对于智能设计是否有宗教根源,倡导者之间主张上的冲突其实是策略层面。例如,威廉·德姆斯基(William Dembski)认为“上帝”或者“外星生命力量”是设计者的两个可能选项。然而在他的另一本书《智能设计论:科学和神学之间的桥梁》(Intelligent Design: the Bridge Between Science and Theology)中,他说“在任何科学理论中,基督是不可或缺的,即便实践者对此不知晓。科学理论的实际用途,可以在不追溯至基督的情形下达到。但是理论概念的合理性必最终归于基督。”德姆斯基同时说:“智能设计论是上帝的一般启示……”、“智能设计论不仅使我们免于压制人类精神的唯物主义意识形态的捆绑,而且就我个人经验,是使人归向基督的道路。”[23]
智能设计运动的一个重要策略是,说服公众:在科学家中存在生命是否演化的辩论;从而进一步游说公众、政治家和文化领袖,学校应该“教导这个争议(英语:teach the controversy)”。[26]然而,在科学界并没有这样的争论;科学界的共识是生命是演化的。[27][28][29]广为接受的看法是,智能设计假说只是其支持者的一个掩护,实质的运动是针对这些人说的所谓科学的唯物主义基础没有给上帝留下任何可能性。[30][31]
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Trial transcript: Day 6 (October 5), PM Session, Part 1. TalkOrigins Archive. Houston, TX: The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. [2012-06-16]. (原始内容存档于2016-05-16). Q. Has the Discovery Institute been a leader in the intelligent design movement? A. Yes, the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Q. And are almost all of the individuals who are involved with the intelligent design movement associated with the Discovery Institute? A. All of the leaders are, yes. — Barbara Forrest, 2005, testifying in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial.
Wilgoren 2005, "...the institute's Center for Science and Culture has emerged in recent months as the ideological and strategic backbone behind the eruption of skirmishes over science in school districts and state capitals across the country."
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005). Context, pp. 25–26 (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆). " ID’s 'official position' does not acknowledge that the designer is God", "...[T]he writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity." Context, p. 35 (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆). "defense experts Professors Behe and Minnich testified that ID is not creationism".
Williams, Devon. Friday Five: William A. Dembski. CitizenLink.com. Colorado Springs, CO: Focus on the Family Action, Inc. December 14, 2007 [2014-02-28]. (原始内容存档于2007-12-17). I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God. — William A. Dembski, a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, when asked in an interview whether his research concluded that God is the Intelligent Designer.
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005). Context, pp. 24–25. "the argument for ID is not a new scientific argument, but is rather an old religious argument for the existence of God. He traced this argument back to at least Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, who framed the argument as a syllogism: Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex; therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer. ... ...[T]his argument for the existence of God was advanced early in the 19th century by Reverend Paley... [the teleological argument] The only apparent difference between the argument made by Paley and the argument for ID, as expressed by defense expert witnesses Behe and Minnich, is that ID's 'official position' does not acknowledge that the designer is God."
Numbers, Ronald L.The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design Expanded ed., 1st Harvard University Press pbk. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2006: 373 [Originally published 1992 as The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism; New York: Alfred A. Knopf]. ISBN 0-674-02339-0. LCCN 2006043675. OCLC 69734583. [ID] captured headlines for its bold attempt to rewrite the basic rules of science and its claim to have found indisputable evidence of a God-like being. Proponents, however, insisted it was 'not a religious-based idea, but instead an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins – one that challenges strictly materialistic views of evolution.' Although the intellectual roots of the design argument go back centuries, its contemporary incarnation dates from the 1980s".
Meyer, Stephen C.Not by chance. National Post (Don Mills, Ontario: CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.). December 1, 2005 [2014-02-28]. (原始内容存档于2006-05-01).
Meyer, Stephen C.; Nelson, Paul A.Getting Rid of the Unfair Rules. Origins & Design (Book review) (Colorado Springs, CO: Access Research Network). May 1, 1996 [2007-05-20]. (原始内容存档于2009-10-07).
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005). Whether ID Is Science, p. 68. Lead defense expert Professor Behe admitted that his broadened definition of science, which encompasses ID, would also include astrology.
'Evolution according to Hoyle: Survivors of disaster in an earlier world', By Nicholas Timmins, The Times, Wednesday, 13 January, 1982; pg. 22; Issue 61130; col F.
"I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science."..."Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth?"..."I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves." Johnson 1999. Reclaiming America for Christ Conference. How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won互联网档案馆的存档,存档日期2007-11-07.
Discovery Institute fellows and staff. [1] (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆) Center for Science and Culture fellows and staff. 存档副本. [2014-02-28]. (原始内容存档于2004-07-14).
Phillip Johnson. Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. July/August 1999."...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion. ...This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact." The Wedge (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆)
Phillip Johnson. Keeping the Darwinists Honest, an interview with Phillip Johnson.Citizen Magazine. April 1999. "Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. ... The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens up for them some doors that have been closed."
Dembski. 2005. Intelligent Design's Contribution to the Debate Over Evolution: A Reply to Henry Morris.Reply to Henry MorrisArchive.is的存档,存档日期2012-07-29
Barbara Forrest. Expert Testimony. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial transcript, Day 6 (October 5) "What I am talking about is the essence of intelligent design, and the essence of it is theistic realism as defined by Professor Johnson. Now that stands on its own quite apart from what their motives are. I'm also talking about the definition of intelligent design by Dr. Dembski as the Logos theology of John's Gospel. That stands on its own." ... "Intelligent design, as it is understood by the proponents that we are discussing today, does involve a supernatural creator, and that is my objection. And I am objecting to it as they have defined it, as Professor Johnson has defined intelligent design, and as Dr. Dembski has defined intelligent design. And both of those are basically religious. They involve the supernatural."
Phillip E. Johnson. Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education(InterVarsity Press, 1995), positions himself as a "theistic realist" against "methodological naturalism."
Phillip Johnson. "My colleagues and I speak of 'theistic realism'-- or sometimes, 'mere creation' -- as the defining concept of our [the ID] movement. This means that we affirm that God is objectively real as Creator, and that the reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science, particularly in biology." Starting a Conversation about Evolution (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆)
Phillip E. Johnson. American Family Radio. January 10, 2003 "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." Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin互联网档案馆的存档,存档日期2007-06-08.
"While the ID crowd have some things of interest to say they, are indeed just a revamped God of the gaps and the Paylean argument from design in a more modern form. Their refusal to engage with the theological issues this engenders is their greatest weakness, it is also a deliberate strategy, to try and show to the secular world they are nothing but scientists and philosophers. It also hides from their Christian constituency that some of their people are not Christian - at least one is a Moonie. Their second weakness is to muddy the waters with terms like "methodological naturalism", "operations science" and "origins science". The fact that some leading Christian philosophers in the US(i.e. Plantiga)are also confused does not help. Their third weakness is that they are their refusal to come clean on the age of the earth. This is to try and hide the fact that they have strong links with the young earthers, at least one of their leading people is a strong young earther. Fourthly, the movement is strongly driven by a US political agenda - the "renewal" of US society and culture through the destruction of materialism via it's supposed foundation of "methodological naturalism", the greatest strength of which is supposedto be evolution. The export of this US agenda, redolent with the culture wars, to the rest of the world, is of grave concern." Intelligent Design?互联网档案馆的存档,存档日期2006-08-21. ISCAST Bullentin, Issue 48, Spring 2005. Institute for the Study of Christianity in an Age of Science and Technology.(PDF file)