Intelligent Design — The Culture War Demands It!

Seems Phillip Johnson has a new book coming out titled Darwin’s Nemesis, and William A. Dembski provides an excerpt from the preface he’s written for the book. It must make any lawyer, like Johnson, proud, as Dembski manages to claim that the ruling in Dover was good for intelligent design.

Now who is Phillip Johnson some of you might ask? Well, he’s the founder of this great new scientific theory called intelligent design! He’s also a retired lawyer at UC Berkley and the author of a bunch of antievolution books, most notably Darwin on Trial. In addition to bringing his non-existent biological expertise to evolution, he also denies that HIV is a cause of AIDS. There too, the scientific community can’t quite see eye to eye with Phil. You can head over to virusmyth.net to see one of the critiques of HIV / AIDS that Phillip Johnson co-authored. It’s written technically. It evens sounds scientific. Scientists just overwhelming reject these claims. (Aren’t you shocked and outraged that the media and our schools haven’t been teaching that controversy?) He’s the author of the Wedge Document, which is really incredible reading on the purpose of intelligent design. It’s a culture war, not scientific inquiry they’re after. He also authored the Santorum Amendment; an attempt to pass into law a requirement to “teach the controversy” (though no controversy exists in the scientific community over evolutionary theory).

So at this point, I just have to note: intelligent design is mentioned for the very first time in a 9th grade biology textbook (Of Pandas and People) which was originally going to be published as a creation science book, and then the term was popularized by lawyer Philip Johnson, who gets the credit as one of the founders of the movement.

I keep trying to drink the cool-aid guys, but I keep getting confused… How was ID born out of scientific pursuit? One would hope that any scientific theory that’s born in a high school freshman biology book and preached by a lawyer would die a quick death on those merits alone. But I’ve digressed.

Okay, so back to Dembski’s preface. It’s really worth reading and understanding, as it the sheer audacity of it’s claims are worth thinking about.

Dembski writes:

It is hard to imagine that a court decision could have been formulated more negatively against intelligent design.

Well look at that. Dembski and I agree on something!

In light of this decision, one may therefore wonder about the appropriateness of titling this book Darwin’s Nemesis. To read Judge Jones’s decision, one gets the impression that Darwin is alive and quite well.

And we agree on something else! That’s three sentences in a row that I find myself in agreement with him. It’s scaring me a little.

Even so, let me suggest that this decision is a bump in the road and that Phillip Johnson’s program for dismantling Darwinism remains well in hand.

You knew the magic had to end soon.

To see that Judge Jones’s decision is not nearly the setback for intelligent design that its critics would like to imagine, let’s start by considering what would have happened if the judge had ruled in favor of the Dover policy. Such a ruling would have emboldened school boards, legislators, and grass roots organizations to push for intelligent design in the public school science curricula across the nation. As a consequence, this case really would have been a Waterloo for the supporters of neo-Darwinian evolution (the form of evolution taught in all the textbooks).

Slow down Bill. I’m not so sure about that. Would you have had scientists turning in their graves and seeking counseling for their frustration that religious metaphysics were rewriting science through a court room? Yeah, you just might. I personally would feel no end to the frustration had this been the case. But a waterloo for evolution? No, it’s going to take someone clearly show why evolution is wrong and what better theory should replace it. Even if you guys win the next courtroom case, it aint the death of science. America could outlaw the teaching of evolution, and all that would happen is we’d be the laughing stock of the world (kind of like Kansas is now) and scientists would go about their merry way doing science. (Provided that society didn’t sink so far as to pull us before inquisitions…)

Conversely, the actual ruling is not a Waterloo for the intelligent design side. Certainly it will put a damper on some school boards that would otherwise have been interested in promoting intelligent design.

[…]

Without an explicit Supreme Court decision against intelligent design, we can expect continued grass roots pressure to promote intelligent design and undercut neo-Darwinian evolution in the public schools. Because of Kitzmiller v. Dover, school boards and state legislators may tread more cautiously, but tread on evolution they will — the culture war demands it!

Flabbergasted is the word that comes to mind here. So ID, a concept that’s never been accepted as a scientific theory can laugh when the first judge to ever look at it overwhelming rules that its not science and not accepted as such, yet a theory like evolution which has been overwhelmingly accepted for over 150 years hung in the balance in a courtroom rather than a science journal? That’s some serious logic gymnastics there Bill. And here’s the crux of the matter for me — I find your admission that “the culture war demands it” to be a telling sign of your motivation. Why not “the science demands it”? Time after time after time, we see ID making arguments that prey upon Christians’ fears that science will destroy God. This predatory nature of ID really isn’t that different from the TV evangelist that puts up a phone number and says, “your prayers and donations are needed…”

It is therefore naive to think that this case threatens to derail intelligent design. Intelligent design is rapidly gaining an international following. It is also crossing metaphysical and theological boundaries. I now correspond with ID proponents from every continent (save Antarctica). Moreover, I’ve seen intelligent design embraced by Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, and even atheists. The idea that intelligent design is purely an “American thing” or an “evangelical Christian thing” can therefore no longer be maintained. [emphasis mine]

Here I detect a bit of dishonesty. Even if I am to believe that you’ve found supporters from other religions, or even agnostic or atheist supporters, the simple fact is that the vast majority of ID proponents come from a conservative theological ideology. You make a point in your next paragraph which shows just how true this is… I’ll get to it shortly. As for ID “crossing metaphysical and theological boundaries”, I’m at a loss on why this is positive support for ID. As a person who appreciates theology myself, I don’t see the connection between ID’s religious advances (which have been significant in the last 10 to 20 years) and it’s scientific advances (which have been nonexistent over that same time period).

Even if the courts manage to censor intelligent design at the grade and high school levels (and with the Internet censorship means nothing to the enterprising student), they remain powerless to censor intelligent design at the college and university levels. Intelligent design is quickly gaining momentum among college and graduate students. Three years ago, there was one IDEA Center at the University of California at San Diego (IDEA = Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness—see ). Now there are thirty such centers at American colleges and universities, including the University of California at Berkeley and Cornell University. These centers are fiercely pro-intelligent design.

Here’s where things get fun. IDEA centers are student led groups. Like an atheist club or a Christian group. They are not science clubs coming out of colleges’ and universities’ science departments. As for Bill’s claim above that ID is not a Christian thing, the IDEA centers spoke eloquently on this point. Up until very recently, one of the requirements for being a part of an IDEA club was you had to be a Christian. The requirements on their webpage were formerly:

1) Having an interest in intelligent design and creation - evolution issues, and a willingness to learn more.

2) Agreeing with and being willing to uphold the IDEA Center’s mission statement.

3) Having a desire and commitment to using these issues to educate and outreach to your fellow students, campus, or community.

4) We also require that club leaders be Christians as the IDEA Center Leadership believes, for religious reasons unrelated to intelligent design theory, that the identity of the designer is the God of the Bible. It is definitely not necessary to “be an expert” to start and run a successful a club. It is helpful to be familiar with the basics of intelligent design theory, but if you’re not, that’s where the IDEA Center hopes to step in and help educate you so you can in turn educate others. Where ever you feel like you might need help–whether its science, leadership skills, or practical tips for running the club–that’s where the IDEA Center wants to step in an help you. We try to help give any club founder all the tools they might need to start and run a successful club and help promote a better understanding of the creation - evolution issue at their schools.

Hmmmm Bill. What about all those agnostics and atheists that are just begging to get involved in ID? Well, the IDEA center website has changed those guidelines (no less than a few weeks ago!) to read,

1) Having an interest in intelligent design and creation - evolution issues, and a willingness to learn more.
2) Having a desire and commitment to using these issues to educate and outreach to your fellow students, campus, or community.
3) IDEA Club leaders must advocate the scientific theory of intelligent design in the fields of biology and physics/cosmology.
4) There are no requirements regarding the religious beliefs of IDEA Club leaders or founders. (Indeed, there are currently IDEA Club leaders who are not Christians.)

So as recently as a month ago, it was a requirement that members be Christian. IDEA clubs were started in 2001 (according to their website). So for over four years these rebellious hell raising clubs, standing up against Darwinian evilutionists, were only open to Christians.

Now, least my readers think I’m beating up on Christians (I gladly identify myself as Christian), all I’m doing is trying to drive home the point that ID’s entire existence is because of theological Christian objections to science, not because of scientific objections. These are objections in my mind that are very hurtful, particularly to young kids that grow up and want to go into science. Young earth creationists and IDers give them an ultimatum — God or Darwin. Physics students aren’t told God or Einstein. Chemistry students don’t stay awake at night scared that the ideal gas law will destroy their faith. The charlatans of intelligent design, and the young earth creationists before them, have created just such an atmosphere of hate, distrust, and fear for any Christian student who would dare enjoy the beauty and wonder to be found in biology and follow the evidence where it leads.

Judge Jones’s decision may make life in the short term more difficult for ID proponents. But the work of intelligent design will continue. In fact, it is likely to continue more effectively than if the judge had ruled in favor of intelligent design, which would have encouraged complacency, suggesting that intelligent design had already won the day when in fact intelligent design still has much to accomplish in developing its scientific and intellectual program.

So having an established theory makes scientists lazy? Are you suggesting that every chemist, physicist, and biologist studying their fields must be “complacent” since their theories have “already won the day”? I hardly know how to refute this. Reading it alone should point out it’s emptiness. All of science has much to accomplish and learn. Evolutionary biologists come to work every day to do just that. Learn. So do the other branches of science.

If the book’s as bad as the preface, I’m sure it will make for very entertaining reading.