A distinguished legal scholar and well-known Federalist Society figure reacted to my recent comments on Stuart Buck and Lawrence VanDyke, in which I quipped that they seem “intent on making sure the Federalist Society gets a reputation as a hotbed of dense apologists for Intelligent Design.” This reader objects:

“[H]olding the Federalist Society responsible for idiotic design people in its midst is like holding the Democratic Party responsible for Larouchies. More to the point, once someone has bought into theism in the first place, is it really that far a stretch to intelligent design? If someone believes in leprechauns and also thinks that the leprechauns make the marshmallows in Lucky Charms, which is the belief that really requires attention? Similarly, if someone has managed to cross the rational divide to theism in the first place, why spend time criticizing what, compared to the original mistake, is small potatoes?”

This is plainly a much stronger objection to VanDyke et al. than I registered, but it is consistent with something I remarked on in an earlier posting in this series on Intelligent Design, namely, that, “I’ve already heard from members [of the Federalist Society] who are embarrassed, needless to say, to have their group associated with repackaged creationism. For the record: the Federalist Society has no stake in creationism, even if that is where Mr. VanDyke has chosen to hang his hat.”

And, indeed, I can go further than that: the legal academics I know who are involved with the Federalist Society are really much closer in their views about religion, science, and especially Intelligent Design to my correspondent than they are to Messrs. Buck and VanDyke. This is an interesting fact about the academic branch of the Federalist Society, namely, that it is quite clearly (1) more libertarian than socially conservative, and (2) more skeptical about religion, and enthusiastic about science, than many conservatives allied with the Federalist Society outside the legal academy.