Is intelligent design science?

As the Kansas school board drama unfolds, and as the discussion has been heating up over at Gene Expression, I thought I'd say a few words about the role of intelligent design in education. I am personally an atheist/agnostic, though I have no objection to religion per se (unless its beliefs are forced on me by way of the law). Most importantly, I think it makes sense to seriously consider what the drive to push ID into the science curriculum says about the status of science and religion in our culture.

Religions are also known as "faiths" for a reason-they all at some point require that followers accept certain tenets as truth without any proof of their validity except for ancient texts of uncertain origin. Intelligent design is one of them. Even more important than the fact that ID is not observable by scientific experiment is the fact that it is a worthless predictive tool. There are no ID-based methods to, for instance, determine what role a gene may play in the development of a particular disease. However, biologists routinely use evolution-based methods to extrapolate genetic information from other species to humans, as well as between genes within a species. Teaching intelligent design in a biology class does nothing to prepare students for future research, it only tells a story that some people would like to believe. It would seem that ID activists should try to pass their theory off as such as story. However, the fact that they try to pass it off as science suggests that they don't understand or don't care why science is taught in the first place-it allows the prediction and explanation of new phenomena-and by that standard ID does not belong in a science curriculum. However, the ID activists are eager to capitalize on the great (and technologically useful) achievements of science to elevate the status of their teachings.