May I see your ID please?

Here's the core of my problem with Intelligent Design/Creationism (And let's face it, the former is simply a key element-the Argument From Design-of the latter gussied up in a lab coat.) It assumes that complexity, usefulness, whatever characteristics one could attribute to the universe or any of its aspects, are of necessity the products of a guiding Intelligence. While I sympathize with the conclusion this argument seeks to justify-a trancendent, loving God-I don't think this is a very hardy argument for it. I suspect we overvalue intelligence, will, and sentience for the same reason a dog overvalues teeth, jaws and slobber-it's what we've got to work with, so we see the world through that reality tunnel. Let's boil down all the wonderful things we might use as proof of design to "complexity" (you can insert your adjective of choice, such as beauty, usefulness, whatever.) Early on there was Complexity, and our ancestors observed it, studied it, and using their intelligence, will and so on, emulated it. Then somewhere along the way we assumed that intelligence was a key ingredient in the generation of complexity, since after all we use our intelligence to create our works of complexity. But all we can really say for certain is that intelligence is a key ingredient in how we create our works of complexity, not how any and all works of complexity come to be.

I know this isn't a new response to Intelligent Design, but since intelligent design isn't a fresh response to Evolutionary theory it's only appropo. Old wine, old wineskins.