It's fascinating to read about the kansas school board's decision to include greater criticim of the theory of evolution in its school science standards. This has given rise to some harsh criticism from the scientific community and some extremely humorous parodies of Intelligent Design including the compelling theory of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (FSM). FSM is the theory that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created us in HIS infinite wisdom and can alter all scientific experiments and measurements to make it appear that he doesn't exist using "his noodly appendage". Like all good religions it's got a great merchandising department with t-shirts, mugs etc.
What's really interesting here is that Intelligent Design is being dismissed as "religion" when it probably should correctly be embraced as another valid scientific movement concerned with understanding the deeper questions of origin science. The manner of its inclusion in any school curriculum should be limited as it requires greater scientific study but it's unfair to say that criticism of evolution shouldn't be allowed. However, just to upset things further it's entirely possible that evolution and intelligent design are complimentary theories where evolution is a set of processes initiated by a focussed organism for some as yet unknown purpose. . It's just a theory, like FSM-ism :-)
Many of ID's proponents are religious but it does seem reasonable to explore the possibility of intelligent direction in the creation or evolution of life on this or any other planet. It seems like a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The political tensions in the US between conservatives and moderates, republican and democrat are creating an environment where it is near impossible to engage in a rational and objective discussion of any deeper moral or philisophical issue without being pigeon-holed as right-wing religious zealot or a leftie atheist.