The creationist controversy

The conflict has wider consequences than the teaching of one discipline in US public schools - the creationists aim to revise what science means, discarding rationalism, naturalism, materialism and other Enlightenment values to incorporate the supernatural and loosen the rigour of all sciences. If Miller is on shaky ground in his explanations of the origins of creationism, he is rock-solid on where the creationists want to take us: "To the intelligent design movement, the rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment, which gave rise to science as we know it, is the true enemy ... science will be first redefined, and then the 'bankrupt ideologies' of scientific rationalism can be overthrown once and for all."