That big tent

Afraid of kickin' anyone outta that tent, ain't they?

The plan is to first kick "scientific materialism", to use Johnson's phrase, out of the tent (using whatever allies they can), to make way for a new day of "theistic science". After that, the various creationisic religions can duke it out ... but it's of course understood conservative Christianity will win that battle. After all, America wasn't founded on Vedic principles.

If the Johnson/Behe connection with Vedic creationists is true, I wonder how they (DI) would spin this with their evangelical/fundamentalist base? If there's one thing the Religious Right are not it's ecumenical. As I've said before, the Religious Right have formed some unusual alliances in the past but I have my doubts they would stomach this all that well.

That's a good question, and I don't know how they'd spin it. I doubt they're worried. Fundamentalists like AiG already have a love/hate relationship with the DI--they like the more sciencey arguments for creation, but dislike that they won't be more forthcoming about The Designer=Christian God. Hard to say if they'd see this as just another means to the end they all want or not.

I don't see any need to spin it to the base, as their base will spin it themselves. The idea is to weaken evolution by whatever means are convenient. I recall that when Richard Hoppe first proposed his scientific theory of ID (see link within this article), Dembski and other ID advocates were quite accepting, even though this idea pre-supposed multiple designers, and hence in direct opposition to monotheism. The base doesn't really care about about such "scientific implications" to their faith. Those can be simply ignored or rationalized away. After all, haven't the Darwinists been saying all along that science and faith don't overlap? The important thing is to kill or wound grievously evolution, and then ID and any unfortunate implications associated with it can be ignored as the job is done.