November 15, 2006
Dear Friends of the Foundation:
So much to share, so little time! Because more and more of you - individual donors and sister organizations - have been standing with us, we have been making progress on several fronts.
Progress in the Legal Area . . .
Just two weeks ago, Pam Bailey set up and managed an exhibit of our books and articles at this year's meeting of the Christian Legal Society in San Antonio. She talked to lawyers from all over the country, giving out little-known information on the Dover, PA case (Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School Board) with materials from the Discovery Institute and others. Most had at least a passing familiarity with the case, but took copies of an excellent legal analysis by Seth L. Cooper and Leonard G. Brown, III, titled
A Textbook Case of Judicial Activism. We also sold Discovery's outstanding Traipsing into Evolution by David DeWolf, John West, Casey Luskin and Jonathan Witt. There is a serious need for the legal community to become better informed about the trial and intelligent design, and these two items are excellent tools for that purpose. Attorneys also picked up copies of our October newsletter and showed real interest in our books. The feature of the exhibit was The Design of Life, and 60 or more conferees took our DOL informational CD.
Progress in Promoting Book Sales . . .
Next week we will be exhibiting at the Association for Christian Schools Intl. conference here in Dallas. This is a great opportunity, for 130 schools are represented in the South Central Region, and some 2,500 teachers and administrators will walk the exhibit floor for two days. I doubt we'll have a single CD left by the end of the conference.
Progress of an Idea Whose Time Has Come
Meanwhile, the reach of intelligent design is extending. Before the election, as in other statewide elections, the Free Market Foundation in Texas sent all the candidates for political office (except judges) their questionnaire to determine where they stood on the most important current issues. Next, a Voters' Guide was published and reported widely, giving the answers of each candidate for issue by issue. We were quite surprised to open the Voters' Guide and find that intelligent design was one of the 14 issues about which candidates were questioned! The results reported in the Voters' Guide were amazing. Of the 170 candidates asked to respond, those favoring the inclusion of intelligent design along with Darwinism outnumbered those opposing it by almost 3 to 1!
Release Date Announcement for The Design of Life . . .
Scientific readers are now completing their input into The Design of Life, and the manuscript finalized as of December 1st. Then an extensive array of detailed, exacting procedures go into motion, the presses roar, and the book will be released on March 1st!
Once in the bookstores, DOL will be anything but ignored. Two of the greatest reasons are its authors, Dr. Jonathan Wells and Dr. William Dembski. (Dembski, left, is also DOL's editor.) Listen to what reviewers have said of earlier books by these two, already public personalities:
"Wells presents a devastating critique of Darwin's theory". . . "publication succeeds as both an informative and entertaining read". . . Jonathan Wells is brilliant, accurate and diligent."
". . . Dembski unleashes a faculty for technical detail that can only be called impressive." - Publishers Weekly. "Dembski's analysis of randomness is the most sophisticated to be found in the literature." - William Wimsatt, Prof. of Philosophy of Biology, U. Chicago.
"William Dembski's Intelligent Design is a centerpiece in the current renewal of intellectual responsibility among thoughtful Christians . . . Dembski is one of the finest minds now at work in our intellectual and academic culture generally. Walk with him through the mine fields of what is now called education. You will not find a better guide." - Dallas Willard, Prof. of Philosophy, U. of So. California.
We are tremendously excited! And you should be, too. You have come so far with us. Many of you have stood with us since the day the ACLU seized this book while it was in the middle of the editing process! And many others of you for years before that! Thank you so much.
Please stay on the team. The potential for this book and its impact in our culture is enormous. Would you send the most generous gift you can to help that happen? What a celebration we will share in the days ahead! The sun is about to rise!
Our newsletter is now available on-line! To receive the newsletter by e-mail, send us your e-mail address when you send back your donor card or e-mail us at info@fteonline.com.
Sincerely,
Jon Buell