Intelligent design, despite its proponents’ claims to the contrary, isn’t modern science. It’s part of that rebellion against it. Scientists look for natural explanations for natural phenomena. Their best explanations, if they survive rigorous testing, become scientific theories.
Intelligent design, in contrast, is a critique of all that. Its proponents may challenge the sufficiency of evolutionary explanations for the origin of species but they have not — and cannot — offer testable alternative explanations. The best they can offer is the premise that, if no natural explanation suffices, then God must have done it. Maybe God did do it, but if so, it’s beyond science.
I highly recommend Larson’s book on the Scopes Trial, A Summer for the Gods. And he and I did this video for Court TV. Some Scopes Trial background (which, like Larson’s book, demonstrates that Inherit the Wind doesn’t really tell the story) can be found here, courtesy of Jim Lindgren.