The claim is softer in principle -- it is an "overwhelming likelihood" claim, not a "to a mathematical perfection" claim. Again let us avoid creating strawmen. It's the kind of claim analogous to how I might state "I will not win the Powerball lottery" even though, in fact, I have bought a ticket to that lottery and so could theoretically win it.
I understand the point you're making. My statement of the ID hypothesis was a deliberate attempt to avoid what you're saying.
As I see it, singling out a curious biological feature, and trying to identify how it might have evolved, is a good PhD project for a biology student. Indeed, this is exactly the sort of thing Darwin did, for example, with the eye. He highlighted it, and then he proceed to search for (and find) earlier steps along the way, leading to eyes as we know them. This is how science works -- (a) focus on an apparent anomaly, and then (b) investigate it. But too much of what I observe from the supporters of ID involves only the first part -- pointing to an apparent anomaly. They leave out part "b" entirely, electing instead to leap to a possibly unwarranted conclusion.