Science and religion: mutually exclusive?

I must apologize for the lack of intelligent posts over the past week or so. Between writing a résumé, filling out 8 job applications, and taking midterms, I haven't had much time to blog- or think, for that matter. To speak with perfect honesty, I suppose I've had the time, just not the motivation to do so.

Because I've been discussing the relationship between religion and science with my philosophy professor lately, I thought I'd look into the matter a bit over the weekend. More specifically, my professor acknowledges that evolution is often dogmatic (and therefore not true science), but refuses to let it go until I can propose and support something better. My solution would be Intelligent Design Theory. Here's what I found in a post entitled Mere Creation:

"The main thrust of design theory is that (given the Christian premise that God interacts with the world He has made) God's activities within the world are empirically detectable, showing up as evidence of intelligent causation. Building up from the distinction between undirected natural causes and intelligent causes which science itself already recognizes, design theory seeks to show that life is the product of intelligent design, not of random, undirected natural forces (as in naturalism).
Design Theory avoids the polarization that always occurs when "religion" is perceived to be "meddling" in "science" by focusing rigorous scientific inquiry "not on intelligent causes per se [God] but of informational pathways induced by intelligent causes." Once such intelligent causation is recognized, design theory permits a scientist to go beyond the constricting confines of materialist philosophy (which would absolutely insist that some "purely natural" explanation be found) and probe deeper into the created order, to in effect "reverse-engineer" the objects previously shown to be the product of intelligent design. Such a project is certainly worthy of being pursued by scientists, and in fact, is pursued by even the most radical naturalistic scientist, who simply refuses to admit that he, as an intelligent agent, is interfering with the "natural" course of the universe (much as God would have during the creation week!)."