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162-456: Intelligent design is the pseudoscientific religious belief that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not a naturalistic process such as evolution by natural selection . Implicit in the intelligent design doctrine is a redefining of science and how it is conducted (see theistic science ). Wedge strategy proponents are opposed to materialism , naturalism , and evolution , and have made

324-479: A Johnny Appleseed , bringing others into the movement. Meyer became one of a group of prominent young intelligent design (ID) advocates with academic degrees: Mayer, Nelson, Dembski and Jonathan Wells . Meyer participated in the "Ad Hoc Origins Committee" defending Johnson's Darwin on Trial in 1992 or 1993 (in response to Stephen Jay Gould 's review of it in the July 1992 issue of Scientific American ), while with

486-451: A Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) in 1987 and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in history and the philosophy of science in 1991. His dissertation was entitled "Of Clues and Causes: A Methodological Interpretation of Origin-of-Life Research". In Fall 1990, Meyer became an assistant professor of philosophy at Whitworth College, where he was promoted to an associate professor in 1995, and granted tenure in 1996. In Fall 2002, he moved to

648-467: A false dichotomy in the premise that evidence against evolution constitutes evidence for design. In 1910, evolution was not a topic of major religious controversy in America, but in the 1920s, the fundamentalist–modernist controversy in theology resulted in fundamentalist Christian opposition to teaching evolution and resulted in the origins of modern creationism. As a result, teaching of evolution

810-838: A paleontologist from the University of Washington held an open online discussion on the topic of intelligent design in the Talk of the Times forum in Seattle, WA . Meyer has also debated atheists Peter Atkins , Eugenie Scott and Michael Shermer . In March 2002 Meyer announced a " teach the controversy " strategy, which falsely claims that the theory of evolution is controversial within scientific circles. The presentation included submission of an annotated bibliography of 44 peer-reviewed scientific articles that he claimed raise significant challenges to key tenets of "Darwinian evolution". In response to this claim,

972-528: A tautology ; in his view, these arguments amount to the claim that life is able to exist because the Universe is able to support life. The claim of the improbability of a life-supporting universe has also been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination for assuming no other forms of life are possible: life as we know it might not exist if things were different, but a different sort of life might exist in its place. A number of critics also suggest that many of

1134-423: A 1989 creationist textbook intended for high school biology classes. The term was substituted into drafts of the book, directly replacing references to creation science and creationism , after the 1987 Supreme Court 's Edwards v. Aguillard decision barred the teaching of creation science in public schools on constitutional grounds . From the mid-1990s, the intelligent design movement (IDM), supported by

1296-564: A 2006 article published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation , a group of writers that included historian of science Ronald L. Numbers (author of The Creationists ), philosopher of biology Elliott Sober , Wisconsin State Assembly representative Terese Berceau , and four members of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison characterized such claims as being

1458-506: A conference titled "Sources of Information Content in DNA" in Tacoma , Washington . Stephen C. Meyer was at the conference, and later recalled that "The term intelligent design came up..." In December 1988 Thaxton decided to use the label "intelligent design" for his new creationist movement. Of Pandas and People was published in 1989, and in addition to including all the current arguments for ID,

1620-483: A highly negative review of Meyer's book. Prothero pointed out that the "Cambrian Explosion" concept itself has been deemed an outdated concept after recent decades of fossil discovery and he points out that 'Cambrian diversification' is a more consensual term now used in paleontology to describe the 80 million-year time frame where the fossil record shows the gradual and stepwise evolution of more and more complicated animal life. Prothero criticizes Meyer for ignoring much of

1782-488: A hoax. On their website refuting the claims in the film Expelled (which featured Meyer), the National Center for Science Education states that "Intelligent design advocates ... have no research and no evidence, and have repeatedly shown themselves unwilling to formulate testable hypotheses; yet they complain about an imagined exclusion, even after having flunked the basics." In analysing an Academic Freedom bill that

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1944-459: A large audience who is hungry for material evidence of God or considers science a conspiracy against spirituality. From a different perspective, paleontologist Charles Marshall wrote in his review "When Prior Belief Trumps Scholarship" published in Science that while trying to build the scientific case for intelligent design, Meyer allows his deep belief to steer his understanding and interpretation of

2106-776: A less than 1 in 10 chance of occurring by (natural) chance. Critics say that this renders the argument a tautology : complex specified information cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus, so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature. The conceptual soundness of Dembski's specified complexity/CSI argument has been discredited in the scientific and mathematical communities. Specified complexity has yet to be shown to have wide applications in other fields, as Dembski asserts. John Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry characterize Dembski's "explanatory filter" as eliminative because it eliminates explanations sequentially: first regularity, then chance, finally defaulting to design. They argue that this procedure

2268-546: A logical proof." Irreducible complexity has remained a popular argument among advocates of intelligent design; in the Dover trial , the court held that "Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large." In 1986, Charles B. Thaxton, a physical chemist and creationist, used the term "specified complexity" from information theory when claiming that messages transmitted by DNA in

2430-748: A means of avoiding the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment . The statements, when viewed in the light of the Wedge document and the US District Court's Kitzmiller decision, show ID and the ID movement is an attempt to put a gloss of secularity on top of what is a fundamentally religious belief. The wedge strategy details a simultaneous assault on state boards of education, state and federal legislatures and on

2592-415: A new lexicon of creationist terminology to oppose evolution without using religious language. It was the first place where the phrase "intelligent design" appeared in its primary present use, as stated both by its publisher Jon A. Buell, and by William A. Dembski in his expert witness report for Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District . The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has criticized

2754-428: A perfect Creation and proposes that designers do not necessarily produce the best design they can. Behe suggests that, like a parent not wanting to spoil a child with extravagant toys, the designer can have multiple motives for not giving priority to excellence in engineering. He says that "Another problem with the argument from imperfection is that it critically depends on a psychoanalysis of the unidentified designer. Yet

2916-416: A popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that support the faith, as well as to popularize our ideas in the broader culture. The wedge strategy was designed with both five-year and twenty-year goals in mind in order to achieve the conversion of

3078-510: A powerful force or intelligent being to help create them." Although Zogby polls commissioned by the Discovery Institute show more support, these polls suffer from considerable flaws, such as having a low response rate (248 out of 16,000), being conducted on behalf of an organization with an expressed interest in the outcome of the poll, and containing leading questions . The 2017 Gallup creationism survey found that 38% of adults in

3240-410: A proponent of Old Earth creationism , believes that the efforts of intelligent design proponents to divorce the concept from Biblical Christianity make its hypothesis too vague. In 2002, he wrote: "Winning the argument for design without identifying the designer yields, at best, a sketchy origins model. Such a model makes little if any positive impact on the community of scientists and other scholars. ...

3402-478: A real-life example of an extraterrestrial intelligent designer view that "make[s] many of the same bad arguments against evolutionary theory as creationists". The authoritative description of intelligent design, however, explicitly states that the Universe displays features of having been designed. Acknowledging the paradox , Dembski concludes that "no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over

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3564-541: A science curriculum. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science ." The U.S. National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience . Others in

3726-501: A scientific concept that has implications with which their personal religious beliefs happen to coincide. She writes that the leading proponents of intelligent design are closely allied with the ultra-conservative Christian Reconstructionism movement. She lists connections of (current and former) Discovery Institute Fellows Phillip E. Johnson, Charles B. Thaxton, Michael Behe, Richard Weikart , Jonathan Wells and Francis J. Beckwith to leading Christian Reconstructionist organizations, and

3888-499: A system, rather than by adding them. This is sometimes called the "scaffolding objection" by an analogy with scaffolding, which can support an "irreducibly complex" building until it is complete and able to stand on its own. In the case of Behe's mousetrap analogy, it has been shown that a mousetrap can be created with increasingly fewer parts and that even a single part is sufficient. Behe has acknowledged using "sloppy prose", and that his "argument against Darwinism does not add up to

4050-410: Is natural theology , while still presenting ID as supporting the argument for the existence of God. While intelligent design proponents have pointed out past examples of the phrase intelligent design that they said were not creationist and faith-based, they have failed to show that these usages had any influence on those who introduced the label in the intelligent design movement. Variations on

4212-555: Is a Roman Catholic ; Paul Nelson supports young Earth creationism; and Jonathan Wells is a member of the Unification Church . Non-Christian proponents include David Klinghoffer , who is Jewish , Michael Denton and David Berlinski , who are agnostic , and Muzaffar Iqbal , a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim . Phillip E. Johnson has stated that cultivating ambiguity by employing secular language in arguments that are carefully crafted to avoid overtones of theistic creationism

4374-445: Is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God , presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection ." ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and

4536-414: Is a long time for organisms that produce a new generation every year or two' without the need to invoke any unknown processes. Going through a list of topics in modern evolutionary biology Meyer used to bolster his idea in the book, Prothero asserts that Meyer, not a paleontologist nor a molecular biologist , does not understand these scientific disciplines, therefore he misinterprets, distorts and confuses

4698-514: Is a necessary first step for ultimately reintroducing the Christian concept of God as the designer. Johnson explicitly calls for intelligent design proponents to obfuscate their religious motivations so as to avoid having intelligent design identified "as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message." Johnson emphasizes that "...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of

4860-608: Is a noticeable conflict between what intelligent design backers tell the public through the media and what they say before conservative Christian audiences. This is studied and deliberate as advocated by wedge strategy author Phillip E. Johnson. When speaking to a mainstream audience and to the media, ID proponents cast ID as a secular, scientific theory. But when speaking to what the Wedge Document calls their "natural constituency, namely (conservative) Christians," ID proponents express themselves in unambiguously religious language. This in

5022-707: Is a senior fellow of the DI and the director of the CSC. In 1981, Meyer graduated cum laude from Whitworth College , where he received a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) with a double major in physics and earth science . He then was employed at Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) in Dallas from November 1981 to December 1985. Meyer was granted a scholarship by the Rotary Club of Dallas to study in England at Cambridge University , where he earned

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5184-538: Is an American historian, author, and former educator. He is an advocate of intelligent design , a pseudoscientific creationist argument for the existence of God . Meyer was a founder of the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) of the Discovery Institute (DI), which is the main organization behind the intelligent design movement . Before joining the institute, Meyer was a professor at Whitworth College . He

5346-493: Is based upon "foundational assumptions" of naturalism that were as much a matter of faith as those of "creation theory". In November of that year, Thaxton described his reasoning as a more sophisticated form of Paley's argument from design. At a conference that Thaxton held in 1988 ("Sources of Information Content in DNA"), he said that his intelligent cause view was compatible with both metaphysical naturalism and supernaturalism . Intelligent design avoids identifying or naming

5508-544: Is better able to explain the observed complexity, as is evident from the use of selective evolution to design certain electronic, aeronautic and automotive systems that are considered problems too complex for human "intelligent designers". Intelligent design proponents have also occasionally appealed to broader teleological arguments outside of biology, most notably an argument based on the fine-tuning of universal constants that make matter and life possible and that are argued not to be solely attributable to chance. These include

5670-640: Is beyond nature. I was really taken with this." Charles Thaxton organised the conference held in Dallas on 9–10 February 1985, featuring Antony Flew , and Dean H. Kenyon who spoke on "Going Beyond the Naturalistic Mindset: Origin of Life Studies". Meyer became part of Thaxton's circle, and joined the debate with two articles published in March 1986: in one, he discussed The Mystery of Life's Origin which Thaxton had recently co-authored, commenting that

5832-426: Is called the 'Intelligent Design' movement." In Christianity Today , she reveals Johnson's religious beliefs and his animosity toward evolution and affirms Johnson as "The unofficial spokesman for ID." In his 1997 book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds Johnson summed up the underlying philosophy of the strategy: If we understand our own times, we will know that we should affirm the reality of God by challenging

5994-578: Is critical of more than just evolutionary mechanisms like natural selection that lead to diversification, but of common descent itself. He has appeared on television and in public forums advocating intelligent design. Notably he wrote and appeared in the Discovery Institute's 2002 film Unlocking the Mystery of Life and was interviewed in the 2008 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed movie. He has also been an active debater such as in April 2006 with Peter Ward ,

6156-550: Is flawed as a model for scientific inference because the asymmetric way it treats the different possible explanations renders it prone to making false conclusions. Richard Dawkins , evolutionary biologist and religion critic, argues in The God Delusion (2006) that allowing for an intelligent designer to account for unlikely complexity only postpones the problem, as such a designer would need to be at least as complex. Other scientists have argued that evolution through selection

6318-562: Is happening in the face of fierce attempts to intimidate and suppress legitimate dissent. Young scientists are threatened with deprivation of tenure . Others have seen a consistent pattern of answering scientific arguments with ad hominem attacks. In particular, the series' attempt to stigmatize all critics – including scientists – as religious "creationists" is an excellent example of viewpoint discrimination . A wide range of scholarly, science education, and legislative sources have denied, refuted, or off-handedly dismissed these allegations. In

6480-525: Is in fact a chemical process as well as a biological process, and it was operating for about half a billion years before the earliest cellular life forms appear in the fossil record." In another publication, Fletcher wrote: "I am afraid that reality has overtaken Meyer's book and its flawed reasoning", pointing out scientific problems with Meyer's work by citing how RNA "survived and evolved into our own human protein-making factory, and continues to make our fingers and toes." Darrel Falk , former president of

6642-502: Is part of God's general revelation ... Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology [ materialism ], which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I've found that it opens the path for people to come to Christ." Both Johnson and Dembski cite the Bible's Gospel of John as the foundation of intelligent design. Barbara Forrest contends such statements reveal that leading proponents see intelligent design as essentially religious in nature, not merely

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6804-460: Is religious in nature and thus cannot be taught in public school science classrooms. Intelligent design is also presented as science and shares other arguments with "creation science" but avoids literal Biblical references to such topics as the biblical flood story or using Bible verses to estimate the age of the Earth . Barbara Forrest writes that the intelligent design movement began in 1984 with

6966-484: Is supposed to be a science book and the ID movement is purported to be primarily a scientific movement – not primarily a philosophical, religious, or even popular movement", but concludes "If the object of the book is to show that the Intelligent Design movement is a scientific movement, it has not succeeded. In fact, what it has succeeded in showing is that it is a popular movement grounded primarily in

7128-446: 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

7290-467: Is the mathematically impossible time scale that is needed to support emergence of new genes which drive the explosion of new species during the Cambrian period. Marshall points out that the relatively fast appearance of new animal species in this period is not driven by new genes, but rather by evolving from existing genes through "rewiring" of the gene regulatory networks (GRNs). This basis of morphogenesis

7452-531: Is therefore not science. The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute , a Christian, politically conservative think tank based in the United States. Although the phrase intelligent design had featured previously in theological discussions of the argument from design , its first publication in its present use as an alternative term for creationism was in Of Pandas and People ,

7614-472: The BioLogos Foundation and a biology professor at Point Loma Nazarene University , reviewed the book, saying it illustrates why he does not support the intelligent design movement . Falk is critical of Meyer's declaration of scientists being wrong, such as Michael Lynch about genetic drift , without Meyer having done any experiment or calculation to disprove Lynch's assertion. Falk writes, "the book

7776-532: The First Amendment to the United States Constitution . ID presents two main arguments against evolutionary explanations: irreducible complexity and specified complexity , asserting that certain biological and informational features of living things are too complex to be the result of natural selection. Detailed scientific examination has rebutted several examples for which evolutionary explanations are claimed to be impossible. ID seeks to challenge

7938-731: The Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor University by Baylor president Robert B. Sloan was a major step forward in the Wedge Strategy. The center was directed by William Dembski and Bruce L. Gordon , with funding from the John Templeton Foundation via the Discovery Institute. The center was disbanded the next year in the face of protests from Baylor's faculty and the recommendation of an outside advisory council. By 2005 Baylor had also hired two other wedge proponents, Walter Bradley and Francis J. Beckwith . Elaborating on

8100-434: The Universe , such as galaxies , to form. Thus, proponents argue, an intelligent designer of life was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve that particular outcome. Scientists have generally responded that these arguments are poorly supported by existing evidence. Victor J. Stenger and other critics say both intelligent design and the weak form of the anthropic principle are essentially

8262-555: The Wedge strategy and theistic realism . After the 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court ruling affirmed the Aguillard v. Treen decision against teaching creation science , Thaxton as academic editor of Of Pandas and People adopted intelligent design wording. Meyer recalls the term coming up at a June 1988 conference in Tacoma organised by Thaxton, who "referred to a theory that

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8424-470: The argument from design to explain complexity in nature as supposedly demonstrating the existence of God. The argument from design, also known as the teleological argument or "argument from intelligent design", has been presented by theologists for centuries. Thomas Aquinas presented ID in his fifth proof of God's existence as a syllogism . In 1802, William Paley 's Natural Theology presented examples of intricate purpose in organisms. His version of

8586-407: The fossil record and instead focusing on a later stage to give the impression that all Cambrian life forms appeared abruptly without predecessors. In contrast, Prothero cites paleontologist BS Lieberman that the rates of evolution during the 'Cambrian explosion' were typical of any adaptive radiation in life's history. He quotes another prominent paleontologist Andrew Knoll that '20 million years

8748-588: The intelligent designer —it merely states that one (or more) must exist—but leaders of the movement have said the designer is the Christian God. Whether this lack of specificity about the designer's identity in public discussions is a genuine feature of the concept – or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from the teaching of science – has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design. The Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District court ruling held

8910-460: The methodological naturalism inherent in modern science, though proponents concede that they have yet to produce a scientific theory. As a positive argument against evolution, ID proposes an analogy between natural systems and human artifacts , a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God . ID proponents then conclude by analogy that the complex features, as defined by ID, are evidence of design. Critics of ID find

9072-565: The watchmaker analogy argued that a watch has evidently been designed by a craftsman and that it is supposedly just as evident that the complexity and adaptation seen in nature must have been designed. He went on to argue that the perfection and diversity of these designs supposedly shows the designer to be omnipotent and that this can supposedly only be the Christian god . Like "creation science", intelligent design centers on Paley's religious argument from design, but while Paley's natural theology

9234-413: The 1993 revised edition of Of Pandas and People . Behe defines it as "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning". Behe uses the analogy of a mousetrap to illustrate this concept. A mousetrap consists of several interacting pieces—the base,

9396-429: The Bible out of it'" and thereby unwittingly aided and abetted the modern rejection of the Bible. Wieland explained that "AiG's major 'strategy' is to boldly, but humbly, call the church back to its Biblical foundations ... [so] we neither count ourselves a part of this movement nor campaign against it." The unequivocal consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science and has no place in

9558-518: The DI helped introduce ID to the Dover Area School District , which resulted in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case where ID was ruled to be based on religious beliefs rather than scientific evidence. Discussing ID in relation to Dover, on May 6, 2005 Meyer debated Eugenie Scott , on The Big Story with John Gibson . During the debate, Meyer argued that intelligent design

9720-421: The Discovery Institute, advocated inclusion of intelligent design in public school biology curricula. This led to the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, which found that intelligent design was not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and that the public school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of

9882-616: The Evidence for Intelligent Design . The philosopher Thomas Nagel , who generally argues in opposition to the philosophical position of physicalist reductionism specifically and materialism more generally, submitted the book as his contribution to the "2009 Books of the Year" supplement for The Times , writing "Signature in the Cell...is a detailed account of the problem of how life came into existence from lifeless matter – something that had to happen before

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10044-590: The Foundations of Naturalism . Drafted in 1998 by Discovery Institute staff, the Wedge Document first appeared publicly after it was posted to the World Wide Web on February 5, 1999, by Tim Rhodes, having been shared with him in late January 1999 by Matt Duss, a part-time employee of a Seattle-based international human-resources firm. There Duss had been given a document to copy titled The Wedge and marked "Top Secret" and "Not For Distribution." Meyer once claimed that

10206-441: The ID arguments without using that label. It also picks up the themes of the teach the controversy strategy, emphasizing what they say are the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory and "arguments against evolution," which they falsely portray as "a theory in crisis." Critics state about the wedge strategy that its "ultimate goal is to create a theocratic state". Intelligent design Intelligent design ( ID )

10368-467: The Institute affirms its Christian, evangelistic orientation: Alongside a focus on influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that support the faith, as well as to "popularize" our ideas in

10530-526: The Institute claimed the increasing number of signatures indicated mounting doubts about evolution among scientists. The statement formed a key component of Discovery Institute campaigns to present intelligent design as scientifically valid by claiming that evolution lacks broad scientific support, with Institute members continuing to cite the list through at least 2011. As part of a strategy to counter these claims, scientists organised Project Steve , which gained more signatories named Steve (or variants) than

10692-572: The Institute's petition, and a counter-petition, " A Scientific Support for Darwinism ", which quickly gained similar numbers of signatories. Several surveys were conducted prior to the December 2005 decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover School District , which sought to determine the level of support for intelligent design among certain groups. According to a 2005 Harris poll , 10% of adults in the United States viewed human beings as "so complex that they required

10854-708: The National Center for Science Education (an organisation that works in collaboration with the National Academy of Sciences, the National Association of Biology Teachers, and the National Science Teachers Association to support the teaching of evolution in public schools) contacted the authors of the 44 papers listed, and 26 of them, representing 34 of the papers, responded. None of the authors considered that their research challenged any of

11016-456: The Phase I goals of proposing Intelligent Design-related research, publications, and attempted integration into academia , the wedge strategy places an emphasis on Phases II and III advocacy aimed at increasing popular support of the Discovery Institute's ideas. Support for the creation of popular-level books, newspaper and magazine articles, op-ed pieces, video productions, and apologetics seminars

11178-622: The Philosophy department at Whitworth College . He was later a participant in the first formal meeting devoted to ID, hosted at Southern Methodist University in 1992. In December 1993, Bruce Chapman , president and founder of the Discovery Institute, noticed an essay in the Wall Street Journal by Meyer about a dispute when biology lecturer Dean H. Kenyon taught intelligent design in introductory classes. Kenyon had co-authored Of Pandas and People , and in 1993 Meyer had contributed to

11340-502: The United States hold the view that "God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" when asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings, which was noted as being at the lowest level in 35 years. Previously, a series of Gallup polls in the United States from 1982 through 2014 on "Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design" found support for "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced formed of life, but God guided

11502-431: The Universe ( Ignatius Press , 2000) with Michael J. Behe and William A. Dembski . In 2009, his book Signature in the Cell was released and in December of that year. Meyer has been described as "the person who brought ID (intelligent design) to DI (Discovery Institute)" by historian Edward Larson , who was a fellow at the Discovery Institute prior to it becoming the center of the intelligent design movement. In 2004,

11664-568: The Wedge Document is mirrored largely word-for-word in the early mission statement of the CSC, then called the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. The theme is again picked up in the controversial book From Darwin to Hitler authored by Center for Science and Culture Fellow Richard Weikart and published with the center's assistance. The wedge strategy was largely authored by Phillip E. Johnson , and features in his book The Wedge of Truth: Splitting

11826-404: The Wedge Document was stolen from the Discovery Institute's offices. Discovery Institute co-founder and CSC Vice President Stephen C. Meyer eventually acknowledged the Institute as the source of the document. The Institute still seeks to downplay its significance, saying "Conspiracy theorists in the media continue to recycle the urban legend of the 'Wedge' document". The Institute also portrays

11988-415: The article had been published at the discretion of the former editor Richard Sternberg "without review by any associate editor". Critics believed that Sternberg's personal and ideological connections to Meyer suggest at least the appearance of a conflict of interest in his approval of Meyer's article. The journal's reasons for disavowing the article were rebutted by Sternberg, who says the paper underwent

12150-407: The assertion that the designer does not need to be explained as a thought-terminating cliché . In the absence of observable, measurable evidence, the question "What designed the designer?" leads to an infinite regression from which intelligent design proponents can only escape by resorting to religious creationism or logical contradiction. The intelligent design movement is a direct outgrowth of

12312-525: The bacterial flagellum of E. coli , the blood clotting cascade , cilia , and the adaptive immune system . Critics point out that the irreducible complexity argument assumes that the necessary parts of a system have always been necessary and therefore could not have been added sequentially. They argue that something that is at first merely advantageous can later become necessary as other components change. Furthermore, they argue, evolution often proceeds by altering preexisting parts or by removing them from

12474-502: 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

12636-546: The beginning was the word. In the beginning were intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves. Johnson cites the foundation of intelligent design as The Gospel According to Saint John , in the New Testament , specifically, Chapter 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" ( King James Version ). The 1999 establishment of

12798-404: The belief that they cannot afford to alienate their constituency and major funding sources, virtually all of which are conservative religious organizations and individuals such as Howard Ahmanson . Having written extensively about ID, philosopher of science Robert Pennock says "When lobbying for ID in the public schools, wedge members sometimes deny that ID makes any claims about the identity of

12960-500: The book The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories , co-written by the creationist and chemist Charles B. Thaxton and two other authors and published by Jon A. Buell's Foundation for Thought and Ethics . In March 1986, Stephen C. Meyer published a review of this book, discussing how information theory could suggest that messages transmitted by DNA in the cell show "specified complexity" and must have been created by an intelligent agent. He also argued that science

13122-468: The book for presenting all of the basic arguments of intelligent design proponents and being actively promoted for use in public schools before any research had been done to support these arguments. Although presented as a scientific textbook, philosopher of science Michael Ruse considers the contents "worthless and dishonest". An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer described it as a political tool aimed at students who did not "know science or understand

13284-458: The book had "done well to intimate that 'we are not alone.' Only revelation can now identify the Who that is with us." The other article discussed the 1981 McLean v. Arkansas and 1985 Aguillard v. Treen district court case rulings that teaching creation science in public schools was unconstitutional as creationism originated in religious conviction, and its reliance on "tenets of faith" implied it

13446-439: The broader culture. Barbara Forrest , an expert who has written extensively on the movement, describes this as being due to the Discovery Institute's obfuscating its agenda as a matter of policy. She has written that the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious worldview that undergirds it." Although arguments for intelligent design by

13608-408: The catch, the spring and the hammer—all of which must be in place for the mousetrap to work. Removal of any one piece destroys the function of the mousetrap. Intelligent design advocates assert that natural selection could not create irreducibly complex systems, because the selectable function is present only when all parts are assembled. Behe argued that irreducibly complex biological mechanisms include

13770-442: The cell were specified by intelligence, and must have originated with an intelligent agent. The intelligent design concept of "specified complexity" was developed in the 1990s by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William A. Dembski . Dembski states that when something exhibits specified complexity (i.e., is both complex and "specified", simultaneously), one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it

13932-409: The controversy " campaign and their other related programs. Leading intelligent design proponents have made conflicting statements regarding intelligent design. In statements directed at the general public, they say intelligent design is not religious; when addressing conservative Christian supporters, they state that intelligent design has its foundation in the Bible. Recognizing the need for support,

14094-461: The controversy over evolution and creationism". One of the authors of the science framework used by California schools, Kevin Padian , condemned it for its "sub-text", "intolerance for honest science" and "incompetence". The term "irreducible complexity" was introduced by biochemist Michael Behe in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box , though he had already described the concept in his contributions to

14256-416: The controversy" as a legally defensible alternative to teaching intelligent design. The Kitzmiller ruling also characterized "teaching the controversy" as part of the same religious ploy as presenting intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. This prompted a move to a fallback position, teaching "critical analysis" of evolutionary theory. Teaching "critical analysis" is viewed as a means of teaching all

14418-428: 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. Other statements of Johnson's acknowledge that the goal of the intelligent design movement is to promote a theistic and creationist agenda cast as a scientific concept. Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means

14580-429: The creationism of the 1980s. The scientific and academic communities, along with a U.S. federal court, view intelligent design as either a form of creationism or as a direct descendant that is closely intertwined with traditional creationism; and several authors explicitly refer to it as "intelligent design creationism". The movement is headquartered in the Center for Science and Culture, established in 1996 as

14742-636: The creationist insists that an intelligent design must have been there in the first place." The most common modern use of the words "intelligent design" as a term intended to describe a field of inquiry began after the United States Supreme Court ruled in June 1987 in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard that it is unconstitutional for a state to require the teaching of creationism in public school science curricula. A Discovery Institute report says that Charles B. Thaxton, editor of Pandas , had picked

14904-428: The creationist wing of the Discovery Institute to promote a religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes. The Discovery Institute's intelligent design campaigns have been staged primarily in the United States, although efforts have been made in other countries to promote intelligent design. Leaders of the movement say intelligent design exposes the limitations of scientific orthodoxy and of

15066-500: The data, all for the purpose of promoting the ' God of the gaps ' argument: 'anything that is currently not easily explained by science is automatically attributed to supernatural causes', i.e. intelligent design. In his article "Doubting 'Darwin's Doubt'" published in The New Yorker , Gareth Cook says that this book is another attempt by the creationist to rekindle the intelligent design movement. Decades of fossil discovery around

15228-470: The design movement. At the University of Cambridge in England, he met theology student Mark Labberton . In the Fall of 1987 Labberton introduced Meyer to Phillip E. Johnson who was on a sabbatical at University College London , and having become "obsessed with evolution" had begun writing a book on what he saw as its problems. Meyer says "We walked around Cambridge kicking the pea gravel and talking over all

15390-529: The designer creates for a purpose, giving the example that in his view AIDS was created to punish immorality and is not caused by HIV , but such motives cannot be tested by scientific methods. Asserting the need for a designer of complexity also raises the question "What designed the designer?" Intelligent design proponents say that the question is irrelevant to or outside the scope of intelligent design. Richard Wein counters that "...scientific explanations often create new unanswered questions. But, in assessing

15552-528: The designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene. Dembski, in The Design Inference (1998), speculates that an alien culture could fulfill these requirements. Of Pandas and People proposes that SETI illustrates an appeal to intelligent design in science. In 2000, philosopher of science Robert T. Pennock suggested the Raëlian UFO religion as

15714-400: The designer. It is ironic that their political strategy leads them to deny God in the public square more often than Peter did." The term "intelligent design" has become a liability for wedge advocates since the ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District . Because of the success of the Discovery Institute's public relations campaign to make "intelligent design" a household phrase, and

15876-516: 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." The strategy of deliberately disguising the religious intent of intelligent design has been described by William A. Dembski in The Design Inference . In this work, Dembski lists a god or an " alien life force " as two possible options for

16038-569: 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. At the 1999 "Reclaiming America for Christ Conference" called by Reverend D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries , Johnson gave a speech called "How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won". In it he summed up the theological and epistemological underpinnings of intelligent design and its strategy for winning

16200-460: The essentially unanimous international scientific consensus on evolution are persecuted by the scientific community and prevented from publishing their views. In 2001, he signed the statement A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism , coinciding with the launch of the PBS TV series Evolution , saying in part: The numbers of scientists who question Darwinism is a minority, but it is growing fast. This

16362-465: The evidence, "either life resulted not from intelligent design, but from evolution; or the intelligent designer is a cosmic prankster who designed everything to make it look as though it had evolved." Intelligent design proponents such as Paul Nelson avoid the problem of poor design in nature by insisting that we have simply failed to understand the perfection of the design. Behe cites Paley as his inspiration, but he differs from Paley's expectation of

16524-501: The existence of a real and uniformly ordered universe, and the ability present in a creative and ordered human intellect to know that universe. Both the Old and New Testaments define these relationships such that the presuppositional base necessary to modern science is not only explicable but also meaningful." Meyer's argument on epistemological presuppositions and accusation that evolution is based on an assumption of naturalism became central to

16686-700: The extent of the funding provided the Institute by Howard Ahmanson, Jr. , a leading figure in the Reconstructionist movement. Not all creationist organizations have embraced the intelligent design movement. According to Thomas Dixon, "Religious leaders have come out against ID too. An open letter affirming the compatibility of Christian faith and the teaching of evolution, first produced in response to controversies in Wisconsin in 2004, has now been signed by over ten thousand clergy from different Christian denominations across America." Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe ,

16848-479: The field's key statistical techniques (among other things) and his misleading rearrangement of the tree of life. Cook references scientific literature to refute Meyer's argument that the genetic machinery of life is incapable of big leaps therefore any major biological advancement must be the result of intervention by the 'intelligent designer'. Like Prothero, Cook also criticizes Meyer's proposal that if something cannot be fully explained by today's science, it must be

17010-481: The fine arts. A goal of the wedge strategy is to see intelligent design "permeate religious, cultural, moral and political life." By accomplishing this goal the ultimate goal as stated by the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) of the "overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies" and reinstating the idea that humans are made in the image of God , thereby reforming American culture to reflect conservative Christian values, will be achieved. The preamble of

17172-452: The first time the seed thoughts that had been brewing in his mind for a year--the idea of 'irreducibly complex' molecular machinery." Nancy Pearcey, a CSC fellow, and Johnson associate acknowledges 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

17334-411: The goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism as a scientific concept. All leading intelligent design proponents are fellows or staff of the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture. Nearly all intelligent design concepts and the associated movement are the products of the Discovery Institute, which guides the movement and follows its wedge strategy while conducting its " teach

17496-425: The goals and methods of wedge strategy, Johnson stated in an interview conducted in 2002 for Touchstone Magazine that "The mechanism of the wedge strategy is to make it attractive to Catholics, Orthodox, non-fundamentalist Protestants, observant Jews, and so on." He went on to elaborate: 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

17658-504: The heading " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism ", with the claim that listed scientists had signed this statement expressing skepticism: 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. The ambiguous statement did not exclude other known evolutionary mechanisms, and most signatories were not scientists in relevant fields, but starting in 2004

17820-642: The hopes and dreams of those in philosophy, in religion, and especially those in the general public." On 18 June 2013, HarperOne released Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design . In this book, Meyer proposed that the Cambrian explosion contradicts Darwin's evolutionary process and is best explained by intelligent design . In a review published by The Skeptics Society titled "Stephen Meyer's Fumbling Bumbling Amateur Cambrian Follies", paleontologist Donald Prothero gave

17982-500: The identity of the designer; however, in his book Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology (1999), Dembski states: Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners don't have a clue about him. The pragmatics of a scientific theory can, to be sure, be pursued without recourse to Christ. But the conceptual soundness of the theory can in the end only be located in Christ. Dembski also stated, "ID

18144-456: The intelligent design movement are formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid positing the identity of the designer, the majority of principal intelligent design advocates are publicly religious Christians who have stated that, in their view, the designer proposed in intelligent design is the Christian conception of God . Stuart Burgess, Phillip E. Johnson, William A. Dembski, and Stephen C. Meyer are evangelical Protestants ; Michael Behe

18306-550: The issues." An article co-authored by Meyer and Thaxton published on 27 December 1987 asserted that "human rights depend upon the Creator who made man with dignity, not upon the state." They contrasted this with "purely material, scientific" ideas which equated humans to animals, and restated their central thesis that "Only if man is (in fact) a product of special Divine purposes can his claim to distinctive or intrinsic dignity be sustained." The terminology and concepts later featured in

18468-478: The latter to be the case. Since the Middle Ages , discussion of the religious "argument from design" or "teleological argument" in theology, with its concept of "intelligent design", has persistently referred to the theistic Creator God. Although ID proponents chose this provocative label for their proposed alternative to evolutionary explanations, they have de-emphasized their religious antecedents and denied that ID

18630-428: The mainstream. One notable component of the work was its desire to address perceived social consequences and to promote a social conservative agenda on a wide range of issues including abortion , euthanasia , sexuality , and other social reform movements. It criticized "materialist reformers [who] advocated coercive government programs" which it referred to as "a virulent strain of utopianism ". Beyond promotion of

18792-404: 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

18954-619: The nearest mainland, even when the environments are very different" as evidence that species were not placed there by a designer. Previously, in Darwin's Black Box , Behe had argued that we are simply incapable of understanding the designer's motives, so such questions cannot be answered definitively. Odd designs could, for example, "...have been placed there by the designer for a reason—for artistic reasons, for variety, to show off, for some as-yet-undetected practical purpose, or for some unguessable reason—or they might not." Coyne responds that in light of

19116-404: The origin of the universe or the origin of life." The leading proponents have made statements to their supporters that they believe the designer to be the Christian God, to the exclusion of all other religions. Beyond the debate over whether intelligent design is scientific, a number of critics argue that existing evidence makes the design hypothesis appear unlikely, irrespective of its status in

19278-540: The past and has failed, and it will fail today. The reason it won't work is because it is not the Biblical method." According to Morris: "The evidence of intelligent design ... must be either followed by or accompanied by a sound presentation of true Biblical creationism if it is to be meaningful and lasting." In 2002, Carl Wieland , then of Answers in Genesis (AiG), criticized design advocates who, though well-intentioned, "'left

19440-627: The phrase appeared in Young Earth creationist publications: a 1967 book co-written by Percival Davis referred to "design according to which basic organisms were created". In 1970, A. E. Wilder-Smith published The Creation of Life: A Cybernetic Approach to Evolution . The book defended Paley's design argument with computer calculations of the improbability of genetic sequences, which he said could not be explained by evolution but required "the abhorred necessity of divine intelligent activity behind nature", and that "the same problem would be expected to beset

19602-400: The phrase up from a NASA scientist. In two successive 1987 drafts of the book, over one hundred uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "Creation Science", were changed, almost without exception, to "intelligent design", while "creationists" was changed to "design proponents" or, in one instance, " cdesign proponentsists " [ sic ]. In June 1988, Thaxton held

19764-544: The position of professor, Conceptual Foundations of Science, at the Christian Palm Beach Atlantic University . He continued there up to Spring 2005, then ceased teaching to devote his time to the intelligent design movement . As an undergraduate, Meyer had been "quite comfortable accepting the standard evolutionary story, although I put a bit of a theistic spin on it – that (evolution) is how God operated", but during his work with ARCO in Dallas, he

19926-457: The presence of DNA in a living cell is evidence of a designing intelligence." Phillip E. Johnson was drafting a book arguing against naturalism as the basis for evolutionary science, and Meyer brought a copy of the manuscript to the conference. He met Paul A. Nelson who found it exciting to read, and the two collaborated on a joint project. Needing a mathematician, they contacted Dembski in 1991. Thaxton has described Meyer as "kind of like"

20088-523: The print and broadcast media. The Discovery Institute has carried out the strategy through its role in the intelligent design movement, where it aggressively promoted ID and its Teach the Controversy campaign to the public, education officials and public policymakers. Intelligent design proponents, through the Discovery Institute, have employed a number of specific political strategies and tactics in their furtherance of their goals. These range from attempts at

20250-561: The process of biological evolution could begin ... Meyer is a Christian, but atheists, and theists who believe God never intervenes in the natural world, will be instructed by his careful presentation of this fiendishly difficult problem." Stephen Fletcher, chemist at Loughborough University , responded in The Times Literary Supplement that Nagel was "promot[ing] the book to the rest of us using statements that are factually incorrect." Fletcher explained " Natural selection

20412-505: The process" of between 31% and 40%, support for "God created human beings in pretty much their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so" varied from 40% to 47%, and support for "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in the process" varied from 9% to 19%. The polls also noted answers to a series of more detailed questions. Stephen C. Meyer Stephen Charles Meyer ( / ˈ m aɪ . ər / ; born 1958)

20574-401: The reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools. This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy. Critics claim that Johnson's statements validate claims leveled by those who allege that the Discovery Institute and its allied organizations are merely stripping religious content from their anti-evolution, creationist assertions as

20736-399: The reasons that a designer would or would not do anything are virtually impossible to know unless the designer tells you specifically what those reasons are." This reliance on inexplicable motives of the designer makes intelligent design scientifically untestable. Retired UC Berkeley law professor, author and intelligent design advocate Phillip E. Johnson puts forward a core definition that

20898-728: The relationship between the designer behind nature and the intelligently designed part of nature known as man." In a 1984 article as well as in his affidavit to Edwards v. Aguillard , Dean H. Kenyon defended creation science by stating that "biomolecular systems require intelligent design and engineering know-how", citing Wilder-Smith. Creationist Richard B. Bliss used the phrase "creative design" in Origins: Two Models: Evolution, Creation (1976), and in Origins: Creation or Evolution (1988) wrote that "while evolutionists are trying to find non-intelligent ways for life to occur,

21060-552: The removal of each from how science is conducted and taught an explicit goal. The strategy was originally brought to the public's attention when the Wedge Document was leaked on the Web. The Wedge strategy forms the governing basis of a wide range of Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns . The Wedge Document outlines a public relations campaign meant to sway the opinion of the public , popular media , charitable funding agencies , and public policy makers. The document sets forth

21222-504: The ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that ID is essentially religious in nature more people recognize it as the religious concept of creationism. Having come closest to accomplishing getting ID into public school science classes in Kansas and Ohio where they succeeded in getting the State Board of Education to adopt ID lesson plans, intelligent design proponents advocated "teach

21384-449: The scientific and educational communities, who do not have the benefit of funding from wealthy benefactors, clerical and technical support staff, and expensive advertising campaigns and extensive political networking. The Discovery Institute's "Teach the Controversy" campaign is designed to leave the scientific establishment looking close-minded, appearing as if it is attempting to stifle and suppress new scientific discoveries that challenge

21546-493: The scientific community have denounced its tactics, accusing the ID movement of manufacturing false attacks against evolution, of engaging in misinformation and misrepresentation about science, and marginalizing those who teach it. More recently, in September 2012, Bill Nye warned that creationist views threaten science education and innovations in the United States. In 2001, the Discovery Institute published advertisements under

21708-445: The scientific community's reaction to the Wedge document as driven by "Darwinist Paranoia." Despite insisting that intelligent design is not a form of creationism , the Discovery Institute chose to use an image of Michelangelo 's The Creation of Adam , depicting God reaching out to impart life from his finger into Adam . According to Phillip E. Johnson , the wedge movement, if not the term, began in 1992: The movement we now call

21870-417: The scientific data and fossil records collected for the Cambrian period. The result (this book) is selective knowledge (scholarship) that is plagued with misrepresentation, omission, and dismissal of the scientific consensus; exacerbated by Meyer's lack of scientific knowledge and superficial understanding in the relevant fields, especially molecular phylogenetics and morphogenesis . The main argument of Meyer

22032-462: 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 did 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

22194-521: The secular philosophy of naturalism . Intelligent design proponents allege that science should not be limited to naturalism and should not demand the adoption of a naturalistic philosophy that dismisses out-of-hand any explanation that includes a supernatural cause. The overall goal of the movement is to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview " represented by the theory of evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions". Phillip E. Johnson stated that

22356-451: The short-term and long-term goals with milestones for the intelligent design movement, with its governing goals stated in the opening paragraph: There are three Wedge Projects, referred to in the strategy as three phases designed to reach a governing goal: Recognizing the need for support, the institute affirms the strategy's Christian, evangelistic orientation: Alongside a focus on the influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up

22518-612: The standard peer-review process and that he was encouraged to publish it by a member of the Council of the BSW. A critical review of the article is available on the Panda's Thumb website. In January 2005, the Discovery Institute posted its response to the critique on their website. The National Center for Science Education also called "the Meyer paper" pseudoscientific. Meyer claims that those who oppose

22680-565: 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 ID proponents. The Discovery Institute has provided material support and assisted federal, state and local elected representatives in drafting legislation that would deemphasize or refute evolution in science curricula. The DI has also supported and advised individual parents and local groups who raise

22842-412: The stated variables appear to be interconnected and that calculations made by mathematicians and physicists suggest that the emergence of a universe similar to ours is quite probable. The contemporary intelligent design movement formulates its arguments in secular terms and intentionally avoids identifying the intelligent agent (or agents) they posit. Although they do not state that God is the designer,

23004-431: The status quo. This is made with the knowledge that it's unlikely many in the public understand advanced biology or can consult the current scientific literature or contact major scientific organizations to verify Discovery Institute claims. This part of the strategy also plays on undercurrents of anti-intellectualism and distrust of science and scientists that can be found in particular segments of American society. There

23166-406: The subject with school boards. During school board meetings in Kansas, Ohio, and Texas, the political and social agenda of the Discovery Institute were used to call into question both the motives of the intelligent design proponents and the validity of their position. The Discovery Institute fellows have significant advantages in money, political sophistication, and experience over their opponents in

23328-455: The teacher's notes for the second edition of Pandas . Meyer was an old friend of Discovery Institute co-founder George Gilder , and over dinner about a year later they formed the idea of a think tank opposed to materialism . In the summer of 1995 Chapman and Meyer met a representative of Howard Ahmanson, Jr. Meyer, who had previously tutored Ahmanson's son in science, recalls being asked "What could you do if you had some financial backing?" He

23490-733: The tenets of the theory of evolution. On March 11, 2002, during a panel discussion on evolution, Meyer falsely told the Ohio Board of Education that the Santorum Amendment was part of the No Child Left Behind Act and that the State of Ohio was therefore required to require the teaching of alternative theories of evolution as part of the biology curriculum. The professor of biology Kenneth R. Miller replied that comments and not approved amendments in conference committee reports do not carry

23652-568: The time is right for a direct approach, a single leap into the origins fray. Introducing a biblically based, scientifically verifiable creation model represents such a leap." Likewise, two of the most prominent YEC organizations in the world have attempted to distinguish their views from those of the intelligent design movement. Henry M. Morris of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) wrote, in 1999, that ID, "even if well-meaning and effectively articulated, will not work! It has often been tried in

23814-428: The value of an explanation, these questions are not irrelevant. They must be balanced against the improvements in our understanding which the explanation provides. Invoking an unexplained being to explain the origin of other beings (ourselves) is little more than question-begging . The new question raised by the explanation is as problematic as the question which the explanation purports to answer." Richard Dawkins sees

23976-477: The values of fundamental physical constants , the relative strength of nuclear forces , electromagnetism , and gravity between fundamental particles , as well as the ratios of masses of such particles. Intelligent design proponent and Center for Science and Culture fellow Guillermo Gonzalez argues that if any of these values were even slightly different, the universe would be dramatically different, making it impossible for many chemical elements and features of

24138-561: 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 . The conference brought together key wedge and intelligent design figures, particularly Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, and myself. In 1993, a year after the SMU conference, "the Johnson-Behe cadre of scholars met at Pajaro Dunes. Here, Behe presented for

24300-570: The weight of law and that Meyer had misled the board of education in implying that they do. On 4 August 2004, an article by Meyer appeared in the peer-reviewed scientific journal , Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington . On September 7, the publisher of the journal, the Council of the Biological Society of Washington , released a statement retracting the article as not having met its scientific standards and saying that

24462-406: The work of a supreme deity. Calling it a 'masterwork of pseudoscience ', Cook warns that the influence of this book should not be underestimated. Cook opines that the book, with Meyer sewing skillfully together the trappings of science, wielding his credential of a PhD (in history of science ) from the University of Cambridge , writing in a seemingly serious and reasonable manner, will appeal to

24624-448: The world of science. For example, Jerry Coyne asks why a designer would "give us a pathway for making vitamin C , but then destroy it by disabling one of its enzymes" (see pseudogene ) and why a designer would not "stock oceanic islands with reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and freshwater fish, despite the suitability of such islands for these species". Coyne also points to the fact that "the flora and fauna on those islands resemble that of

24786-403: The world, aided by new computational analytical techniques enable scientists to construct a more complete portrait of the tree of life which was not available to Darwin (hence his "doubt" in Meyer's words). The contemporary scientific consensus is that there was no "explosion". Cook cites Nick Matzke 's analysis that the major gaps identified by Meyer are derived from his lack of understanding of

24948-596: Was a co-author of the " Wedge strategy ", which put forth the Discovery Institute's manifesto for the intelligent design movement . In 1999, Meyer with David DeWolf and Mark DeForrest laid out a legal strategy for introducing intelligent design into public schools in their book Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curriculum . Meyer has co-edited Darwinism, Design, and Public Education (Michigan State University Press, 2000) with John Angus Campbell and co-edited Science and Evidence of Design in

25110-571: Was based upon a Discovery Institute model statute, the Florida Senate found that "According to the Department of Education, there has never been a case in Florida where a public school teacher or public school student has claimed that they have been discriminated against based on their science teaching or science course work." On June 23, 2009, HarperOne released Meyer's Signature in the Cell: DNA and

25272-539: Was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes. He provides the following examples: "A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified." He states that details of living things can be similarly characterized, especially the "patterns" of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as DNA. Dembski defines complex specified information (CSI) as anything with

25434-415: Was effectively suspended in U.S. public schools until the 1960s, and when evolution was then reintroduced into the curriculum, there was a series of court cases in which attempts were made to get creationism taught alongside evolution in science classes. Young Earth creationists (YECs) promoted "creation science" as "an alternative scientific explanation of the world in which we live". This frequently invoked

25596-429: Was hoped to embolden believers and sway the broader culture towards acceptance of intelligent design. This, in turn, would lead the ultimate goal of the wedge strategy; a social and political reformation of American culture. In 20 years, the group hopes that they will have achieved their goal of making intelligent design the main perspective in science as well as to branch out to ethics, politics, philosophy, theology, and

25758-413: Was influenced by a conference: "I remember being especially fascinated with the origins debate at this conference. It impressed me to see that scientists who had always accepted the standard evolutionary story were now defending a theistic belief, not on the basis that it makes them feel good or provides some form of subjective contentment, but because the scientific evidence suggests an activity of mind that

25920-464: Was not scientific. Meyer argued that modern scientific method equally relied on "foundational assumptions" based on faith in naturalism , which "assumed all events to be exclusively the result of physical or natural causes", so on the definition used in the court cases "science itself does not qualify as legitimate science". He proposed that "scientists and philosophers" could turn to Biblical presupposition to explain "the ultimate source of human reason,

26082-411: Was open to deistic design through God-given laws, intelligent design seeks scientific confirmation of repeated supposedly miraculous interventions in the history of life. "Creation science" prefigured the intelligent design arguments of irreducible complexity, even featuring the bacterial flagellum . In the United States, attempts to introduce "creation science" into schools led to court rulings that it

26244-403: Was the first book to make systematic use of the terms "intelligent design" and "design proponents" as well as the phrase "design theory", defining the term intelligent design in a glossary and representing it as not being creationism. It thus represents the start of the modern intelligent design movement . "Intelligent design" was the most prominent of around fifteen new terms it introduced as

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