---
title: "Intelligent design in politics"
chunk: 1/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_in_politics"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:30:07.671842+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The intelligent design movement has conducted an organized campaign largely in the United States that promotes a pseudoscientific, neo-creationist religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes centering on intelligent design.

== International context ==

Though creationism and intelligent design are not supported by many mainstream scientists, there are significant minorities in the general public in most developed countries that say they doubt or reject the theory of evolution, likely because of their religious beliefs.  In underdeveloped countries where rates of religious belief are much higher, support of evolution is consequently lower.

== Europe ==
In Europe, religion generally has much less influence on politics than in the United States or the developing world.  Despite this, there are pockets of creationist and intelligent design activity.

=== Council of Europe ===
The Council of Europe's Committee on Culture, Science and Education released a report  in June 2007 entitled "The Dangers of Creationism in Education". One of the council members, Anne Brasseur said that the aim of the report was to anchor evolution in school curricula, and warned that there was still resistance in many European countries. She provided the following examples in an interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel:

A former deputy education minister of Poland called the theory of evolution a lie.
Activism against teaching evolution in grade school by some Russian parents
A 2004 proposed decree against evolution
A proposed "Genesis-Land" theme park in Switzerland based on the Creation Museum in Kentucky.
Creationist lectures and symposia in the United Kingdom
The publication and free distribution of the "Atlas of Creation" by Harun Yahya in Turkey
The Ministry of Education for the German state of Hesse allowing the teaching of theory of creation in biology class
The publishing house "Studiengemeinschaft Wort und Wissen" is now publishing the sixth edition of a grade school textbook that includes the theory of intelligent design.

== North America ==

=== Canada ===
Unlike in the United States the issue has never been the subject of a major Supreme Court case, nor does it figure prominently in the national media.
In Canada, education is the constitutional responsibility of the provinces. No province has taught creationism in its official public school curriculum in modern times, however, there are various different approaches to the teaching of evolution and religion across the country, as well as various exceptions for separate schools (publicly funded religious school, primarily Catholic), private schools, alternative schools, Reserve schools, charter schools, and so on. In most provincial curricula (excluding Quebec, where it has been mandatory in elementary schools since 2004) evolutionary theory is only required in Grade 11 or 12; however, it can be taught earlier at the discretion of local school boards and teachers.
Around 63,000 Canadian children attend "Christian" (primarily evangelical) schools outside of the provincial systems (which include both the public [secular] and Catholic schools), where they are generally taught creationism rather than evolution.
In 2006, the ministry of education in Quebec ordered unlicensed private evangelical Christian schools to start teaching evolution and sexual education, otherwise the schools would be closed. In Ontario, private schools are not required to teach either evolution or sex education.
In 2009, the government under the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta introduced Bill 44 which allows parents to pull their children out of public school classrooms if they disagree with the controversial subject matter being discussed (such as evolution or homosexuality). Later amendments to the bill clarified that parents could choose to pull their children from religion classes, but not from science classes.

=== United States ===
A number of specific political strategies and tactics have been employed by intelligent design proponents. These range from attempts at the state level to undermine or remove altogether the presence of evolutionary theory from the public school classroom, to having the federal government mandate the teaching of intelligent design, to 'stacking' municipal, county and state school boards with intelligent design proponents. The Discovery Institute has been driving force in most cases, providing a range of support from material assistance to federal, state and regional elected representatives in the drafting of bills to supporting and advising individual parents confronting their school boards.
A feature of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns has been extensive lobbying and public relations campaigns conducted on behalf of intelligent design proponents in order to overcome professional setbacks such as that of Guillermo Gonzalez, Richard Sternberg and Francis Beckwith. These efforts are focused on two efforts: the Teach the Controversy and Critical Analysis of Evolution campaigns. These campaigns gained prominence after the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial where Judge John E. Jones III ruled that teaching intelligent design or presenting it as an alternative to evolution was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because intelligent design is not legitimate science but essentially religious in nature.
Both the Teach the Controversy and  Critical Analysis of Evolution strategies and resources for them come from the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture, the hub of the intelligent design movement. These strategies are seen as another iteration of the Discovery Institute's campaign to "defeat [the] materialist world view" represented by the theory of evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions".  According to the Center for Science and Culture's weblog, at least 10 state legislatures are now considering legislation reconsidering how evolution is taught. Many of these initiatives benefit from significant legal assistance from a number of conservative legal foundations including the Thomas More Law Center, the Alliance Defense Fund, and Quality Science Education for All (QSEA). All have litigated extensively on behalf of the movement.

==== Specific cases ====

===== 1999 & 2005 creationist Kansas Boards of Education =====