Re: Definition of ID?
- From: "'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank" <lflank@xxxxxx>
- Date: 19 Mar 2006 20:51:02 -0800
Bobby D. Bryant wrote:
On Sun, 19 Mar 2006, "Staffan S" <qswitch2.removethis@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> skrev i meddelandet
news:dvjkmm$r9d$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sun, 19 Mar 2006, "Staffan S" <qswitch2.removethis@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Is there a "generally accepted" definition of what ID is? Some
creationists want to use as broad a definition as possible, and one I
recently met online argued that ID (as the idea that an intelligence is
behind everything) is the larger concept, and that creationism and
teistic
evolution are only subsets of ID. My own definition, as I understand is
that ID:
- claims to be a scientific field of study
- claims that it is possible to discover signs of God's (OK, the
intelligent designer's) work in this world
- is mostly concerned with biology (but there is some interest in
cosmology)
You may find it useful to distinguish between "intelligent design", the
subject for philosophical discussion for centuries (or millennia?), and
"Intelligent Design", the politics-disguised-as-religion-disguised-as-
pseudoscience being peddled by the Discover Institute.
Good point. This wasn't really clear in my mind until i read your post.
So, when did ID go from being a question for philosophy and theology to
claiming to be science? It seems to me to be the most defining factor of
the difference between "old" and "modern" ID. IIRC Paley considered his
watchmaker argument to be theology, but somewhere along the line this
changed.
Arguably when Johnson changed "intelligent Creator" to "intelligent
Designer" in his creationist-flavored textbook, right after the US
Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to teach creationism in public
schools. That seems to be the origin of the cryptocreationism
movement now known as ID, though I don't know when Behe and Dembski
came on board with their BTWBS pretense at science.
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
A short history of ID:
With the crushing defeat of the creation "science" movement,
anti-evolutionists were forced to adopt a new tactic, one that
attempted to unify all of the various sects and dogmas into a single
"big tent" which could set aside their internal doctrinal differences
and focus on their common enemy. This new movement was called
"intelligent design theory", and it's intellectual forefather is
Phillip Johnson.
Johnson was a law professor at Berkeley when he underwent a painful
divorce that crushed him deeply and prompted him to turn to
fundamentalist religion in a search for meaning. One of the pet
projects that Johnson has undertaken since then has been an effort to
demonstrate that AIDS is not caused by HIV, but by what he terms "an
unhealthy lifestyle". Johnson has declared that it is the "science
establishment" that is hiding "the cracks in the official story" and
preventing "more open investigation" by "ridiculing opponents" and
"deception" which is "fostered by the AIDS industry".
(http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/index/pjohnson.htm)
But it was the fight against evolution that Johnson made his life's
work (although all of his paranoid conspiratorial approach to AIDS
would be echoed in his crusade against Darwin). In the same year that
the Supreme Court struck down creation 'science', Johnson read
Evolution; A Theory in Crisis, a creationist book by Michael Denton.
And here, Johnson later recalled, he found his purpose in life; "This
is it. This is where it all comes down to, the understanding of
creation." (Christianity Today, "The Making of a Revolution", December
8, 1997) In 1991, Johnson published his first book, Darwin on Trial,
which argued that evolution was not science but an atheistic religion
based on "philosophical materialism". In Darwin on Trial, Johnson did
not offer any alternative to evolution, but the book's publication lead
directly to the formation of the Intelligent Design Movement. In 1992,
a group of scientists and philosophers who were influenced by Johnson's
book met at Southern Methodist University, which brought together
Johnson, William Dembski, Michael Behe, and Stephen Meyer. They formed
the core of the ID movement for the next 15 years. When paleontologist
Stephen Jay Gould published a withering critique of Johnson's book in
Scientific American, Johnson responded with a letter that noted:
"What divides Gould and me has little to do with scientific evidence
and everything to do with metaphysics. Gould approaches the question of
evolution from a philosophical starting point in scientific naturalism.
by definition. Science may not know all the details yet, but somethingFrom that standpoint the blind watchmaker thesis is true in principle
very much like Darwinian evolution simply has to be responsible for our
existence because there is no acceptable alternative. If there are gaps
or defects in the existing theory, the appropriate response is to
supply additional naturalistic hypotheses. Critics who disparage
Darwinism without offering a naturalistic alternative are seen as
attacking science itself, probably in order to impose a religious
straitjacket upon science and society. One does not reason with such
persons; one employs any means at hand to discourage them. But maybe
Darwinism really is false--in principle, and not just in detail. Maybe
mindless material processes cannot create information-rich biological
systems. That is a real possibility, no matter how offensive to
scientific naturalists. How do Darwinists know that the blind
watchmaker created animal phyla, for example, since the process can't
be demonstrated and all the historical evidence is missing? Darwinists
may have the cultural power to suppress questions like that for a time,
but eventually they are going to have to come to grips with them. There
are a lot of theists in America, not to mention the rest of the world,
and persons who promote naturalism in the name of science will not
forever be able to deny them a fair hearing." Johnson, "Response to
Gould", available at
http://www.arn.org/docs/orpages/or151/151johngould.htm)
When Scientific American refused to publish Johnson's religious
criticism, Dembski, Behe and Meyer and 36 other anti-evolutionists
responded by mass-mailing a copy of it, along with a supporting
letter, to scientists and biology departments all over the US. In its
supporting letter, the group, calling itself the "Ad Hoc Origins
Committee", identified itself as "Scientists Who Question Darwinism",
and declared: "We are a group of fellow professors or academic
scientists who are generally sympathetic to Johnson and believe that he
warrants a hearing - thus this mailing. Most of us are also Christian
Theists who like Johnson are unhappy with the polarized debate between
biblical literalism and scientific materialism. We think a critical
re-evaluation of Darwinism is both necessary and possible without
embracing young-earth creationism. It is in service of this
re-evaluation that we commend the Johnson/Gould discourse to you."
(available at http://www.apologetics.org/news/adhoc.html#3)
In 1993, the nascent ID movement met again in California, and this
meeting is generally acknowledged as the birth of the Intelligent
Design movement. As young-earth creationist turned IDer Paul Nelson
later reported:
In June 1993, Johnson invited several of the (mostly younger) members
of that community to a conference at the California beach town of
Pajaro Dunes. Present were scientists and philosophers who themselves
would later become well known, such as biochemist Michael Behe, author
of Darwin s Black Box (1996); mathematician and philosopher William
Dembski, author of The Design Inference (1998) and Intelligent Design
(1999); and developmental biologist Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of
Evolution (2000). Of the 14 participants at the Pajaro Dunes
conference, only three (microbiologist Siegfried Scherer of the
Technical University of Munich, paleontologist Kurt Wise of Bryan
College, and me) could be seen as traditional creationists. Moreover,
theological diversity marked the meeting: in addition to the expected
presence of evangelicals, Behe was Roman Catholic; Wells was a member
of the Unification Church; and one participant paleontologist David
Raup of the University of Chicago was an agnostic. Pajaro Dunes thus
became a model for what has come to be known as the intelligent design
movement. Unlike other science and faith organizations (such as the
traditional creationist CRS or the moderate American Scientific
Affiliation [ASA]), no statement of faith was required at Pajaro. What
united the participants (with the possible exception of Raup) was a
deep dissatisfaction with neo-Darwinism and its naturalistic
philosophical foundation and an interest in scientifically exploring
the possibility of design.
Until recently, the majority of active dissenters from neo-Darwinian
(naturalistic) evolution could be classified as young-earth (or what
I call traditional ) creationists. Their dissent could be dismissed as
motivated by biblical literalism, not scientific evidence. While this
criticism of traditional creationists is unfair to the actual content
of their views many prominent creationists are outstanding scientists
the absence of a wider community of dissent from Darwinism hindered
the growth of scientific alternatives to the naturalistic theory. Such
a wider community now exists in the intelligent design (ID) movement.
Within the past decade, the ID community has matured around the
insights of UC Berkeley professor Phillip Johnson, whose central
insight is that science must be free to seek the truth, wherever it
lies. The possibility of design, therefore, cannot be excluded from
science. This outlook has deep roots in the history of Western science
and is essential to the health of science as a truth-seeking
enterprise. Under the canopy of design as an empirical possibility,
however, any number of particular theories may also be possible,
including traditional creationism, progressive (or old-earth )
creationism, and theistic evolution. Both scientific and scriptural
evidence will have to decide the competition between these theories.
The big tent of ID provides a setting in which that struggle after
truth can occur, and from which the secular culture may be influenced.
(Paul Nelson, "Life in the Big Tent", Christian Research Journal, 2002,
available at: http://www.equip.org/free/DL303.htm)
At this conference, biochemist Michael Behe first presented his ideas
about "irreducible complexity", the idea that certain structures within
a cell could not have evolved piece-by-piece because if any one piece
were missing, the entire structure would be nonfunctional and thus
could not be preserved by natural selection. This, of course, was a
rehash of the old "what good is half an eye" argument used by creation
"scientists", but in 1996, Behe released his book, Darwin's Black Box,
laying out his arguments. It was this book which first brought ID to
public attention; it was followed two years later by William Dembski's
Mere Creation and The Design Inference. With the publication of these
books, the anti-evolution movement was transformed; no longer did they
talk about old ICR staples like thermodynamics or transitional fossils
or radiodating -- now they talked about irreducible complexity and
complex specified information.
Shortly after this conference, the ID movement reached organizational
maturity. In 1995, Johnson released another book, Reason in the
Balance; The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education,
which argued against atheistic "methodological materialism" (which he
defines as "The Creator belongs to the realm of religion, not
scientific investigation" (Johnson, 1995, p. 208) ) in favor of
"theistic realism", which Johnson defined as:
"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 . . . . Many
important questions -- including the origin of genetic information and
human consciousness -- may not be explicable in terms of unintelligent
causes." (Johnson, 1995, p. 208-209)
That same summer, Johnson and the IDers organized a conference titled
"The Death of Materialism and the Renewal of Culture". A year later,
the conservative Seattle think tank Discovery Institute, using a grant
provided by extremist fundamentalist Howard Ahmanson, founded a
division specifically to carry on the political work of expanding
"intelligent design theory" into education. This division grew
directly out of Johnson's "Death of Materialism and the Renewal of
Culture" conference, and was itself originally named the Center for the
Renewal of Science and Culture. Shortly afterwards, the name was
changed to the Center for Science and Culture because the old name
produced too much religious connotation. At about the same time, the
Center's logo, showing Michealangelo's God reaching out to touch a
strand of DNA, was dropped and replaced by some photos from the Hubble
Space Telescope -- apparently the old logo was too explicit about the
Center's religious aims.
All of the founding figures in the design movement -- Johnson, Dembski,
Meyer, Behe, Nelson, Wells -- are Fellows or Senior Fellows at
Discovery Institute, and the Center for Science and Culture remains the
largest, most prominent and most prolific advocate of Intelligent
Design "theory".
The "intelligent design" movement, like the earlier creation
"scientists", claims to be a solely scientific group which argues that
the "scientific evidence" supports the view that "an unknown
intelligent designer" manipulated the development of life. Unlike the
creation "science" movement, though, which published book after book
detailing their conclusions about evolution (or the lack of it) and a
young earth, the intelligent design movement is very careful to avoid
any and all discussion about such topics as the age of the earth, or
whether humans are descended from primates. This is a deliberate
strategy on their part to avoid the internal doctrinal schisms which
have always destroyed creationist organizations -- it is also a
deliberate effort to distance themselves from the earlier creation
"scientists" who the Supreme Court had rejected. IDers are also very
careful to make no statement or implication about who or what this
"intelligent designer" is, or what exactly it is supposed to have done.
In particular, they deny strenuously that ID is just creationism
renamed, or that the "intelligent designer" is really just God, instead
asserting that it could just as easily be space aliens who
"intelligently designed" life:
"Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis
account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical
God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory
of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and
has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred
text." (Discovery Institute website)
"Intelligent design theory may hold implications for fields outside of
science such as theology, ethics, and philosophy. But such implications
are distinct from intelligent design as a scientific research program."
(Discovery Institute website)
"Although intelligent design fits comfortably with a belief in God, it
doesn't require it, because the scientific theory doesn't tell you who
the designer is," Behe said. "While most people - including me - will
think the designer is God, some people might think that the designer
was a space alien...". Michael Behe (quoted in Pittsburg Post-Gazette")
"It could be space aliens. There are many possibilities." (William
Dembski, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle)
"For this purpose, it does not matter whether the intelligence is
thought to belong to God, or to some alien race of intelligent beings,
or to some entity we cannot yet imagine." (Phillip Johnson, posting in
the ARN discussion forum)
In their candid moments, though, the prominent IDers are open about
their real aims:
"We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive
scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has
come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). 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." -- Discovery Institute's "Wedge Document"
"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." -- Discovery Institute's "Wedge Document"
"What I always say is that it's not just scientific theory. The
question is best understood as: Is God real or imaginary?" Phillip
Johnson quoted, The Search for Intelligent Design in the Universe,
Silicon Valley Magazine, January 9, 2000.
"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." (Phillip Johnson,
American Family Radio, Jan 10, 2003 broadcast)
"Intelligent design is the Logos of John's Gospel restated in the idiom
of information theory." (William Dembski, Jul/Aug 1999, Touchstone, p.
84)
"So the question is: "How to win?" That's when I began to develop
what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the
most important thing"-the mechanism and the building up of
information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate
because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy.
Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the
secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious
dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do
the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get
sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do."
(Phillip E. Johnson, Touchstone Magazine interview, June 2002.)
"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.)
"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, Citizen Magazine, April 1999.)
"Intelligent design theory" is simply a watered-down version of
creationism which attempts to avoid falling afoul of Constitutional
conflicts by removing nearly all of the previously accepted tenets of
creationism. It is, as one reviewer memorably referred to it,
"creationism in a cheap tuxedo". Rather than a "creator", ID "theory"
speaks of an un-named "intelligent designer", which they make no effort
to identify. In order to avoid identification with Genesis or other
religious beliefs, "intelligent design theory" makes no statements
about the age of the earth, or any of the particular actions which the
"intelligent designer" may or may not have done. By limiting ID
"theory" to vague assertions and inferences, advocates hope to avoid
identifying their "scientific theory" with religion, and thus to avoid
the Constitutional issues that had doomed all of the previous
anti-evolution efforts.
Some idea of the Discovery Institute's real aims, however, can be
revealed by looking at its funding sources. Nearly all of the Discovery
Institute's money comes in the form of grants from wealthy
"conservative" fundamentalist Christians. In 2003, the Discovery
Institute received some $4.1 million in donations and grants. At least
twenty-two different foundations give money to the DI; two-thirds of
these are religious institutions with explicitly Christian aims and
goals. In its first year of operations, DI got around $450,000 from the
Maclellan Foundation, a fundamentalist lobbying group in Tennessee. The
executive director of the Maclellan Foundation was explicit about the
purpose of its donation; "We give for religious purposes. This is not
about science, and Darwin wasn't about science. Darwin was about a
metaphysical view of the world." (NY Times, Aug 21, 2005) DI has also
received donations from the Henry P. and Susan C. Crowell Trust of
Colorado Springs. The trust's website states, "Our Mission: The
teaching and active extension of the doctrines of Evangelical
Christianity through approved grants to qualified organizations."
Another DI donor is the AMDG Foundation in Virginia, run by Mark
Ryland, a former Microsoft exec and Discovery vice president. According
to the New York Times, "the initials stand for Ad Majorem Dei Glorium,
Latin for 'To the greater glory of God,' which Pope John Paul II etched
in the corner of all his papers." (NY Times, Aug 21, 2005) The
Stewardship Foundation gave the group more than $1 million between 1999
and 2003. According to their website, "The Stewardship Foundation
provides resources to Christ-centered organizations whose mission is to
share their faith in Jesus Christ with people throughout the world."
The single biggest source of money for the Discovery Institute's
anti-evolution fight, though, is Howard Ahmanson, a California
savings-and-loan bigwig. Ahmanson's gift of $1.5 million was the
original seed money to organize the Center for Science and Culture, the
arm of the Discovery Institute which focuses on promoting "intelligent
design theory". By his own reckoning, Ahmanson gives more of his money
to the DI than to any other politically active group -- only a museum
trust in his wife's hometown in Iowa and a Bible college in New Jersey
get more. In 2004, he reportedly gave the Center another $2.8 million.
Ahmanson has, by himself, provided about one-third of the toal
donations to the Discovery Institute during its existence, and funds
about one-fourth of the Institute's annual operating expenses. He sits
on the Board Directors of Discovery Institute.
Ahmanson was for 20 years a member of the board of directors of the
Chalcedon Foundation, a think tank belonging to the Christian
Reconstructionist movement -- a fringe group of fundamentalists who
argue that the US Constitution should be abandoned and the US should be
"reconstructed" under "Biblical law". They are the Christian
equivalent of the Muslim fundamentalists who want to form "Islamic
states" under "Islamic law". Ahmanson was long associated with JR
Rushdooney -- one of the original founders of the Reconstructionist
movement and one of the original financial backers of Henry Morris and
the ICR (Rushdooney paid most of the publishing costs for Morris's
first book, The Genesis Flood. Similarly, Phillip Johnson dedicated his
book Defeating Darwinism to "Howard and Roberta" -- Ahmanson and his
wife.)
After the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture was
established (with Ahmanson's money), one of its first tasks was to
organize the fledgling ID movement. At the 1996 "Mere Creation"
conference at Biola University in California, over 160 ID supporters
met to plan strategy. Participant John Angus Campbell reported:
The theme of the talks on Friday morning was "Foundations for a Theory
of Design" and in the afternoon "Biological Evidence for Design." . . .
Dembski gave what I thought was one of his most cogent accounts of how
and where "intelligent design" fits into science as an explanation. His
talk was titled "Redesigning Science"--and that clearly is what he had
in mind. He offered us the Explanatory Filter, explaining how the three
levels (law, chance, design) functioned in scientific explanation.
Meyer was just as cogent and came through with an exceptionally lively
and detailed talk on "DNA and the Origin of Information." . . . . Of
this trinity presaging the designed philosophic wrath to come, Nelson
spoke last, on "Applying Design Within Biology." He stressed that
worries about making erroneous design inferences (as, for instance,
Kepler did concerning intelligent life on the moon) should not exclude
design from science generally. In the afternoon Michael Behe (Lehigh)
weighed in with the most entertaining and one of the most effective
talks of the conference. . . . What I thought was particularly helpful
and new in Mike's talk was his theme, which as his title indicated was
"Intelligent Design As a Tool for Analyzing Biochemical Systems." I
came away from Mike's talk in particular impressed with the point that
"intelligent design" offers real research program. (Campbell, "Report
on the Mere Creation Conference", Origins and Design, 1997, available
at: http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od181/mere181.htm)
William Dembski's first book, Mere Creation, was an edited compilation
of presentations from this conference. Other books by IDers followed;
William Dembski's Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and
Theology, and No Free Lunch; Jonathan Wells' Icons of Evolution;
Privileged Planet, by Guillermo Gonzalez; and Darwinism, Design, and
Public Education, by John Angus Campbell and Stephen Meyer.
The most important document in understanding the Intelligent Design
movement, however, was one that was not intended for publication at
all.
Intelligent Design Arguments
In 1999, an internal Discovery Institute document was leaked to the
Internet by two people in Seattle. In January 1999, Matt Duss, a
part-time employee in a copy center, was handed a document from the
Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, stamped TOP SECRET and
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, to copy. Having an interest in evolution and
science, Duss glanced through the document and was amazed at what he
saw -- he promptly made himself an extra copy and passed it on to
friend Tim Rhodes, who scanned the entire document and put it up on the
World Wide Web on February 5, 1999 . The document appears to have been
written in 1998, and it outlines the Discovery Institute's longterm
plan to, as it states, replace science with a "broadly theistic
understanding of nature" (Discovery institute, The Wedge Document,
1999), and its tactic of using the fight against evolution as a "wedge"
to do this. The authenticity of the "Wedge Document", as it quickly
became known, was later admitted by the Discovery Institute.
The Wedge Document is crucial in understanding exactly what the goals
of the ID movement are, and how they planned to meet them. The
document is reproduced, in its entirety, as an appendix at the end of
this book.
It is a remarkable document. It lays out, in clear detail, a five-year
plan to, in effect, undo the Enlightenment, replacing the entire idea
of a secular society with the ID movement's own vision of religious
supremacy. Not just biology or science, but all of civil society,
including law, politics and even art, would bow before fundamentalist
religious views. The influence of not only the Christian
fundamentalists, but the radically extremist Reconstructionists, is
apparent throughout the Wedge's program.
The Wedge outlines its plan for "cultural renewal" in three phases,
containing a number of different tracks and approaches. All of them
have been put into effect.
Phase I: Research, Writing and Publication
Phase I is the essential component of everything that comes afterward.
Without solid scholarship, research and argument, the project would be
just another attempt to indoctrinate instead of persuade. A lesson we
have learned from the history of science is that it is unnecessary to
outnumber the opposing establishment. Scientific revolutions are
usually staged by an initially small and relatively young group of
scientists who are not blinded by the prevailing prejudices and who are
able to do creative work at the pressure points, that is, on those
critical issues upon which whole systems of thought hinge. So, in Phase
I we are supporting vital witting and research at the sites most likely
to crack the materialist edifice.
Phase II: Publicity and Opinion-making
Phase II. The primary purpose of Phase II is to prepare the popular
reception of our ideas. The best and truest research can languish
unread and unused unless it is properly publicized. For this reason we
seek to cultivate and convince influential individuals in pnnt and
broadcast media, as well as think tank leaders, scientists and
academics, congressional staff, talk show hosts, college and seminary
presidents and faculty, future talent and potential academic allies.
Because of his long tenure in politics, journalism and public policy,
Discovery President Bruce Chapman brings to the project rare knowledge
and acquaintance of key op-ed writers, journalists, and political
leaders. This combination of scientific and scholarly expertise and
media and political connections makes the Wedge unique, and also
prevents it from being "merely academic." Other activities include
production of a PBS documentary on intelligent design and its
implications, and popular op-ed publishing. Alongside a focus on
influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of
support among our natural constituency, namely, Chnstians. We will do
this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to
encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidence's that
support the faith, as well as to "popularize" our ideas in the broader
culture.
Phase III: Cultural Confrontation and Renewal
Phase III. Once our research and writing have had time to mature, and
the public prepared for the reception of design theory, we will move
toward direct confrontation with the advocates of materialist science
through challenge conferences in significant academic settings. We will
also pursue possible legal assistance in response to resistance to the
integration of design theory into public school science curricula. The
attention, publicity, and influence of design theory should draw
scientific materialists into open debate with design theorists, and we
will be ready. With an added emphasis to the social sciences and
humanities, we will begin to address the specific social consequences
of materialism and the Darwinist theory that supports it in the
sciences.
The very first sentence of the Wedge Document makes plain the
underlying religious aim of the Discovery Institute's anti-evolution
campaign: "The proposition that human beings are created in the image
of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western Civilization
was built." (Wedge Document) The Discovery Institute, like other
fundamentalist Christians, refers to the rejection of this religious
idea as "the philosophy of materialism" or "naturalism" or sometimes
"darwinism" (all are phrases which have long been the fundamentalist
code words for "atheism"), and explicitly states that this
materialistic atheism is the direct result of science: "This cardinal
idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the
discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of
both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and
Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but
as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely
impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by
the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment. This
materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every
area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and
art." (Wedge Document) Thus, the Discovery Institute's basic complaint
can be summed up as "science is atheistic". Under the heading
"Governing Goals", the Discovery Institute lists, "To replace
materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature
and human beings are created by God." (Wedge Document, 1999)
The goal of Discovery Institute's "intelligent design theory", then, is
to replace "materialism" with . . . . well . . . they are very careful
in court and in legislation to not name their replacement. However,
since "materialism" and "naturalism" have long been the fundamentalist
code words for "atheism", and since nothing but a god or deity is
capable of using any non-"materialistic" or super-"naturalistic"
mechanism or process, it seems pretty certain that what Discovery
Institute wants is to introduce theism into science and to force
science to bow before its religious opinions. As the Wedge Document
puts it, "Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and
Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its
cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural
sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center
explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science
raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened
the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature."
The Discovery Institute, after a long silence, has attempted to deflect
concerns about the Wedge Document in a web article ("The Wedge
Document; So what?", Discovery Institute website, March 1, 2004). Their
"response" is fraught with deception and evasion.
The Institute first tries to downplay the significance of the document,
by dismissing it as a mere "early fundraising proposal". Even a cursory
reading of the document, however, demonstrates this claim to be
nonsense. Nowhere in the entire document is there any appeal for funds,
nor any mention of fundraising. What is mentioned, however, are things
such as "The Wedge Strategy", "Five Year Strategic Plan Summary",
"Governing Goals", "Five Year Goals", "Twenty Year Goals", and "The
Wedge Strategy Progress Summary". The document also lists a number of
steps to be taken to advance the ID agenda --- every one of which
Discovery Institute subsequently carried out (or attempted to). The
DI's claim that the Wedge Document is just a "fundraising proposal" and
not actually a planning document outlining the goals of the Institute
and the steps it plans to take in order to reach those goals, is not
only dishonest and plainly untrue, it is also completely irrelevant. It
makes no difference whether the Wedge Document is a strategy guide, a
fundraising proposal, or a memo for the Institute's janitor. What does
matter (and what the Discovery Institute's "response" fails utterly to
acknowledge or defend) is that the Wedge Document clearly,
unequivocably and unmistakably declares, in print, that the "governing
goal" of the Institute is to advance their religious beliefs, that
"intelligent design theory" is the primary method they have chosen to
pursue that goal, and that they have an articulated pre-planned 20-year
strategy to use ID "theory" as a method of advancing their religious
goals. Despite all the DI's arm-waving, the Wedge Document demonstrates
that the sole and only aim of the Institute is to use "intelligent
design theory" in classrooms as a means of advancing a religious
renewal -- exactly what the US Constitution says they cannot do. And
when they claim that ID "theory" has no religious aims or purpose, the
Wedge Document demonstrates that IDers are flat-out lying to us.
Published statements by DI associates confirm that "renewing our
culture" by replacing "scientific materialism" with "God" or a
"theistic understanding of nature" is indeed the only aim and purpose
of "intelligent design theory". DI associate George Gilder wrote an
entire piece entitled "The Materialist Superstition" which decries "the
Darwinian materialist paradigm", and advocates replacing it with
"intelligent design", which, Gilder implies (but is very careful not to
explicitly state), is non-materialistic. ("The Materialistic
Superstition", Discovery Institute Website, 2005). Other ID advocates,
however, have at times been less circumspect.
Phillip Johnson, who talks much more openly than the others about the
explicit anti-atheistic goals of "intelligent design theory",
specifically contrasts "scientific materialism" with "divine
intervention";
"It is the alleged absence of divine intervention throughout the
history of life -- the strict materialism of the orthodox theory --
that explains why a great many people, only some of whom are biblical
fundamentalists, think that Darwinian evolution (beyond the micro
level) is basically materialistic philosophy disguised as scientific
fact." (Johnson, "The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism", First
Things, November 1997, PP 22-25)
"Science also has become identified with a philosophy known as
materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that
nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can
have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating,
and that the means of creation must not have included any role for God.
.. . . The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it
is the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism. Students first
learn that "evolution is a fact," and then they gradually learn more
and more about what that "fact" means. It means that all living things
are the product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws,
natural selection, and random variation. So God is totally out of the
picture, and humans (like everything else) are the accidental product
of a purposeless universe." (Johnson, "The Church of Darwin", Wall
Street Journal, August 16, 1999).
"For now we need to stick to the main point: In the beginning was the
Word, and the 'fear of God'- recognition of our dependence upon God-is
still the beginning of wisdom. If materialist science can prove
otherwise then so be it, but everything we are learning about the
evidence suggests that we don't need to worry. (Johnson, "How to Sink a
Battleship; A Call to Separate Materialist Philosophy from Empriical
Science", address to the 1996 "Mere Creation Conference")
Johnson explicitly calls for "a better scientific theory, one genuinely
based on unbiased empirical evidence and not on materialist philosophy"
(Johnson, "How to Sink a Battleship). Johnson doesn't tell us what this
non-materialistic philosophy might be that he wants to base science on,
but it is clear from the rest of his statements that he, like every
other IDer, wants to base science on his religious beliefs.
DI associate Michael Behe also makes the connection between fighting
"scientific materialism" and "theistic understanding of nature"
explicitly clear.
"Darwinism is the most plausible unintelligent mechanism, yet it has
tremendous difficulties and the evidence garnered so far points to its
inability to do what its advocates claim for it. If unintelligent
mechanisms can't do the job, then that shifts the focus to intelligent
agency. That's as far as the argument against Darwinism takes us, but
most people already have other reasons for believing in a personal God
who just might act in history, and they will find the argument for
intelligent design fits with what they already hold. With the argument
arranged this way, evidence against Darwinism does count as evidence
for an active God, just as valid negative advertising against the
Democratic candidate will help the Republican, even though Vegetarian
and One-World candidates are on the ballot, too. Life is either the
result of exclusively unintelligent causes or it is not, and the
evidence against the unintelligent production of life is clearly
evidence for intelligent design." (Behe, "The God of Science", Weekly
Standard, June 7, 1999, p. 35)
"Naturalism is a philosophy which says that material things are all
that there is. But philosophy is not science, and therefore excluding
ideas which point to a creator, which point to God, is not allowed
simply because in public schools in the United States one is not
allowed to discriminate either for or against ideas which have
religious implications." (Behe, Speech at Calvary Chapel, March 6,
2002)
Another DI associate, William Dembski, makes the connection between ID
and Christian apologetics even more explicit:
"Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology, which
suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I've found
that it opens the path for people to come to Christ. Indeed, once
materialism is no longer an option, Christianity again becomes an
option. True, there are then also other options. But Christianity is
more than able to hold its own once it is seen as a live option. The
problem with materialism is that it rules out Christianity so
completely that it is not even a live option. Thus, in its relation to
Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing
operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for
generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious
consideration." (Dembski, "Intelligent Design's Contribution to the
Debate Over Evolution", Designinference.com website, February 2005).
Indeed, Dembski titled one of his books Intelligent Design; the Bridge
Between Science and Theology (Dembski, 1999). In that book, Dembski
makes the religious basis of ID "theory" explicit: "The conceptual
soundings of the theory can in the end only be located in Christ."
(Dembski, 1999, p. 210). Other statements by Dembski make it clear that
his designer cannot be anything other than God:
"The fine-tuning of the universe, about which cosmologists make such a
to-do, is both complex and specified and readily yields design. So too,
Michael Behe's irreducibly complex biochemical systems readily yield
design. The complexity-specification criterion demonstrates that design
pervades cosmology and biology. Moreover, it is a transcendent design,
not reducible to the physical world. Indeed, no intelligent agent who
is strictly physical could have presided over the origin of the
universe or the origin of life." (Dembski, "The Act of Creation", ARN
website, Aug 1998)
"From our vantage, materialism is not a neutral, value-free, minimalist
position from which to pursue inquiry. Rather, it is itself an ideology
with an agenda. What's more, it requires an evolutionary creation story
to keep it afloat. On scientific grounds, we regard that creation story
to be false. What's more, we regard the ideological agenda that has
flowed from it to be destructive to rational discourse. Our concerns
are therefore entirely parallel to the evolutionists'. Indeed, all the
evolutionists' worst fears about what the world would be like if we
succeed have, in our view, already been realized through the success of
materialism and evolution. Hence, as a strategy for unseating
materialism and evolution, the term "Wedge" has come to denote an
intellectual and cultural movement that many find congenial." (Dembski,
"Dealing with the backlash against intelligent design", 2004)
"But there are deeper motivations. I think at a fundamental level, in
terms of what drives me in this is that I think God's glory is being
robbed by these naturalistic approaches to biological evolution,
creation, the origin of the world, the origin of biological complexity
and diversity. When you are attributing the wonders of nature to these
mindless material mechanisms, God's glory is getting robbed...And so
there is a cultural war here. Ultimately I want to see God get the
credit for what he's done - and he's not getting it." (Dembski, address
given at Fellowship Baptist Church, Waco, Texas, March 7, 2004) "Even
so, there is an immediate payoff to intelligent design: it destroys the
atheistic legacy of Darwinian evolution. Intelligent design makes it
impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (Dembski, Why
President Bush Got It Right about Intelligent Design, 2005)
As the Wedge Document puts it:
"We are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it
off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is
precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic
science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a
"wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied
at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin
edge of the wedge," was Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinism begun
in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance
and Defeatng Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly
successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building
on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific
alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be
called the theory of intelligent design (ID). 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." (Wedge Document, 1999)
In these public statements by DI associates and its own internal
documents, we see the legal and political strategy of "intelligent
design theory" in a nutshell -- ID wants to eliminate "materialism" and
"atheism" in favor of "theistic understanding", but since it's illegal
in the US to advance religion in public schools, ID advocates have no
choice but to downplay and avoid mentioning their clearly stated goal
of doing exactly what the law says they cannot do -- using the public
schools to advance their religious beliefs. In other words, they must
be deceptive.
It is important to understand that intelligent design "theory" is, if
you will pardon the pun, intelligently designed -- specifically and
solely to attempt to evade and get around all of the Federal court
cases which make it illegal to use the schools to advance religion.
However, the fundamentalist IDers seem to be their own worst enemies,
and their own incessant compulsion to attack "materialism", "atheism",
"darwinism" and "naturalism", gives the lie to their claims to be
non-religious. The entire approach of ID is fatally flawed, right from
the start, by an insoluble contradiction. In order for the ID strategy
to be successful, it absolutely requires that all of its supporters
keep quiet, indefinitely, about the one thing they care most about in
the whole world -- their fundamentalist religious opinions. As the
history of ID shows, they can't do it. They don't want to do it. What
IDers want to do is preach, and it is simply an impossible task to
preach while at the same time claiming that one is not preaching.
Intelligent design "theory" is, as the Discovery Institute admitted
from the beginning in its own internal document, simply a legal and
political strategy to "wedge" their religious opinions into public
schools and from there to larger society. Nothing more, nothing less,
nothing else. It has the sole and only aim of advancing religion by
attacking science's presumed "atheism" and "materialism". ID "theory"
is nothing but an advancement of religious beliefs, and IDers are
flat-out lying to us when they claim otherwise.
Since ID is, at root, simply an attempt to continue the creationist
program of teaching religious opinions in public schools, it is no
surprise that all of the "scientific arguments" made by the IDers are
simply rehashed versions of thirty-year-old creation "science"
boilerplate. All of the ID arguments are subordinated to the overall
political goal laid out in the Wedge Document.
What is the Scientific Theory of Intelligent Design?
Like the creationists before them, the IDers are faced with the
seemingly unsolvable problem of arguing an explanation for the material
world that is patently religious in nature, but at the same time
attempting to argue to everyone that it is really "science" and not
religion. The creationists unsuccessfully tried to get around this by
arguing that the concept of a "creator" wasn't necessarily religious
but could be treated scientifically. The IDers apparently learned a
lesson from that creationist failure -- so the IDers instead refuse to
present or discuss their "alternative theory" at all.
================================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"
Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
DebunkCreation email list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DebunkCreation/
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