December 26, 2006

The following information is powerful and exciting! It has been exactly one year since Judge John E. Jones handed down the verdict in the Dover, PA case, ascribing to our forthcoming book, The Design of Life, an origin that was utterly fabricated by the ACLU's clients. The Darwin-only world celebrated almost all year! But who would have thought that just one year later, it would be the Darwinists who are down in the dumps?

Even if you haven't had time to follow developments as closely as you might have liked, this letter will help you get on board with some very exciting developments, and important ones, at that. I hope you will read it carefully.

The Darwinists believe they are losing. Why else would they politicize an academic debate, take it into courts, and punish skeptics? On Nov. 21st, the New York Times reported on a gathering of scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies who met to bash religion. Said the NYT, "With a rough consensus that the grand [story] of evolution by natural selection [is] losing out in the intellectual marketplace, most of the discussion came down to strategy"[on how to defeat their opponents].

And fascinating facts are surfacing. Careful analysis reveals that 90.9% of Judge John E. Jones's verdict was lifted, almost verbatim, including the errors, from the ACLU's submitted "Findings of Fact." The opinion is not his own analysis at all.

The world is changing. Now, thanks in large part to our detractors, materialistic Darwinism and the stake it holds in what the young are taught is on the table in our culture. Millions are now aware and in favor of including ID in school science curriculum.

Meanwhile, Interest in Intelligent Design is Exploding!

• Biochemist Franklin Harold said, ". . .but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations."
• In an MIT Press book, Origination of Organismal Form, the authors admit, "neo-Darwinism has no theory of the generative."
• Google reported over 24 million hits on the term intelligent design during most of the trial.
• Two movies are in the works on ID, one from each perspective.
• Over 4.000 gathered in the Univ. of So. Florida Sun Dome Sports Arena for an ID conference.
• A Texas Voter's Guide published in the fall reached 6 .4 million, reporting the views of candidates on various issues of public interest. Those favoring the inclusion of ID in biology courses outnumbered opponents by a three-to-one margin.

• The manuscript is complete. The book itself is a phenomenon.
• It is scheduled to be released on March 1st, 2007, provided we can secure the funding for this exciting project.
• We've got a start on booking Dembski to speak at universities with this book.
• We have hired a marketing and PR firm to work with us and a comprehensive plan for marketing the book is in the works.
• It has the explosive potential to reach young people, as the recent gathering of young people at the University of South Florida's Sun Dome attests.
• Christianity Today calls Dembski "Johnson's successor as the informal leader of the intelligent design community." Dembski authored the first ID book by a major university press (Cambridge University Press, 1998). He edited Darwin's Nemesis (IVP), a Festschrift in honor of Prof. Phillip Johnson. His work has been featured on the front page of the New York Times, he has debated top Darwinists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and has appeared on ABC's Nightline. He lectures around the globe (the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, Cambridge and Oxford, U.C. Berkeley, UCLA, Princeton, Yale, MIT) on ID.

Dr. Dallas Willard, Prof. of Philosophy at USC, describes a tragic scene: "Recently a pilot was practicing high-speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent-and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down."

Using this as a parable of human existence, Willard points to educational elites with positions of moral authority, but who don't believe there is any right or wrong. "Indeed," says Willard, "in the current world of accepted knowledge one can't even know the truth of a moral theory or principle, much less a specific rule." He goes on to quote the famous economist, John Maynard Keynes: "the ideas of economists and political philosophers . . . are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist . . . . I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas."

And it has been the gradual encroachment of materialistic Darwinism that has finally brought us to this moral wasteland. Cornell University Prof. of Biology, William Provine, who for more than three decades has insisted that there is no order in the universe, moral or otherwise, no ideas of right or wrong belonging to the nature of things, more recently rejoiced: "Darwinism is the most effective engine of atheism ever invented!"

We are flying upside down.

How does The Design of Life relate to all of this?

From its inception, the Foundation for Thought and Ethics has been a flag-bearer of the intelligent design movement. As the original risk-taker in the early 1980s, FTE hired or partnered with heavily-credentialed scientists, and produced three of the original vehicles that launched the intelligent design movement.

Friends, the time is ripe for the next step-leap, really-in this movement. We can bring what has seemed like a dream to full reality. I urge you to embrace and adopt this vital and noble vision as your own! Are you giving what you can to bring a big and noble vision to fruition? Whether for the sake of the school children you see out romping over the Christmas vacation, or for the future of America, the West, and of civilization, there could be no greater reason to reach out, seize a great vision, and embrace it as the cause that you will fight for, bleed for, deny yourself for, take risks for, and champion among your friends.

The Design of Life is ready to go to press, but we are out of funds. We need $200,000 to put this critical message on paper and in front of our culture.

No, we don't see the tide turning completely around in 2007. But one thing is clear. On this, the first anniversary of the Dover decision, intelligent design has gained the momentum, and the time is uniquely right for the release of The Design of Life!

What is the publication of The Design of Life going to accomplish? ID has the resilience to triumph over the misuse of the courts for government repression, and publishing The Design of Life will vividly illustrate that fact. It could easily have tens, or scores of thousands of readers, or even 100,000, and move us dramatically closer to a desperately-needed tipping point in our culture.

Would you help make the publication of The Design of Life a reality?

Through the tremendous strengths of Bill Dembski and his extraordinary co-author, Dr. Jonathan Wells, you can positively and forcefully impact tens, or even hundreds of thousands of lives. But these authors cannot get the book to those who need to read it! I can't either. You can help do so. You can help usher in that tipping point.

Would you prayerfully consider what you are able to do to help? And please also pray for us in this exciting adventure! God bless you!

Sincerely,

Jon Buell