FAQ for
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)

Neutrally, intelligent design refers to the notion of rationally designing living things. This meaning of the term has been used in the scientific community without particular controversy. For example, it may be used in relation to the fringe science of "panspermia", which supposes that life may have developed elsewhere in the universe and was naturally or artificially "seeded" on Earth at some time in the distant past.

The term was co-opted by the Creation Science movement (see "What is creationism", below) in the 1980s as the name for an anti-evolution campaign, and this version is currently promoted by the Discovery Institute. This is the meaning used in this movie. Intelligent Design in this form refers to the idea that life cannot have developed by natural means and must have been created by some intelligent outside agency. It rules out evolution or other wholly natural mechanisms as explainations for the current state of life on Earth - a designer must be involved somewhere, they argue.

The Discovery Institute's manifesto, the "Wedge Document" describes Intelligent Design in the larger context of the "Wedge Strategy". In the overall plan, ID is a reframing of creationism to allow it to be more easily integrated into government-run schools in the US (which must be secular) by removing the explicit mention of God or another supernatural deity, but while retaining the same basic anti-evolution arguments as prior forms of creationism. As the name suggests, the overall Wedge Strategy aims to use small additions at first, followed by larger ones later, to give Christianity an increasingly large role in science and education. Philip E. Johnson is the "father of the intelligent design movement".

Johnson calls his movement "The Wedge." The objective, he said, 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." http://web.archive.org/web/20010508032051/http://www.au.org/churchstate/cs4995.htm

The Wedge Document:

"Five Year Objectives. Spiritual & cultural renewal: Mainline renewal movements begin to appropriate insights from design theory, and to repudiate theologies influenced by materialism; Major Christian denomination(s) defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation & repudiate(s); Darwinism Seminaries increasingly recognize & repudiate naturalistic presuppositions; Positive uptake in public opinion polls on issues such as sexuality, abortion and belief in God"

"1. the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.

2. (sometimes initial capital letter) the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, esp. in the first chapter of Genesis." Random House Unabridged Dictionary © Random House, Inc. 2006.

"Belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

"The literal belief in the account of Creation given in the Book of Genesis; "creationism denies the theory of evolution of species" "WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

"A literal belief in the biblical account of Creation as it appears in the Book of Genesis. Creationists believe that the creation of the world and all its creatures took place in six calendar days; they therefore deny the theory of evolution." The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

"Creationism is a religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in their original form by a deity (often the Abrahamic God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) or deities, whose existence is presupposed. In relation to the creation-evolution controversy the term creationism (or strict creationism) is commonly used to refer to religiously-motivated rejection of evolution." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism

Traditionaly Creationists use political and media based avenues to promote their agendas.

Intelligent Design as promoted by the Discovery Institute is considered a form of creationism by major scientific organisations worldwide. This is a source of contention for the Discovery Institute, as creationism is blocked from public school science classes by the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution and therefore this prevents the Wedge Strategy from achieving its larger goals. According to Judge John Jones (2005 trial of Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al):

"ID is the progeny of creationism The evidence at trial demonstrates that intelligent design is nothing less than the progeny of creationism. What is likely the strongest evidence supporting the finding of intelligent design's creationist nature is the history and historical pedigree of the book to which students in Dover's ninth-grade biology class are referred, Of Pandas and People. Pandas is published by an organization called FTE, as noted, whose articles of incorporation and filings with the Internal Revenue Service describe it as a religious, Christian organization. Pandas was written by Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis, both acknowledged creationists, and Nancy Pearcey, a Young Earth Creationist, contributed to the work."

For more information, view the courtroom evidence here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-tk7MkHKtI

In the following section taken from the Dover trial court transcript, Q indicates Eric Rothschild and A indicates Jon A. Buell. The book is Of Pandas and People, the supplemental textbook published by FTE.

Q Actually in this version of the book it describes who creationists are, doesnt it, if you look at pages 22 and 23 and 24. It says theres different types of creationists literature. There are older [old earth] creationists, younger [young earth] creationists, agnostic creationists, right?

A Yes. We were trying to give some articulation to the breadth of what that term means.

Q And then if you could turn back to page 22, you explain that Creation is the theory that various forms of life began abruptly, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers and wings, mammals with fur and mammary glands. Thats how you defined creation, correct?

A Yes.

Q All right. And I would like to take you to take a look at an excerpt from Pandas and People. Turn to page 99 in the excerpt I gave you.

A All right.

Q Says, Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, et cetera.

Do you see that?

A I see it.

Q So thats pretty much the exact same sentence substituting creation for intelligent design, isnt that right?

A The reason that you find the similarity in the two passages is because this obviously was at a time when we were developing the manuscript. We had not chosen the term intelligent design at that point. We were trying to this was just a place holder term until we came to grips with which of the plausible two or three terms that are in scientific literature we would settle on. And that was the last thing we did before the book was revise I mean was sent to the publisher.

Q It was creation, creation, creation until the end and then it was intelligent design.

(Court transcript, pp.97-99)

The above-mentioned textbook, "Of Pandas and People", started life as a "creation science" textbook, but was republished following creation science's failure to enter high school science curricula in the 1980s. The new editions of the book substitute the term "intelligent design" for "creationism" and so on, but do not change the arguments. The two terms are therefore clearly synonymous as far as the authors (who include prominent Discovery Institute fellows) are concerned.

"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." -Phillip E. Johnson, Father of "Intelligent Design"

It should be noted that many other creationists object to intelligent design's categorisation as creationism, requiring that true creationism state the identity of the designer explicitly, or take a stance on the age of the planet Earth, or for other reasons.

Evolution Is: VARIATION: 1) Variation exists in all populations. 2) Some of that variation is heritable. 3) Base pair sequences are encoded in a set of self-replicating molecules that form templates for making poteins. 4) Combinations of genes that did not previously exist may arise via "crossing over" during meiosis, which alters the sequence of base pairs on a chromosome. 5) Copying errors (mutations) can also arise, because the self-replicating process is of imperfect (although high) fidelity; these mutations also increase the range of combinations of alleles in a gene pool.

SELECTION: 6) Some of that heritable variation has an influence on the number of offspring able to reproduce in turn, including traits that affect mating opportunities, or survival prospects for either individuals or close relatives. 7) Characteristics which tend to increase the number of an organism's offspring that are able to reproduce in turn, tend to become more common over generations and diffuse through a population; those that tend to decrease such prospects tend to become rarer. 8) "Sampling errors" can occur in populations that alter the relative frequency of the various alleles for reasons other than survival/reproductive advantages. 9) Migration of individuals from one population to another can lead to changes in the relative frequencies of alleles in the "recipient" population.

SPECIATION: 10) Populations of a single species that live in different environments are exposed to different conditions that can "favor" different traits. These environmental differences can cause two populations to accumulate divergent suites of characteristics. 11) A new species develops (often initiated by temporary environmental factors such as period of geographic isolation) when a sub-population acquires characteristics which promote or guarantee reproductive isolation from the alternate population, limiting the diffusion of variations thereafter.

SUFFICIENCY: 12) The combination of these effects tends to increase diversity of life forms; over the time frame from the late Hadean to the present, this becomes sufficient to explain the diversity of life observed on Earth, both in what is directly seen at present, and indirectly through geologic evidence from the fossil record.

THAT'S WHAT EVOLUTION *IS*. If you have a problem with Evolution, you have a problem with one or more of these twelve points. Which one is it? Provide evidence that any of the points are incorrect.

While the origins of life are a question of interest to evolutionary biologists and frequently studied in conjunction with researchers from other fields such as geochemistry and organic chemistry, the core of evolutionary theory itself does not rest on a foundation that requires any knowledge about the origins of life on earth. It is primarily concerned with the change and diversification of life after the origins of the earliest living things - although there is not yet a consensus as to how to distinguish "living" from "non-living".

Evolution does NOT indicate that all variations are explained this way; that there are no other mechinisms by which variation may arise, be passed, or become prevalent; or that there is no other way life diversifies. Any and all of these may be valid topics for conjecture... but without evidence, they aren't science.

No. Although Darwin's name is still used in the naming of selection processes other than "Natural" selection (the various "Darwinisms"), and he observed artificial selection in agriculture, Darwin anticipated and spoke out against eugenics and "social Darwinism" before the terms were even coined. The movie actually quotes his condemnation, although it omits most of his argument in order to make it appear that he favored eugenics:

"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil"

Likewise, some of the most vocal opponents of the eugenics movement in the 1900s were evolutionary biologists themselves, as eugenics is built upon gross misunderstandings of evolutionary theory.