Or they, like me, have constant interactions with lay people who constantly understand these things to mean their view of a universe guided by an intelligence is correct.

I get it, it's just hard to avoid in English, but it is still a (small) failure in clear science communication.

I hate to break it to you but they are going to select for their own bias regardless.

I think the worst case of this in science is the way that evolution is described in a way that implies an active process rather than just random mutations which may or may not make organisms more fit for survival.

Yeah, I think that's the most common one. Strongly connected with the idea that evolution is "improvement" or some kind of step along a road to being "better", which I've seen trip up a lot of people who normally don't get confused about this kind of thing.

This reminds me of a thing a comedian said, or at least that's where I heard it first.

"also told you we're descended from apes ... you lot might be, I'm ascended from the apes" - Steve Hughes[1]

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYk5k-vL_Ek#t=1m50s -- caution, course language

Rather, a large number of laypeople seem to have this more spiritualistic view, and it is fairly obvious how they will interpret this kind of language.