I find myself in full agreement with the basic presupposition of Intelligent Design (ID): that a world in which an intelligent agent has acted might be expected to be different to a world in which no such intelligent agent has acted, and that the methods of science (i.e., empirical enquiry) might be a useful tool in investigating this. Most obviously, a world according to the Bible's history (understood fairly literally) would have many differences to a world in which God doesn't exist, and by looking at the world in which we live we might be able to tell which world it is.

This is all plainly obvious. A consequence of this is that science shouldn't claim to be restricted by definition to natural things. That's a stupid definition of science, and one that hinders empirical enquiry.

But what frustrates me about the ID movement is that its proponents seem determined not to say this. Yes, they say, science can be used to point to a designer in some vague sense, but no, science cannot tell us anything about the identity and nature of that designer. I can't make any sense of that.

The only reason I can think of to take that sort of position is in the context of bizarre political restrictions about what can or cannot be discussed in certain specific contexts. But more about that later…