The consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that 'intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life,' are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their own. The National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science say it is pseudoscience; others have concurred or termed it junk science.
 
The use of the term "intelligent design" began in response to a 1987 United States Supreme Court ruling involving constitutional separation of church and state. Its first significant published use was in a 1989 textbook intended for high-school biology classes. The following year a small group of proponents formed the Discovery Institute and began advocating the inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula. The "intelligent design movement" grew increasingly visible in the 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in a 2005 trial challenging its intended use in public school science classes—the "Dover trial." In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a group of parents of high-school students challenged a public school district requirement for teachers to present intelligent design in biology classes as an alternative "explanation of the origin of life". U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and concluded that the school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States" —Wikipedia
 

  
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Origin Views — Creation/Evolution Comparison Chart
 

 
Editor's Note:  Intelligent design (ID or IDM) began as a movement in the early 1990's.  Many people consider it to be an 'academic' version of Creationism, intended to bring Creationism into schools and mainstream science.  It has been labeled Creationism 2.0, or 'Creationism in disguise,' as if Christians wink when we say 'intelligent designer' and really mean God.    
 
Having said that, (as a former Young-Earth Creationist), I should admit that I had the greatest hopes, along with millions of other Christians, who believed Intelligent Design would actually be the answer we'd been hoping for - to legitimize Creationism in the eyes of the world.  To some extent, it has worked. 
 
But the end result may be the same as YEC.  Since most ID proponents are against evolution (and theistic evolution), mounting evidence in favor of evolution will only add to the polarization between Christian believers and the world of science.  Thus creating more disillusioned Christians who may suddenly conclude the Bible is a lie, when science seems to disprove what they believed was true and based on Scripture.
  
To a degree, theistic evolution can be considered a cousin of Intelligent Design, since theistic evolutionists believe God was ultimately responsible for the world and all living things coming into being.  Theistic evolutionists simply do not claim to disprove 'natural selection,' since there is currently little evidence for doing so.  God may, in fact, have programmed the entire process into the 'Big Bang' from before the world began.
  
IF BELIEVING THAT GOD IS ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR BRINGING THE UNIVERSE AND ALL OF LIFE INTO BEING, REGARDLESS OF WHAT MECHANISM WAS USED, EVOLUTION OR OTHERWISE — IS BELIEVING IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN — THEN TO THAT EXTENT, I DO.
 
HOWEVER, I BELIEVE IT IS SCIENTIFICALLY UNPROVABLE.  TRYING TO PROVE INTELLIGENT DESIGN SCIENTIFICALLY, OR BY VIRTUE OF MATHEMATICAL IMPROBABILITIES, ACCOMPLISHES LITTLE OR NOTHING.  IN FACT, IT DRIVES THE WEDGE FURTHER BETWEEN SCIENCE AND FAITH, LEADING MANY TO REJECT CHRISTIANITY ALTOGETHER. 
  
ALTHOUGH, WHAT APPEARS AS 'RANDOM' TO SCIENCE MAY NOT BE CONSIDERED RANDOM TO THE MIND OF GOD.  GOD MAY HAVE SPOKEN THE UNIVERSE INTO EXISTENCE, COMPLETE WITH ORDER, SYSTEMS, AND NATURAL LAWS, EITHER WITH THE 'SEEDS OF LIFE' PROGRAMMED INTO THE BIG BANG — CAUSING LIFE AND EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES TO BEGIN; OR PERHAPS THROUGH SPECIAL ACTS OF CREATION INTERMITTENTLY, OVER LONG PERIODS OF TIME.   
    

 
"The term "intelligent design" came into published use after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 1987 in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard that requiring teaching of "creation science" alongside evolution was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution which prohibits state aid to religion. In the Edwards case, the Supreme Court had also held that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction." In drafts of the 1989 high-school-level textbook Of Pandas and People, almost all derivations of "creation-", such as "creationism", were replaced with the words "intelligent design". In the 1990s the term "intelligent design" became increasingly used by advocates of teaching a creation-based alternative to evolution, particularly in the United States.

Intelligent design is presented as an alternative to natural explanations for the development of life. It stands in opposition to conventional biological science, which relies on the scientific method to explain life through observable processes such as mutation and natural selection. However, intelligent design has no scientific evidence published in peer-reviewed scientific journals or similar to support it.

The stated purpose of intelligent design is to investigate whether or not existing empirical evidence implies that life on Earth must have been designed by an intelligent agent or agents. William A. Dembski, one of intelligent design's leading proponents, has stated that the fundamental claim of intelligent design is that "there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence." In the leaked Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document however, the supporters of the movement were told, "We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design. Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
 
Proponents of intelligent design look for evidence of what they term "signs of intelligence": physical properties of an object that point to a designer (see: teleological argument). For example, if an archeologist finds a statue made of stone in a field, he may, ID proponents argue, justifiably conclude that the statue was designed and then reasonably seek to identify the statue's designer. He would not, however, be justified in making the same claim if he found an irregularly shaped boulder of the same size. Design proponents argue that living systems show great complexity, from which they infer that some aspects of life have been designed.

Intelligent design proponents say that although evidence pointing to the nature of an "intelligent cause or agent" may not be directly observable, its effects on nature can be detected. Dembski, in Signs of Intelligence, states: "Proponents of intelligent design regard it as a scientific research program that investigates the effects of intelligent causes. Note that intelligent design studies the effects of intelligent causes and not intelligent causes per se." In his view, one cannot test for the identity of influences exterior to a closed system from within, so questions concerning the identity of a designer fall outside the realm of the concept. However, no rigorous test that can identify these effects has yet been proposed. —Wikipedia

  
MUST READ:
   
Origin Views — Creation/Evolution Comparison Chart