OK, I've been somewhat hyperbolic in describing the ID claims,
but I think perhaps you're being a bit elliptic. If all ID amounted to
was what you describe, it would get about the amount of attention
Crick's directed panspermia does (or perhaps less since he's got a Nobel
Prize). The reason ID has come to be seen as such a crusade, with its
own journal, conferences, &c, is its use as a natural theology argument.
Various fundamentalists, responding to things I've written about
evolution, have referred me to _Darwin on Trial_. One even sent me a
copy! They wouldn't do that if it were just a matter of some neutral
"intelligent agent". Why would _Christianity Today_ et al care if the
theoretical possibility of some "intelligent agent", who might even be
"supernatural", were the issue?
Perhaps you'll say I can't blame ID writers for the use made of
their ideas. I'm not really concerned about "blame", or (directly)
about what ideas are currently hot in academia. My primary
responsibility is as a pastor (which includes theologian) in the Church,
& I see the ID movement as dangerous to the Church in at least a couple
of ways:
1) It points people off onto the track of independent natural
theology which can (though it doesn't have to) diverge widely from
catholic and evangelical Christianity, and
2) it gives conservative Christians an excuse, which they are
all too ready to snap us, to avoid serious theological engagement with
biological evolution.
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@imperium.net
http://www.imperium.net/~gmurphy