Intelligent design movement

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Main article: Intelligent design

Part of the series on Creationism

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History of creationism Creation in Genesis

Types of creationism: Young Earth creationism Creation science Creation biology Flood geology Creationist cosmologies Old Earth creationism Omphalos creationism Evolutionary creationism Intelligent design Intelligent design movement Modern geocentrism

Controversy: Creation vs. evolution ... in public education Teach the Controversy Flying Spaghetti Monsterism

The Intelligent Design movement, which began in the early 1990s, is an organized campaign promoting a Neo-Creationist religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes centering around intelligent design in the public sphere, primarily in the United States. Intelligent design is the controversial conjecture that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not a naturalistic process such as natural selection. The overall goal of the movement is "to defeat materialism" and the "materialist world view" as represented by evolution, and replace it with "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." ^[1]

The Intelligent Design movement's hub is the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank^[2], and its Center for Science and Culture (CSC). The CSC counts most of the leading Intelligent Design advocates and authors among its fellows or officers, notably, Phillip E. Johnson, its program advisor. As one of the most prolific authors in the Intelligent Design movement, Johnson is the architect of the movement's Wedge strategy and the Teach the Controversy campaign.

The movement's de facto legal arm is the Thomas More Law Center, which has played a central role in defending against legal obections to intelligent design being taught in public school science classes, which are generally brought on First Amendment grounds. The center has also participated as a plaintiff to remove legal barriers to the teaching of Intelligent Design as science. A similar legal foundation, Quality Science Education for All (QSEA), has litigated on behalf of the movement. Though much smaller in scale than the Thomas More Law Center, QSEA has in its first year of existence brought no fewer than 3 separate lawsuits to further the movement's agenda. Critics have suggested that QSEA, were it to continue its pattern of litigation, could be considered a vexatious litigant.

The Intelligent Design movement consists primarily of a public relations campaign meant to sway the opinion of the public and that of the popular media, and an aggressive lobbying campaign directed at policymakers and the educational community which seeks to undermine public support for teaching evolution while cultivating support for what the movement terms "intelligent design theory." These are both largely funded and directed by the Discovery Institute and conducted across a wide spectrum, from the national to the grassroots levels. The movement's near-term goal is greatly undermining or eliminating altogether the teaching of evolution in public school science, and with the long-term goal of to "renew" American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian values. Intelligent design is central and necessary for this agenda as described by the Discovery Institute: "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."

Intelligent design

Fine-tuned universe Irreducible complexity Specified complexity Intelligent design movement Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture Wedge strategy Teach the controversy Theistic realism

The movement's Teach the Controversy campaign is designed to portray evolution as "a theory in crisis" and leave the scientific establishment looking close-minded, that it is attempting to stifle and suppress new discoveries supporting Intelligent Design that challenge the scientific status quo. This is made with the knowledge that it's unlikely many in the public can or will consult the current scientific literature or contact major scientific organizations to verify Discovery Institute claims and plays on undercurrents of anti-intellectualism and distrust of science and scientists that can be found in particular segments of American society. In doing this, the movement claims that it is confronting the limitations of scientific orthodoxy, and a secular, atheistic philosophy of Naturalism. The Intelligent Design movement has attracted considerable press attention and pockets of public support, especially among conservative Christians in the US.

According to critics of the intelligent design movement, the movement's purpose is political rather than scientific or educational. They claim the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious worldview that undergirds it" [3] and call intelligent design an attempt to recast religious dogma in an effort to reintroduce the teaching of biblical creationism to public school science classrooms and the movement as an effort to reshape American society into a theocracy starting with education and science. As evidence they cite the Discovery Institute's political activities, its' Wedge strategy, and statements made by leading Intelligent Design proponents.

The mainstream scientific community's position, as represented by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education, is that Intelligent Design is not science, but creationist pseudoscience.

Richard Dawkins, biologist and professor at Oxford University, compares "Teach the controversy" with teaching flat earthism, perfectly fine in a history class but not in science. "If you give the idea that there are two schools of thought within science, one that says the earth is round and one that says the earth is flat, you are misleading children."[4]

Contents 1 Origin of the movement 2 Intelligent Design as a movement 2.1 Participants and themes central to the movement 2.1.1 The Center for Science and Culture 2.1.2 The Wedge strategy 2.1.3 Teach the Controversy 2.2 Faith versus science 3 Intelligent design movement in the political arena 3.1 1999 & 2005 Kansas Board of Education 3.2 2000 Congressional briefing 3.3 2001 Santorum Amendment 3.4 2001 Louisiana, House Bill 1286 3.5 2001 Michigan, House Bill 4382 3.6 2001 Georgia, House Bill 391 3.7 2001 West Virginia, House Bill 2554 3.8 2001 Kanawha County, West Virginia 3.9 2001 Arkansas, House Bill 2548 3.10 2001 Montana, House Bill 588 3.11 2001 Pennsylvania Board of Education 3.12 2002 Ohio Board of Education 3.13 2002 Cobb County, Georgia 3.14 2003 Texas State Board of Education, textbook controversy 3.15 2005 Pennsylvania, House Bill 1007 3.16 2005/2004 Dover, Pennsylvania Board of Education 4 Intelligent design movement in the public arena 4.1 Intelligent Design in higher education 4.2 2005 Discovery Institute/Bryan Leonard doctoral thesis controversy 4.3 2003 PBS video controversy 4.4 2005 Smithsonian donation controversy 4.5 2005 University of California at Berkeley controversy 5 Dissent within the movement 6 Criticisms of the movement 7 External links 8 Reference notes

Origin of the movement

The Intelligent Design movement grew out of a creationist tradition which argues against evolutionary theory from a religious (usually Evangelical Christian and Fundamentalist Christian) standpoint. Although Intelligent Design advocates often claim that they are only arguing for the existence of a "designer," who may or may not be God, all the leading advocates do believe that the designer is God, and frequently accompany their allegedly scientific arguments with discussion of religious issues, especially when addressing religious audiences. In front of other audiences, they downplay the religious aspects of their agenda.

With the 1987 US Supreme Court decision Edwards v. Aguillard effectively removing creationism from public school science classrooms, the Foundation for Thought and Ethics in 1989 published the high school-level biology textbook Of Pandas and People that sought to circumvent the prohibition by presenting a version of creationism [5] that leaves out references to Genesis and other tenets of Christian creationism while proffering a version creationism that argues "the origin of new organisms [can be located] in an immaterial cause: in a blueprint, a plan, a pattern, devised by an intelligent agent." It does this without making reference to the identity of the intelligent designer, or God in any form, in the belief that doing so allows a version of creationism back into the science classroom without violating First Amendment. Of Pandas and People is considered to be the first modern intelligent design book and it presaged much of the subsequent arguments and strategy of the later intelligent design movement.

Another early book was Michael Denton’s 1985 Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. It is cited by Phillip E. Johnson, usually credited with having founded the Intelligent Design movement, as having convinced him of what he believes to be problems with the theory of evolution, the scientific method and it's epistemological underpinnings, specifically, philosophical naturalism. These were themes Johnson expanded on in his 1991 book, Darwin on Trial and in subsequent books, speeches and debates.

Prior to publishing Darwin on Trial, Johnson met Stephen C. Meyer, now a Director at the Discovery Institute. Through Meyer, Johnson met others who were developing what became the Intelligent design movement, including Michael Denton, and became the de facto leader of the group and its campaign. [6] This group formed and continue to operate through the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CSRC, now Center for Science and Culture, CSC), the nucleus of the movement. Johnson says that by the time Darwin on Trial was published (1991), he had pretty well worked out the strategy he thought would, in time, win the intelligent design movement's campaign. He further claims that he was able to convince those prior creationists who worked to return creationism to science and the science classroom and who were unseated by Edwards v. Aguillard, young-earth creationists and some old-earth creationists, that his strategy was the right way to proceed.

According to Johnson, the Wedge movement, if not the term, began in 1992: "The movement we now call the wedge made its public debut at a conference of scientists and philosophers held at Southern Methodist University in March 1992, following the publication of my book Darwin on Trial (1991). The conference brought together as speakers some key wedge figures, particularly Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, and myself." [7]

The movement's strategy as set forth by Johnson states as its goal, the overthrowing of "materialist science" and replacing it with "theistic science." This agenda is now being actively pursued by the Center for Science and Culture (CSC). The CSC now plays the leading role in the promotion of Intelligent Design, and its fellows include most of the leading Intelligent Design advocates: William A. Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, and Stephen C. Meyer among others. The goal of their campaign, as described in their Wedge Strategy, is for Intelligent Design to become "the dominant perspective in science" and to "permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life."

Intelligent design has been described by its proponents as a "Big Tent" strategy; one in which all theists, united in the belief that life is the result of creation, but of differing opinions as to the details of that creation, can get behind one unifying plan that, if properly implemented, would return a form of creationism to science education. Once firmly established in school curricula again, the debate as to which forms of creationism are best supported by evidence could resume. Discovery Institute Fellow Paul A. Nelson, in a 2002 article Big Tent: Traditional Creationism and the Intelligent Design Community [8] (PDF) published in the Christian Research Journal of the Christian Research Institute, (self-described as the home of "Bible Answer Man, Hank Hanegraaff") credits Johnson for coming up with the "Big Tent" strategy and reviving the debate since the Edwards v. Aguillard decision. And under the heading of "God's Freedom and the Logic of Design," Nelson describes Intelligent Design as that "tent": "The promise of the big tent of ID is to provide a setting where Christians and others may disagree amicably and fruitfully about how best to understand the natural world as well as scripture."

Johnson in his "How the Evolution Debate can be Won" presentation to the 1999 Reclaiming America for Christ Conference confirms Intelligent Design's 'big tent' status: "So did God create us? Or did we create God? That's an issue that unites people across the theistic world. Even religious, God-believing Jewish people will say, "That's an issue we really have a stake in, so let's debate that question first. Let us settle that question first. There are plenty of other important questions on which we may not agree, and we'll have a wonderful time discussing those questions after we've settled the first one. We will approach those questions in a better spirit because we have worked together for this important common end."" ... "It's [ID] inherently an ecumenical movement. Michael Behe is a Roman Catholic. The next book that is coming out from Cambridge University Press by one of my close associates is by an evangelical convert to Greek Orthodoxy. We have a lot of Protestants, too. The point is that we have this broad-based intellectual movement that is enabling us to get a foothold in the scientific and academic journals and in the journals of the various religious faiths." [9]

Realizing that their "scientific" arguments have little chance of acceptance within the mainstream scientific community, Intelligent Design advocates address their arguments primarily to the general public, politicians, philosophers, and other non-scientists. The allegedly scientific material which they produce is accused by the movement's critics of containing misleading rhetoric, equivocal terminology, and misrepresentations of the facts. The movement also produces much material which does not aspire to be scientific, but which is created and distributed for the purpose of promoting the social and political aims of the cause. Among these are a number of pseudoscientific documentary films casting Intelligent Design as a increasingly well-supported line of scientific inquiry and evolution as a likewise increasingly dubious one.

Intelligent Design as a movement

The movement was nominally launched by Phillip E. Johnson's book Darwin on Trial in 1991. The intelligent design movement began to take its present shape and course in 1996 with the forming of the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), now known as the "Center for Science and Culture" (CSC). Johnson, a law professor whose religious conversion catalyzed his anti-evolution efforts, assembled a group of like-minded supporters who promote intelligent design through their writings, financed by CSC fellowships. According to its early mission statement, the CRSC sought "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies."

Principal Intelligent Design proponents have stated a unified goal of greatly undermining or eliminating altogether the teaching of evolution in public school science and to also secure recognition of creationists claims of scientific legitimacy by opening the door to supernatural explanations. Implicit in this goal and stated explicitly in many policy statements is a redefinition of science, which categorically rejects explanations that are not verifiable. By necessity this entails the elimination of the teaching of evolution, which is also central to the larger agenda by Christian conservatives to gradually alter the legal and social landscape in the United States. The method by which this goal is to be achieved advocated by leading Intelligent Design proponents is the discrediting and removal of what they term "methodological naturalism" as a tenet of science. The movement's governing goals, as stated in the opening paragraph of the Wedge strategy are: To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies; to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Phillip E. Johnson, largely regarded as the leader of the movement, positions himself as a "theistic realist" against "methodological naturalism" and Intelligent Design as the method through which God created life.^[10] Johnson explicitly calls for Intelligent Design proponents to obfuscate their religious motivations so as to avoid having Intelligent Design recognized "as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message."^[11] Hence intelligent design arguments are carefully formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid positing the identity of the designer. Johnson has stated that cultivating ambiguity by employing secular language in arguments which are carefully crafted to avoid overtones of theistic creationism is a necessary first step for ultimately introducing the Christian concept of God as the designer. Johnson emphasizes "the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion" and that "after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact." only then can "biblical issues" be discussed.^[12] Writes Johnson in the foreward to Creation, Evolution, & Modern Science (2000) "The Intelligent Design movement starts with the recognition that "In the beginning was the Word," and "In the beginning God created." Establishing that point isn't enough, but it is absolutely essential to the rest of the gospel message."

Though not all Intelligent Design proponents are theistic or motivated by religious fervor, the majority of the principal Intelligent Design advocates (including Michael Behe, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, and Stephen C. Meyer) are Christians and have stated that in their view the intelligent designer is clearly God. The response of intelligent design proponents to critics and media who discuss their religious motivations has been to cite it as proof of bias and part of a hostile agenda. The Discovery Institute provided the conservative Accuracy in Media a file of complaints about the way their representatives have been treated by the media, especially by National Public Radio.

At the "Research and Progress in Intelligent Design" (RAPID) conference held in 2002, at Biola, William A. Dembski in his keynote address, described intelligent design's "dual role as a constructive scientific project and as a means for cultural renaissance." In a similar vein, the movement's hub, the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture had been the "Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture" until 2002. Explaining the name change, a spokesperson for the CSC insisted that the old name was simply too long. However, the change followed accusations that the center's real interest was not science but reforming culture along lines favored by conservative Christians.

Critics of movement cite the Wedge Document confirms this criticism and that the movement's leaders, particularly Phillip E. Johnson, view the subject as a culture war: "Darwinian evolution is not primarily important as a scientific theory but as a culturally dominant creation story. . . . When there is radical disagreement in a commonwealth about the creation story, the stage is set for intense conflict, the kind . . . known as 'culture war.' "

At the 1999 "Reclaiming America for Christ Conference" [13] called by Reverend D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries Johson gave a speach called How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won [14]. In it he sums up the theological and epistelogical underpinnings of intelligent design and its strategy for winning the battle: "To talk of a purposeful or guided evolution is not to talk about evolution at all. That is slow creation. When you understand it that way, you realize that the Darwinian theory of evolution contradicts not just the Book of Genesis, but every word in the Bible from beginning to end. It contradicts the idea that we are here because a creator brought about our existence for a purpose. That is the first thing I realized, and it carries tremendous meaning." He goes on to state: "I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science. One very famous book that's come out of The Wedge is biochemist Michael Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, which has had an enormous impact on the scientific world." ..."Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth? When I preach from the Bible, as I often do at churches and on Sundays, I don't start with Genesis. I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves."

Johnson cites the foundation of intelligent design is the Bible's Book of John, specifically, John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The main battlefield for this culture war has been regional and state schoolboards, and consequently the courts when those campaigns to include Intelligent Design or weaken evolution in the science curricula of public schools are challenged on First Amendment grounds. Intelligent design proponents currently are defending the constitutionality of presenting intelligent design as a scientific alternative to evolution in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.

In August 2005, during a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, President Bush said that he believes schools should discuss intelligent design alongside evolution when teaching students about the creation of life. Bush, a conservative Christian, declined to go into detail on his personal views of the origin of life, but advocated the Teach the Controversy approach - "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes." Christian conservatives, a substantial part of Bush's voting base, have promoted the Teach the Controversy campaign for the teaching of intelligent design in public schools and a weakening of the teaching of evolution. Though intelligent design has been discussed at the weekly White House Bible study group, Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, sought to play down the president's remarks the following day. Marburger stated "evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology" and "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Marburger also said that Bush's remarks should be interpreted to mean that the president believes that intelligent design should be discussed as part of the "social context" in science classes.

The National Center for Science Education has stated that Bush's comment that "both sides" should be taught is the most troubling aspect of his remarks. "It sounds like you're being fair, but creationism is a sectarian religious viewpoint, and intelligent design is a sectarian religious viewpoint." "It's not fair to privilege one religious viewpoint by calling it the other side of evolution."

Also in August 2005 Florida Govenor Jeb Bush appointed to the Department of Education Cheri Yecke to be Florida's chancellor for kindergarten through 12th grade [15]. Yecke has a history of trying to undermine the validity of evolution: As Minnesota's education commissioner, she drew criticism for trying to introduce creationism -- the biblical version of life's origins -- into that state's science curriculum [16] [17].

Participants and themes central to the movement

The Center for Science and Culture

Main article: Center for Science and Culture

The Center for Science and Culture (CSC), formerly known as the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), is a division of the Discovery Institute. The Center consists of a tightly knit core of people who have worked together for almost a decade to advance intelligent design as both a concept and a movement as necessary adjuncts of its wedge strategy policy. This cadre includes Phillip E. Johnson, Michael Behe, William A. Dembski and Stephen C. Meyer. They are united by a religious vision which, although it varies among the members in its particulars and is seldom acknowledged outside of the Christian press, is predicated on the shared conviction that America is in need of "renewal" which can be accomplished only by unseating "Godless" materialism and instituting religion as its cultural foundation.

Recently the Center for Science and Culture's has moderated its previous overtly theistic mission statements [18] to appeal to a broader, a more secular audience. It hopes to accomplish this by using less overtly theistic messages and language [19]. Despite this, the Center for Science and Culture still states as a goal a redefinition of science, and the philosophy on which it is based, particularly the exclusion of what it calls the "unscientific principle of materialism", and in particular the acceptance of what it calls "the scientific theory of intelligent design".

According to Reason magazine, promotional materials from the Discovery Institute acknowledge that the Ahmanson family donated $1.5 million to the Center for Science and Culture, then known as the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture, for a research and publicity program to "unseat not just Darwinism but also Darwinism's cultural legacy". Mr. Ahmanson funds many causes important to the Christian religious right, including Christian Reconstructionism, whose goal is to place the U.S. "under the control of biblical law." [20][21] Until 1995, Ahmanson sat on the board of the Christian reconstructionist Chalcedon Foundation [22].

The Wedge strategy

Main article: Wedge strategy

The Wedge strategy first came to the general public's attention when a Discovery Institute internal memo now known as the Wedge Document, was inadvertently leaked to the public. The document begins with "the proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built." and then goes on to outline the movement's goal to exploit perceived discrepancies within evolutionary theory in order to discredit evolution and scientific materialism in general. Much of the strategy is directed toward the broader public, as opposed to the professional scientific community. The stated "governing goals" of the CSC's wedge strategy are:

1. To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies

2. To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Critics of Intelligent Design movement argue that the wedge document and strategy demonstrate that the Intelligent Design movement is motivated purely by religion and political ideology and that the Discovery Institute as a matter of policy obfuscates its agenda. The Discovery Institute's official response was to characterize the criticism and concern as "irrelevant," "paranoid," and "near-panic" while portraying the wedge document as a "fund-raising document." [23]

In 1992 Johnson commented:

"The objective (of the Wedge Strategy) is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.'" [24] "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy"

Phillip E. Johnson in his 1997 book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds confirmed some of the concerns voiced by the movement's gainsayers:

"If we understand our own times, we will know that we should affirm the reality of God by challenging the domination of materialism and naturalism in the world of the mind. With the assistance of many friends I have developed a strategy for doing this,...We call our strategy the "wedge." pg. 91-92, "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds" Phillip Johnson, 1997

Teach the Controversy

Main article: Teach the Controversy

Teach the Controversy is a controversial political-action campaign originating from the Discovery Institute that seeks to advance an education policy for US public schools that introduces intelligent design to public school science curricula and seeks to redefine science to allow for supernatural explanations. Teach the Controversy proponents portray evolution as a "theory in crisis."

The Teach the Controversy strategy arose because of the Intelligent Design movement's initial success. Enthusiastic grassroots proponents began to act on their own, often without the awareness of the movement's leadership. That, according to Discovery Institute officials, is what happened in 1999, when a new conservative majority on the Kansas Board of Education caught their potential allies at the institute off-guard by dropping all references to evolution from the state's science standards.

"When there are all these legitimate scientific controversies, this was silly, outlandish, counterproductive," said John G. West, associate director of the CSC, said after he and his colleagues learned of that 1999 move in Kansas from newspaper accounts. "We began to think, 'Look, we're going to be stigmatized with what everyone does if we don't make our position clear.' "

Out of this the Discovery Institute developed the "Teach the Controversy" approach, which endorses evolution as a staple of any biology curriculum — so long as criticism of Darwin is also in the lesson plan. This satisfied Christian conservatives but also appealed to Republican moderates and, under the First Amendment banner, much of the public (71 percent according to a Discovery Institute-commissioned Zogby poll in 2001).

The strategy of the Teach the Controversy campaign is to move from standards battles, to curriculum writing, to textbook adoption, while undermining the central positions of evolution in biology and methodological naturalism in science. The Discovery Institute is the primary organizer and promoter of the Teach the Controversy campaign, though it has recently adopted the tactic of remaining behind the scenes and orchestrating, underwriting and otherwise supporting local campaigns, Intelligent Design groups, and proponents to act on its behalf in lobbying state and local politicians and schoolboards. The Teach the Controversy campaign is identified by the Discovery Institute principals as a central and necessary element in its Wedge strategy.

Critics contend that the controversy is manufactured. They note the strategy of intelligent design proponents appears to be to knowingly misuse or mis-describe a scientist's work, which prompts an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, they cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a "controversy" to teach. Such a controversy is then self-fulfilling and self-sustaining, though completely without any legitimate basis in the academic world and without having to put forth a viable hypothesis as an alternative. In using this strategy, Intelligent Design proponents exploit the very technicality of the issues to their own advantage, counting on the public to miss the point in all the complex and difficult details. As an example of the tactic in action, William Dembski, one of the most vocal supporters of intelligent design, notes that he provoked Thomas Schneider, a biologist, into a response that Dembski characterizes as "some hair-splitting that could only look ridiculous to outsider observers." What looks to scientists to be a very compelling rebuttal to Dembski's arguments made by Dr. Schneider is portrayed to non-scientists, and especially the public, as "ridiculous hair-splitting" [25].

Faith versus science

Intelligent design's supporters and critics often portray the debate as between science and faith. These advocates imply that to support Intelligent Design is to support belief in higher power(s), while to oppose Intelligent Design is to oppose belief in higher power(s). One example is a statement from Focus on the Family, which, holds that "Secularists have dismissed Christianity as an acceptable intellectual option." [26] and that "Intelligent Design" promote their views on Christianity.

While science, faith and religion have been at odds to varying degrees throughout history, prominent scientists and religious leaders have tried to bridge that gap. Furthermore, critics of Intelligent Design have not only questioned whether Intelligent Design is good science, but also whether it is good theology. The Pope John Paul II issued the following statement [27] in an address entitled "Truth cannot contradict Truth":

"The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection, while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator's plans."

Here, Pope John Paul II suggests that science, philosophy and theology are not at odds, merely responsible for different sections of human knowledge.

Intelligent design movement in the political arena

Intelligent design proponents have employed a number of specific strategies and tactics in their furtherance of their goals. These range from attempts at the state level to undermine or remove altogether the presence of evolutionary theory from the public school classroom, to having the federal government mandate the teaching of intelligent design, to 'stacking' municipal, county and state school boards with Intelligent Design proponents. The Discovery Institute has been a significant player in many of these cases, providing a range of support from material assistance to federal, state and regional elected representatives in the drafting of bills to supporting and advising individual parents confronting their school boards, to lobbying for its Teach the Controversy campaign. According to the Center for Science and Culture's weblog [28], at least 10 state legislatures are now considering legislation regarding how evolution is taught.

1999 & 2005 Kansas Board of Education

Main article: Kansas evolution hearings

In 1999 the Kansas Board of Education voted to delete references to evolution from Kansas science standards. This had the net effect of removing the teaching of evolution from the state's science curriculum. The move angered the mainstream science community who predicted a resulting loss of rigor and quality in science education. The Board's decision was in part influenced by the presence of recently elected conservative Christians to the board and heavy lobbying by the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, then known as the "Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture" (CRSC). Subsequent elections altered the membership of the school board and led to renewed backing for evolution instruction in 2001.

Elections in 2004 gave religious conservatives a 6-4 majority and the board in 2005 was finalizing new science standards which will guide teachers about how and what to teach students. A proposal being pushed by conservatives and Intelligent Design proponents and supported by the Center for Science and Culture is similar to that it lobbied for to the Ohio Board of Education in 2002. It would not eliminate evolution entirely from instruction, nor would it require creationism be taught, but it would encourage teachers to discuss various viewpoints and eliminate core evolution claims as required curriculum.

2000 Congressional briefing

In 2000, the leading Intelligent Design proponents operating through the Discovery Institute held a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., to promote Intelligent Design to lawmakers. Sen. Rick Santorum was (and continues to be) one of Intelligent Design's most vocal supporters. One result of this briefing was that Sen. Santorum inserted pro-Intelligent Design language into the No Child Left Behind bill calling for students to be taught why evolution "generates so much continuing controversy," an assertion heavily promoted by the Discovery Institute.

2001 Santorum Amendment

One of the initial successes for the movement was the inclusion of the favorable language known as the Santorum Amendment in the Conference Report of the federal No Child Left Behind education act passed in 2001. The inclusion of the amendment in the Act was heavily lobbied for by the Discovery Institute, which also participated in the drafting of the original language of the amendment. Although only a modified form of the amendment appeared in the conference report, the amendment itself was not included in the legislation that President George W. Bush signed.

It was not the full victory intelligent design proponents had hoped for because conference reports do not carry the weight of law and are merely explanatory in nature [29]. Nonetheless, an email newsletter by the Discovery Institute contained the sentence "Undoubtedly this will change the face of the debate over the theories of evolution and intelligent design in America...It also seems that the Darwinian monopoly on public science education, and perhaps the biological sciences in general, is ending" and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas cited the amendment as vindicating the 1999 Kansas school board decision (since overturned) to eliminate evolution questions from State tests. Consistent with the Wedge strategy its inclusion in the conference report is constantly cited by the Discovery Institute and other Intelligent Design supporters as providing federal sanction for intelligent design. Reps. John Boehner and Steve Chabot of Ohio and Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, along with Santorum, have signed letters supporting the Discovery Institute's interpretation of the Santorum amendment. One of those letters was sent to the president and vice-president of the Ohio Board of Education in 2002; the other was sent to the Texas Board of Education in 2003, see below.

2001 Louisiana, House Bill 1286

This bill directs that the state shall not print or distribute any material containing claims known to be false or fraudulent. It also specifically provides for any citizen to be able to sue the state using the provisions of this bill. Text of LA HB1286 (PDF)

2001 Michigan, House Bill 4382

A bill proposed by Rep. Gosselin (House Bill 4382) which sought to amend 1976 PA 451, "The revised school code". The bill directed that In the science standards, all references to "evolution" and "how species change through time" would be modified to indicate that this is an unproven theory, by adding the phrase "all students will explain the competing theories of evolution and natural selection based on random mutation and the theory that life is the result of the purposeful, intelligent design of a creator." The bill also directed that in the science standards for middle and high school, all references to "evolution" and "natural selection" would be modified to indicate that these are unproven theories, by adding the phrase "describe how life may be the result of the purposeful, intelligent design of a creator." And in the science standards for middle and high school, the bill directed all references to "evolution" and "natural selection" would be modified to indicate that these are unproven theories, by adding the phrase "explain the competing theories of evolution and natural selection based on random mutation and the theory that life is the result of the purposeful, intelligent design of a creator." The bill also would have required that the recommended model core academic curriculum content standards that are developed and periodically updated by the state board comply with these provisions. Also under the bill the State Board would have been required to make these revisions as soon as practicable after the effective date of the bill, if it had been enacted. Text of HB4382 (PDF)

2001 Georgia, House Bill 391

This bill directed teachers to distinguish between "philosophical materialism" and "authentic science", and extended to teachers the "right" to present and critique any scientific theory of the origins or life or species. Failed in committee. Text of [30]

2001 West Virginia, House Bill 2554

An "equal-time" bill, described in its title as "Providing for the teaching of creation science and evolution science on an equal basis in the public schools." HB2554 was introduced in the state legislature in February 2001, and died in committee.

2001 Kanawha County, West Virginia

In February 2001 a parent filed a complaint with the Kanawha County Board of Education claiming that science textbooks used there contain "false and fraudulent" information about evolution. The parent and 30 cosigners opposed to evolution asserted that the textbooks are in violation of state law because they are outdated or inaccurate. As evidence that textbooks which include evolution are flawed, they cited Jonathan Well's of the Discovery Institute book Icons of Evolution. The board rejected the claim.

2001 Arkansas, House Bill 2548

In 2001 Representative Jim Holt proposed a bill in the Arkansas legislature that would make it illegal for the state or any of its agencies to use state funds to purchase materials that contained false or fraudulent claims. A list of such claims was provided in the text of House Bill 2548 (HB2548). Much of the text of the examples given was either quoted verbatim from anti-evolutionary sources or was a close paraphrase of such materials. The sources cited in the bill included the cartoon tract, "Big Daddy?"[31] published by Jack Chick. Critics of the bill alleged that many of the "examples" selected were themselves either false or misleading. March 21, 2001, Representative Holt invited his friend and controversial anti-evolutionist Kent Hovind to testify before a committee of the Arkansas Legislature in support of the bill. In April 2001 a motion was passed to postpone HB 2548 indefinitely for study during the interim by the Joint Interim Committee on Education. Text of HB2548 (PDF)

2001 Montana, House Bill 588

House Bill 588 by Rep. Joe Balyeat, R-Bozeman, was presented as an "objectivity in science education" measure, and would have directed the approval of evolution and creationism materials by an appointed six-member committee. The bill failed in committee.

2001 Pennsylvania Board of Education

In July 2001 the Pennsylvania Board of Education gave final approval to revised science standards. Language in early versions of the standards sought to raise questions about the status of evolution as science and a theory. Science educators and other Pennsylvania citizens expressed concern that the proposed standards might open the way to teaching creationism in science classes because of ambiguous or unclear wording. However, the final standards do not contain the contested language and the standards were approved by the legislature.

2002 Ohio Board of Education

In March 2002 Ohio held hearings on revising the state science standards. The Discovery Institute's Stephen C. Meyer proposed to the Ohio Board of Education a set of standards that included intelligent design and a model lesson plan that featured intelligent design prominently in its curricula [32] [33]. Concurrently, a factitious redefinition of science to include God was proposed to the Ohio legislature, so that the legislature would then be able to get behind the set of standards that included intelligent design. The Discovery Institute's model lesson plan was adopted in part by the state for Ohio science teachers in October 2002, though the Board advised that the science standards do "not mandate the teaching or testing of intelligent design" [34]. This was touted as a significant victory by the Discovery Institute [35].

2002 Cobb County, Georgia

In 2002 the Cobb County school board required stickers placed in a science textbook. Stating that evolution was "a theory, not a fact," the sticker was placed in the ninth-grade biology text after parents complained to the Cobb County school board that alternative ideas about the origin of life were not presented. A group of parents represented by the American Civil Liberties Union sued the school board, claiming the stickers violate the separation of church and state. The trial was resolved in January 2005 when U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper ruled the sticker was unconstitutional. In the verdict he wrote, "By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories."

2003 Texas State Board of Education, textbook controversy

In 2003 The Texas State Board of Education was considering 11 different textbooks for inclusion in the 2004-2005 school year. Fellows of the Discovery Institute testified to the Board that whatever textbooks are adopted should introduce statements on the "weaknesses of the theory of evolution" and include "competing theories, such as intelligent design." The DI had strong interest in the Texas debate because the state is the second largest purchaser of textbooks in the country. Thus any changes publishers make to cater to the state would likely be seen elsewhere.

2005 Pennsylvania, House Bill 1007

On March 16, 2005, a bill, HB 1007, promoting "intelligent design" creationism was introduced in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and referred to the Education Committee. If enacted, HB 1007 would add a section ("Teaching Theories on the Origin of Man and Earth") to the Public School Code of 1949. That new section would allow school boards to add "intelligent design" to any curriculum containing evolution and allow teachers to use, subject to the approval of the board, "supporting evidence deemed necessary for instruction on the theory of intelligent design." The term "intelligent design" is not defined in the bill. Presumably attempting to prevent a challenge to its constitutionality, HB 1007 explicitly states, "When providing supporting evidence on the theory of intelligent design, no teacher in a public school may stress any particular denominational, sectarian or religious belief." Text of HB 1007

June 2005 John G. West and Seth Cooper of the Discovery Institute wrote a letter to Pennsylvania Representative Jess M. Stairs urging Stairs and the Pennsylvania legislature not to pass HB1007. This reflects a shift in the strategy of the Intelligent Design proponents. Anticipating legal challenges to the constitutionality of laws that mandate teaching of intelligent design, proponents feel including Intelligent Design content in science curricula under the guise of "scientific criticisms" or "evidence against evolution," within the pretense of "teaching the controversy" is a more defensible strategy.

2005/2004 Dover, Pennsylvania Board of Education

Main article: Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

In 2004 the Dover, Pennsylvania Board of Education passed a resolution requiring 9th grade biology teachers to read a statement that the Pennsylvania Academic Standards require the teaching of evolution, but then the statement proceeds to seed doubts about evolution's validity and directs students to study Intelligent Design and the Intelligent Design textbook Of Pandas and People as an alternative. Three of the school board members in the minority of the vote resigned in protest, and science teachers in the district refused to read the statement to their ninth-grade students, citing the Pennsylvania code of education, which states that teachers cannot present information they believe to be false. Instead, the statement was read to students by a school administrator.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of eleven parents contending that the school board policy violates the First Amendment. A hearing (Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District) in Federal District Court was scheduled for September 2005.

The school board claims there are "gaps" in evolution, which it emphasizes is a theory rather than established fact, and that students have a right to consider other views on the origins of life. The school board claims it does not teach intelligent design but simply makes students aware of its existence as an alternative to evolution. It denies intelligent design is "religion in disguise," despite being represented in court by the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian nonprofit which says it uses litigation to promote "the religious freedom of Christians and time-honored family values."

The Discovery Institute's John West said the case displayed the ACLU's "Orwellian" effort to stifle scientific discourse and objected to the issue being decided in court. "It's a disturbing prospect that the outcome of this lawsuit could be that the court will try to tell scientists what is legitimate scientific inquiry and what is not," West said. "That is a flagrant assault on free speech." Opponents, represented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Association of Biology Teachers contend that his statement is not just ironic, but hypocritical, considering that the Discovery Institute not only tries to tell scientists and academics what is legitimate scientific inquiry and what is not (in disputing philosophical naturalism), but as a matter of policy seeks to redefine what constitutes legitimate science.

In May, 2005, the publisher of Of Pandas and People, the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), filed a motion seeking to intervene in the case. FTE argued that a ruling that "intelligent design" was religious would have severe financial consequences, citing possible losses in the neighborhood of half a million dollars. By intervening, FTE would have become a co-defendant with the Dover Area School Board, and able to bring its own lawyers and expert witnesses to the case. FTE's president Jon Buell implied that if allowed to intervene, FTE would bring William A. Dembski and Stephen C. Meyer as expert witnesses. In his decision on the motion, Judge John E. Jones III ruled that FTE was not entitled to intervene in the case because its motion to intervene was not timely, describing FTE's excuses for not trying to become involved earlier as "both unavailing and disingenuous." Judge Jones also held that FTE failed to demonstrate that it has "a significantly protectable interest in the litigation warranting intervention as a party" and that its interests will not be adequately represented by the defendants.

Intelligent design movement in the public arena

Intelligent Design in higher education

The cultivation of support for Intelligent Design and its social and political agenda in higher education is a very active part of Discovery Institute's strategy. The Discovery Institute claims to have faculty supporters on every university campus in this country, including the Ivy League schools. Academics who are Discovery Institute fellows include Robert Kaita of Princeton, Henry Schaefer III of the University of Georgia, Robert Koons and J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas at Austin, and Guillermo Gonzalez of Iowa State. Prominent academics who, although not officially associated with the Discovery Institute, sympathize with its aims, include Alvin Plantinga at Notre Dame and Frank Tipler at Tulane University.

Discovery Institute-recommended curricula benefits from special status at number of religious schools. Biola University and Oklahoma Baptist University are listed on the Access Research Network website as "ID Colleges." In addition, the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center, which began as a student organization at the University of California, San Diego, helps establish student IDEA clubs on university and high school campuses. The Intelligent Design and Undergraduate Research Center, ARN’s student division, also recruits and supports followers at universities. Campus youth ministries play an active role in bringing Intelligent Design to university campuses through lectures by Intelligent Design leaders Phillip Johnson, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, Michael Behe and others. This activity takes place outside university science departments.

Several public universities, including the University of California at Berkeley and the University of New Mexico have had Intelligent Design courses slipped past academic scrutiny by sympathetic faculty, often as freshman seminars, honors courses and other courses outside required curricula in which instructors have wider latitude regarding course content. Critics of the movement allege this subverts the purpose of academic standards and raises the question of professional competence of the instructors; students should not pay the price for the negligence of instructors who are either not qualified to teach classes purporting to be about science or have subordinated scientific integrity to personal religious loyalties.

The few university presses (such as Cambridge and Michigan State) that have published intelligent design books classify them as philosophy, rhetoric, or public affairs, not science. There are no peer-reviewed studies supporting intelligent design in the scientific research literature. With the scientific community as a whole unmoved or unconvinced by proponents works and rhetoric and the abscence of intelligent design scientific research programs, Dembski recently conceded that "the scientific research part" of intelligent design is now "lagging behind" its success in influencing popular opinion.

In 2005 the American Association of University Professors issued a strongly worded statement asserting that the theory of evolution is nearly universally accepted in the community of scholars and critical of the Intelligent Design movement's attempts to weaken or undermine the teaching of evolution as "inimical to principles of academic freedom." [36]

The issue of David Horowitz's proposed academic bill of rights has been accepted by the Discovery Institute as a means to integrating Intelligent Design into the academy.

The authors of some college biology textbooks (with major mainstream textbook publishers) may find that someone at the publisher has linked the evolution chapters of a book's website to antievolution websites, so that the authors appear to support this point of view. Despite repeated requests from the authors to remove the links, this may continue, or new links may appear after a few months.

The Discovery Institute organizes a number of on-campus intelligent design conferences across the country for students. In the past, these were generally held at Christian universities and often sponsored by the administration or other faculty as an official university function. Recently though, Yale and the University of San Francisco have seen intelligent design proponents of intelligent design speak on their campuses. Not only did these succeed in reaching out to a more secular group of students, but the backdrop of prestigious universities achieved a goal set forth in the the Wedge strategy; to lend an aura of academic legitimacy to the proceedings and by extension, the intelligent design movement. Commenting on the Yale conference, for example, a student auxiliary of the Access Research Network stated, "Basically, the conference, beside being a statement (after all we were meeting at Yale University), proved to be very promising." These conferences were not sponsored by the universities at which they were held. They were sponsored by associated religious organizations — at Yale, a ministry calling itself the Rivendell Institute for Christian Thought and Learning.

2005 Discovery Institute/Bryan Leonard doctoral thesis controversy

In 2005 Bryan Leonard was a graduate student at Ohio State University, hoping to receive his PhD in Science Education. He is currently a high school biology teacher at Hilliard Davidson High School in a Columbus suburb. His doctoral dissertation is about using intelligent design as a tool for teaching evolution. Leonard, a well-known intelligent design movement proponent, had testified in favor of teaching intelligent design in the 2005 Kansas evolution hearings and was an appointee to the Ohio State Board of Education's model curriculum-writing committee, where, in 2004 he worked with the Discovery Institute staff to author the intelligent design-oriented model lesson plan adopted by the Ohio State Board of Education that year.

The controversy has revolved around two issues: One involves violations of OSU policies concerning the make-up of a thesis committee in order to avoid a serious evaluation of Leonard's dissertation, the other involves possible violations of the guidelines for using human subjects in research.

Ohio State University allows students to particpate in selecting the make-up of their thesis committees. It is alleged that Leonard tried to hand pick two Ohio State University faculty members who are intelligent design proponents and activists but outside of the required area of expertise, science education. In doing so, he seems to have violated OSU's clearly stated guidelines for the make-up of a thesis committee [37]. The two senior tenured members of the committee, DiSilvestro and Needham, have both publicly associated themselves with the intelligent design movement in Ohio and elsewhere. DiSilvestro was contact person for the Ohio Intelligent Design Movement’s 52 Ohio Scientists Call for Academic Freedom on Darwin’s Theory petition, and Needham was a signer. Additionally, DiSilvestro was an original signer of the Discovery Institute’s A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism statement and testified for the Intelligent Design Network at the 2005 Kansas evolution hearings, as did Leonard[38]. Needham has testified in support of IDC proposals before the Ohio State Board of Education.

The Discovery Institute's defense and support of Leonard in the form of counsel and public relations has itself raised some controversy. The Institute has been accused of gaming the system and misrepresenting the issues and facts of the controversy.

2003 PBS video controversy

The Discovery Institute succeeded in marketing through PBS the creationist video Unlocking the Mystery of Life as a science film in its online store for two years. The video, which the Discovery Institutes describes as "a science program exploring what DNA reveals about the origin of life" and claims shows that "In almost every scientific discipline there is new found evidence that supports the theory of intelligent design" takes a pro-Intelligent Design slant. Critics alleged the video contained poor scholarship and misrepresented and omitted key scientific evidence, and misrepresented the stature and status of the experts and scientists interviewed; only several were bona fide scientists at mainstream universities. Due to complaints by unsuspecting customers of being mislead, PBS has stopped selling the video. This video, along with The Privileged Planet, center of the Smithsonian Smithsonian donation controversy, is also a production of Illustra Media, a front group for the creationist production company Discovery Media.[39] The film was written and directed by Wayne P. Allen, who also directed Prophecies of the Passion, Journeys to the Edge of Creation: The Milky Way & Beyond and Journeys to the Edge of Creation: Our Solar System

2005 Smithsonian donation controversy

In May 2005 the Discovery Institute donated $16,000 to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and by museum policy, this minimum donation allowed them to celebrate their donation inside the museum in a gathering. The Discovery Institute decided to screen a film entitled The Privileged Planet,based on the book The Privileged Planet,written by two senior fellows of the Discovery Institute. Notably, the video was also a production of Illustra Media, which has been identified as front for a creationist production company. Upon further review, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History determined that the content of the video was inconsistent with the scientific research of the institution. They therefore refunded the $16,000, clearly denied any endorsement of the content of the video or of the Discovery Institute, and allowed the film to be shown in the museum as per the original agreement. Recent editorials have decried as naïve and negligent the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's failure to identify the Discovery Institute as a creationist organization, exclude the video with its review process in the first place, and identify the entire incident as an example of the Wedge Strategy in action.

2005 University of California at Berkeley controversy

In October 2005, the University of California at Berkeley was sued for running a website for school teachers called Understanding Evolution. The lawsuit has been brought by Jeanne Caldwell, whose husband, Larry Caldwell, is the founder of an anti-evolution group called Quality Science Education for All. The Caldwells argue that Berkeley was "taking a position on evolution and attempting to persuade minor students to accept that position." Michael R. Smith, the assistant chancellor for legal affairs at Berkeley, said that the university would defend the lawsuit "with vigor and enthusiasm."

Dissent within the movement

Under the guidance of the Discovery Institute the movement made significant inroads in its appeal to members of the public, if not the scientific community. That success manifested itself in grassroots local movements, who, to varying degrees, took up the cause with local politicians, school boards, parent-teacher groups and even individual legal actions to promote Intelligent Design in public schools. The Thomas More Law Center along with the Discovery Institute has often provided resources for these local and regional efforts. Recently grassroots activity has gone beyond that endorsed by the Discovery Institute, which has voiced concern over the ability of mandates to teach Intelligent Design surviving a challenge on First Amendment grounds and the implications for the movement were the teaching of Intelligent Design as science in public schools ruled unconstitutional. Such a ruling would have the effect of legally ruling Intelligent Design a form religious creationism, and greatly diminish any possibility of the movement ever achieving its goals set forth in the Wedge strategy. Fearing that this was an inevitability, the Discovery Institute repositioned itself for tactical reasons against the teaching of Intelligent Design but for a Teach the Controversy strategy.

Just such a case occurred in 2004 in Dover, Pennsylvania (see Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District). The Thomas More Law Center in its vigorous defense of the School District (whose board seats several staunch creationists who are Intelligent Design proponents), has run afoul of the movement's leadership at the Discovery Institute.

In a recently televised round table discussion on C-SPAN [40], the Discovery Institute's Mark Ryland and the Thomas More Law Center's Richard Thompson had a frank disagreement, in which Ryland claimed the Discovery Institute has always cautioned against the teaching of Intelligent Design, and Thompson responded that the institutes leadership had not only advocated the teaching of Intelligent Design, but encouraged others to do so, and that the Dover Area School District had merely followed the institute's calls for action. As evidence Thompson cited the Discovery Institute's guidebook Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curricula [41], written by the institute's director and co-founder, Stephen C. Meyer and David DeWolf, a fellow of the institute, which stated in its closing paragraphs: "Moreover, as the previous discussion demonstrates, school boards have the authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching about design theory as an alternative to Darwinian evolution -- and this includes the use of textbooks such as Of Pandas and People that present evidence for the theory of intelligent design."

Rifts between factions within the movement's leadership and also between local and regional movement leaders and the national leadership are likely to increase considering the increasing number of pro-Intelligent Design amendments and proposals coming before state and local school boards, and legal actions brought by local proponents, such as Quality Science Education for All.

Criticisms of the movement

Intellectual dishonesty, in the form of misleading impressions created the use of rhetoric, intentional ambiguity, and misrepresented evidence is one of the most common criticisms of the movement and its leadership. It is alleged that its goal is to lead an unwary public to reach certain conclusions, and that many have been deceived as a result. Critics of the movement, such as Eugenie Scott, Robert Pennock and Barbara Forrest, claim that movement leaders, and the Discovery Institute specifically, knowingly misquote scientists and other experts, deceptively omit contextual text through ellipsis, and make unsupported amplifications of relationships and credentials.

Critics claim that the institute uses academic credentials and affiliations opportunistically. In 2001, when the Discovery Institute purchased advertisements in three national publications, the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, and the Weekly Standard, to proclaim the adherence of approximately 100 scientists to a statement reading, "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

Such statements commonly note the institutional affiliations of signatories for purposes of identification. But this statement strategically listed either the institution that granted a signatory's PhD or the institutions with which the individual is presently affiliated. Thus the institutions listed for Raymond G. Bohlin, Fazale Rana, and Jonathan Wells, for example, were the University of Texas, Ohio University, and the University of California, Berkeley, where they earned their degrees, rather than their current affiliations: Probe Ministries for Bohlin, the Reasons to Believe ministry for Rana, and the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture for Wells. During controversies over evolution education in Georgia, New Mexico, Ohio, and Texas, similarly confusing lists of local scientists were circulated.

In another instance, the Discovery Institute frequently mentions the Nobel Prize in connection with Henry F. Schaefer, a Discovery Institute fellow, and chemist at the University of Georgia. Critics allege that Discovery Institute is inflating his reputation by constantly refering to him as a "five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize" because Nobel Prize nominations remain confidential for fifty years.

This criticism is not reserved for only the institute; individual intelligent proponents have been accused of using their own credentials and those of others in a misleading or confusing fashion. For example, critics allege William Dembski gratuitously invokes his laurels by boasting of his correspondence with a Nobel laureate, bragging that one of his books was published in a series whose editors include a Nobel laureate, and exulting that the publisher of the intelligent design book The Mystery of Life's Origin, Philosophical Library Inc., also published books by eight Nobel laureates. Critics claim that Dembski purposefully omits relevant facts we he fails to mention to his audience that in 1986, during the Edwards v. Aguillard hearings, 72 Nobel laureates endorsed an amicus curiae brief that noted that the "evolutionary history of organisms has been as extensively tested and as thoroughly corroborated as any biological concept."

External links

• The Wedge at Work: How Intelligent Design Creationism Is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic Mainstream Chapter 1 of the book Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics by Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. MIT Press, 2001
• Does "Intelligent Design" Threaten the Definition of Science? John Roach. National Geographic News. April 27, 2005
• The Newest Evolution of Creationism Intelligent design is about politics and religion, not science. Barbara Forrest Ph.D. From Natural History, April, 2002, page 80
• "Inferior Design" Chris Mooney, The American Prospect Online, 10 August 2005.
• Show Me the Science Daniel C. Dennett. At Tufts University, tufts.edu. An editorial originally published in the New York Times. 28 August 2005
• Should Creationism Be Taught in the Public Schools? (PDF) Robert T. Pennock. March 2002
• * Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive Jody Wilgoren. Originally published in the The New York Times. 21 August 2005
• Intelligent design opponents invoke US constitution. Donald MacLeod, The Guardian, 18 October 2005.
• Devolution - Why intelligent design isn’t. H. Allen Orr. Annals of Science. New York Times May 2005

Reference notes

1. ^  From a 1999 Discovery Institute fundraising pamphlet. Cited in Handley P. Evolution or design debate heats up. The Times of Oman, 7 March 2005.
2. ^  Patricia O’Connell Killen, a religion professor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma whose work centers around the regional religious identity of the Pacific Northwest, recently wrote that "religiously inspired think tanks such as the conservative evangelical Discovery Institute" are part of the "religious landscape" of that area. [42]
3. ^  "A theistic realist assumes that the universe and all its creatures were brought into existence for a purpose by God. Theistic realists expect this "fact" of creation to have empirical, observable consequences that are different from the consequences one would observe if the universe were the product of nonrational causes . . . . God always has the option of working through regular secondary mechanisms, and we observe such mechanisms frequently. On the other hand, many important questions--including the origin of genetic information and human consciousness--may not be explicable in terms of unintelligent causes, just as a computer or a book cannot be explained that way." Phillip Johnson. Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education. 1995. InterVarsity Press pg. 208-209.
4. ^  "...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion. ...This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact." Phillip Johnson. "The Wedge", Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. July/August 1999.
5. ^  "Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. ... The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens up for them some doors that have been closed." Phillip Johnson. "Keeping the Darwinists Honest", an interview with Phillip Johnson. In Citizen Magazine. April 1999.