While I also admire the idealism of tolerance towards religion - especially if it teaches useful moral values - but what has this to do with the nature of the physical world and the changes that occur in it?

Essentially, the problem with any believed religious text is that its indoctrinated followers of its sacred words cannot really deviate AT ALL from its basic precepts - unless you are willing to be labelled a heretic. ID'ers have absolutely no choice but to "stick like glue" to their religious beliefs - without any wavering, questioning or compromising - else they have to abandon the basis of heir faith and look for something else with better or more useful meaning to them.

In science all fundamental or considered theories are up for grabs, and can be shattered if sufficient evidence can be mounted against it.

To compare these two views, let's take a silly but useful example.

Premise : Gravity always makes something fall to the ground

But what if it once did the exact opposite, and rose into the air? If this happens, do you just throw out all your gravitational laws of physics deduce from Einstein to Newton?

If any religious or firm ID'er mind - does not this amazing "miracle event" simply reinforce your faith - again directly proving the existence of God (or the aliens) - proving his absolute mastery over the laws of nature? The question remains; How do you decide if this is a true "miracle" or an unknown quirk of the laws of nature that you just don't understand?

On the other hand, if you use science - there are at least logical steps to solve it.

You would first investigate the phenomena. Usually, this would be done in two simultaneous ways. First you would design experiment(s) to reproduce or observe the event again, while considering what situation would cause you laws to deviate then formulate new ideas - using other tools like maths or other physically observed laws and precepts - to explain the actual observations.

You may fail many times. You might find the reason, then produce a modified "law of gravitation" to explain it. You might never see gravity do this again - but at least you have made a logical and realistic means of explaining how the world behaves and works.

This is the basis of the so-called scientific method - based on the philosophy known as reductionism. (Looking at something, then inspect the components to explain how it works.)

In the end, in fact really all science is based on many many different theories, which are never really absolute. We know gravity has always caused things to drop to the ground - and it is for this reason - that we can use the theory of gravitation with much certainty without any fear that something contrary to it will unexpectedly happen.

The one thing the ID'ers miss is that science is about a logical methodology of learning how the world works, then applying this knowledge to our lives.
The reason you teach science so people can learn the rules of the scientific method, and if they are clever enough or lucky enough, use their abilities to find another way of explaining how the world works. In turn, this knowledge can be used for invention - via applied science - and advance technology for the benefit of others.

The real evil of ID is that it has NO methodology to prove or disprove anything. All it has is a series of premises or calverts which it believes to be true - not based on any known scientific theory - but from their personal or collective "faith" of interpretation of words written in some revered religious text.

In summary;

• All ID is designed for is one main purpose, that is, to attempt to prove God's existence via the complexity of the world.
  
• Science is only explaining this same complexity by is attempting to understand how the physical world works by experimentation and developing our theories of the world into knowledge.
  
• These two incomparable views are like day and night - totally separate
  from each other.

So the bottom line is that God may or may not exist. Whether you believe or not is based solely on having "faith" in the kind of world-view you have exposed too. Regardless, being an ID'er or "Evolutionist, if this makes you feel happier or better about yourself, then good luck to you.