Creationism's Trojan Horse - The Wedge of Intelligent Design (2004) [PDF]

Title: Creationism's Trojan Horse - The Wedge of Intelligent Design

Authors: Barbara Forrest, Paul R. Gross

Date Published: 2004



In Creationism's Trojan Horse, Forrest and Gross document the agenda and advances of "Intelligent Design," the most recent manifestation of American science education's perennial affliction: creationism. Explaining and analyzing what "design theorists" call their "Wedge Strategy" - an attempt to substitute "theistic science" for natural science in the public mind - this book documents the Wedge's aggressive, decade-long public relations campaign to implement the strategy. The most notable feature of its purportedly new scientific paradigm is the failure of its creators to produce either a scientific research program or any original scientific data to support their claims. Instead, the design movement maintains a crowded schedule of popular publications for its mostly conservative Christian constituency, lectures, and media appearances - sustained by lucrative funding from religious benefactors. The Wedge has intruded itself successfully into educational politics at local, state, and now national levels.



Forrest and Gross provide detailed accounts of the efforts of intelligent design proponents to influence state science standards in Kansas and Ohio, and to influence federal education legislation through the so-called Santorum amendment of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. They also demonstrate the continuity of intelligent design with traditional creationism and expose its religious core and motivation. Highlighting the design movement's alliances with Religious Right extremists, the book reveals the meaning of William Dembski's statement that the intelligent design movement's challenge to the "evolutionary naturalism of Darwin" is "ground zero of the culture war."