ID is not creationism

Everyone who wants a philosophical discussion of ID(intelligent design) should go to Thinking Christian. I really respect Tom Gilson's wisdom and patience in talking about this subject, especially considering how excited people tend to get. He is in general much more coherent than I am, these are just some thoughts I've had in reading comments about this debate.

I just wanted to address something that has been confusing me for a while. Often when people are talking about ID they say something like "It's just creationism" or "It's creationism dressed up to be more palatable for the general public." Here's the definition of creationism from answers.com:

Belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible.

Here's a definition of intelligent design (I think from the Discovery Institute):

certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection

Here's what I don't understand. If ID were proven correct, it would not prove creationism. Creationism implies the God of the Bible, creating in the way Genesis implies (separate species, that order, some people saying 6000 years ago in 6 24 hour periods, no macro-evolution,). ID just implies some intelligence but says nothing about how it was done, who did it, and what happened after that intelligent cause.

The reasons many people give for confounding ID and creationism seem to be:

• the ID movement sprang from creationist sources (the textbook with "creationism" changed to "ID", for example)
  
• many ID supporters are also religious
• ID is not science, therefore it must be religious.
  

Of the three reasons, only the last holds any water at all, although many people who have studied ID and the philosophy of science say that ID is possibly a science but is certainly not being given a chance. The first two imply that all science performed before this century is suspect, since the motivation for studying the earth was inherently creationist, and the scientists were overwhelmingly religious.

It seems to me that the two are the same only if you define creationism and ID using circular reasoning. According to the definitions above, they are related but not the same.

Another thing I don't understand is that people say that ID proponents are trying to get their fake science taught in schools. From what I have read, most of the proponents are trying to get the difficulties in evolutionary theory taught in schools. Why would this be a problem for evolutionists? It seems to me that presenting the difficulties might even inspire a budding scientist (sort of the way I was inspired by the idea of the "missing link:" Wouldn't it be cool to be the one to find it!) When evolutionists say that ID is just a way to get religion into schools, they are worse than creationists who say that evolution is just a way to get atheism into schools, since Dawkins for example explicitly says the latter, while ID supporters deny the former.

Many people seem to imply that if you support ID, you are somehow denying that evolution ever takes place. Then they talk about viruses, or finch beaks, or some such thing that obviously has taken place, and say that the ID proponent is an idiot. Here's the truth: many people who support ID (and in fact, many creationists) do not deny these types of evolution.

I personally have no trouble accepting evolution as it has been studied. However, the evolution supporters have not shown (and cannot show) that God did not create the world. They cannot prove through scientific means the idea of Philosophical Materialism, which says that matter is all that exists.

I would be happy if PM were gotten out of the schools, and if there were a statement that while science studies only material things, (scientific materialism), it cannot make any statements about the existence of something in addition to matter. I wonder if the combatants in this debate would be satisfied with this. Probably not.