Review Article
Creationism and Intelligent Design
- Robert T. Pennock1
- View AffiliationsHide AffiliationsLyman Briggs School and Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48825; email:[email protected]
- Vol. 4:143-163(Volume publication date September 2003)
- First published as a Review in Advance on June 04, 2003
- © Annual Reviews
Abstract
Creationism, the rejection of evolution in favor of supernatural design,comes in many varieties besides the common young-earth Genesis version.Creationist attacks on science education have been evolving in the last fewyears through the alliance of different varieties. Instead of calls to teach“creation science,” one now finds lobbying for “intelligentdesign” (ID). Guided by the Discovery Institute's “Wedgestrategy,” the ID movement aims to overturn evolution and what it sees asa pernicious materialist worldview and to renew a theistic foundation toWestern culture, in which human beings are recognized as being created in theimage of God. Common ID arguments involving scientific naturalism,“irreducible complexity,” “complex specifiedinformation,” and “icons of evolution,” have been thoroughlyexamined and refuted. Nevertheless, from Kansas to Ohio to the U.S. Congress,ID continues lobbying to teach the controversy, and scientists need to be readyto defend good evolution education.






