Proponents of ID argue that the design paradigm offers us a useful way of understanding the natural world, that the design paradigm applies just as much to the biological world as to any other area of science, and that schoolteachers should not refuse to teach it as an alternative to Darwinian natural selection just because it can be interpreted in a religious manner.
Opponents of ID argue that ID is actually a conspiracy to avoid consitutional objections to the official establishment of religion. They argue that proponents of ID are motivated by religious and political inclinations that have no place in the classroom. Furthermore, analysts such as Professor Paul Gross have argued that the ID movement is part of a
vast right-wing conspiracy.
The position of Professor Gross is backed up by the
wedge document, authored by the
Discovery Institute, which positions ID as a challenge to the "the specific social consequences of materialism and the Darwinist theory that supports it". In other words, proponents of ID at the Discovery Institute are not concerned with biology per se, but see an attack on Darwinism as the first step in a more general attack on materialistic society and an attempt to replace that society with one based upon "conservative-Christan" moral norms.
Although the Discovery Institute describes itself as a "non-partisan" thinktank, it's programs in fields other than biology appear to be toward the right of politics. They are concerned with promoting "economic growth" and freeing economic growth from "the burdens of undue government regulation", "by limiting tax and regulatory barriers to businesses and individuals".
Does anybody have any solid evidence that ID is a right wing conspiracy? Who pays for the Discovery Institute and for ARN? Was ID explicitly invented as a way of avoiding the constitutional limitation on the establishment of religion, and if so, where was it invented, when, and by whom?
When proponents of ID claim that Darwinist scientists are part of conspiracy to prevent valid ID research being published, we generally ask for evidence that the conspiracy exists. Now it is time for the tables to be turned.
Are evolutionary biologists just being paranoid, or inventing the idea of a conspiracy for political or psychological purposes? Or is there any real documentary evidence, over and above the wedge document, of ID as a right wing conspiracy that was invented with a specific political aim?
Mick
This message has been edited by mick, 06-01-2005 01:21 PM
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