While it is a fact that I'm an atheist, I have to say that the concept of Intelligent Design is not NECESSARILY in conflict with scientific ideas.

If there's a god who/which designed and created (is creating?) and runs the world, there's no reason he can't progress by methods which we would perceive by scientific inquiry. I think it reasonable to say that such a god would have some means to go about his(?) its(?) her(?) construction process. Those means could well be what we perceive as the laws of nature.

This point of view I suppose posits a quite different view of who/what that god is (if at all) from what is traditional, of course.

Dave Oesterreich