OHIO SCIENCE FACTS
The Group, Science Excellence for All Ohioans states that "Design Theory" makes no claim about the nature of the designer. Is this really the case? The major proponents of the Intelligent Design (ID) concept usually make this type of statement in public; but when speaking to conservative religious groups, or in their publications, it's another matter.
William Dembski, author of The Design Inference
"The world is a mirror representing the divine life... Intelligent design readily embraces the sacramental nature of physical reality. Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory."
Touchstone Magazine, July/August, 1999
Jay Wesley Richards of the Discovery Institute
"For more than a century we have heard that scientific progress has made Christian belief obsolete. Given the cultural prestige of science, this claim has prevented many from considering the Christian faith. If intelligent design theory exposes the inadequacy of materialistic explanations in the natural sciences, it will deflate this assertion, and could contribute to a renewal of Christian belief in the twenty-first century. This would be its most significant apologetic contribution."
Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design edited by William A. Dembski and James M. Kushiner
Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box
"Although intelligent design fits comfortably with a belief in God, it doesn't require it, because the scientific theory doesn't tell you who the designer is. While most people - including myself - will think the designer is God, some people might think that the designer was a space alien or something odd like that."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 02/08/01
Phillip Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial and leader of "The Wedge Strategy"
"The objective [of the Wedge Strategy] is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.'"
"Missionary Man", Church & State, April 1999
Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution
" He [Reverend Sun Myung Moon] frequently criticized Darwin's theory that living things originated without God's purposeful, creative activity...
"Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle."
"Why I Went for a Second Ph.D.", 1996,
[www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Wells/DARWIN.htm]
Science Excellence for All Ohioans (SEAO) is a project of the American Family Association of Ohio (AFAO), whose web page contains the following affirmation:
The American Family Association of Ohio believes that God has communicated absolute truth to man through the Word of God (the Bible) which is inerrant and infallible, and that all men are subject to the authority of God's Word at all times. Therefore, a culture based on an adherence to Biblical truth best serves the well being of our country, in accordance with the vision of our founding fathers.
By looking at statements from ID proponents, it becomes very clear that Intelligent Design is a religious, not a scientific concept. It may be appropriate for a classes on comparative theology or philosophy, but it has no place in the science classroom.