Is Intelligent Design supposed to be about religion or science? Defenders insist that it is a scientific enterprise being suppressed by an atheistic orthodoxy in the sciences; real scientists and more than a few religious believers note that it's about religion and religious belief. Recently, some curious evidence for this has been found.

Richard Bartholomew points us to some rather interesting comments made by InterVarsity Press, the publisher of most of the books defending and explaining Intelligent Design:

InterVarsity Press Publisher Bob Fryling can tell that Intelligent Design has suddenly become a hot topic. Sales of the four main ID books quadrupled between June and September of this year. The books are Intelligent Design and The Design Revolution, both by William Dembski, plus Defeating Darwinism and Darwin on Trial, both by Phillip Johnson. “The debate over beginnings reflects fundamental issues of how we understand the nature of humanity, our purpose in life, and our relationship with God,” said Fryling.

Our relationship with God? Someone should tell Fryling that it’s taboo to mention “God” when discussing Intelligent Design; ID makes no statements about who or what the “designer” is supposed to be, after all.

While the debate has helped the bottom line at InterVarsity Press, it is a sensitive subject among the Christian professors that InterVarsity works with on the nation’s college campuses. There are Christian scholars on both sides of the Intelligent Design debate. “We have done the right thing to play a role in encouraging discussion of ID,” says Faculty Ministry director Stan Wallace. “It fosters conversation about a fault line within higher education.”

I’m sure that it has helped the company’s profit margin — it’s not as though any scientific publishers are interested in publishing books defending this pseudoscience. As long as they will make money off it, though, I’m expect that InterVarsity Press will continue to hype this issue.

Bartholomew points out something interesting about the above quote: there is no mention of non-Christian scholars being on “both sides of the Intelligent Design debate.” It’s nice that they acknowledge the fact that not all Christians accept Intelligent Design, but they aren’t quite willing to acknowledge that few, if any, non-Christian scholars accept it.

 

Read More:

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