A couple of days ago, I contended that the Christian right is attempting to redefine science so that they can get intelligent design (creationism by a new name) taught in science classes. You can see their strategy (the wedge strategy) here: http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf.
They want to do this because they've failed to convince scientists and the courts that their views are legitimately scientific. Thus, their "new" strategy is to change the definition of science to include the supernatural.
This is a really bad idea. Science must be falsifiable, or else it can't make predictions and is essentially worthless. How would one falsify the notion that life is intelligently designed? Folks who subscribe to this view argue from the "watchmaker analogy" (famously used by William Paley at the beginning of the 19th century in his book Natural Theology). Briefly, if one finds a very complex object with the appearance of design, then it must have been designed. There are many biological systems that are very complex, so the intelligent designers argue that they must have been designed (by God, really, though they try and avoid the religious aspects by contending the designer could have been any intelligent being - aliens, perhaps). How does one test such an idea? What predictions follow from this idea? How does it help us understand the system under investigation? For example, contending the clotting system of humans is intelligently designed should, if that contention is science, lead to useful information. Does it? Nope, instead it leads to a dead end. "The clotting system is intelligently designed." Ok, how does that help us combat various forms of hemophilia?
We're already falling behind in science these days - the last thing we need is some cult attempting to change the game, since they can't play by the rules.
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