Forrest and Gross expose the scientific failure, the religious essence, and the political ambitions of "intelligent design" creationism. They examine the movement's "Wedge Strategy," which has advanced and is succeeding through public relations rather than through scientific research. Analyzing the content and character of "intelligent design theory," they highlight its threat to public education and to the separation of church and state.

Intelligent design creationism (ID) is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator's interventions in the natural order. ID thus brings with it, as does supernatural theism by its nature, intractable epistemological difficulties. Despite these difficulties and despite ID's defeat in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005), ID creationists' continuing efforts to promote the teaching of ID in public school science classrooms threaten both science education and the separation of church and state guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution. I examine (...) the ID movement's failure to provide either a methodology or a functional epistemology to support their supernaturalism, a deficiency that consequently leaves them without epistemic support for their creationist claims. My examination focuses primarily on ID supporter Francis Beckwith, whose published defenses of teaching ID, as well as his other relevant publications concerning education, law, and public policy, have been largely exempt from critical scrutiny. Beckwith's work exhibits the epistemological deficiencies of the supernaturally grounded views of his ID associates and of supernaturalists in general. I preface my examination of Beckwith's arguments with (1) philosopher of science Susan Haack's clarification of the established naturalistic methodology and epistemology of science and (2) discussions of the views of Beckwith's ID associates Phillip Johnson and William Dembski. Finally, I critique the religious exclusionism that Beckwith shares with his ID associates and the implications of his exclusionism for public policy. (shrink)

Science undermines the certitude of non‐naturalistic answers to the question of whether human life has meaning. I explore whether evolution can provide a naturalistic basis for existential meaning. Using the work of philosopher Daniel Dennett and scientist Ursula Goodenough, I argue that evolution is the locus of the possibility of meaning because it has produced intentionality, the matrix of consciousness. I conclude that the question of the meaning of human life is an existentialist one: existential meaning is a product of (...) the individual and collective tasks human beings undertake. (shrink)

This chapter enlists David Hume to help navigate the treacherous territory between science and religious pseudoscience and to assess the epistemic credentials of supernaturalism. It argues that the boundary between the naturalism of science and the supernaturalism of religion—and, by extension, between science and religious pseudoscience—is set by the cognitive faculties that humans have and the corresponding kinds of knowledge of which we are capable. Recognizing this boundary is crucial to properly understanding science.

As a treatment of radical evil, philosophical engagement with the Holocaust must negotiate a breach of intelligibility and of our moral world so great that canonical moral frameworks cannot compass it. Accordingly, the role of the philosopher in relation to Holocaust studies is not one of dispassionate reflection, and it calls for careful consideration. The author argues that as scholars, teachers, and citizens, philosophers treating the Holocaust have a duty to philosophize in a manner that advances the cause of humanitarianism. (...) The author argues that the best way to do so is by philosophizing historically and illustrates what this means for the above three offices of the philosopher. The author first considers postmodernist approaches to history which are found lacking insofar as they may be used to bolster the claims of Holocaust deniers and revisionists. Instead, the author advocates a “social realist” stance on history, whereby philosophers can make explicit reference to the concrete events that comprise the historical context of the Holocaust and allow the events to speak for themselves. This allows the philosopher’s work to remain accessible to a broad audience as well as providing a stable moral framework which avoids morally ambiguous or morally neutral judgments of the Holocaust. (shrink)

The rejection of evolution in favor of creation by a supernatural deity is not the only feature of intelligent design creationism that marks it as a religious movement. Its integral but lesser known features include anti-modernism, anti-secularism, religious exclusionism, and anti-rationalism. The intelligent design movement, following a Wedge Strategy, seeks not only to return American education to a premodern understanding of science, but to move the country culturally and politically away from secular democracy and toward a premodern, Christian commonwealth. The (...) movement’s leader, Phillip Johnson, brands secular academics as apostates and warns Christian students against relying on “your own thinking”. Scientists must join concerned citizens in stopping the advance of intelligent design in the public school science class. (shrink)