What Intelligent Design is really about

J. Scott Turner, a biologist, writes in the June 12 issue of Christian Century that the Intelligent Design movement is not a front for Christian Creationism (genuine Creationists hate ID, because it affirms evolutionary biology). Instead, he says,

…designing agents are in fact everywhere, if only you know how to spot them. The ubiquity of these designing agents may make evolution a far more purposeful phenomenon than neo-Darwinists have been willing to allow.

This puts intelligent design into what I believe is its proper perspective: it is one of multiple emerging critiques of materialism in science and evolution.

His essay goes on to challenge the academic orthodoxy on ID, without abandoning evolutionary biology. Instead, Turner says that academia has become a “tedious intellectual monoculture where conformity and not contention is the norm.” Worse, he says, the Dover trial was not a victory for science. Rather,

…we have affirmed the principle that a federal judge, not scientists or teachers, can dictate what is and is not science, and what may or may not be taught in a classroom. Forgive me if I do not feel more free.”

Unfortunately, Christian Century does not provide the text of his article online.