Intelligent Design is, like all other creationist movements, more about politics and religion than about science. Where Intelligent Design differs is that it was originally and deliberately conceived in explicitly political terms whereas earlier creationist movements tended to acquire political goals and principles over time. This is very important to understand because it reveals as false the pretensions of Intelligent Design apologists that they are involved in a scientific enterprise.
Relativism, Materialism, and Naturalism
Intelligent Design naturally shares the basic social and political presuppositions and goals of other creationist groups. What this means is that Intelligent Design regards evolution as a "pernicious influence" on modern culture and that this is a primary, if not the sole, cause for many or most of social and moral problems we face. According to Philip Johnson himself, the founder of Intelligent Design, naturalism and materialism lead "inexorably to relativism in ethics and politics."
This alleged relativism is the primary, specific target of Intelligent Design. The status of evolution in science is thus more a symptom of the "real problems" than the ultimate problem itself. This is one important difference between Intelligent Design and earlier creationist movements because in the past creationists focused all their malice and attention on just evolution; Intelligent Design, in contrast, aims at naturalism and materialism generally wherever they seem appear in science, politics, culture, etc.
Wedge Strategy of Intelligent Design
Intelligent Design's concern with naturalism and materialism generally as opposed to just evolution in particular can be seen in Philip Johnson's development of what he calls the "Wedge" strategy. Johnson compares the modern intellectual and scientific world to a log which can only be broken apart by inserting wedge to a vulnerable point (evolution) and continually hammering on it as it slowly breaks through:
Our strategy is to drive the thin edge of our wedge into the cracks in the log of naturalism, by bringing long-neglected questions to the surface and introducing them into public debate.
Once the wedge breaks through, Johnson has openly admitted, he expects people to be introduced to the truth of the Bible, the problem of sin and salvation through Jesus Christ. This is an explicitly religious goal, not a scientific one, which means that when Johnson and other Intelligent Design apologists protest that they are only interested in improving the study and teaching of science in America they are not being entirely honest.
That religious goal comes with a political goal as well, though it often isn't stated quite so explicitly: to transform American politics, culture, and society away from secularism and towards an explicitly Christian foundation. The ultimate end of such a development would be a sort of Christian theocracy in which Christian beliefs, institutions, and practices would all be privileged over and above all other religions as well as irreligion — assuming they are even allowed to exist, of course.
The Discovery Institute
The promotion of Intelligent Design as a political and religious ideology is not the product of just one man's fevered imagination. It has become a full-fledged movement with its own institutions and lobbyists. An internal memo from The Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture, the institutional home of Intelligent Design, explains the Wedge Strategy thus:
The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy.
If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work.
We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
Do note that the Discovery Institute doesn't express an interest in developing a science which is more reliable, more accurate, or more productive. Instead, they are looking to reform science in order to make it more compatible with the pre-existing religious convictions of Intelligent Design apologists. Put another way, their goal is to conform science to their ideology rather than to conform their ideology to what science discovers bout the real world.
To summarize, the Discovery Institute makes it clear that their ultimate goals are:
- "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies."
- "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."
These are political and religious rather than scientific goals, and this means that any claims that the Intelligent Design movement is primarily concerned with science are simply not truthful. Scientific research programs are of course compatible with political goals and might be pursued with political goals in mind (for example, the development of the atomic bomb), but genuine science cannot be founded on such explicit political and religious principles. Science is about learning the truth of the universe around us and following the evidence we find wherever it might lead — even when it conflicts with our political, ideological, and religious beliefs.
