The following post is from Creationism and Baraminology Research News, written by Crevo (who has recently become a contributer at William Dembski's Intelligent Design blog, under the more biographical web name "johnnyb").  In it, he discusses the fundamental differences between Creationism and ID, and takes a stab at why the two groups are not always friendly.  A thoughtful analysis of a controversial issue.  I raise a couple questions about this post in the Research News comments section.  Post used by permission.

[title shamelessly stolen from a classic Internet post]

Intelligent Design seems to be the whipping boy of nearly every community. The Darwinists accuse the ID'ers of being Creationists, and the Creationists accuse ID'ers of either being evolutionists or of leaving out important details. I've thought about this for a while, and I think I finally discovered why ID is so hated -- neither of these communities has a clue about what Intelligent Design is all about.

The problem with both the Darwinists and the Creationists is that they are trying to look at Intelligent Design as a theory about origins. It simply is not. I understand where the confusion comes from -- ID'ers tend to say a lot about the origins debate. But the fact is that ID is not a theory of origins, but rather a theory of causation.

ID's main idea is that agency (also called "will" or "mind" -- I try to avoid "mind" because it is too intertwined with physical notions of the brain) is causally distinct from chance and necessity (also called natural law). This is not to say that agency is totally independent of the other two, only that chance, necessity, and agency have distinct ways in which they influence the world. This might not seem revolutionary to many, but to formally include agency as a causative force in science truly is.

Continue reading ID and Creationism--Of Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace