01.14.06
ID guerilla warfare
Announcing the new book on P. Johnson, Darwin’s Nemesis, Uncommon Descent (Dembski is back?) reflects on the long term strategy for the ID movement.
I think Darwinians should pause and reflect on the losing strategy concealed in a winning strategy that they are currently enamored off. A new approach to the Darwin debate is needed, starting with a thorough critique of Darwin’s theory, along with a reasoned critique of ID based, not on the false claims for natural selection, but the traditiona route of critical philosophy. That and a few other things.
Without an explicit Supreme Court decision against intelligent design, we can expect continued grass roots pressure to promote intelligent design and undercut neo-Darwinian evolution in the public schools. Because of Kitzmiller v. Dover, school boards and state legislators may tread more cautiously, but tread on evolution they will — the culture war demands it!
It is therefore naive to think that this case threatens to derail intelligent design. Intelligent design is rapidly gaining an international following. It is also crossing metaphysical and theological boundaries. I now correspond with ID proponents from every continent (save Antarctica). Moreover, I’ve seen intelligent design embraced by Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, and even atheists. The idea that intelligent design is purely an “American thing” or an “evangelical Christian thing” can therefore no longer be maintained.
Even if the courts manage to censor intelligent design at the grade and high school levels (and with the Internet censorship means nothing to the enterprising student), they remain powerless to censor intelligent design at the college and university levels. Intelligent design is quickly gaining momentum among college and graduate students. Three years ago, there was one IDEA Center at the University of California at San Diego (IDEA = Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness—see ). Now there are thirty such centers at American colleges and universities, including the University of California at Berkeley and Cornell University. These centers are fiercely pro-intelligent design.