Creationists are pursuing a detailed, organized program to get their religious beliefs into the academic world. Past versions of creationism didn't work, but they are hopeful that the newest - Intelligent Design - will have more success. It's sad that so many dishonest tactics have to be used in the process.

In Academe, Barbara Forrest and Glenn Branch write:

Calling themselves "the Wedge," adherents of the movement are avidly pursuing a twenty-year plan to convince the public that intelligent design is "an accepted alternative in the sciences" and to promote "the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science." The sobriquet "the Wedge" reflects movement leader Phillip Johnson's desire to insert "the thin edge of a wedge" into "the ruling philosophy of modern culture." For Johnson, a retired professor of law from the University of California, Berkeley, the Christian gospel is what will follow the thin edge.

Its most conspicuous feature, however, is its scientific sterility. The Wedge's most notable attempts to provide a case for intelligent design appear in books for the general reader, such as Dembski's Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology and Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. The few university presses (such as Cambridge and Michigan State) that have published intelligent design books classify them as philosophy, rhetoric, or public affairs, not science. There are no peer-reviewed studies supporting intelligent design in the scientific research literature. The scientific community as a whole is unimpressed and unconvinced, and intelligent design's credentials as a scientific research program appear negligible. Indeed, Dembski himself recently conceded that "the scientific research part" of intelligent design is now "lagging behind" its success in influencing popular opinion. So the Wedge needs another way to persuade education policy makers that intelligent design is academically respectable.

What are the academic supporters of intelligent design doing to advance its cause? Significantly, they are not teaching it in mainstream science courses, despite Behe's declaration that it "must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science." Access Research Network, a Wedge auxiliary, lists only two "[intelligent design] colleges": Oklahoma Baptist University (home to CSC fellow Michael Newton Keas) and Biola University (formerly the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and home to CSC fellows William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and John Mark Reynolds).

[I]ntelligent design proponents have flaunted their academic credentials and affiliations for all they are worth—or beyond. ... It is easy for the public, unacquainted with academic life, to suppose that the existence of a handful of scientists who reject evolution means that there is a legitimate scientific controversy about evolution. ... [U]nlike young-earth creationism, intelligent design maintains a not inconsiderable base within academia, whose members seemingly exploit their academic standing to promote the concept as intellectually respectable while shirking the task of producing a scientifically compelling case for it. To be sure, academic supporters of intelligent design enjoy, and should enjoy, the same degree of academic freedom conferred on the professoriate in general. But academic freedom is no excuse for misleading students about the scientific legitimacy of a view overwhelmingly rejected by the scientific community. In short, the academic supporters of intelligent design are enjoying, in the familiar phrase, power without responsibility.

Time reports:

Putting God in the classroom is clearly illegal, but Discovery Institute strategists believe that even a push for I.D. might run afoul of zealous judges--as it has in Georgia. So the institute advocates that schools should continue teaching evolution but also present what West calls "some of the scientific criticism of major parts of the theory."

But many scientists--and science teachers--don't think there is any valid criticism. Sure, some 350 scientists have signed a declaration challenging evolution. But many tens of thousands of scientists reject I.D.'s core argument--that evolution can't produce complex structures. Take the eye. I.D. theorists say it could not have evolved bit by bit because a bit of an eye has no survival value; it would never have been passed on. Biologists see it differently. They say, for example, a primitive, light-sensing patch of skin--a forerunner of the retina--could help animals detect the shadows of predators.

Then there's the assertion that evolution is "just" a theory. "They are playing on the public's lack of understanding of what a scientific theory is," says Bingman. "It's more than a guess. It's a set of hypotheses that has been tested over time." Evolutionary theory does have gaps, but so do relativity, quantum theory and the theory of plate tectonics. ... A look at where the Discovery Institute gets much of its money and at the religious beliefs of many scientists who support I.D. makes it reasonable to suspect that Scott's assertion is correct: intelligent design is just a smoke screen for those who think evolution is somehow ungodly.

There are no sound, scientific reasons for the wholesale rejection of evolution as the driving force of genetic change and speciation. There are no sound, scientific reasons for speculation in the realm of "Intelligent" Design. There are only religious reasons for this position and the leaders of the movement have made it abundantly clear that their agenda is to cause large-scale cultural and religious changes in America. They don't see themselves as doing science, they see themselves as doing Christian ministry — science simply happens to be the field where they think that they can make some progress, substituting fairy tales for facts and revelation for research.

Read More:

• Evolution vs. Creationism
• Science vs. Religion
• What is Intelligent Design?
• What is Science?