Okay, but I still don't get why it seems to be dismissed as lunacy. How long has it been around exactly? Surely not as long as Darwinian theory.
I would think conservatives would be interested at least in hearing options other than evolution. I'm not saying that ID is fact, but I'm willing to hear other theories.
The argument (if it looks designed, it must have had a designer) was the basis of Raimond Sebond's treatise on Natural Theology, which was published in the 1420's.
Intelligent design as a science (in the sense of having testable predictions subjected to experimentation) has never existed.