Intelligent Design
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The ID movement is orchestrated by the Center for Science and Culture (CSC), a subdivision of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank based in Seattle.
The CSC strategy for countering evolution is twofold: challenge its soundness as a scientific theory, then replace it with ID.
The CSC is using a campaign called "Teach the Controversy" to carry out the first part of the strategy. The campaign is aimed at public schools and teachers are urged to expose students to the "scientific arguments for and against Darwinian theory." It exploits disagreements among biologists, pointing out gaps in their understanding of evolution in order to portray evolution as a "theory in crisis."
Selling ID as a viable alternative to evolution, however, is proving more difficult. In modern science, a theory must first undergo the gauntlet of peer-review in a reputable scientific journal before it is widely accepted.
Measured by this standard, ID fails miserably. According to the National Center for Science Education, only one ID article by Stephen Meyers (Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 2004) has passed this test and even then, the journal that published the article promptly retracted it. The journal also put out a statement that said "there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the origin of organic diversity."
The Audience
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The ID movement's greatest strength lies in its ambiguity. It makes no claims about who the designer is or the steps taken to create life. ID does not say whether the designer intervened in the history of life only once or multiple times or even whether the designer is still actively guiding the destiny of life on Earth.
The ambiguity is intentional and part of what Phillip Johnson, a retired law professor from the University of California, Berkeley and one of the ID movement's lead strategists, calls his "big tent" strategy.
By paring the origins debate down to its most essential question—"Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?"—Johnson has managed to create a tenuous alliance between various groups of skeptics and conservative Christians, including Young Earth Creationists—those who believe that the Earth is only a few thousand years old—and Old Earth Creationists.
In front of mainstream audiences, ID proponents refuse to speculate about the precise nature of the designer. Regarding this crucial point, ID proponents are agnostic. It could be God, they say, but it could also be a superior alien race.
Even if an ID version of science were to prevail, the designer's true identity may still never be revealed, Minnich said. "I think it's outside of the realm of science," Minnich said in a telephone interview. "You can infer design but the science isn't going to tell you who the designer is. It has theistic implications, and then its up to the individual to pursue that out of interest if they want."
When speaking or writing for Christian audiences, however, ID proponents are more candid. Some have openly speculated about who they think the wizard behind the curtain really is.
"The objective is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the nonexistence of God," Johnson wrote in a 1999 article for Church and State magazine. "From there, people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.'"
The Wedge Strategy
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The Discovery Institute stated that the center's long-term goals were nothing less than the "overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies," and the replacement of "materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."
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"ID" CAN be as varied as evolutionary theory can be, and often times they can even overlap.
No, it doesn't. When the cornerstone of your "theory" is that you can't explain something, therefore some designer is responsible is not variety or science. It's willful ignorance being sold as a valid worldview.
There are many Muslims and Jews who are also proponents of ID, and there are agnostics as well.
You're talking about deism in general, which is basically an ID based flavor of the believers' cultural religion in which a deity has created the universe and takes very little active role in it past the design phase.
So to label simply a "Christian ideology" is missing the forest for the trees.
I said that in the West, ID is a Christian think tank's project which is absolutely true. The entire reason why the Discovery Institute and BioLogos exist is because several wealthy Evangelicals decided that teaching evolution is everything that's wrong with modern civilization and it must be stopped by sowing doubt about evolutionary biology.
In the end, it could be wrong, it could be bad science...
It's not science. When you hunt for something you cannot explain and then use your inability to explain it as proof of something, you aren't doing science.
we also have to be honest enough to say that while aspects of evolution are observable and testable, other aspects simply aren't.
Like what? Speciation? Seen it. Mutations regulated by natural selection? Tested it. Hybridization and extreme selective pressures? See it every day.
Just as with evolutionary theory, do we need to know the exact scientific models in order for something to be true?
Yes, yes we do. If you can't explain it, test it, and show it to be true over and over again, it's not science.
The means for achieving these goals was explained using a simple metaphor: "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."
