Intelligent design proponents plan to drive a wedge into all aspects of cultural and academic life, a prominent philosophy professor and ID proponent said Wednesday.

“They’ll carry the supernatural wedge in all social sciences and humanities,” Southeastern Louisiana University professor Barbara Forrest told a packed audience at the Dole Institute of Politics.

Forrest is the author of several essays on intelligent design, and was a witness in the Dover, Pa., trial on intelligent design.

She said ID proponents would eventually extend battles to all fields that use science, rather than the supernatural, to explain the world around them.

But the problem they’ll have, Forrest said, would be the same problem theologians had centuries ago when scientific practice first began to expand upon scriptural knowledge.

She likened ID proponents using the supernatural to explain science to builders during the Roman Empire consulting animal entrails before building.

“They still had to get the job done,” Forrest said.

Scientists and others will always have to use established scientific principals to explain how the world works, she said.

“There are no secrets in science,” Forrest said. “They have to do it publicly so everyone can pick it apart. That’s how it works.”