"The firewall should exist in the classroom, because ID is NOT a scientific theory."
Sorry, that really begs the question. I can look at any object on my desk and, based on any number of evidences, deduce that there was some sort of intelligent design that brought it into existence in the very form that I observe. Am I not allowed, in a fully rational way, to seek to understand and define the principles upon which I reach my conclusions. Am I not allowed then to hypothetically apply those principles to other things and create experiments to validate or disprove those principles. And if my experiments lead me to draw some theoretical conclusions about the wider world, why is that not scientific? After all, that is pretty much what scientists do every day.
I disagree. That is not a scientific conclusion, it's a philosophical conclusion. Both science and philosophy seek to explain the world, so just because you seek to explain the world through your observation and deduction does not make that scientific reasoning.
Am I not allowed, in a fully rational way, to seek to understand and define the principles upon which I reach my conclusions. Am I not allowed then to hypothetically apply those principles to other things and create experiments to validate or disprove those principles. And if my experiments lead me to draw some theoretical conclusions about the wider world, why is that not scientific? After all, that is pretty much what scientists do every day.
No, ID is not scientific because it is not capable of being disproven (among other things). Let me give an example that is not directly related to ID, but perhaps will shed some light on this discussion. A person came to college when I was student to argue for creationism. He went the whole 9 yards: the Universe is 6000 years old, etc. So I asked him: If the Earth is 6000 years old, why are there stars more than 6000 lightyears away? Now we can prove that using only two simple rules: the inverse square law of luminescence and trigonometry. This guy's answer was that the universe was created with the light already in place and traveling on it's way. In other words, God created the universe so as to make it appear older than 6000 years, but it really wasn't. Or to put it another way, here was a theory which could not be disproven because any proof against could be argued away on the basis of the creator making it appear just so.
ID cannot be disproven in the same way, because you can always argue that the creator is more subtle and clever than we previously thought. A scientist looks a mystery or complication with the Theory of Evolution and says, "Hmmm that's weird. Why would that be? Let me try to reason this out." He or she will study chemistry, biology, fossil records, celluar automatons, etc. etc. trying to find linkage, commanalties, etc. A mystery is an opportunity for learning something new, so scientific reasoning doesn't shy away from mysteries, it embraces them.
ID is entirely different. It shuts off further speculation. For example, you see something that you think is irreducibly complex and so you say, "aha that's proof that of ID. I'm done." A scientist will say, let me think harder about that, perhaps it's not irreducibly complex, perhaps it's just too complex for me to figure out today. And then tomorrow he or she turns the key and gets the answer. That's science.
So believe in it all you want, but don't try to claim it belongs in a science class - because it doesn't.