Expert Witness Report - National Center for Science Education

E. Religious nature of ID as demonstrated by statements of its proponents. Statements such
as Johnson’s indicate clearly that ID’s essence is fundamentally religious. When combined with
Johnson’s assertion that the “defining concept” of the ID movement is “theistic realism” (see IV.
F. below), the case for ID as religious, based on the statements of its own leaders, is undeniable.
But there are additional statements that add even more weight to the case for ID as a religious
belief. 109 In a 1999 article in Touchstone magazine about detecting intelligent design in nature,
Dembski concluded by pointing to ID’s foundation in the New Testament Gospel of John: “The
world is a mirror representing the divine life. The mechanical philosophy was ever blind to this
fact. Intelligent design, on the other hand, readily embraces the sacramental nature of physical
reality. Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of
information theory.” 110 Nancy Pearcey ties ID not only to religion but specifically to
Christianity:
By uncovering evidence that natural phenomena are best accounted for by Intelligence,
Mind, and Purpose, the theory of Intelligent Design reconnects religion to the realm of public
knowledge. It takes Christianity out of the sphere of noncognitive value and restores it to the
realm of objective fact, so that it can once more take a place at the table of public discourse.
Only when we are willing to restore Christianity to the status of genuine knowledge will we
be able to effectively engage the “cognitive war” that is at the root of today’s culture war. 111
(emphasis in original)
The religious foundations of the Wedge Strategy. The Wedge Strategy is being directed from
the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank. Although the Discovery Institute avows that it is a
secular organization, its major activity, promoting ID, is being carried out for demonstrably
religious reasons, as I have shown. Indeed, the Discovery Institute’s religious agenda would be
difficult to conceal. In Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone, Pacific
Lutheran University religion professor Patricia O’Connell Killen says that “religiously inspired
think tanks such as the conservative evangelical Discovery Institute, are all part of the religious
landscape.” 112
109 In order to show the nature of ID as religious belief, I have also supplemented the empirical data of the kind
I present here with more extensive conceptual analysis. For example, I examine the implications of ID leaders’
rejection of both methodological and philosophical naturalism. See Gey, Brauer, and Forrest, “Is It Science Yet?
Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution,” at II. C. 5, n. 22.
110 See Dembski, “Signs of Intelligence,” 84.
111 See Nancy R. Pearcey, “Darwin Meets the Berenstain Bears: The Cultural Impact of Evolution,”
Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing, ed. William A. Dembski (Wilmington, DE:
ISI Books, 2004), 73.
112 See Patricia O’Connell Killen, “Conclusion: Religious Futures in the None Zone,” in Religion and Public
Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone, ed. Patricia O’Connell Killen and Mark Silk (New York: Rowman
and Littlefield, 2004), 182.
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