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Design theory is there purposely to cover up the religious agenda. Indeed, when you press Intelligent Design creationists on what science, precisely, they are practicing, they admit in person that they have not yet developed “that part” of their program. For a similarly honest self-appraisal of the Intelligent Design movement recorded in print, Dembski’s 2004 book, The Design Revolution, provides the money quote (or the confession): “Because of intelligent design’s outstanding success at gaining a cultural hearing, the cultural and political component of intelligent design is now running ahead of the scientific and intellectual component.”9 At a 2004 meeting of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Paul Nelson confirmed Dembski’s assessment. “Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design,” Nelson said. “We don’t have such a theory right now, and that’s a problem. . . . Right now, we’ve got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as ‘irreducible complexity’ and ‘specified complexity’—but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.”10

The true measure of a scientific theory is whether any scientists use it or not, and no scientists are using Intelligent Design theory. Even vocally Christian scientists do not use the intuitions of Intelligent Design in place of the scientific method. Lee Anne Chaney, a professor of biology at the Christian-based Whitworth College, sums it up:

As a Christian, part of my belief system is that God is ultimately responsible. But as a biologist, I need to look at the evidence. Scientifically speaking, I don’t think intelligent design is very helpful because it does not provide things that are refutable—there is no way in the world you can show it’s not true. Drawing inferences about the deity does not seem to me to be the function of science because it’s very subjective.11

The Intelligent Design movement “does not provide things that are refutable” because its real objective is not to prove a scientific theory but to gain ground for religious ideology.

Follow the Money

Science or no science, to illuminate the agenda behind Intelligent Design we can employ the tried-and-true method of political analysis: Follow the money. According to an extensive investigation by The New York Times, the Seattle-based Discovery Institute—the nonprofit organization that has been the hammer of the Wedge movement—has been funded primarily by right-wing religious groups. The Ahmanson Foundation, for example, donated $750,000 through its executor, Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who once said his goal is “the total integration of biblical law into our lives.” The MacLellan Foundation, a group that commits itself to “the infallibility of the Scripture” and gives grants to organizations “committed to furthering the Kingdom of Christ,” donated $450,000 to the Discovery Institute. In 1998, Howard F. Ahmanson’s conservative philanthropy, Fieldstead & Company, granted the Discovery Institute $300,000 per year for five years, and in 1999 the Stewardship Foundation increased its grant to $200,000 per year for five years. According to its Web site, the Stewardship Foundation was established “to contribute to the propagation of the Christian Gospel by evangelical and missionary work.” Most of the other twenty-two foundations supporting the Discovery Institute with financial contributions were identified by the Times as politically conservative, including the Henry P. and Susan C. Crowell Trust of Colorado Springs, whose Web site describes its mission as “the teaching and active extension of the doctrines of evangelical Christianity,” and the AMDG Foundation in Virginia, whose initials stand for Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, Latin for “To the greater glory of God.”

The Times also investigated the tax documents for the Discovery Institute and found that annual giving from conservative groups had increased from $1.4 million in 1997 to $4.1 million in 2003. With an annual budget of $3.6 million a year since 1996, the Discovery Institute has been sponsoring