The CRSC calls its strategy the Wedge, because it wants to liberate science from atheistic naturalism.Johnson refers to the CRSC members and their strategy as the Wedge, analogous to a wedge that splits a log meaning that intelligent design will liberate science from the grip of atheistic naturalism. Ten years of Wedge history reveal its most salient features: Wedge scientists have no empirical research program and, consequently, have published no data in peer-reviewed journals (or elsewhere) to support their intelligent-design claims. But they do have an aggressive public relations program, which includes conferences that they or their supporters organize, popular books and articles, recruitment of students through university lectures sponsored by campus ministries, and cultivation of alliances with conservative Christians and influential political figures.
Philip E. Johnson: This isnt really, and never has been, a debate about science. Its about religion and philosophy.The Wedge aims to renew American culture by grounding societys major institutions, especially education, in evangelical religion. In 1996, Johnson declared: This isnt really, and never has been, a debate about science. Its about religion and philosophy. According to Dembski, intelligent design is just the Logos of Johns Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory. Wedge strategists seek to unify Christians through a shared belief in mere creation, aiming in Dembskis words at defeating naturalism and its consequences. This enables intelligent-design proponents to coexist in a big tent with other creationists who explicitly base their beliefs on a literal interpretation of Genesis.
At heart, ID proponents are not motivated to improve science but to transform it into a theistic enterprise.As Christians, writes Dembski, we know naturalism is false. Nature is not self-sufficient. Nonetheless neither theology nor philosophy can answer the evidential question whether Gods interaction with the world is empirically detectable. To answer this question we must look to science. Jonathan Wells, a biologist, and Michael J. Behe, a biochemist, seem just the CRSC fellows to give intelligent design the ticket to credibility. Yet neither has actually done research to test the theory, much less produced data that challenges the massive evidence accumulated by biologists, geologists, and other evolutionary scientists. Wells, influenced in part by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, earned Ph.D.s in religious studies and biology specifically to devote my life to destroying Darwinism. Behe sees the relevant question as whether science can make room for religion. At heart, proponents of intelligent design are not motivated to improve science but to transform it into a theistic enterprise that supports religious faith.
The ID movement is advancing its strategy but its tactics are no substitute for real science. Wedge supporters are at present trying to insert intelligent design into Ohio public-school science standards through state legislation. Earlier the CRSC advertised its science education site by assuring teachers that its Web curriculum can be appropriated without textbook adoption wars in effect encouraging teachers to do an end run around standard procedures. Anticipating a test case, the Wedge published in the Utah Law Review a legal strategy for winning judicial sanction. Recently the group almost succeeded in inserting into the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 a sense of the Senate that supported the teaching of intelligent design. So the movement is advancing, but its tactics are no substitute for real science. ----By Barbara Forrest
Seattle’s Discovery Institute scrambling to rebound after intelligent-design ruling
Seattle Times ^ | 26 April 2006 | David Postman
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1621709/posts
When a federal judge stopped intelligent design from being taught in a Pennsylvania school district in December, the concept’s chief advocates issued a quick and pointed response. ...
Leading conservative commentators including talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh and syndicated columnist Cal Thomas say the judge’s decision shows that intelligent design is a failed strategy in the effort to bring religion into the public schools.
“Let’s make no mistake,” Limbaugh said on his radio show. “The people pushing intelligent design believe in the biblical version of creation. Intelligent design is a way, I think, to sneak it into the curriculum and make it less offensive to the liberals.” [snip]
In other words, they would be very happy with a theocracy--as long as their chosen brand of religion was in charge of things, eh?