ID does nothing. It explains nothing. It is non-functional. It also fits no data points.
Look, this is really a side issue to what the OP discusses but… First, I am assuming you are talking about biology --- so you can say the same about the mindless mechanisms that the current evolutionary paradigm purports as an explanation for the diversity of intelligent life. Now, if you are able to see ID as an additional mechanism towards intelligent life, than, IMHO, I think it can be useful as it has in the past. For naturalistic science to claim authority it must show how natural occurrences alone account for everything. Science has somehow thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Current biology does study the designed functions in and of organisms as a given. But regardless, ID actually is a mechanism not limited to biology.