Timeline of Intelligent Design - Discovery Institute Founded, Johnson's Views

Discovery Institute Founded, Johnson's Views

• November 30, 1989, Johnson's "informal summary of my views" (from the book he was working on) stated "The important issue is not the relationship of science and creationism, but the relationship of science and materialist philosophy." He wanted school textbooks to acknowledge alleged problems with evolution. "More importantly, the universities should be opened up to genuine intellectual inquiry into the fundamental assumptions of Darwinism and scientific materialism. The possibility that Darwinism is false, and that no replacement theory is currently available..."
• 1990 Haughton admitted sales of Pandas so far had been single-copy. Instead of attempts to get state textbook approval, the FTE was now directing efforts "outside the schools" to the grass-roots level, targeting local school boards, teacher's groups, and parents.
• May 1990 a FTE letter by Jon Buell announced a new sales campaign as they'd found it best to approach the local school system through the biology teacher. It included an 18-minute video with the endorsements of a number of scientists, educators, and an authority on First Amendment law, and a Suggested Plan of Action for volunteers suggesting: finding a sympathetic biology teacher (perhaps a fellow church member) who then convinces the curriculum committee and/or administration to approve use of Pandas without need for funding, then a local church purchases the books and donates them to the school.
• 1990 Discovery Institute (DI) is founded by Bruce Chapman, but lacks a defining issue.
• 1990 Johnson's booklet Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism was published under the auspices of the FTE by Haughton Publishing. He claimed that science holds a metaphysical materialist viewpoint that rejects the possibility of a Creator, so cannot countenance evidence for supernatural intervention.
• October 1990 -Johnson's article "A Reply to My Critics" stated that "Victory in the creation-evolution dispute therefore belongs to the party with the cultural authority to establish the ground rules that govern the discourse. If creation is admitted as a serious possibility, Darwinism cannot win, and if it is excluded a priori Darwinism cannot lose." He cited the logic of what he called "the Natural Academy of Sciences", as accepted by the Supreme Court at Edwards, that "creation-science" is not science because it does not rely upon naturalistic explanations, but holds "that the creation of the universe, the earth, living things, and man was accomplished through supernatural means inaccessible to human understanding".
• 1991 professor Phillip A. Bishop at the University of Alabama was told to stop proselytizing students in class and teaching "intelligent design theory" in an optional class. At Bishop v. Aronov he sued the college on free speech and academic freedom grounds, and won at District Court but the Appeals Court found that the university had a right to set the curriculum.