas And People as it was eventually published.)
I don't see anything wrong with that since the word creation in this instance does not denote the scope of creationism. Rather, it is challenging the darwinian aspects of science.
Really it boils down to not advancing the teleological argument because it supposes a God/Creator/Designer/Intelligence in place of random, chance events.
If
nothing gets credit for the causation of the universe, then
something should also be allowed to be discussed as a philosophy of science as well.
There is a general belief that if you introduce intelligence in to the equation that we have now strayed from science right in to theology. But an intelligence does not have to presuppose any theological view.
Nor does the Designer have to be a God, god, gods, goddesses, aliens, bacteria, flying spaghetti monsters, etc, or anything else. Knowing the face of the Intelligence is secondary to knowing that something is intelligently designed.
If I came upon a computer, I wouldn't need to know who the manufacturer is in order to deduce that intellect of some kind was poured in to the computer. Its likewise with nature, I believe.
Creationism, by its very nature, has to conform to whatever theological text it presupposes; be it the Bible, the Qur'an, the Vedas, etc. ID does not seek to advance any religion. It seeks to state what seems obvious to any casual onlooker-- that life is not the product of farts in the solar wind.
“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake
™ Version 4.2