My own view of the "modern" ID "hypotheseis", is that it is creation sciences second retreat. They couldn't get The bible taught in schools at the exclusion of evolution, so they retreated to a position of trying to get both taught alongside each other. This hasn't worked, due to the separation of church & state, so they have removed God from the equation & come up with ID.
What are they left with? Certainly none of their original goals have been met. ID is spiritually empty, or so they would have us believe. The very essence of the creation movement has been sucked away by themselves in an attempt to get their beliefs taught in schools. But their beliefs are gone, if ID is the creation movements latest ploy, then they have failed in their original goal to promote christianity in schools at the expense of science. Any religion could put its own deity up as the ID.
John Paul claims ID doesn't require God, & as a result the separation of church & state argument is lifted, & so ID should be taught in schools. It is the proponents of IDs hope that it will pass this scrutiny, anyway. Unfortunately, if people don't believe in abiogenesis, & believe in the non-supernatural aspect of ID, they are kidding themselves. If life on earth was the product of extant alien life, then who made them? At some point, if abiogenesis is not to be involved, then a God ultimately created life. This may be the creation movements last hope in this respect. ID doesn't require God, but when it's taught, they can infer that it does. A trojan horse argument, if you will.
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.
™ Version 4.2