Revealing the extent of the deceit - Rated 
A thorough investigation into the activities of some Intelligent Design supporters. It has to be wondered why any Christians, however convinced that the universe is designed, would want such dishonest representation given what Forrest and Gross have presented.
Co-author Barbara Forrest was a key witness in the trial at Dover, PA contesting an effort to present intelligent design as science and a viable alternative to evolution. In this book, she and Paul Gross are able to present considerably more detail about the key players and activities of the Discovery Institute, including its financial supporters.
"Creation's Trojan Horse" should be alarming to anyone with a concern for not using lies, be they non-Christian or Christian. It exposes the political rather than religious concerns of some Intelligent Design movement advocates, unless anyone would acknowledge the positive value of a regular and methodical pattern of telling lies.
This is not light reading. You may want to begin with Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul and Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools. I suspect "Monkey Girl" and "Not in Out Classrooms" together would provide a sufficient understanding of the pseudoscience of intelligent design as well as the efforts to promote it educationally, politically and legally. If you need more detail, then this book would be very helpful, especially if you are involved or wish to become involved in any effort to ward off the introduction of anti-evolutionary teachings. Good science is open to critical review but, as you can see from reading these books, that openness is being severely abused.
"Creation's Trojan Horse" is not a psychological or sociological study. It does not investigate why some Christians are drawn to the Intelligent Design or Creationist arguments. Curiously a willingness to lie to achieve one's aims does not seem to alarm some who oppose the teaching of evolution in the U.S. public schools, as reading "Creation's Trojan Horse" and "Monkey Girl" will make plain.
Hopefully, through the educational efforts of book's such as this one, those who continue to oppose the teaching of evolution in public schools will at least support honest efforts to express their concerns.
Exposing! - Rated 
A very important exposé of the history, characters, motivations and methods of this most pernicious of religious groups who seek nothing more than the overthrow of modern life.
What amazed me both in this book and the Dover Panda Trial that followed it was the lengths that the ID creationists will go to. The lies, misrepresentations and blatant falsehoods they continue to peddle to their gullible non-scientific audience (American Christians - God help them!)
All I can say is keep up the good work, and bring out a book on the Panda Trial - It would be a best seller!
Tramping toward theocracy - Rated 
There's a cancer infecting North American schools. It's as insidious as any virus, with a virulent core protected by a sheath of sanctity and the illusion of "fair play". The infective kernel is Christianity and the shell it resides in is "intelligent design". The religious campaign to oust or discredit science, in particular evolutionary biology, has a long history in the United States. Almost unique among nations, the United States has constitutional provisions, and a long trail of legal decisions, against religious intrusion in public education. Having been defeated in many arenas, a new Christian movement, cloaking itself in "scientific" mufti, has emerged with a long-term strategy for infesting public education. The movement champions something called "intelligent design" and its avowed strategy is "the Wedge". The "Wedge", as shown in this intense and deeply penetrating survey, is a well-organised, well-funded campaign. From its Discovery Institute headquarters, it unleashes waves of propaganda in the form of books, "research studies", videos and circuit-riding preachers of the gospel of anti-Darwinism. The authors trace the origins of the movement from the original "wedge" document, follow its campaigns into classrooms, school boards and even the US Congress, demonstrating the motivation is religious, not scientific. While they give much attention to the "big names" of ID, Behe, Dempski, Johnson and Wells, they leave no stone unturned in revealing the population of creatures underneath willing to challenge Darwin as "immoral" or "materialist". The authors trace the transformation from "Christian creationism" to "scientific creationism" [sic] to "intelligent design"[sic!]. They explain the "philosophy" behind the movement, while reminding us that not a single scientific paper either proposing or explaining "intelligent design" has ever been published. What has been published is limited to "popular" works by the four "big names", all of which have been devastatingly refuted by professionals in their various fields. Some of the refutations are contained in the main text, but the treasure in this book is the extensive "Notes" section at the back of the book. However much attention you give the body of this volume, be prepared to spend at least equal time there. After examining the elements making up this mockery of science, the authors relate how it has manifested in various States. Reading this account of the buildup of a campaign to overturn not only US education, but the entire society, can be tedious. The repetition of hypocrisies, flagrant opportunism and deception can weary the reader. One can only sympathise deeply with these two authors who forced themselves to troll the polluted waters of ID to bring you this litany of potential disaster to schooling. Their conclusion rests on the usually camouflaged but often clearly expressed declarations of "wedge" campaigners that this is a religious crusade. The "wedge" is a deceptive stratagem to decry secularism in homes, schools and political life. Even the bizarre displacement of Jonathon Wells' devotion to the teachings of Sun Myung Moon doesn't override the fact that this is a Christian enterprise. This exposé, while focussing on the United States and its struggle to keep religion from public classrooms, is of equal value elsewhere. The ID viper has been insinuating itself in other societies, notably Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. These nations, lacking "constitutional" protection of church-state separation, must rely on an informed public to block the ID offensive. With the information provided by Forrest and Gross, concerned parents should confront their local school boards and teachers to ensure resistance is effective and maintained. Read this book and discover how hollow the ID "trojan horse" truly is. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
A frightening look at the real purpose behind ID - Rated 
ID (Intelligent Design) is a religious theory that contends life is too complex and improbable to arrive by Darwinian evolution and therefore it must've been designed by an intelligent being (ie. God). The movement is gaining support from the non-scientific community around the world, but especially in America's more religious communities. This book is not a scientific critique of the ID idea (although a few chapters do exactly that, albeit briefly) as this has been done in many, many published articles and books. This book looks at a document published by the leaders of the ID movement, "The Wedge" document, which is a road map of the ID movement's aims and objectives. This book analyses this document and meticulously picks through the funding, motives and publications of the ID movement. Some of the funding bodies of the ID movement have even more sinister purposes behind them; namely making America a theocratic, fundamentalist country. The resources used in this book are mainly internet sources; creationist books and propaganda and the Wedge document itself. Some might say these are not credible sources, but they are the only sources, as the ID movement have published no peer-reviewed articles in any scientific journal despite this being one their aims. "Creationisms Trojan Horse" is not too heavy a read, despite the large amount of detail contained within. It is unfortunate a book like this is needed, but the ID movement has a slick PR campaign, despite their amateurish science. It is a wake-up call to all Americans (and sadly, also Britons) that ID is really creationism by the back door and not legitimate science, no matter what their PR campaign tells you.
Not an objective study - Rated 
This book is an in depth study of the movement known as intelligent design (ID). ID is the conclusion that evidence of intelligence can be detected in the natural world, and especially the living world. Many of those involved in the movement (including this reviewer) are biochemists and molecular biologists who realize that we need to look beyond the limiting paradigms relied on in the past to completely explain life. The movement has become controversial because the intelligence involved implies God, although some ID scientists believe that we cannot name who the intelligence was, only that intelligence was involved. The science of detecting intelligence has a long history and includes detection in forensics to determine if a death was accidental or by intelligence (homicide or suicide). This book is a review of this movement. It is well written and appears to cover the topic in depth. My main concern is, it is not an objective review, but a blatant attempt to discredit the movement. Judging by the footnotes the research appears to involve almost totally internet sources, a poor research technique forbidden even for most undergraduate research. Furthermore, according to Forrest's testimony in the Dover case, she did not interview a single person formally connected with the ID movement! How can one do a book on a contemporary movement and not interview its leaders and members? The answer is the authors had no intention of doing an objective study of the movement. Their only interest was to discredit it. And in their attempt they had to dig deep to find what looks like sleaze. For example, they dig up the fact that one of the supporters of the Discovery institute, Ahmanson, once supported the Chalcedon Foundation which its critics claim seek "to replace democracy with a theocracy" in America (page 266). First of all, America is not a Democracy but a Representative Democracy (actually a republic) and, secondly, any attempt in America to put religion in the public square is labeled by its critics as an attempt to establish a theocracy. We do not have separation of church and state in Britain as they do in American, so most Brits are a little amazed at what is going on in America. To assume just because a supporter was once involved in a questionable organization, that the organization shares these goals, is irresponsible. This would be like condemning all recipients of the grants of one well known foundation because the benefactor was an out spoken anti-Semite. In short, this book is not an objective study and should not be relied on as an accurate source of information, but as one source of many to understand this important movement.
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