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Circumventing the Post-Dover Media Blackout

Series on the Future of ID

 


Part 1: How Bright is the Future of Intelligent Design?
Part 2: Post-Dover Education Victories for Intelligent Design
This Post (Part 3): Circumventing the Post-Dover Media Blackout
Part 4: It’s Time for Some Folks to Get Over Dover

Just before the 2005 Dover case started, the flagship media-insiders journal Columbia Journalism Review, published an article suggesting that the pro-ID viewpoint should not be fairly represented in the news media. The media has dutifully followed those directives. While the mainstream media often censor or distort the pro-intelligent design viewpoint, interest in ID is certainly not waning. Rather, ID proponents have found new ways to successfully advance their message.

The ID the Future podcast has some 500,000 downloads per year, and ID blogs such as Evolution News & Views and Uncommon Descent collectively log well over a million visitors a year.

A pro-ID documentary film production company, Illustra Media, has released a series of high-quality pro-ID films including Unlocking the Mystery of Life (2003), The Privileged Planet (2005), Darwin’s Dilemma (2009), and Metamorphosis (2011). These films boast interviews with leading scientists and provide stunning graphical displays showcasing evidence for ID from biochemistry, cosmology, paleontology, and developmental biology.

Since Kitzmiller v. Dover, the ID movement has also published a myriad of books expanding the argument for ID and making a significant impact in science and the culture. In 2006, Jonathan Wells published a lively review of the debate with his popular book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. In 2007, Wells co-published with William Dembski the first comprehensive pro-ID textbook, The Design of Life.

Also in 2007, John West published Darwin Day in America which detailed the many social ills inspired by Darwinian evolution. In 2008 ID-friendly mathematician David Berlinski offered a witty and compelling riposte to the New Atheists with his widely acclaimed The Devil’s Delusion. In the post-Dover era, Dembski has also co-published two excellent lay-level introductions to ID: Understanding Intelligent Design and Intelligent Design Uncensored.

Stephen Meyer’s groundbreaking 2009 book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design was named a Times Literary Supplement “Book of the Year,” and Meyer was recognized as “Daniel of the Year” by World Magazine. Critics struggled to respond to Meyer, as a Discovery Institute Press book made clear in a collection of responses to critics, titled Signature of Controversy.

In 2010, various Discovery Institute fellows published rebuttals to theistic evolutionists in God and Evolution, co-named book of the year by World Magazine. 2011 saw Jonathan Wells put the nail into the coffin of a common anti-ID argument with his The Myth of Junk DNA.

In 2012, Discovery Institute will release the first strictly scientific introductory ID curriculum for private and home school use: Discovering Intelligent Design. More about that in due time.