How Intelligent?

In the state of Kansas, the school board seems to favor the idea of "Intelligent Design". Meanwhile, in Dover PA, the Intelligentdesignistas (ID-ers) have been summarily dismissed. Always nice to see thse issues being considered thoughtfully throughout the nation.
I personally have some questions to ask. First, and very topically, I read almost daily that we are facing a major massacre, potentially in the hundred-million-plus range, should the H5N1 strain of Avian Flu infect a human-flu carrier and mutate(!) into a human-transmittable bug. Apparently, those shameless viruses (virii?) will swap DNA with anything that moves - absolutely the ultimate in sexual deviancy - no wonder the Godly Set wants such knowledge suppressed!
At last, The Question: Would these good Kansas folk consider this to be an example of ID, or, would they prefer to let Darwin take credit for this particular instance of life-as-it-actually-is?
Yesterday I was chatting with a colleague and the subject meandered onto the topic of inherited (that is, genetic) diseases - the most commonly mentioned being Sickle-Cell Anemia. It's an interesting example of adaptation. It's most prevalent in malarial areas of Africa where, interestingly enough, carriers of the Sickle-Cell gene (allele S) have an immunity to Malaria. If they carry the S allele in one chromosome only, they will generally suvive Malaria, while the Sickle-Cell trait will be largely innocuous. If they carry the S allele in both chromosomes they will (probably) eventually die from the progressive blocking of capillaries by their overly viscous blood. Generally, they will die very protracted and very painful deaths.
Thus, as a professor of mine once described it to me; in the worst malarial areas of Aftica, most adults are heterozygous carriers of the S allele. Because, in the normal course of events, just as shown by Gregor Mendel with Sweet Peas, about 1/4 of the children in these areas die from Malaria, about 1/4 of the children die from Sickle-Cell, and the other 1/2 of the children survive.
Sounds like a pretty intelligent design to me!
My colleague, however, said he didn't think it was very intelligent to kill half of the children just to accord the survivors some protection against Malaria.

Now fine Christian Pat Robertson, an embarrassment to Christians everywhere, says Dover PA is going to suffer The Wrath Of God for throwing Him (God, not Pat) out of the classroom. Thus tipping off the formerly clueless that the Intelligentdesignistas goal really is to replace actual investigation of actual observable facts with, as the bumper sticker says: "God Said It; I Believe It; That Ends It", a prerenaissance sentiment so antagonistic to learning that I think such sentiments should be banned (outside of Kansas). Of course, it has been clear for some time now that Pat is quite demented. Even while reading the script on his teevee show, his mental state is frightening to see.