[disclaimer: no, I haven't read through everything posted here since a few days ago]
None of this argues against my point. The impetus for ID is the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Edwards v. Aguillard, which rightly banned creation "science" from the schools.
Creation "science" and its illegitimate stepchild, ID, are creationism in disguise--and they are not fooling anyone.
Not quite, though I do agree with you about the current situation.
Back around 1980, I started studying "creation science". In 1981, there was an episode of
Nova entitled, I think, "Did Darwin Get It Right?". Phillip Johnson was in that episode; his
Darwin on Trial had recently been published. I listened to him and all I could think was: "What an idiot! He's likening science to a law court procedure and applying courtroom rules of evidence, when that is absolutely the worst analogy one could draw! Science is not like a courtroom procedure, but rather far more like a police investigation. Seeking clues, forming and testing hypotheses, that what science does. Courtroom rules of evidence apply to the final presentation of what has been discovered,
not to an active investigation. What an idiot!"
So, while it's true that it was after
Edwards v. Aguillard that creationists shifted their strategy towards presenting the already-existing ID movement as their new front and we suddenly hearing from them new buzzwords like "intelligent design" and "abrupt appearance theory", it is also true that ID did not grow out of their movement, but had originated as a separate anti-evolution movement. In fact, because it was of different genesis, it did not share two of the worst failings of "creation science": adherence to a young earth (the claims for which are the easiest to expose as complete crap) and the inability to put on the appearance of being scientific. Let's face it, ID produces bullshitters who are far superior to those of "creation science".
BTW, many years later, some time between 2000 and 2005, on the Web I ran across an essay by Johnson, which unfortunately I have not been able to find again. Towards the end, he gives his reason for opposing evolution: because it doesn't give God anything to do. What a clear statement of "God of the Gaps" thinking! A position that is utterly useless in science and perhaps one of the worst theological positions to take.
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