Editing Intelligent design movement (section)

=== 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>