Intelligent Design Network

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The Intelligent Design network, inc. (commonly IDnet or Intelligent Design Network) is a nonprofit organization formed in Kansas to promote the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design. It is based in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. The Intelligent Design Network was founded by John Calvert, a corporate finance lawyer with a bachelor's degree in geology, and nutritionist William S. Harris. [1] Its self-described mission is "to promote evidence-based science education with regard to the origin of the universe and of life and its diversity" and "to enhance public awareness of the evidence of intelligent design and living systems." [2]

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual, but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; and absence of systematic practices when developing theories, and continued adherence long after they have been experimentally discredited. The term pseudoscience is considered pejorative because it suggests something is being presented as science inaccurately or even deceptively. Those described as practicing or advocating pseudoscience often dispute the characterization.

Intelligent design Pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God

Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, so it is not science. The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a fundamentalist Christian and politically conservative think tank based in the United States.

Shawnee Mission, Kansas is a name created by the United States Postal Service to denote an area of Johnson County, Kansas that contains numerous towns. Parts of southern Overland Park are not part of Shawnee Mission, as they were annexed from unincorporated Stilwell and use ZIP code 66085.

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In June 2000 it made a news release urging Kansas school boards "to reject National Science Standards proposed by Kansas Citizens for Science", complaining that they "would limit teaching to only 'natural explanations'", limiting tuition to only "one side of the controversy" (see Teach the Controversy) and ignoring "[t]he evidence supporting design". In a letter sent the same day to all Kansas school districts, Calvert hinted at legal consequences for failing to admit intelligent design into curricula. In July 2000, two weeks before the Kansas State Board of Education Republican primaries, IDNet held a symposium featuring a number of Center for Science and Culture fellows and affiliates. [3]

Kansas Citizens for Science (KCFS) is a science advocacy organization, incorporated as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3), that "promotes a better understanding of what science is, and does, by: advocating for science education, educating the public about the nature and value of science, and serving as an information resource." KCFS has been active in both local and national evolution-advocacy efforts and served as the prototype for other Citizens for Science organizations.

Teach the Controversy Discovery Institute campaign to promote a variant of traditional creationism, intelligent design

"Teach the Controversy" is a campaign, conducted by the Discovery Institute, to promote the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while attempting to discredit the teaching of evolution in United States public high school science courses. The campaign claims that fairness and equal time require educating students with a 'critical analysis of evolution' where "the full range of scientific views", evolution's "unresolved issues", and the "scientific weaknesses of evolutionary theory" will be presented and evaluated alongside intelligent design concepts like irreducible complexity presented as a scientific argument against evolution through oblique references to books by design proponents listed in the bibliography of the Institute-proposed "Critical Analysis of Evolution" lesson plans.

Center for Science and Culture organization

The Center for Science and Culture (CSC), formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), is part of the Discovery Institute (DI), a conservative Christian think tank in the United States. The CSC lobbies for the inclusion of creationism in the form of intelligent design (ID) in public-school science curricula as an explanation for the origins of life and the universe while casting doubt on the theory of evolution. These positions have been rejected by the scientific community, which identifies intelligent design as pseudoscientific neo-creationism, whereas the theory of evolution is overwhelmingly accepted as a matter of scientific consensus.

Notes

  1. ↑ Intelligent Design: The Scientific Alternative to Evolution, John H. Calvert and William S. Harris, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Autumn 2003
  2. ↑ Forrest & Gross (2004), p222
  3. ↑ Forrest & Gross (2004), pp223-224

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National Center for Science Education Nonprofit supporting the teaching of evolution and climate change.

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of controversies surrounding the teaching of evolution and climate change, and to provide information and resources to schools, parents, and other citizens working to keep those topics in public school science education. Based in Oakland, California, it claims 4,500 members that include scientists, teachers, clergy, and citizens of varied religious and political affiliations. The Center opposes the teaching of religious views in science classes in America's public schools; it does this through initiatives such as Project Steve. The Center has been called the United States' "leading anti-creationist organization". The Center is affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Discovery Institute American non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington

The Discovery Institute (DI) is a politically conservative non-profit think tank based in Seattle, Washington, that advocates the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design (ID). Its "Teach the Controversy" campaign aims to permit the teaching of anti-evolution, intelligent-design beliefs in United States public high school science courses in place of accepted scientific theories, positing that a scientific controversy exists over these subjects.

William A. Dembski American intelligent design advocate

William Albert "Bill" Dembski is an American mathematician, philosopher and theologian. He was a prominent proponent of intelligent design (ID) pseudoscience, specifically the concept of specified complexity, and was a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC). On September 23, 2016 he officially retired from intelligent design, resigning all his "formal associations with the ID community, including [his] Discovery Institute fellowship of 20 years."

John Corrigan "Jonathan" Wells is an American biologist, author, and advocate of the pseudoscientific argument of intelligent design. Wells joined the Unification Church in 1974, and subsequently wrote that the teachings of church founder Sun Myung Moon, his own studies at the Unification Theological Seminary and his prayers convinced him to devote his life to "destroying Darwinism." The term Darwinism is often used by intelligent design proponents and other creationists to refer to the scientific consensus on evolution. He gained a PhD in religious studies at Yale University in 1986, then became Director of the Unification Church’s inter-religious outreach organization in New York City. In 1989, he studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a PhD in molecular and cellular biology in 1994. He became a member of several scientific associations and has published in academic journals.

Intelligent design movement

The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the pseudoscientific idea of intelligent design (ID), which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." Its chief activities are a campaign to promote public awareness of this concept, the lobbying of policymakers to include its teaching in high school science classes, and legal action, either to defend such teaching or to remove barriers otherwise preventing it. The movement arose out of the creation science movement in the United States, and is driven by a small group of proponents.

Stephen C. Meyer American Intelligent design advocate

Stephen C. Meyer is an American advocate of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design. He helped found the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) of the Discovery Institute (DI), which is the main organization behind the intelligent design movement. Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at Whitworth College. Meyer is a Senior Fellow of the DI and Director of the CSC.

Access Research Network (ARN) is an American non-profit organization that reports on science, technology and society from an intelligent design perspective. ARN primarily disseminates information via its website, located at ARN.org, which contains commentary, articles, videos, links, and a bookstore, all focusing on intelligent design. Between 2006 and 2011, ARN also published an annual list of "Top 10 Darwin and Design News Stories" compiled by ARN staff and released at the end of each year.

Wedge strategy creationist political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, aiming is to change U.S. culture by shaping public policy to reflect politically conservative fundamentalist evangelical Protestant values

The Wedge Strategy is a creationist political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document. Its goal is to change American culture by shaping public policy to reflect politically conservative fundamentalist evangelical Protestant values. The wedge metaphor is attributed to Phillip E. Johnson and depicts a metal wedge splitting a log.

<i>Of Pandas and People</i> school-level textbook promoting intelligent design

Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins is a controversial 1989 school-level textbook written by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon and published by the Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE). The textbook endorses the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design—namely that life shows evidence of being designed by an intelligent agent which is not named specifically in the book, although proponents understand that it refers to the Christian God. They present various polemical arguments against the scientific theory of evolution.

Kansas evolution hearings

The Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas, United States from May 5 to 12, 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school science classes. The hearings were arranged by the Board of Education with the intent of introducing intelligent design into science classes via the Teach the Controversy method.

Intelligent design in politics

The intelligent design movement has conducted an organized campaign largely in the United States that promotes a pseudoscientific, neo-creationist religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes centering on intelligent design.

<i>Darwinism, Design and Public Education</i> book by John Angus Campbell

Darwinism, Design and Public Education is a 2003 anthology, consisting largely of rewritten versions of essays from a 1998 issue of Michigan State University Press's journal, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, edited by intelligent design activists John Angus Campbell and Stephen C. Meyer, neither of whom are scientists. The book is promoted as being a "peer-reviewed science book", however in reviewing it Barbara Forrest notes that:

Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns

The Discovery Institute has conducted a series of related public relations campaigns which seek to promote intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolutionary biology, which the Institute terms "Darwinism." The Discovery Institute promotes the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement and is represented by Creative Response Concepts, a public relations firm.

Timeline of intelligent design timeline

This timeline of intelligent design outlines the major events in the development of intelligent design as presented and promoted by the intelligent design movement.

<i>Explore Evolution</i> book by Stephen C. Meyer

Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism is a controversial biology textbook written by a group of intelligent design supporters and published in 2007. Its promoters describe it as aimed at helping educators and students to discuss "the controversial aspects of evolutionary theory that are discussed openly in scientific books and journals but which are not widely reported in textbooks." As one of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns to "teach the controversy" it aims to provide a "lawsuit-proof" way of attacking evolution and promoting pseudoscientific creationism without being explicit.

References

Barbara Forrest American academic

Barbara Carroll Forrest is a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. She is a critic of intelligent design and the Discovery Institute.

Paul R. Gross is a biologist and author, perhaps best known to the general public for Higher Superstition (1994), written with Norman Levitt. Gross is the University Professor of Life Sciences (Emeritus) at the University of Virginia; he previously served the university as Provost and Vice-President. He has written widely on biology, evolution and creationism, and the intellectual conflicts of the Science wars—for example, his book Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (2004), written with Barbara Forrest.

<i>Creationisms Trojan Horse</i> book by Barbara Forrest

Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design is a 2004 book by Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross on the origins of intelligent design, specifically the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture and its wedge strategy. The authors are highly critical of what they refer to as intelligent design creationism, and document the intelligent design movement's fundamentalist Christian origins and funding.

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