The modern intelligent design movement began in 1989 with the publication by Charles Thaxton of Of Pandas and People,
the first book to make use of the phrase “intelligent design,” though
the term had been used in other contexts. The main argument of
intelligent design is a negative one, that organisms are so complex that
they could not have evolved through random mutations and that only an
intelligent being ...
could have designed them. In order to avoid being
accused of pushing a religious agenda, the proponents do not name the
intelligent designer, though it is assumed to be God.