You're both quibbling. ID seeks to establish an "ultimate cause" behind biological processes, something that is not provable and which evolution theory has never attempted to do. It's proponents are universally antievolutionists. If ID advocates were willing to acknowledge that the "designer" could very well have used evolution to bring about biological diversity, then they would be intellectually honest. But that is not the case. ID proponents are making an assault on evolution theory, pure and simple. So if not exactly "creationism", it is disguised assault on science by many who are creationists, and it is a nationwide assault. Kansas is just one battleground.
id ISN'T necessarily deism. It just states that the laws
of nature as we see them are not creative enough to form
the complex life forms currently observed in the course
of their actions. Therefore, some
outside agency(or intelligence) was necessary.
It can be empirically observed that mixing up a batch of
chemicals in a haphazard way doesn't create life as we
know it. It takes someone who knows how chemicals work, and
how physics works, to create a mix of chemicals that will
produce life(without ANY outside influence)But once one sets
up a system, the "natural, uninterference" concept is gone.
One can only set up a system that mimics what one believes
was the original conditions on earth (or another planet-oid,etc body in the universe) and see if that in any way
leads to life(using random,natural,non-interfered-with) processes. I believe Pasteur showed that life comes
from life in his early experiments. The common belief we see
nowadays that life comes from unlife has not been
proven empirically yet(at least without some outside
influence--which could mean a womb,egg,seed etc)
ID doesn't posit that a Superior Being or beings as taught in many religions is the CREATOR(i.e. Jehovah, Allah, etc.)
I guess ID would admit that if a man could create life,
he would be a "creator" of life. But their argument would be
the same, (i.e. it takes an intelligence to create life, and
that random physical processes don't)