ABSTRACT
The legal strategy for combating the teaching of creationism in the United States was designed around methodological naturalism as a requirement of real science. Practical reasons also influence intelligent design (ID) insistence on the scientific nature of its design arguments. Methodological naturalism was used as a weapon against creationism, and so it has also been used as an argument against understanding ID as part of the natural sciences. One way in which methodological naturalism could be relevant is if it is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that the designer must be somehow supernatural. The critique of methodological naturalism has been a hallmark of ID's argumentation from the beginning. This kind of strong form of methodological naturalism does indeed exist, and it has indeed been a central part of the legal strategy against creationism and ID. Discussion of various demarcation criteria has shown that it is very difficult to formulate a strict boundary between science and pseudoscience.
