Dear Swillpit,

No sooner had the courier departed with my last correspondence than I was reminded of some aspects in this case that we need to exploit.

Foremost is your man's intellectualism. By that, I don't mean his actual intelligence but his self-perception as a member of the smart set, up on all the fashionable trends in thought, subscribing to the positions espoused by the darlings of the media and academia. If he enjoys association in that rarefied circle as much as you have led me to believe, his dabbling with intelligent design will be splendidly fleeting.

Remember the reaction of the cognoscenti, months back when this came up in the brouhaha over school science standards? As I recall, one of them referred to intelligent design as "creationism in a cheap tuxedo." This is a tape you want to play over and over in his head. If he can be persuaded that ID is merely the latest wrinkle on "creation science," it will go a long way toward setting him aright our hellbound track.

Don't misunderstand me; I don't mean to imply that creationism is a baseless endeavor, harmless to our ends. Quite the contrary. Creation science is not only a frontal attack on one of our most successful contrivances, naturalism, some of its explanations for the fossil record, age of the earth, speciation, and the like are frighteningly close to the truth. And nothing is more dangerous to our cause, or us, than Truth.

Were it not for the associations we have cunningly sowed far and wide, linking creationism with the anti-science fiction of Inherit the Wind and the religious huckstering of Elmer Gantry, our successes in changing default beliefs about a creator would have been marginal, at best.

Your creature knows that to remain in good standing with his elite company, he must distance himself from anything that smacks of science contrarianism or wide-eyed fundamentalism. Keep pressing upon him the "informed" positions of specialists and "what bright people everywhere acknowledge," and you will be well on you way to reclaiming him.

This is more easily accomplished if you can muddle his understanding of those positions... Continue reading here