Intelligent design movement
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Main article: Intelligent design
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The Intelligent Design movement, which began in the mid-1990s, is an organized campaign to promote Intelligent design(ID) arguments in the public sphere, primarily in the United States. The ID movement is largely attributable to the efforts of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank, and its Center for Science and Culture. The CSC counts most of the leading ID advocates and authors among its fellows or officers, in particular it's program advisor Phillip E. Johnson. As one of the most prolific authors in the ID movement, Johnson is one of the architects of both the wedge strategy and the Teach the Controversy strategy. Both are political action treatise. Johnson on several occasions has acknowledged that the goal of the movement is promoting a theistic and creationist agenda cast as a scientific concept when he admitted "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." [1] (http://www.christianity.ca/news/social-issues/2004/03.001.html) and "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. Its about religion and philosophy." [2] (http://www.leaderu.com/pjohnson/world2.html)
The movement claims ID exposes the limitations of scientific orthodoxy, and of the secular philosophy of Naturalism. Several campaigns promoted by the Discovery Institute are intended to sway the opinion of the public, politicians, popular media, funding agencies, and the educational community in order that they should effect an "overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies". To this goal, the concept of intelligent design is viewed by Johnson and the Discovery Institute as a cornerstone of both the wedge strategy and the Teach the Controversy campaigns. The ID movement has attracted considerable press attention and pockets of public support, especially among conservative Christians in the US.
Critics claim that the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious worldview that undergirds it" [3] (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/barbara_forrest/wedge.html) 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. As evidence they cite the fact that ID features notably as part of a campaign known as Teach the Controversy, considered to be a cornerstone of the Discovery Institute's Wedge Strategy.
The mainstream scientific community, as represented by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education assert that ID is not science, but pseudoscience.
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Origin of the term
The phrase "intelligent design", used in this sense, appeared in Christian creationist literature, including the textbook Of Pandas and People (Haughton Publishing Company, Dallas, 1989). The term was promoted more broadly by Phillip Johnson following his 1991 book Darwin on Trial. Johnson's assertion, and a key tenet of the ID movement, is the rejection of philosophical naturalism.
Nancy Pearcey, a CSC fellow and Johnson associate, acknowleges Johnson's leadership of the intelligent design movement in two of her most recent publications. In an interview with Johnson for World magazine, Pearcey says, "It is not only in politics that leaders forge movements. Phillip Johnson has developed what is called the 'Intelligent Design' movement..." [4] (http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/arn/pearcey/np_world-wedge0800.htm) In Christianity Today, she reveals Johnson's religious beliefs and his animosity toward evolution and affirms Johnson as "The unofficial spokesman for ID" [5] (http://www.windowview.org/arnfiles/notinkansasanymor.html)
ID as a movement
Principal ID proponents have stated a 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. Phillip E. Johnson in his book "Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education" (InterVarsity Press, 1995), positions himself as a "theistic realist" against "methodological naturalism":
- "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." pg. 208-209.
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 acknowleged 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 [6] (http://web.archive.org/web/19970608130849/http://www.discovery.org/crsc/aboutcrsc.html) to appeal to a broader, a more secular audience. It hopes to accomplish this by using less overtly theistic messages and language [7] (http://www.discovery.org/csc/aboutCSC.php). 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." [8] (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195157427/qid=1095946867/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-1200768-5974420)[9] (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/01/06/ahmanson/) Until 1995, Ahmanson sat on the board of the Christian reconstructionist Chalcedon Foundation [10] (http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre3.html).
The wedge strategy
Main article: Wedge strategy
The "wedge strategy" first came to the general public's attention in a Discovery Institute internal memo now known as the Wedge Document (http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html), which 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 ID movement argue that the wedge document and strategy demonstrate that the ID 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." [11] (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=349)
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.'" [12] (http://ebd10.ebd.csic.es/pdfs/DarwSciOrPhil.pdf) "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
Political issues
Dover, PA case
In 2004, Dover, Pennsylvania, passed a law requiring the teaching of Intelligent Design. A case was filed which contends that Intelligent Design is creationism, an issue which was ruled on previously by the U.S. Supreme Court. Dover, PA contends that Intelligent Design is not creationism, and its being taught does not have a "clear intent" to establish religion.
The standard for which was established in Edwards v. Aguillard determining whether a requirement to teach particular material is an unconstitutional violation of the First amendment and Fourteenth amendment. The case rests on Lemon v. Kurtzman 403 U.S. 602, a three-pronged test: a law must have secular purpose, the statute's principal effect must neither advance nor hinder religion, and the statute must not create "excessive" involvement in religion. If any of these prongs are violated, then state action has violated the Establishment clause of the First Amendment.
The plaintiffs contend that Intelligent Design meets this standard, that the content of the law is a distinction without a difference, and that the intent is similar to Selman et al. v. Cobb County School District et al. [13] (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/13/evolution.textbooks.ruling/) where stickers were placed on text books stating that evolution was a theory and not a fact. They argue that the court must be, in the words of Justice Brennan, "particularly vigilant", meaning that it has a lower threshold for action in that sphere. They point to Lynch v. Donnelly which is referenced in Aguillard as saying: "whether government's actual purpose is to endorse or disapprove of religion", and argue that the evidence shows this. Thus the plaintiff's argument rests on a legal assertion, that the law is a question of establishment, and a factual one, that it can be ascertained that the intent of the school board was to promote religion.
Dover, Pennsylvania, for its part, contends that the law is secular in purpose, that Intelligent Design is not a religious belief, and does not violate the first prong of the Lemon v. Kurtzman standard. The application of the law was also voluntary for both teachers and students, an attempt to weaken any legal argument on entanglement in religion: namely, since the school allows, but does not mandate, teaching of particular subjects.
A hearing in Federal District Court is scheduled for next September. (See also creation and evolution in public education.)
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 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. 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 [14] (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?programs=CRSC&command=view&id=1121). 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.
Ohio Board of Education
A more recent and significant success for the intelligent design movement can be attributed to Stephen Meyer, the program director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, who, in March 2002 as part of the Discovery Institute's Teach the Controversy initiative proposed to the Ohio Board of Education a model lesson plan (http://www.discovery.org/csc/ohio/docs/modellesson.pdf) that featured intelligent design prominently in its curricula [15] (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?program=CSC&command=view&id=1134). It 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" [16] (http://www.sciohio.org/sbe1015.htm). Nevertheless, that the proposed lesson plan was adopted in part was touted as a significant victory by the Discovery Institute [17] (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?program=News-CSC&command=view&id=1937). The Discovery Institue continues to advance its intelligent design and teach the controversy agendas by directly lobbying state education boards and also by supporting local intelligent design proponents and groups [18] (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1750&program=CRSC) [19] (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&program=CSCStories&id=1607).
Smithsonian donation
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 (http://www.illustramedia.com/tppinfo.htm) on the book The Privileged Planet,written (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2170&program=CSC%20-%20Video%20and%20Curriculum%20-%20Multimedia) by two senior fellows of the Discovery Institute. Notably, the video was also a production of Illustra Media (http://www.illustramedia.com/), which has been identified (http://www.nmsr.org/smkg-gun.htm) 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 inconsistentwith (http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/001098.html) 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 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/02/AR2005060201659.html) 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.
External links
- The Wedge at Work: How Intelligent Design Creationism Is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic Mainstream (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/barbara_forrest/wedge.html) Chapter 1 of the book Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics by Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. MIT Press, 2001
