Well, all ideas positing an answer to the question of where we came from takes some degree of faith, since we just weren't there to see it. And even in cases where one believes there to be massive evidence supporting their adopted idea of where we came from also exercise faith -- faith in the books we read and the people we trust.
For example, you haven't seen all the evidence yourself. But you've read about some in books and journal articles, and you've had professors assure you about the validity and truthfulness of some. All these require some faith.
For all you know, all the evidence for the current hypotheses of how we came to be could be hoaxes -- maybe the only difference between the famous skull/skeleton hoaxes and the bona fide evidence is that the bona fide evidences haven't yet been discovered to be hoaxes. Now I'm not saying that all evidence is just an undiscovered hoax, but even in your own mind, there is part of science you know and part that you only believe
By "ID" in the following text I mean to describe the study of any facts which appear to some to suggest, support, or require an intelligent designer.
ID isn't unscientific because it's based on faith, but rather because it looks at evidence which appears to support a non-natural first-cause, and the definition that most evolutionary scientists use to define "Science" dogmatically refuses as invalid any hypotheses which requires a super-natural first-cause -- regardless of how strong the evidence actually is, and regardless of whether the hypotheses is even possible.
But since it is possible that we came to be by intelligent design, if we find evidence that appears to support idea, we ought to be able to study it scientifically. If scientists were to go and see stone henge for the first time, they'd be rather foolish to not realize that intelligent design was a distinct possibility. They will be able to learn about how men built it a lot more easily then they will be able to figure out how nature did it -- since nature didn't do it!
It wouldn't matter how smart they were or how long they studied it, if they are trying to figure out how nature did it, they will always be wrong.
Now I agree that the direct empirical evidence of man's existence is much more obvious to us then is God's existence (although personally I cannot look down in my microscope then up at the night sky and imagine anything other then God creating it all) but there are cases when intelligent design is possible. And if it's true, we'll be forever wrong, trying to explain our existence by some other method.
So by dogmatically saying that any hypotheses which posits a super-natural first-cause is unscientific, regardless of whether the hypotheses is possible and regardless of any evidence, the results of science may find itself dwarfed
So why go on saying "Show me the evidence for ID" when we know, that by ID's very core idea (that there is an intelligent designer), evolution will, by its core dogma (that there was no super natural first cause) just disregard any evidence in support of ID? It would be easier to just say "Sorry, ID posits a supernatural first-cause and science doesn't allow for a super-natural first cause."
By the way, I haven't seen the movie.
So why does "science" have to exclude the study of something that is possible? Why not just let the evidence decide what's the best hypotheses? Why does there need to be a dogma in there if the evidence is so great?
Thanks,
-Jesse
Consider the "monolith" of 2001. This was tantamount to the discovery of an ID, and in the followups the Biblical analogy was made explicit, where a new directed creation process occurred on and around Jupiter.
In Sagan's CONTACT, evidence of God's Hand was found by the discovery of a message encoded in the digits of pi. This was deemed ridiculous by many, but the idea was that this would have to be the work of God, and not some alien.