Creationists continue to watch as the public relations battle to brand “intelligent design” as serious science slowly slips from their fingers – even in frequently right-leaning publications like Fox News. Twice in the past week, Fox has equated intelligent design with creationism, first (rightly) classifying the ID pusher Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute as “a creationist,” and second drawing a narrow equation with the phrase, “creationism and the similar theory of intelligent design.”
I’ll say it: I think we’ve won the battle against intelligent design. But the long-war against creationism is like a legal battle of whack-a-mole. Slap down one iteration of this peculiar mind-virus, and a new one crops up. With Florida and Oklahoma both tacking towards “academic freedom” bills, the new enemy is about to rear its ugly little head.
See an earlier post on why it’s legally significant that the public perceive ID as creationism.
