The problem with ID is not its accuracy or non-accuracy.
It is that it is inapplicable. Unless and until you can walk up to some ID entity and say “light this candle/light bulb on command and every single time I command” then ID is a great thought experiment but of zero scientific applicability.
Think about gravity. We know THAT gravity exists. We know its properties. We even know that its properties can be altered by mass.
But we don’t know what CAUSES it or the underlying forces that creates it (thus TToG is less known that TToE). If we did, then we could probably have endless zero cost energy (since Gravity is a force and could be harnessed).
How could ID help us in understanding the TToG? Unless and until the Designer both introduced us and promised to behave the same way every time - FOREVER - we invoke Gravity, ID is just an interesting theological/philosophical concept).
A couple of points...or four.
1. The theory of ID doesn’t have to be true for the theory of evolution to be false. One or the other can be true or both can be false. Meyer has made a very strong case that Darwinian evolution does not explain known data. He made a pretty strong if not 100% persuasive case for ID. Maybe neither is right, and so we need to continue the search - that may be the most reasonable conclusion.
2. You keep getting stuck on the fact that we don’t know who or what the intelligent designer is or was. But that is not the focus of ID. ID merely states that given the facts we know about the origin of life and its evolution, intelligent design is by far the best explanation. It remains to be discovered, if possible, who or what the designer is. If SETI were to discover an “intelligent” signal from outer space, would it be not reasonable to infer that it was the result of some intelligent entity, even though we may never know who or what that entity is? How is that different from us discovering this incredible machinery called the cell that looks for all intent and purpose like it is intelligently designed and us not knowing who the designer is? In both cases, just because we don’t know yet (and may never know) who the designer is, doesn’t keep us from concluding that it was the result of intelligent design. Further, just because the designer in both cases is out of our reach, and thus we cannot “apply” it for our use and benefit, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. In other words, “applicability” to your utility is not a requirement for its existence. So you saying I can’t utilize it so it’s of no value to me doesn’t make it disappear from existence, even if it was in the past.
3. And as for applicability, the process of intelligent design happens every day. The computer you use is due to intelligent design, the clothes you wear are the result of intelligent design, the car you drive is from intelligent design and so on. The fact that we don’t know (yet) who was the designer of the code in the DNA and all its associated machinery, doesn’t preclude that it couldn’t have been designed, and it sure as hell it has all the characteristics of a very complex design.
4. How exactly is the theory of evolution “applicable”? What biological inventions have been made as the result of Darwin’s theory of evolution? Haven’t all the biological inventions have been made as the result of intelligent design (by man)?