Intelligent Design is not a completely unified movement. All seem to agree that the purpose of ID is to undermine naturalistic science and, ultimately, the secular society itself - the long-term goal is a Christianized society and state. Not all agree on how quickly and aggressively this should be pursued.

Ed Brayton points out that the conflict between the Discovery Institute and the Thomas More Law Center is getting increasing public. The York Daily Record reports:

At a forum in Washington, D.C., Dover’s lead attorney Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center squabbled publicly with a member of the Discovery Institute over whether the organization had endorsed the teaching of intelligent design in public school.

“The Discovery Institute never set out to have a school board, schools, get into this issue,” [Mark Ryland, a Discovery vice president] said, according to transcripts of the exchange posted on the Web site for the National Center for Science Education. ... Ryland said Discovery’s position is against teaching intelligent design. Rather, he said, teach the evidence for and against evolutionary theory.

But Thompson, at the forum, read from a copy of the Discovery Institute’s “Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curriculum: A Guidebook” that states, “school boards have the authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching about design theory . . .”

Thompson said during the panel that Discovery, as part of tactics used in Ohio and other states, pushed school boards to go with intelligent design, then compromised when controversy arose. “And I think what was victimized by this strategy was the Dover school board, because we could not present the expert testimony we thought we could present.”

The Discovery Institute has absolutely promoted teaching Intelligent Design in schools. That’s part of their agenda — it would be absurd for them not to promote it. They do, however, wish to move on this in a careful and strategic manner. They didn’t think that the Dover case was a good one and so didn’t want to be involved. The Thomas More Law Center, however, isn’t thinking long-term and appears willing to defend any Christian-oriented case, no matter how foolish the Christians involved have acted (and the creationist school board in Dover has acted very, very foolishly).

The Patriot News reports:

“From the start, we just disagreed that this was a good place, a good time and place to have this battle, which is risky, in the sense that there’s a potential for rulings that this is somehow unconstitutional,” Ryland said. In his e-mail to Nilsen, Russell voiced similar reservations: “My concern for Dover is that in the last several years, there has been a lot of discussion, news print, etc., for putting religion back in the schools. In my mind, this would add weight to a lawsuit seeking to enjoin whatever the practice might be.”

In other words, the leading people in Dover didn’t do a good enough job at hiding their real agenda, an agenda which the Discovery Institute supports, and this would hurt the prospects of any court case. The Discovery Institute is justifiably afraid that if this case goes far enough, it will undermine the chances of Intelligent Design in public schools for years to come.

Unfortunately, the “grass roots” supporters of Intelligent Design don’t believe in moving quietly and softly — they don’t think that they should have to be secretive about their goals. They want to be “loud and proud” when it comes to their actions and agenda. They don’t just want to inject more religion in schools, they want to do so publicly. Since many are politicians who need to be reelected, this makes some sense — how do you get people to vote for you unless you promise them what they want? Winks and nods only go so far.

 

Read More:

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