Intelligent design has been accepted as a mainstream scientific theory.
It is argued before school boards; top scientists have published articles
about it; its promotional videos have even been shown on public
television.
Intelligent design is not mainstream science. (In fact, it is
not science at all.) It is not generating
any research.
Zero scientific research articles have been written about it.
Most of the few articles that mention it at all are critical of it
(Gilchrist 1997; Lane 2003).
The ID movement has been designed as a propaganda machine for achieving
the appearance of respectability (Forrest 2002; Forrest and Gross
2004). The movement relies on deception to become accepted as
mainstream.
A 2003 poll reported support for teaching intelligent design, but
the poll was falsely reported and worthless to begin with (NMSR
2003; see also Mooney 2003).
Discovery Institute fellows presented a bibliography of reputable
scientists whose "publications represent dissenting viewpoints" to
the Ohio Board of Education. But the scientists, when contacted,
said that their work did not support intelligent design or challenge
evolution. Many said that their work is evidence against
intelligent design (Branch 2002).
In order to get their promotional video onto television, the ID
movement deliberately hid the fact that it was about intelligent
design (Evans 2003).
The resources of the Discovery Institute and other proponents of
intelligent design are devoted to speaking engagements, popular
publishing, and political lobbying. There is a lot of hot air
surrounding ID, but no substance.
Intelligent design may, in some sense, be mainstream in the public.
Most people believe in some kind of divine creation. However, this in
itself cannot be considered acceptance of intelligent design because it
includes theistic evolution, which most ID proponents find distasteful.
Roughly half of Americans believe in creationism, which might qualify
as "mainstream intelligent design," but that number has probably fallen
since the ID concept was popularized 200 years ago. In one poll, 84
percent of the Ohio public did not know what "intelligent design" is
(Bishop 2002).
More to the point, intelligent design's popularity with the public is a
logical fallacy. Astrology, for example, is at least as mainstream and
just as wrong.
Forrest, Barbara, 2002. The Wedge at work: How intelligent design
creationism is wedging its way into the cultural and academic
mainstream. In Pennock, Robert T. (ed.), Intelligent Design
Creationism and its Critics, MIT Press.
Forrest, Barbara and Paul R. Gross, 2004. Creationism's Trojan
Horse, Oxford University Press.
NMSR, 2003. Sandia National Laboratories says that the Intelligent
Design Network (IDNet-NM/Zogby) "Lab Poll" is BOGUS!
http://www.nmsr.org/id-poll.htm
Further Reading:
Forrest, Barbara, 2002. The Wedge at work: How intelligent design
creationism is wedging its way into the cultural and academic
mainstream. In Pennock, Robert T. (ed.), Intelligent Design
Creationism and its Critics, MIT Press.
Forrest, Barbara and Paul R. Gross, 2004. Creationism's Trojan
Horse, Oxford University Press.
