Editing Intelligent design movement (section)

== Activism ==
The intelligent design movement primarily campaigns on two fronts: a public relations campaign meant to influence the popular [[Mass media|media]] and sway [[opinion of the public|public opinion]]; and an aggressive lobbying campaign to cultivate support for the teaching of intelligent design amongst policymakers and the wider educational community. Both these activities are largely funded and directed by the Discovery Institute, from national to [[grassroots]] levels. The movement's first goal is to establish an acceptance of intelligent design at the expense of [[Creation and evolution in public education|evolution in public school science]]; its long-term goal is no less than the "renewal" of American culture through the shaping of public policy to reflect conservative Christian values. As the Discovery Institute states, intelligent design is central to this agenda: "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."

The Discovery Institute has also relied on several polls to indicate the acceptance of intelligent design. A 2005 [[Harris Insights & Analytics|Harris poll]] identified ten percent of adults in the United States as taking what they called the intelligent design position, that "human beings are so complex that they required a powerful force or intelligent being to help create them." (64% agreed with the creationist view that "human beings were created directly by God" and 22% believed that "human beings evolved from earlier species." 49% accepted plant and animal evolution, while 45% did not.)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=581 |title=Nearly Two-thirds of U.S. Adults Believe Human Beings Were Created by God |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=July 6, 2005 |website=The Harris Poll |publisher=[[Harris Insights & Analytics|Harris Interactive]] |location=Rochester, NY |id=#52 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051217080148/http://harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=581 |archive-date=2005-12-17 |access-date=2014-06-02}}</ref> Although some polls commissioned by the Discovery Institute show more support, these polls have been criticized as suffering 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.<ref name="Polling_for_ID">{{cite web |url=http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/polling/ |title=Polling for ID |last=Mooney |first=Chris |author-link=Chris Mooney (journalist) |date=September 11, 2003 |website=[[Committee for Skeptical Inquiry]] |location=Amherst, NY |type=Blog |publisher=[[Center for Inquiry]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070203135805/http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/polling/ |archive-date=2007-02-03 |access-date=2007-02-16}}</ref>

Critics of intelligent design and its movement contend that intelligent design is a specific form of creationism, [[neo-creationism]], a viewpoint rejected by intelligent design advocates. It was bolstered by the 2005 ruling in United States federal court that a public school district requirement for science classes to teach that intelligent design is an alternative to evolution was a violation of the [[Establishment Clause]] of the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution]]. In ''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'', [[United States district court|United States District Judge]] [[John E. Jones III]] [[Wikisource:Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District/6:Curriculum, Conclusion|also ruled]] that intelligent design is not science and is essentially religious in nature.

In pursuing the goal of establishing intelligent design at the expense of evolution in public school science, intelligent design groups have threatened and isolated high school science teachers, school board members and parents who opposed their efforts.<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="Testimony, Aralene Callahan">{{cite court|litigants=Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District|vol=04|reporter=cv|opinion=2688|date=December 20, 2005}} [http://www.aclupa.org/files/8813/1404/6696/Day2PMSession.pdf Testimony, Aralene Callahan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620225605/http://www.aclupa.org/files/8813/1404/6696/Day2PMSession.pdf |date=2014-06-20 }}, September 27, 2005</ref><ref name="Testimony, Julie Smith">{{cite court|litigants=Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District|vol=04|reporter=cv|opinion=2688|date=December 20, 2005}} [http://www.aclupa.org/files/5213/1404/6696/Day3PMSession.pdf Testimony, Julie Smith] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620225610/http://www.aclupa.org/files/5213/1404/6696/Day3PMSession.pdf |date=2014-06-20 }}, September 28, 2005</ref> Responding to the well-organized curricular challenges of intelligent design proponents to local school boards have been disruptive and divisive in the communities where they've taken place. The campaigns run by intelligent design groups place teachers in the difficult position of arguing against their employers while the legal challenges to local school districts are costly and divert scarce funds away from education into court battles. Although these court battles have almost invariably resulted in the defeat of intelligent design proponents, they are draining and divisive to local schools. For example, as a result of ''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'' trial, the Dover Area School District was forced to pay $1,000,011 in legal fees and damages for pursuing a policy of ''teaching the controversy'' - presenting intelligent design as an allegedly scientific alternative to evolution.
<ref>{{cite news |last=Kauffman |first=Christina |date=February 22, 2006 |title=Dover gets a million-dollar bill |url=http://www.yorkdispatch.com/searchresults/ci_3535139 |newspaper=[[The York Dispatch]] |location=York, PA |access-date=2014-06-02 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130105132526/http://www.yorkdispatch.com/searchresults/ci_3535139 |archive-date=January 5, 2013 }}</ref>

Leading members of the intelligent design movement are also associated with [[denialism]], both Phillip E. Johnson and  Jonathan Wells have signed an [[AIDS denialism]] petition.<ref name="science_yet">{{cite journal |last1=Brauer |first1=Matthew J. |last2=Forrest |first2=Barbara |last3=Gey |first3=Steven G. |author-link3=Steven Gey |year=2005 |title=Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution |url=http://digitalcommons.law.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1229&context=lawreview |url-status=dead |format=PDF |journal=[[Washington University Law Review]] |location=St. Louis, MO |publisher=[[Washington University School of Law]] |volume=83 |issue=1 |pages=79–80 |issn=2166-7993 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220073757/http://digitalcommons.law.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1229&context=lawreview |archive-date=2013-12-20 |access-date=2014-06-02}}</ref><ref name="group">{{cite web |url=http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/group.htm |title=The Group |website=VirusMyth: A Rethinking AID$ Website |publisher=Robert Laarhoven |location=Hilversum, Netherlands |access-date=2014-06-02}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Quittman |first=Beth |date=September 8, 2006 |title=Undercover at the Discovery Institute |url=http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2006/09/08/undercover_at_the_discovery_institute.php |work=Seattlest |type=Blog |location=New York |publisher=[[Gothamist|Gothamist LLC]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061020210815/http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2006/09/08/undercover_at_the_discovery_institute.php |archive-date=2006-10-20 |access-date=2014-06-03}} Wells' "personal peculiarities include membership in the Moonies and support for AIDS reappraisal - the theory that the HIV is not the primary cause of AIDS."</ref><ref name="vancouver sun">{{cite news |last=McKnight |first=Peter |title=Aids 'denialism' gathers strange bedfellows |url=http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=b0cb194b-51d3-4140-88f7-e4099445c554 |newspaper=[[The Vancouver Sun]] |location=Vancouver, BC |publisher=Postmedia Network Inc. |date=June 17, 2006 |access-date=2014-06-02 |quote=...some leading lights of anti-evolution Intelligent Design theory, including ID godfather Phillip Johnson and Moonie Jonathan Wells, have joined the AIDS denialist camp. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140730105830/http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=b0cb194b-51d3-4140-88f7-e4099445c554 |archive-date=July 30, 2014 }}</ref>

=== Campaigns ===
{{Main|Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns}}
The Discovery Institute, through its Center for Science and Culture, has formulated a number of campaigns to promote intelligent design, while discrediting [[evolutionary biology]], which the Institute terms "[[Darwinism]]."<ref name="ForrestMay2007Paper" />

Prominent Institute campaigns have been to "Teach the Controversy" and, more recently, to allow Critical Analysis of Evolution. Other prominent campaigns have claimed that intelligent design advocates (most notably [[Richard Sternberg]]) have been discriminated against, and thus that [[Academic Freedom bills]] are needed to protect academics' and teachers' ability to criticise evolution, and that there is a link from evolution to ideologies such as [[Nazism]] and [[eugenics]]. These three claims are all publicised in the pro-ID movie ''[[Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed]]'' (2008). Other campaigns have included petitions, most notably ''A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism''.

The response of the scientific community has been to reiterate that the theory of evolution is overwhelmingly accepted as a matter of [[scientific consensus]]<ref>{{cite journal|last=Delgado |first=Cynthia |date=July 28, 2006 |title=Finding the Evolution in Medicine |url=http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/2006/07_28_2006/story03.htm |journal=[[NIH Record]] |location=Bethesda, MD |publisher=[[United States Department of Health and Human Services]]; [[National Institutes of Health]] |issn=1057-5871 |access-date=2014-06-02 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081122022815/http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/2006/07_28_2006/story03.htm |archive-date=November 22, 2008 }} "...While 99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution, 40 to 50 percent of college students do not accept evolution and believe it to be 'just' a theory." — [[Brian Alters]]</ref>  whereas intelligent design has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community (see [[list of scientific societies explicitly rejecting intelligent design]]).

=== Politics and public education ===
{{main|Intelligent design in politics|creation and evolution in public education}}
The main battlefield for this culture war has been US regional and state [[Board of education|school boards]]. [[Court]]s have also become involved as those campaigns to include intelligent design or weaken the teaching of evolution in public school science curricula are challenged on [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] grounds.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Boyle |first1=Tara |last2=Farden |first2=Vicki |last3=Godoy |first3=Maria |date=December 20, 2005 |title=Teaching Evolution: A State-by-State Debate |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4630737 |work=[[NPR]] |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=National Public Radio, Inc. |access-date=2014-06-03}}</ref> In ''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'', the plaintiffs successfully argued that intelligent design is a form of creationism, and that the school board policy thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Intelligent design is an integral part of a political campaign by cultural conservatives, largely from evangelical religious convictions, that seek to redefine science to suit their own ideological agenda.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/rdrenka/Renka_papers/intell_design.htm |title=The Political Design of Intelligent Design |last=Renka |first=Russell D. |date=November 16, 2005 |website=Renka's Home Page |location=Round Rock, TX |access-date=2014-06-03 |archive-date=2018-04-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180411041722/http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/rdrenka/Renka_papers/intell_design.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> Though numerically a minority of Americans,.<ref name="Public Divided on Origins of Life" /> the politics of intelligent design is based less on numbers than on intensive mobilization of ideologically committed followers and savvy public relations campaigns.<ref>{{cite news |last=Slevin |first=Peter |date=March 14, 2005 |title=Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32444-2005Mar13.html |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |location=Washington, D.C. |page=A01 |access-date=2014-06-03 |quote=In Seattle, the nonprofit Discovery Institute spends more than $1 million a year for research, polls and media pieces supporting intelligent design.}}
* [[#Wilgoren 2005|Wilgoren 2005]]</ref> Political repercussions from the culturally conservative sponsorship of the issue has been divisive and costly to the effected communities, polarizing and dividing not only those directly charged with educating young people but entire local communities.

With a doctrine that calls itself science among non-scientists but is rejected by the vast majority of the real practitioners, an amicable coexistence and collaboration between intelligent design advocates and upholders of mainstream  science education standards is rare. With mainstream scientific and educational organizations saying the theory of evolution is not "in crisis" or a subject doubted by scientists, nor intelligent design the emergent scientific paradigm or rival theory its proponents proclaim,<ref name="top_issues">{{cite press release |last1=Schmid |first1=Julie |last2=Knight |first2=Jonathan |date=June 17, 2005 |title=Faculty Association Speaks Out on Three Top Issues |url=http://www.aaup.org/newsroom/press/2005/amres.htm |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=[[American Association of University Professors]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060210021246/http://www.aaup.org/newsroom/press/2005/amres.htm |archive-date=2006-02-10 |access-date=2014-06-03}}</ref> "teaching the controversy" is suitable for classes on politics, history, culture, or theology they say, but not science. By attempting to force the issue into science classrooms, intelligent design proponents create a charged environment that forces participants and bystanders alike to declare their positions, which has resulted in intelligent design groups threatening and isolating high school science teachers, school board members and parents who opposed their efforts.<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="Testimony, Aralene Callahan"/><ref name="Testimony, Julie Smith"/><ref>{{cite court|litigants=Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District|vol=04|reporter=cv|opinion=2688|date=December 20, 2005}} [[s:Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District/6:Curriculum, Conclusion#Page 130 of 139|6:Curriculum, Conclusion, pp. 129–130]]. "Moreover, Board members and teachers opposing the curriculum change and its implementation have been confronted directly. First, Casey Brown testified that following her opposition to the curriculum change on October 18, 2004, Buckingham called her an atheist and Bonsell told her that she would go to hell. Second, Angie Yingling was coerced into voting for the curriculum change by Board members accusing her of being an atheist and un- Christian. In addition, both Bryan Rehm and Fred Callahan have been confronted in similarly hostile ways, as have teachers in the DASD."</ref>

In a round table discussion entitled "Science Wars: Should Schools Teach Intelligent Design?"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.aei.org/events/2005/10/21/science-wars-event/ |title=Science Wars: Should Schools Teach Intelligent Design? |date=October 21, 2005 |publisher=[[American Enterprise Institute]] |location=Washington, D.C. |type=Conference |access-date=2014-06-04 |archive-date=2014-06-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606234842/http://www.aei.org/events/2005/10/21/science-wars-event/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> at the [[American Enterprise Institute]] on 21 October 2005 and televised on [[C-SPAN]], the Discovery Institute's Mark Ryland and the Thomas More Law Center's Richard Thompson had a frank disagreement, in which Ryland claimed the Discovery Institute has always cautioned against the teaching of intelligent design, and Thompson responded that the Institute's leadership had not only advocated the teaching of intelligent design, but encouraged others to do so, and that the Dover Area School District had merely followed the Institute's calls for action.<ref name="InstituteandThomasSquabble"/> As evidence, Thompson cited the Discovery Institute's guidebook ''Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curricula'' written by the Institute's co-founder and first director, Stephen C. Meyer, and David K. DeWolf, a CSC Fellow, which stated in its closing paragraphs: "Moreover, as the previous discussion demonstrates, school boards have the authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching about design theory as an alternative to Darwinian evolution -- and this includes the use of textbooks such as ''Of Pandas and People'' that present evidence for the theory of intelligent design."<ref>[[#DeWolf, Meyer, & DeForrest 1999|DeWolf, Meyer, & DeForrest 1999]]</ref>

=== Higher education ===
In 1999, William A. Dembski was invited by [[Baylor University]] president [[Robert B. Sloan]] to form the [[Michael Polanyi Center]], described by Dembski as "the first Intelligent Design think tank at a research university." Its creation was controversial with Baylor faculty, and in 2000 it was merged with the Institute for Faith and Learning. Dembski, although remaining as a research professor until 2005, was given no courses to teach.<ref>[[#Phy-Olsen 2010|Phy-Olsen 2010]], pp. 70–71</ref>

Two universities have offered courses in intelligent design: [[Oklahoma Baptist University]], where ID advocate Michael Newton Keas taught 'Unified Studies: Introduction to Biology,' and [[Biola University]], host of the [[Mere Creation]] conference.<ref>[[#Forrest & Gross 2004|Forrest & Gross 2004]], p. 165</ref> Additionally, numerous Christian evangelical institutions have faculty with interests in intelligent design. These include [[Oral Roberts University]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://webapps.oru.edu/new_php/academics/faculty_profile.php?id=61 |title=Dr. William Collier |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |website=Oral Roberts University |location=Tulsa, OK |access-date=2012-01-05}}</ref> and [[Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.swbts.edu/academics/faculty/college/michael-n-keas/ |title=Michael N. Keas |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |website=Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary |location=Fort Worth, TX |access-date=2014-06-04 |archive-date=2014-07-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140705121111/http://swbts.edu/academics/faculty/college/michael-n-keas/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Patrick Henry College]] teaches creationism but also exposes its students to both Darwinian evolution and intelligent design.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.phc.edu/UserFiles/File/_Academics-SL/Student%20Life/2011Sp%20-%20Student%20Handbook%20-%20FINAL%20-%2004112011.pdf |title=Patrick Henry College Student Handbook |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=April 11, 2011 |website=Patrick Henry College |location=Purcellville, VA |page=17 |access-date=2012-01-05}} Edition 10.2.4.</ref>{{Relevance inline|discuss=Universities that teach ID|date=January 2012}}

In 2005, the [[American Association of University Professors]] issued a strongly worded statement asserting that the theory of evolution is nearly universally accepted in the community of scholars, and deploring requirements "to make students aware of an 'intelligent-design hypothesis' to account for the origins of life." It said that such requirements are "inimical to principles of academic freedom."<ref name="top_issues" />

=== The Web ===

Much of the actual debate over intelligent design between intelligent design proponents and members of the scientific community has taken place on the [[World Wide Web|Web]], primarily blogs and message boards, instead of the scientific journals and symposia where traditionally much science is discussed and settled. In promoting intelligent design the actions of its proponents have been more like a political pressure group than like researchers entering an academic debate as described by movement critic [[Taner Edis]].<ref>[[#Young & Edis 2004|Young & Edis 2004]]</ref> The movement lacks any verifiable scientific research program and concomitant debates in academic circles.<ref name="Forrest_2001" />

The Web continues to play a central role in the Discovery Institute's strategy of promotion of intelligent design and it adjunct campaigns. On September 6, 2006, on the Center's ''Evolution News & Views'' blog, Discovery Institute staffer Casey Luskin published a post entitled "Putting Wikipedia On Notice About Their Biased Anti-ID Intelligent Design Entries." In the post, Luskin reprinted a letter from a reader complaining that Wikipedia's coverage of ID to be "one sided" and that pro-intelligent design editors were censored and attacked. Along with the letter, Luskin published a Wikipedia email address for general information and urged readers "to contact Wikipedia to express your feelings about the biased nature of the entries on intelligent design."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/09/wikipedia_youre_on_notice002574.html |title=Putting Wikipedia On Notice About Their Biased Anti-ID Intelligent Design Entries |last=Luskin |first=Casey |date=September 6, 2006 |website=Evolution News & Views |publisher=Discovery Institute |location=Seattle, WA |access-date=2014-06-04}}</ref>

=== International ===
Despite being primarily based in the United States, there have been efforts to introduce pro-intelligent design teaching material into educational facilities in other countries. In the [[United Kingdom]], the group [[Truth in Science]] has used material from the Discovery Institute to create free teaching packs which have been mass-mailed to all UK schools.<ref>{{cite news |last=Randerson |first=James |date=November 26, 2006 |title=Revealed: rise of creationism in UK schools |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/nov/27/controversiesinscience.religion |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |location=London |access-date=2014-06-04}}</ref> Shortly after this emerged, government ministers announced that they regarded intelligent design to be creationism and unsuitable for teaching in the classroom. They also announced that the teaching of the material in science classes was to be prohibited.<ref>{{cite news |last=Randerson |first=James |date=December 6, 2006 |title=Ministers to ban creationist teaching aids in science lessons |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/dec/07/schools.religion |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=2014-06-04}}</ref>