If one accepts your point, that doesn't justify the insults, the name calling, or the suppression. These discussions are rarely about data, analysis, or ideas. They are about calling people names and insulting those who disagree with you.
Theories do not finish the way they start. Ask questions, challenge the logic, give the theory time to respond and adapt. That's how theories, even bad ones, can move forward.
ID is a theory or a model. Maybe everyone who accepts it does not state it as such, but it is a model that explains some of the data better than some alternatives. All models are wrong. Some are useful. Suppressing a model because it might have a religious component is no better than supressing a model because it doesn't.
1. The first name calling on this thread occurred in post 3. And it wasn't the proponents of evolutionary theory who did it.
2. "Theories do not finish the way they start." Absolutely correct. That's why it is important to remember that the theory of Evolution itself has changed through the years.
3. "ID is a theory or a model." Absolutely INcorrect. At least insofar as the scientific definition of those words is concerned. At best, it is a hypothesis; one which has no way to experientially, or experimentally, test its viability.
If ID (as it is being talked about here) is a theory, which should be taught in school, so, too should we teach every other idea about our origins:
http://www.crystalinks.com/creation.html
And that goes right into the heart of ID. You say that
ID is a theory or a model.
For ID to be considered as a theory, there has to be hard facts that lead to it's construction. Sure, logic plays a role, but the logic must conform to the observables. Scientific theories are not simply thought experiments. The biggest problem is that there is no data for ID. None. Many others have asked for what facts exists that support ID and would lead to ID to be a logical conclusion. There has yet to be an answer by anyone on these threads.
ID also fails the logic test. ID assumes the universe was designed. But where did this design come from? It had to originate from something more complicated than our universe. But if, as ID claims, complexity is the yardstick of design, then the more complicated designer of our universe must be even more complicated and, by ID standards, must also have a designer. And that goes on and on and on forever. ID cannot explain the origins of the designer or design.
The other problem with ID as a theory is that it does not explain how the designer manipulates the universe in order to implement the planned design. What forces are used? How are they applied? How can they be recreated? ID offers no solution.
Another major point about a theory is that there has to be some test or challenge that can disprove it. Evolution is challengeable, but ID isn't.
Lastly, a scientific theory must make testable predictions. Again, evolution has done so on many, many occasions. How do you test ID? It doesn't have facts in order to give it weight and it does not offer any insight into future observations.
That's how theories, even bad ones, can move forward.
Bad theories don't move forward. THey are abandoned if they do not fit the facts. ID cannot be called a bad theory because, as I mentioned above, it has no facts for it to be constructed around. THe best that can be said about ID is that it is an attempt to fill in gaps in knowledge by assigning an unspecified agent as the responsible party. The problem is that, in the natural world, there is no objective way to distinguish natural processes from designed processes that appear natural.
There may well be an intelligent designer, but that is something that science cannot probe.
Overall, the only way ID can be accepted as science is to change the very meaning of science to include supernatural interference. That's what has most sciencentists howling mad. And the only way proponents of ID can get ID into science is through intellectual affermative action.