Discovery Institute
Encyclopedia
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank
based in Seattle, Washington
, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design
. Founded in 1990, the institute describes its purpose as promoting "ideas in the common sense tradition of representative government, the free market and individual liberty." Its Teach the Controversy
campaign aims to teach creationist
anti-evolution
beliefs in United States public high school science courses
alongside accepted scientific theories, positing a scientific controversy exists over these subjects.
A federal court, along with the majority of scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science
, say the Institute has manufactured the controversy they want to teach by promoting a false perception that evolution is "a theory in crisis", through incorrectly claiming that it is the subject of wide controversy and debate within the scientific community. In 2005, a federal court ruled that the Discovery Institute pursues "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions", and the institute's manifesto, the Wedge strategy
, describes a religious goal: to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions".
, an Indianapolis-based conservative
think tank
, and is named after the Royal Navy
ship HMS Discovery
in which George Vancouver
explored Puget Sound
in 1792.
In 1966, the institute's founder and president, Bruce Chapman
, and Harvard roommate George Gilder
, participated in the Ripon Society
, a group for Republican liberals, and collaborated on Advance, dubbed "the unofficial Republican magazine," which criticized the party from within for catering to segregationists, John Birchers
, and other "extremists". Following their graduation, Chapman and Gilder advanced their "progressive" Republican campaign in their 1966 polemic
book The Party That Lost Its Head. The book critiqued Barry Goldwater
’s 1964 presidential candidacy and dismissed the GOP’s embrace of rising star Ronald Reagan
as the party's hope to "usurp reality with the fading world of the class-B movie." The Party That Lost Its Head denounced Goldwater’s conservative backers for their "rampant" and "paranoid distrust" of intellectuals. The book labeled the Goldwater campaign a "brute assault on the entire intellectual world," and places the blame for this development on what they viewed as a wrong political tactic; "In recent years the Republicans as a party have been alienating intellectuals deliberately, as a matter of taste and strategy." Chapman moved to the right
in the Reagan administration
, where he served as director of the Census Bureau. Chapman left the Census Bureau to work in the White House
under Reagan adviser Edwin Meese III and was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Organizations in Vienna.
Co-founder and Senior Fellow George Gilder wrote several books addressing culture, technology, and poverty, including, Visible Man, (1978) which criticised American culture for its failure to promote the ideals of the traditional nuclear family. His next work, Wealth and Poverty, (1981), was cited by President Ronald Reagan
. Gilder’s later books have dealt more with developments in technology, such as Microcosm (1990) and Life After Television (1994).
Chapman had built a political platform, but lacked funding and a defining issue. In December 1993, Chapman noticed an essay in the Wall Street Journal by Stephen C. Meyer
about a dispute when biology lecturer Dean H. Kenyon
taught intelligent design creationism in introductory classes. Kenyon had co-authored Of Pandas and People
, and in 1993 Meyer had contributed to the teacher's notes for the second edition of Pandas. Meyer was an old friend of George Gilder
, and over dinner about a year later they formed the idea of a think tank opposed to materialism
. In the summer of 1995 Chapman and Meyer met a representative of Howard Ahmanson, Jr.
. Meyer, who had previously tutored Ahmanson's son in science, recalls being asked "What could you do if you had some financial backing?" In 1996 the promise of $750,000 over three years from the Ahmansons and a smaller grant from the conservative Christian MacLellan Foundation was used to fund the institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture
which went on to form the motive force behind the intelligent design movement
. In 2002 the name was changed to the Center for Science and Culture.
Vice Presidents
Board of Directors
Program Advisor (CSC)
Senior Fellows
Adjunct Fellows
Former Fellows
to advance the Wedge strategy
. Chapman calls the CSC "our No. 1 project."
The CSC offers fellowships of up to $60,000 a year for "support of significant and original research in the natural sciences, the history and philosophy of science, cognitive science and related fields." Since its founding in 1996, the institute's CSC has spent 39 percent of its $9.3 million on research according to Meyer, underwriting books or papers, or often just paying universities to release professors from some teaching responsibilities so that they can work on intelligent design related scholarship. Over those nine years, $792,585 financed laboratory or field research in biology, paleontology or biophysics, while $93,828 helped graduate students in paleontology, linguistics, history and philosophy. The CSC lobbies aggressively to policymakers for wider acceptance of intelligent design and against the theory of evolution
and what it terms "scientific materialism". To that end the CSC works to advance a policy it terms the Wedge strategy, of which the "Teach the Controversy" campaign is a major component. The "Teach the Controversy" strategy was announced by Meyer in 2002. It seeks to portray evolution as a "theory in crisis" and leave the scientific community
looking closed-minded, opening the public school science curriculum to creation-based alternatives to evolution such as intelligent design, and thereby undermining "scientific materialism."
and the Fremont
district of Seattle
, Washington, headed by Douglas Axe. The Biologic Institute claims to conduct research into intelligent design
in response to one of the primary criticisms of intelligent design that there is no valid research conducted by the scientific community on the topic. According to Axe, the lab's main objective "is to show that the design perspective can lead to better science", and will "contribute substantially to the scientific case for intelligent design". Biologic's staff consists of "at least three researchers" (Axe, the senior researcher; Zoology PhD Ann Gauger, who like Axe is a signatory to the Discovery Institute's "petition" expressing skepticism towards "Darwinian theory" entitled A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
; Brendan Dixon, a software developer). In keeping with the Discovery Institute's October 2006 statement that intelligent design research is being conducted by the institute in secret to avoid the scrutiny of the scientific community, both Axe and Discovery Institute spokesperson Rob Crowther portray it as a "separate entity" despite being funded by the Discovery Institute.
Previously serving as a director of the institute was George Weber, who is also a member of the local chapter of the creationist group Reasons to Believe
. In an interview he stated that the lab is a wing of the Discovery Institute and that their goal is to "challenge the scientific community on naturalism" and "What we are doing is necessary to move ID along" which led to his dismissal from the board of the institute.
PZ Myers
likens the Biologic Institute's design research program to cargo cult
s, with "Intelligent Design creationists pretend[ing] that they're doing science."
has been involved in the intelligent design movement; transportation in the American
and Canadian northwest (Cascadia
); a bioethics program opposed to assisted suicide
, euthanasia
, embryonic stem cell research, human genetic manipulation, human cloning
, and the animal rights movement. Its economics and legal programs advocate tort
reform, lower taxation, and reduced economic regulation of individuals and groups as the best economic policy. The Discovery Institute also maintains a foreign policy program currently focused on Russia and East Asia.
The Institute's primary thrust in terms of funding and resources dedicated are those political and cultural campaigns centering around intelligent design. These include the:
as a "theory in crisis" and advocating teachers to "Teach the Controversy" through the CSC
. It has employed a number of specific political strategies and tactics in the furtherance of its goals. These range from attempts at the state level to undermine or remove altogether the presence of evolutionary theory from the public school classroom, to having the federal government mandate the teaching of intelligent design, to 'stacking' municipal, county and state school boards with ID proponents. The Discovery Institute has been a significant player in many of these cases, through the CSC providing a range of support from material assistance to federal, state and regional elected representatives in the drafting of bills to supporting and advising individual parents confronting their school boards.
Some of the political battles which have involved the Discovery Institute include:
In 2004, the institute opened an office in Washington, D.C.
, and in 2005 the Discovery Institute hired Creative Response Concepts
, the same public relations
firm to promote its intelligent design campaign that promoted the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, the Republican National Committee
, the Christian Coalition, and the Contract With America
. Creative Response Concepts scored an early victory for the institute in getting the New York Times to publish an essay by Roman Catholic Cardinal Schönborn
, archbishop of Vienna
, condemning neo-Darwinism
and positivism
. The essay, Finding Design in Nature, submitted directly to The Times by Creative Response Concepts, was prompted by the institute's vice president Mark Ryland.
, serving as the director. In 2003, Thomas Till was brought in as Managing Director, after leaving his post as Executive Director of the Amtrak Reform Council.
Cascadia attempts to forge alliances between local governments to ease traffic congestion in the Pacific Northwest, utilizing focus groups as well as forming citizen panels and public forums. In conjunction with Microsoft
, Cascadia sponsored a session involving elected officials, entrepreneurs and public policy experts including Washington State Representative Dave Reichert
and former CIA director James Woolsey to discuss varying proposals for securing U.S. ports and diversifying America's energy portfolio.
The Cascadia project is funded in part by a large grant from the Gates Foundation
.
The program provides analysis and commentary on the writings and thinking of C. S. Lewis
and how they can influence public policy. The program publishes The Lewis Legacy Online, a quarterly journal and the online archive, C. S. Lewis Writings in the Public Domain.
notes, "Though the Discovery Institute describes itself as a think tank 'specializing in national and international affairs,' the group's real purpose is to undercut church-state separation and turn public schools into religious indoctrination centers." The 2005 judge in the "Dover Trial", Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
, came to a similar conclusion about the Institute in his ruling: "CSRC expressly announces, in the Wedge Document, a program of Christian apologetics to promote ID. A careful review of the Wedge Document's goals and language throughout the document reveals cultural and religious goals, as opposed to scientific ones."
As evidence of the institute's organized campaign to mask or downplay its religious origins and agenda, critics point to the Discovery Institute's renaming of its Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture to Center for Science and Culture in 2002 to avoid religious overtones implied with trying to "renew" society. They claim the name change "followed hard on the heels of accusations that the center's real interest was not science but reforming culture along lines favored by Christian conservatives". As further evidence that the institute is promoting a Christian agenda, observers of the institute also point to the fact that the Discovery Institute' members are largely outspoken Christians, who are promoting an explicitly Christian agenda, funded largely by Christian conservatives, catering to an almost exclusively Christian constituency. Nevertheless, the Discovery Institute also has members who espouse Judaism
and agnosticism
.
Nina Shapiro in the Seattle Weekly article, The New Creationists, cites Bruce Chapman when she wrote that behind all Discovery Institute programs there is an underlying hidden religious agenda:
Several Discovery Institute fellows have left the institute over its religious positions and campaigns, such as political scientist Donald Hellmann, described by the Seattle Metropolitan as a "disillusioned former Discovery Fellow." Another former senior fellow, Philip Gold, resigned his post as a defense analyst with the institute in 2002, saying the institute had grown increasingly religious: "It evolved from a policy institute that had a religious focus to an organization whose primary mission is Christian conservatism." One controversy erupted when it was made public in the online journal Salon that, in the summer of 2000, Discovery Institute President Chapman advised a breakaway faction of Episcopalians opposed to the ordination of gays on how to fund their desired schism
from the mainline denomination, and suggested that funds from multi-millionaire and institute board member Howard Ahmanson, who was also a fellow Episcopalian, might be available for this task. In a memo Chapman sent to fellow dissident Episcopalians, he stated that for their campaign to succeed fund-raising was critical, but "is going to be affected greatly by whether we have a clear, compelling forward strategy" and "the Ahmansons are only going to be available to us if we have such a strategy and I think it would be wise to involve them directly in settling on it...." In 2000 and 2001, Chapman was successful in securing more than $1 million from Ahmanson for the Anglican Council, but is no longer personally involved in the schism in the American Episcopal community; Chapman converted to Catholicism in 2002.
concerned in large part revised editions the Of Pandas and People
promoted at trial by various DI-sponsored experts, particularly DI Fellow Michael Behe
. The issue began when some proponents of intelligent design associated with Pandas found a need to distinguish it from creation science, whose teaching in public science class had been negated as a violation of the Establishment Clause by the Supreme Court in Louisiana "Balanced Treatment Act" case — Edwards v. Aguillard
.
An early contributor to Pandas, Charles Thaxton, proposed a term replace creation science
, which he "picked up from a NASA scientist – intelligent design". In a new draft of Pandas, approximately 150 uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "creationist", were systematically changed to refer to "intelligent design." Panda editors also deleted more than 250 references to "creationism" and the "creator" and replaced them in the final version with "intelligent design" and "intelligent designer".
Following pattern, the term "creationists" was quietly changed to "design proponents", but in one telling case, the beginning and end of the original word "creationists" were accidentally retained, so that "creationists" became "cdesign proponentsists".
The proof that intelligent design was creationism re-labeled played a significant part in the Kitzmiller trial
, and cdesign proponentsists has been described as "the missing link between creationism and intelligent design."
, in the form of misleading impressions created by the use of rhetoric, intentional ambiguity, and misrepresented evidence, form the foundation of most of the criticisms of the institute. It is alleged that its goal is to lead an unwary public to reach certain conclusions, and that many have been deceived as a result. Its critics, such as Eugenie Scott
, Robert Pennock
, Richard Dawkins
and Barbara Forrest
, claim that the Discovery Institute knowingly misquotes scientists and other experts, deceptively omits contextual text through ellipsis
, and makes unsupported amplifications of relationships and credentials, and are often said to claim support from scientists when no such support exists. A wide spectrum of critics level this charge; from educators, scientists, and the Smithsonian Institution
, to individuals who oppose the teaching of creationism alongside science on ideological grounds. Specific objections with examples are listed at the Center for Science and Culture
article.
This criticism is not limited to those in the scientific community that oppose the teaching of intelligent design and the suppression of evolution, but also includes former Discovery Institute donors. The Bullitt Foundation
, which gave $10,000 in 2001 for transportation causes, withdrew all funding of the institute; its director, Denis Hayes, called the institute "the institutional love child of Ayn Rand
and Jerry Falwell
," and said, "I can think of no circumstances in which the Bullitt Foundation would fund anything at Discovery today."
The Wedge document
, a widely circulated 1998 fund-raising document, laid out Discovery's original, ambitious plan to "drive a wedge" into the heart of "scientific materialism," "thereby divorcing science from its purely observational and naturalistic methodology and reversing the deleterious effects of evolution on Western culture." The two governing goals of the Wedge document are:
Meyer says that the Wedge document "was stolen from our offices and placed on the Web without permission." The central item of this agenda - establishing intelligent design as legitimate science through conducting actual scientific research - has not been achieved.
Michelle Goldberg has said "... the Center for Science and Culture takes creationism and tries to legitimize it in scientific terms, and make it sound as if it’s really just a kind of competing scientific theory. It hires people with a lot of impressive degrees, although, in many cases, they got the degrees specifically with the idea of using them to discredit Darwinism for religious reasons. It’ll put someone forward like Jonathan Wells, who has a Ph.D. from Berkeley, and yet here he is, defending intelligent design. So they’ve given a lot of thought to packaging intelligent design to make it seem like legitimate science. And they’ve given a lot of thought to how to try to infiltrate their ideas into the culture."
and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said. The Templeton Foundation has since rejected the Discovery Institute's entreaties for more funding, Harper states. "They're political - that for us is problematic," and that while Discovery has "always claimed to be focused on the science," "what I see is much more focused on public policy, on public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth."
In 2007 in the LA Times Pamela Thompson, Vice President for Communications of the Templeton Foundation wrote "We do not believe that the science underpinning the intelligent-design movement is sound, we do not support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge, and the foundation is a nonpolitical entity and does not engage in or support political movements." The same day the Wall Street Journal also included a letter from the same Pamela Thompson making much the same point: "The foundation doesn't support the political movement known as 'Intelligent Design.' This is for three reasons: We don't believe the science underpinning the 'Intelligent Design' movement is sound, we don't support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge and the foundation is a non-political entity and does not engage in, or support, political movements."
In February 2007 the Discovery Institute began a campaign to counter the unfavorable statements of Harper and Thompson citing a "report" published on the intelligent design wiki
, ResearchID. This campaign quoted clarifications from Charles Harper of the Templeton Foundation denouncing intelligent design and distancing the Templeton Foundation from the intelligent design movement, notably a clarification by Harper that a Wall Street Journal article published "false information" that "mention[ed] the John Templeton Foundation in a way suggesting that the Foundation has been a concerted patron and sponsor of the so-called Intelligent Design ("ID") position," ResearchID and Discovery Institute claimed that this was indicative of larger errors and bias: "The media has misrepresented the record of the intelligent design research community." Critics of intelligent design responded by noting that though Harper appears to have "confirmed that while the first statement about a formal call for applications was false, the real point of the article, that ID advocates don't do very well in terms of actual research and scientific review, remains true and valid" a point the Discovery Institute glosses over. The Templeton Foundation posted a response to the Discovery Institute's campaign, saying:
trial. It claims that "90.9% of Judge Jones
’ [opinion] on intelligent design as science was taken virtually verbatim from the ACLU
’s proposed 'Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law' submitted to Judge Jones nearly a month before his ruling." The study, though making no specific allegations of wrongdoing, implies that Judge Jones relied upon the plaintiff's submissions in writing his own conclusions of law.
Within a day, the president of the York County Bar Association had pointed out that parties are required by the courts to submit findings of fact and "a judge can adopt some, all or none of the proposed findings." She added that in the final ruling, a judge's decision "is the judge's findings and it doesn't matter who submitted them". A partner in a York law firm said that "Any attempt to make a stink out of it is absurd."
Several commentators pointed out that Jones' use of the plaintiff's submissions were limited to his opinion, not his conclusion of law, and that "Vice President for Legal Affairs John West is not a lawyer, so he may not be familiar with the fact that this is exactly what proposed findings of fact are for. They are proposed findings which a judge, if he or she agrees, then incorporates as his or her own findings. ... The press release suggests that Judge Jones did something improper in adopting the plaintiffs’ proposed findings as his own—but that is just what a judge does when he finds that the party has proven its case." Others noted that the institute's reliance on MS Word
's "Word Count" function to conduct their study was flawed and resulted in inflated numbers, and that the bulk of the document Discovery studied was written by the law firm of Pepper Hamilton LLP
, not the ACLU. Witold Walczak, legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the ACLU's lead attorney on the case called the Institute's report a stunt: "They're getting no traction in the scientific world so they're trying to do something ... as a PR stunt to get attention, ... That's not how scientists work, ... Discovery Institute is trying to litigate a year-old case in the media." He also said the Discovery Institute staff is not, as it claims, interested in finding scientific truths; it is more interested in a "cultural war," pushing for intelligent design and publicly criticizing a judge.
A subsequent study was performed by Wesley Elsberry, author of the text comparison program that was partly responsible for the decision in the case, indicated that only 38% of the complete ruling by Judge Jones actually incorporated the findings of fact and conclusions of law that the plaintiffs proposed that he incorporate, and only 66% of the section (on whether intelligent design was science) incorporated the proposals, not the 90.9% the Discovery Institute claimed was copied in that section. Significantly, Judge Jones adopted only 48% of the plaintiffs’s proposed findings of fact for that section, and rejected 52%, clearly showing that he did not accept the section verbatim.
The use of these sites is often in conjunction other intelligent design
-related sites registered and operated by Discovery Institute Fellows and associates. William Dembski, for example, registered and operates UncommonDescent.com, OverwhelmingEvidence.com, and DesignInference.com while the institute's Casey Luskin set up IdeaCenter.org.
The institute does not provide details about its backers, out of "harassment" fears according to Chapman.
In 2001, the Baptist Press reported, "Discovery Institute ... with its $4 million annual budget ($1.2 million of which is for the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture) is heavily funded by Christian conservatives
. Maclellan Foundation of Chattanooga, Tenn., for example, awarded $350,000 to the institute with the hope researchers would be able to prove evolution to be a false theory. Fieldstead & Co., owned by Howard and Robert Ahmanson of Irvine, Calif., pledged $2.8 million through 2003 to support the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture."
In 2003, a review of tax documents on GuideStar
showed grants and gifts totalling $1.4 million in 1997. Included in the supporters were 22 foundations. At least two-thirds of these foundations stated explicitly religious missions.
Most Discovery Institute donors have also contributed significantly to the Bush campaign
.
In 2005, the Washington Post reported, 'Meyer said the institute accepts money from such wealthy conservatives as Howard Ahmanson Jr., who once said his goal is "the total integration of biblical law into our lives," and the Maclellan Foundation, which commits itself to "the infallibility of the Scripture." '
According to Charity Navigator
, in FYE 2005, the Discovery Institute had $2,989,608 in total revenue and $3,878,186 in expenses.
The Discovery Institute denies allegations that its intelligent design agenda is religious, and downplays the religious source of much of its funding. In an interview of Stephen C. Meyer
, when ABC News' asked about the Discovery Institute's many evangelical Christian donors, the institute's public relations representative stopped the interview saying "I don't think we want to go down that path."
Though in the minority, funding also comes from non-conservative sources: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
gave $1 million in 2000 and pledged $9.35 million over 10 years in 2003, including $50,000 of Bruce Chapman's
$141,000 annual salary. The money of the Gates Foundation grant is "exclusive to the Cascadia project" on regional transportation, according to a Gates Foundation grant maker.
Published reports state that the institute has awarded $3.6 million in fellowships of $5,000 to $60,000 per year to 50 researchers since the CSC's founding in 1996. "I was one of the early beneficiaries of Discovery largess," says William A. Dembski
, who, during the three years after completing graduate school in 1996 could not secure a university position, received what he calls "a standard academic salary" of $40,000 a year through the institute.
's Deniable Darwin & Other Essays (2010), Jonathan Wells The Myth of DNA (2011) and an edited volume titled Signature Of Controversy which contains apologetic works in defense of the Institute's Center for Science and Culture director Stephen Meyer.
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
based in Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
. Founded in 1990, the institute describes its purpose as promoting "ideas in the common sense tradition of representative government, the free market and individual liberty." Its Teach the Controversy
Teach the Controversy
Teach the Controversy is the name of a Discovery Institute campaign to promote intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while attempting to discredit evolution in United States public high school science courses...
campaign aims to teach creationist
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
anti-evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
beliefs in United States public high school science courses
Science education
Science education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...
alongside accepted scientific theories, positing a scientific controversy exists over these subjects.
A federal court, along with the majority of scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
, say the Institute has manufactured the controversy they want to teach by promoting a false perception that evolution is "a theory in crisis", through incorrectly claiming that it is the subject of wide controversy and debate within the scientific community. In 2005, a federal court ruled that the Discovery Institute pursues "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions", and the institute's manifesto, the Wedge strategy
Wedge strategy
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document, which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose...
, describes a religious goal: to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions".
History
The institute was founded in 1990 as a non-profit educational foundation and think tank. It was founded as a branch of the Hudson InstituteHudson Institute
The Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...
, an Indianapolis-based conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
, and is named after the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
ship HMS Discovery
HMS Discovery (1789)
HMS Discovery was a Royal Navy ship launched in 1789 and best known as the lead ship in George Vancouver's exploration of the west coast of North America in his famous 1791-1795 expedition. She was converted to a bomb vessel in 1798 and participated in the Battle of Copenhagen. Thereafter she...
in which George Vancouver
George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver RN was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon...
explored Puget Sound
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...
in 1792.
In 1966, the institute's founder and president, Bruce Chapman
Bruce Chapman
Bruce K. Chapman is the director and founder of the Discovery Institute, an American conservative think tank often associated with the religious right. He was previously a journalist, a Republican Party politician and a diplomat.- Political career :After graduating from Harvard University in 1962,...
, and Harvard roommate George Gilder
George Gilder
George F. Gilder is an American writer, techno-utopian intellectual, Republican Party activist, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute...
, participated in the Ripon Society
Ripon Society
The Ripon Society is an American centrist Republican think tank based in Washington, D.C. They produce The Ripon Forum, the Nation's longest running Republican thought and opinion journal....
, a group for Republican liberals, and collaborated on Advance, dubbed "the unofficial Republican magazine," which criticized the party from within for catering to segregationists, John Birchers
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
, and other "extremists". Following their graduation, Chapman and Gilder advanced their "progressive" Republican campaign in their 1966 polemic
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
book The Party That Lost Its Head. The book critiqued Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
’s 1964 presidential candidacy and dismissed the GOP’s embrace of rising star Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
as the party's hope to "usurp reality with the fading world of the class-B movie." The Party That Lost Its Head denounced Goldwater’s conservative backers for their "rampant" and "paranoid distrust" of intellectuals. The book labeled the Goldwater campaign a "brute assault on the entire intellectual world," and places the blame for this development on what they viewed as a wrong political tactic; "In recent years the Republicans as a party have been alienating intellectuals deliberately, as a matter of taste and strategy." Chapman moved to the right
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
in the Reagan administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
, where he served as director of the Census Bureau. Chapman left the Census Bureau to work in the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
under Reagan adviser Edwin Meese III and was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Organizations in Vienna.
Co-founder and Senior Fellow George Gilder wrote several books addressing culture, technology, and poverty, including, Visible Man, (1978) which criticised American culture for its failure to promote the ideals of the traditional nuclear family. His next work, Wealth and Poverty, (1981), was cited by President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
. Gilder’s later books have dealt more with developments in technology, such as Microcosm (1990) and Life After Television (1994).
Chapman had built a political platform, but lacked funding and a defining issue. In December 1993, Chapman noticed an essay in the Wall Street Journal by Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer is an American scholar, philosopher and advocate for intelligent design. He helped found the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute , which is the main organisation behind the intelligent design movement. Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at...
about a dispute when biology lecturer Dean H. Kenyon
Dean H. Kenyon
Dean H. Kenyon is Professor Emeritus of Biology at San Francisco State University and an intelligent design proponent. He is also the author of Of Pandas and People, a controversial book on intelligent design.- Career :...
taught intelligent design creationism in introductory classes. Kenyon had co-authored Of Pandas and People
Of Pandas and People
Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins is a controversial 1989 school-level textbook written by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon and published by the Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics...
, and in 1993 Meyer had contributed to the teacher's notes for the second edition of Pandas. Meyer was an old friend of George Gilder
George Gilder
George F. Gilder is an American writer, techno-utopian intellectual, Republican Party activist, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute...
, and over dinner about a year later they formed the idea of a think tank opposed to materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
. In the summer of 1995 Chapman and Meyer met a representative of Howard Ahmanson, Jr.
Howard Ahmanson, Jr.
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Jr. is an heir of the Home Savings bank fortune built by his father Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Sr.. Ahmanson Jr. is a multi-millionaire philanthropist and financier of many Christian conservative cultural, religious and political causes.- Biography :Ahmanson is the son...
. Meyer, who had previously tutored Ahmanson's son in science, recalls being asked "What could you do if you had some financial backing?" In 1996 the promise of $750,000 over three years from the Ahmansons and a smaller grant from the conservative Christian MacLellan Foundation was used to fund the institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
which went on to form the motive force behind the intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
. In 2002 the name was changed to the Center for Science and Culture.
Discovery Institute officers, directors and fellows
President- Bruce ChapmanBruce ChapmanBruce K. Chapman is the director and founder of the Discovery Institute, an American conservative think tank often associated with the religious right. He was previously a journalist, a Republican Party politician and a diplomat.- Political career :After graduating from Harvard University in 1962,...
Vice Presidents
- Steven J. Buri
Board of Directors
- Howard Ahmanson, Jr.Howard Ahmanson, Jr.Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Jr. is an heir of the Home Savings bank fortune built by his father Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Sr.. Ahmanson Jr. is a multi-millionaire philanthropist and financier of many Christian conservative cultural, religious and political causes.- Biography :Ahmanson is the son...
- Tom Alberg
- Charles K Barbo
- Bruce Chapman
- Robert J. Cihak
- Skip Gilliland
- Slade GortonSlade GortonThomas Slade Gorton III is an American politician. A Republican, he was a U.S. senator from Washington state from 1981 to 1987, and from 1989 to 2001. He held both of the state's Senate seats in his career and was narrowly defeated for reelection twice as an incumbent: in 1986 by Brock Adams, and...
- Richard R. Greiling
- Patricia Herbold
- Bob Kelly
- Byron Nutley
- James Spady
- Michael K. Vaska
- Raymond J. Waldmann
Program Advisor (CSC)
- Phillip E. JohnsonPhillip E. JohnsonPhillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
Senior Fellows
- Robert J. Cihak
- George GilderGeorge GilderGeorge F. Gilder is an American writer, techno-utopian intellectual, Republican Party activist, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute...
- Hance Haney
- David KlinghofferDavid KlinghofferDavid Klinghoffer is an author and essayist, and a proponent of intelligent design. He is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute, the organization that is the driving force behind the intelligent design movement...
- Michael MedvedMichael MedvedMichael Medved is an American radio host, author, political commentator and film critic. His Seattle, Washington-based nationally syndicated talk show, The Michael Medved Show, airs throughout the U.S...
- Stephen C. MeyerStephen C. MeyerStephen C. Meyer is an American scholar, philosopher and advocate for intelligent design. He helped found the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute , which is the main organisation behind the intelligent design movement. Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at...
- Jay RichardsJay RichardsJay Wesley Richards is an American analytic philosopher and advocate of Intelligent Design. He is the Director of Acton Media and a Research Fellow at the Acton Institute, and Program Director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture , which has as its primary role the advocacy...
- Wesley J. SmithWesley J. SmithWesley J. Smith is a lawyer and an award-winning author, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism. He is also a lawyer and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, and a special consultant for the Center for Bioethics and...
- John G. WestJohn G. WestJohn G. West is a Senior Fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute , and Associate Director and Vice President for Public Policy and Legal Affairs of its Center for Science and Culture , which serves as the main hub of the Intelligent design movement.-Biography:West received an undergraduate...
- John Wohlstetter
Adjunct Fellows
- Howard L. Chapman
- Frank Dillow
- Edwin MeeseEdwin MeeseEdwin "Ed" Meese, III is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration , the Reagan Presidential Transition Team , and the Reagan White House , eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of...
- Robert Spitzer
Former Fellows
- Yuri Y. Mamchur
- Vincent Phillip Muñoz
- James J. Na
- Mark Ryland
- Bret Swanson
- William Tucker
- Jonathan Wells
- Benjamin WikerBenjamin Wiker-Biography:He obtained his PhD in ethics from Vanderbilt University and then came to teach at a variety of institutions including Marquette University, Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, Thomas Aquinas College, and the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Wiker came to attention in 2002 with...
- Richard WeikartRichard WeikartRichard Weikart is a professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus, and is a senior fellow for the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute. In 1997 he joined the editorial board of the Access Research Network's Origins & Design Journal...
Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture (CSC), formerly known as the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), is a subsidiary of the Discovery Institute. It was established in 1996 with the assistance of Phillip E. JohnsonPhillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
to advance the Wedge strategy
Wedge strategy
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document, which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose...
. Chapman calls the CSC "our No. 1 project."
The CSC offers fellowships of up to $60,000 a year for "support of significant and original research in the natural sciences, the history and philosophy of science, cognitive science and related fields." Since its founding in 1996, the institute's CSC has spent 39 percent of its $9.3 million on research according to Meyer, underwriting books or papers, or often just paying universities to release professors from some teaching responsibilities so that they can work on intelligent design related scholarship. Over those nine years, $792,585 financed laboratory or field research in biology, paleontology or biophysics, while $93,828 helped graduate students in paleontology, linguistics, history and philosophy. The CSC lobbies aggressively to policymakers for wider acceptance of intelligent design and against the theory of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
and what it terms "scientific materialism". To that end the CSC works to advance a policy it terms the Wedge strategy, of which the "Teach the Controversy" campaign is a major component. The "Teach the Controversy" strategy was announced by Meyer in 2002. It seeks to portray evolution as a "theory in crisis" and leave the scientific community
Scientific community
The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...
looking closed-minded, opening the public school science curriculum to creation-based alternatives to evolution such as intelligent design, and thereby undermining "scientific materialism."
Biologic Institute
In 2005, the Discovery Institute provided the funding to set up the Biologic Institute in RedmondRedmond, Washington
Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle. The population was 54,144 at the 2010 census,up from 45,256 in 2000....
and the Fremont
Fremont, Seattle, Washington
Fremont is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. Originally a separate city, it was annexed to Seattle in 1891. Named after Fremont, Nebraska, the hometown of two of its founders, L. H. Griffith and E...
district of Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, Washington, headed by Douglas Axe. The Biologic Institute claims to conduct research into intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
in response to one of the primary criticisms of intelligent design that there is no valid research conducted by the scientific community on the topic. According to Axe, the lab's main objective "is to show that the design perspective can lead to better science", and will "contribute substantially to the scientific case for intelligent design". Biologic's staff consists of "at least three researchers" (Axe, the senior researcher; Zoology PhD Ann Gauger, who like Axe is a signatory to the Discovery Institute's "petition" expressing skepticism towards "Darwinian theory" entitled A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is a statement issued in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, USA, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design.The statement expresses skepticism about the ability of random...
; Brendan Dixon, a software developer). In keeping with the Discovery Institute's October 2006 statement that intelligent design research is being conducted by the institute in secret to avoid the scrutiny of the scientific community, both Axe and Discovery Institute spokesperson Rob Crowther portray it as a "separate entity" despite being funded by the Discovery Institute.
Previously serving as a director of the institute was George Weber, who is also a member of the local chapter of the creationist group Reasons to Believe
Hugh Ross (creationist)
Hugh Norman Ross is a Canadian-born astrophysicist and creationist Christian apologist.He has a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics, and later established his own ministry called Reasons To Believe, that promotes progressive and day-age forms of old Earth creationism...
. In an interview he stated that the lab is a wing of the Discovery Institute and that their goal is to "challenge the scientific community on naturalism" and "What we are doing is necessary to move ID along" which led to his dismissal from the board of the institute.
PZ Myers
PZ Myers
Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers is an American biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris and the author of the Pharyngula science blog. He is currently an associate professor of biology at UMM, works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology , and also cultivates an...
likens the Biologic Institute's design research program to cargo cult
Cargo cult
A cargo cult is a religious practice that has appeared in many traditional pre-industrial tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures. The cults focus on obtaining the material wealth of the advanced culture through magic and religious rituals and practices...
s, with "Intelligent Design creationists pretend[ing] that they're doing science."
Discovery Institute programs
The Discovery Institute through the Center for Science and CultureCenter for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
has been involved in the intelligent design movement; transportation in the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canadian northwest (Cascadia
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
); a bioethics program opposed to assisted suicide
Assisted suicide
Assisted suicide is the common term for actions by which an individual helps another person voluntarily bring about his or her own death. "Assistance" may mean providing one with the means to end one's own life, but may extend to other actions. It differs to euthanasia where another person ends...
, euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
, embryonic stem cell research, human genetic manipulation, human cloning
Human cloning
Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human. It does not usually refer to monozygotic multiple births nor the reproduction of human cells or tissue. The ethics of cloning is an extremely controversial issue...
, and the animal rights movement. Its economics and legal programs advocate tort
Tort
A tort, in common law jurisdictions, is a wrong that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else. It is differentiated from a crime, which involves a breach of a duty owed to society in general...
reform, lower taxation, and reduced economic regulation of individuals and groups as the best economic policy. The Discovery Institute also maintains a foreign policy program currently focused on Russia and East Asia.
The Institute's primary thrust in terms of funding and resources dedicated are those political and cultural campaigns centering around intelligent design. These include the:
- Wedge strategyWedge strategyThe wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document, which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose...
- Intelligent design movementIntelligent design movementThe intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
- Teach the ControversyTeach the ControversyTeach the Controversy is the name of a Discovery Institute campaign to promote intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while attempting to discredit evolution in United States public high school science courses...
Intelligent design and Teach the Controversy
The Discovery Institute's main thrust has been to promote intelligent design politically to the public, education officials and public policymakers, and to portray evolutionEvolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
as a "theory in crisis" and advocating teachers to "Teach the Controversy" through the CSC
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
. It has employed a number of specific political strategies and tactics in the furtherance of its goals. These range from attempts at the state level to undermine or remove altogether the presence of evolutionary theory from the public school classroom, to having the federal government mandate the teaching of intelligent design, to 'stacking' municipal, county and state school boards with ID proponents. The Discovery Institute has been a significant player in many of these cases, through the CSC providing a range of support from material assistance to federal, state and regional elected representatives in the drafting of bills to supporting and advising individual parents confronting their school boards.
Some of the political battles which have involved the Discovery Institute include:
- Kansas evolution hearingsKansas evolution hearingsThe Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas, United States May 5 to May 12, 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school...
- Santorum AmendmentSantorum AmendmentThe Santorum Amendment was an amendment to the 2001 education funding bill which became known as the No Child Left Behind Act, proposed by former Republican United States Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania, which promotes the teaching of intelligent design while questioning the academic...
- Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School DistrictKitzmiller v. Dover Area School DistrictTammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
- the Dover, PennsylvaniaDover, PennsylvaniaDover is a borough in York County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,007 at the 2010 census.-History:James Joner purchased in 1764 and laid out the town of Dover...
intelligent design controversy
In 2004, the institute opened an office in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and in 2005 the Discovery Institute hired Creative Response Concepts
Creative Response Concepts
Creative Response Concepts Public Relations is an American public relations firm best known for helping to devise the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign attacking John Kerry’s Vietnam War record in the 2004 presidential race....
, the same public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
firm to promote its intelligent design campaign that promoted the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, the Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
, the Christian Coalition, and the Contract With America
Contract with America
The Contract with America was a document released by the United States Republican Party during the 1994 Congressional election campaign. Written by Larry Hunter, who was aided by Newt Gingrich, Robert Walker, Richard Armey, Bill Paxon, Tom DeLay, John Boehner and Jim Nussle, and in part using text...
. Creative Response Concepts scored an early victory for the institute in getting the New York Times to publish an essay by Roman Catholic Cardinal Schönborn
Christoph Cardinal Schönborn
Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert Schönborn, OP is an Austrian Cardinal of the Catholic Church and theologian. He currently serves as the Archbishop of Vienna and President of the Austrian Bishops Conference...
, archbishop of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, condemning neo-Darwinism
Neo-Darwinism
Neo-Darwinism is the 'modern synthesis' of Darwinian evolution through natural selection with Mendelian genetics, the latter being a set of primary tenets specifying that evolution involves the transmission of characteristics from parent to child through the mechanism of genetic transfer, rather...
and positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
. The essay, Finding Design in Nature, submitted directly to The Times by Creative Response Concepts, was prompted by the institute's vice president Mark Ryland.
Campaign-related websites operated by the Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute has registered over two hundred website domain names. More than a dozen are related to the institute's campaigns promoting intelligent design. The use of these sites is often in conjunction other intelligent design-related sites registered and operated by Discovery Institute Fellows and associates. William Dembski, for example, registered and operates UncommonDescent.com, OverwhelmingEvidence.com, and DesignInference.com while the institute's Casey Luskin set up IdeaCenter.org; all link to each other.Cascadia Center
Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center for Regional Development (former Cascadia project) focuses on regional transportation. The Cascadia Project started in 1992 with Bruce Agnew, former Chief of Staff for U.S. Representative John MillerJohn Miller (politician)
John Ripin Miller , an American politician, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1985 to 1993. He represented the of Washington as a Republican.Miller did not run for re-election in 1992...
, serving as the director. In 2003, Thomas Till was brought in as Managing Director, after leaving his post as Executive Director of the Amtrak Reform Council.
Cascadia attempts to forge alliances between local governments to ease traffic congestion in the Pacific Northwest, utilizing focus groups as well as forming citizen panels and public forums. In conjunction with Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Cascadia sponsored a session involving elected officials, entrepreneurs and public policy experts including Washington State Representative Dave Reichert
Dave Reichert
David George Reichert is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2005. He is a member of the Republican Party. He previously served as Sheriff of King County, Washington.-Early life, education and career:...
and former CIA director James Woolsey to discuss varying proposals for securing U.S. ports and diversifying America's energy portfolio.
The Cascadia project is funded in part by a large grant from the Gates Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest transparently operated private foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It is "driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family"...
.
Technology & Democracy
The Technology and Democracy Project (TDP), has been a part of the Discovery Institute since the beginning; founded by Senior Fellow George Gilder. The project supports technology as a force for economic growth and advocates freeing technological advancement from government regulation. It utilizes national publications, speeches, conferences and public testimony to lobby for pro-technology and pro-free enterprise policies. The Technology and Democracy Project supports pushing deregulation to the forefront of the national debate and maintains a blog, disco-tech.org, where senior fellows comment on a wide range of issues.The Real Russia Project
The Real Russia Project provides analysis and commentary on the future of democracy in Russia through its internet portal, 'RussiaBlog.' In addition to maintaining the weblog, the program organizes conferences and events to address current events and daily public life in Russia.C. S. Lewis & Public Life
The C. S. Lewis & Public Life program is part of the Discovery Institute's Religion, Liberty & Public Life program, which seeks to define and promote the role of religion in society.The program provides analysis and commentary on the writings and thinking of C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
and how they can influence public policy. The program publishes The Lewis Legacy Online, a quarterly journal and the online archive, C. S. Lewis Writings in the Public Domain.
Religious agenda
Although it often describes itself as a secular organization, critics, members of the press and former institute fellows consider the Discovery Institute to be an explicitly Christian conservative organization, and point to the institute's own publications and the statements of its members that endorse a religious ideology. Americans United for Separation of Church and StateAmericans United for Separation of Church and State
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a group that advocates separation of church and state, a legal doctrine interpreted by AU as being enshrined in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.-Mission:The guiding principle of Americans...
notes, "Though the Discovery Institute describes itself as a think tank 'specializing in national and international affairs,' the group's real purpose is to undercut church-state separation and turn public schools into religious indoctrination centers." The 2005 judge in the "Dover Trial", Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
, came to a similar conclusion about the Institute in his ruling: "CSRC expressly announces, in the Wedge Document, a program of Christian apologetics to promote ID. A careful review of the Wedge Document's goals and language throughout the document reveals cultural and religious goals, as opposed to scientific ones."
As evidence of the institute's organized campaign to mask or downplay its religious origins and agenda, critics point to the Discovery Institute's renaming of its Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture to Center for Science and Culture in 2002 to avoid religious overtones implied with trying to "renew" society. They claim the name change "followed hard on the heels of accusations that the center's real interest was not science but reforming culture along lines favored by Christian conservatives". As further evidence that the institute is promoting a Christian agenda, observers of the institute also point to the fact that the Discovery Institute' members are largely outspoken Christians, who are promoting an explicitly Christian agenda, funded largely by Christian conservatives, catering to an almost exclusively Christian constituency. Nevertheless, the Discovery Institute also has members who espouse Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and agnosticism
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....
.
Nina Shapiro in the Seattle Weekly article, The New Creationists, cites Bruce Chapman when she wrote that behind all Discovery Institute programs there is an underlying hidden religious agenda:
Several Discovery Institute fellows have left the institute over its religious positions and campaigns, such as political scientist Donald Hellmann, described by the Seattle Metropolitan as a "disillusioned former Discovery Fellow." Another former senior fellow, Philip Gold, resigned his post as a defense analyst with the institute in 2002, saying the institute had grown increasingly religious: "It evolved from a policy institute that had a religious focus to an organization whose primary mission is Christian conservatism." One controversy erupted when it was made public in the online journal Salon that, in the summer of 2000, Discovery Institute President Chapman advised a breakaway faction of Episcopalians opposed to the ordination of gays on how to fund their desired schism
Schism (religion)
A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...
from the mainline denomination, and suggested that funds from multi-millionaire and institute board member Howard Ahmanson, who was also a fellow Episcopalian, might be available for this task. In a memo Chapman sent to fellow dissident Episcopalians, he stated that for their campaign to succeed fund-raising was critical, but "is going to be affected greatly by whether we have a clear, compelling forward strategy" and "the Ahmansons are only going to be available to us if we have such a strategy and I think it would be wise to involve them directly in settling on it...." In 2000 and 2001, Chapman was successful in securing more than $1 million from Ahmanson for the Anglican Council, but is no longer personally involved in the schism in the American Episcopal community; Chapman converted to Catholicism in 2002.
Creation Science, Intelligent Design, and the Missing Link
The PR catastrophe for Discovery Institute of the Kitzmiller trialKitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
concerned in large part revised editions the Of Pandas and People
Of Pandas and People
Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins is a controversial 1989 school-level textbook written by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon and published by the Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics...
promoted at trial by various DI-sponsored experts, particularly DI Fellow Michael Behe
Michael Behe
Michael J. Behe is an American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate. He currently serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture...
. The issue began when some proponents of intelligent design associated with Pandas found a need to distinguish it from creation science, whose teaching in public science class had been negated as a violation of the Establishment Clause by the Supreme Court in Louisiana "Balanced Treatment Act" case — Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard, was a legal case about the teaching of creationism that was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law...
.
An early contributor to Pandas, Charles Thaxton, proposed a term replace creation science
Creation science
Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
, which he "picked up from a NASA scientist – intelligent design". In a new draft of Pandas, approximately 150 uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "creationist", were systematically changed to refer to "intelligent design." Panda editors also deleted more than 250 references to "creationism" and the "creator" and replaced them in the final version with "intelligent design" and "intelligent designer".
Following pattern, the term "creationists" was quietly changed to "design proponents", but in one telling case, the beginning and end of the original word "creationists" were accidentally retained, so that "creationists" became "cdesign proponentsists".
The proof that intelligent design was creationism re-labeled played a significant part in the Kitzmiller trial
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
, and cdesign proponentsists has been described as "the missing link between creationism and intelligent design."
Misrepresentation of agenda
At the foundation of most criticism of the Discovery Institute is the charge that the institute and its Center for Science and Culture intentionally misrepresent or omit many important facts in promoting their agenda. Intellectual dishonestyIntellectual dishonesty
Intellectual dishonesty is dishonesty in performing intellectual activities like thought or communication. Examples are:* the advocacy of a position which the advocate knows or believes to be false or misleading...
, in the form of misleading impressions created by the use of rhetoric, intentional ambiguity, and misrepresented evidence, form the foundation of most of the criticisms of the institute. It is alleged that its goal is to lead an unwary public to reach certain conclusions, and that many have been deceived as a result. Its critics, such as Eugenie Scott
Eugenie Scott
Eugenie Carol Scott is an American physical anthropologist who has been the executive director of the National Center for Science Education since 1987...
, Robert Pennock
Robert T. Pennock
Robert T. Pennock is a philosopher working on the Avida digital organism project at Michigan State University where he has been full professor since 2000. Pennock was a witness in the Kitzmiller v...
, Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
and Barbara Forrest
Barbara Forrest
Barbara Carroll Forrest is a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. She is a critic of intelligent design and the Discovery Institute.- Biography :...
, claim that the Discovery Institute knowingly misquotes scientists and other experts, deceptively omits contextual text through ellipsis
Ellipsis
Ellipsis is a series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word, sentence or whole section from the original text being quoted. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence...
, and makes unsupported amplifications of relationships and credentials, and are often said to claim support from scientists when no such support exists. A wide spectrum of critics level this charge; from educators, scientists, and the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
, to individuals who oppose the teaching of creationism alongside science on ideological grounds. Specific objections with examples are listed at the Center for Science and Culture
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
article.
This criticism is not limited to those in the scientific community that oppose the teaching of intelligent design and the suppression of evolution, but also includes former Discovery Institute donors. The Bullitt Foundation
Bullitt Foundation
The Bullitt Foundation is a foundation established in 1952 by Dorothy S. Bullitt, a prominent Seattle businesswoman and philanthropist who founded King Broadcasting Company in Seattle...
, which gave $10,000 in 2001 for transportation causes, withdrew all funding of the institute; its director, Denis Hayes, called the institute "the institutional love child of Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
and Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
," and said, "I can think of no circumstances in which the Bullitt Foundation would fund anything at Discovery today."
The Wedge document
Wedge strategy
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document, which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose...
, a widely circulated 1998 fund-raising document, laid out Discovery's original, ambitious plan to "drive a wedge" into the heart of "scientific materialism," "thereby divorcing science from its purely observational and naturalistic methodology and reversing the deleterious effects of evolution on Western culture." The two governing goals of the Wedge document are:
- To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies
- To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God
- To reverse the materialistic worldview and replace it with a science connosant with ChristianChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
and Theistic convictions
Meyer says that the Wedge document "was stolen from our offices and placed on the Web without permission." The central item of this agenda - establishing intelligent design as legitimate science through conducting actual scientific research - has not been achieved.
Michelle Goldberg has said "... the Center for Science and Culture takes creationism and tries to legitimize it in scientific terms, and make it sound as if it’s really just a kind of competing scientific theory. It hires people with a lot of impressive degrees, although, in many cases, they got the degrees specifically with the idea of using them to discredit Darwinism for religious reasons. It’ll put someone forward like Jonathan Wells, who has a Ph.D. from Berkeley, and yet here he is, defending intelligent design. So they’ve given a lot of thought to packaging intelligent design to make it seem like legitimate science. And they’ve given a lot of thought to how to try to infiltrate their ideas into the culture."
Templeton Foundation
According to a New York Times article, The Templeton Foundation, who provided grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, later asked intelligent design proponents to submit proposals for actual research. Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, was quoted as saying "They never came in." He also said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned. "From the point of view of rigorRigour
Rigour or rigor has a number of meanings in relation to intellectual life and discourse. These are separate from public and political applications with their suggestion of laws enforced to the letter, or political absolutism...
and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said. The Templeton Foundation has since rejected the Discovery Institute's entreaties for more funding, Harper states. "They're political - that for us is problematic," and that while Discovery has "always claimed to be focused on the science," "what I see is much more focused on public policy, on public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth."
In 2007 in the LA Times Pamela Thompson, Vice President for Communications of the Templeton Foundation wrote "We do not believe that the science underpinning the intelligent-design movement is sound, we do not support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge, and the foundation is a nonpolitical entity and does not engage in or support political movements." The same day the Wall Street Journal also included a letter from the same Pamela Thompson making much the same point: "The foundation doesn't support the political movement known as 'Intelligent Design.' This is for three reasons: We don't believe the science underpinning the 'Intelligent Design' movement is sound, we don't support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge and the foundation is a non-political entity and does not engage in, or support, political movements."
In February 2007 the Discovery Institute began a campaign to counter the unfavorable statements of Harper and Thompson citing a "report" published on the intelligent design wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
, ResearchID. This campaign quoted clarifications from Charles Harper of the Templeton Foundation denouncing intelligent design and distancing the Templeton Foundation from the intelligent design movement, notably a clarification by Harper that a Wall Street Journal article published "false information" that "mention[ed] the John Templeton Foundation in a way suggesting that the Foundation has been a concerted patron and sponsor of the so-called Intelligent Design ("ID") position," ResearchID and Discovery Institute claimed that this was indicative of larger errors and bias: "The media has misrepresented the record of the intelligent design research community." Critics of intelligent design responded by noting that though Harper appears to have "confirmed that while the first statement about a formal call for applications was false, the real point of the article, that ID advocates don't do very well in terms of actual research and scientific review, remains true and valid" a point the Discovery Institute glosses over. The Templeton Foundation posted a response to the Discovery Institute's campaign, saying:
Judge Jones
Controversy was stirred up again in December 2006 by the Discovery Institute and its fellows publishing several articles describing a "study" performed by the Discovery Institute criticizing the judge in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School DistrictKitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
trial. It claims that "90.9% of Judge Jones
John E. Jones III
John Edward Jones III is an American lawyer and jurist from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. A Republican, Jones was appointed by President George W. Bush as federal judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in February 2002 and was unanimously confirmed by...
’ [opinion] on intelligent design as science was taken virtually verbatim from the ACLU
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
’s proposed 'Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law' submitted to Judge Jones nearly a month before his ruling." The study, though making no specific allegations of wrongdoing, implies that Judge Jones relied upon the plaintiff's submissions in writing his own conclusions of law.
Within a day, the president of the York County Bar Association had pointed out that parties are required by the courts to submit findings of fact and "a judge can adopt some, all or none of the proposed findings." She added that in the final ruling, a judge's decision "is the judge's findings and it doesn't matter who submitted them". A partner in a York law firm said that "Any attempt to make a stink out of it is absurd."
Several commentators pointed out that Jones' use of the plaintiff's submissions were limited to his opinion, not his conclusion of law, and that "Vice President for Legal Affairs John West is not a lawyer, so he may not be familiar with the fact that this is exactly what proposed findings of fact are for. They are proposed findings which a judge, if he or she agrees, then incorporates as his or her own findings. ... The press release suggests that Judge Jones did something improper in adopting the plaintiffs’ proposed findings as his own—but that is just what a judge does when he finds that the party has proven its case." Others noted that the institute's reliance on MS Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
's "Word Count" function to conduct their study was flawed and resulted in inflated numbers, and that the bulk of the document Discovery studied was written by the law firm of Pepper Hamilton LLP
Pepper Hamilton LLP
Pepper Hamilton LLP is a U.S. law firm with 11 offices and around 500 attorneys. The firm is ranked among the 100 largest firms by revenue in the United States...
, not the ACLU. Witold Walczak, legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the ACLU's lead attorney on the case called the Institute's report a stunt: "They're getting no traction in the scientific world so they're trying to do something ... as a PR stunt to get attention, ... That's not how scientists work, ... Discovery Institute is trying to litigate a year-old case in the media." He also said the Discovery Institute staff is not, as it claims, interested in finding scientific truths; it is more interested in a "cultural war," pushing for intelligent design and publicly criticizing a judge.
A subsequent study was performed by Wesley Elsberry, author of the text comparison program that was partly responsible for the decision in the case, indicated that only 38% of the complete ruling by Judge Jones actually incorporated the findings of fact and conclusions of law that the plaintiffs proposed that he incorporate, and only 66% of the section (on whether intelligent design was science) incorporated the proposals, not the 90.9% the Discovery Institute claimed was copied in that section. Significantly, Judge Jones adopted only 48% of the plaintiffs’s proposed findings of fact for that section, and rejected 52%, clearly showing that he did not accept the section verbatim.
Intelligent design-related websites
The Discovery Institute has registered over two hundred website domain names.The use of these sites is often in conjunction other intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
-related sites registered and operated by Discovery Institute Fellows and associates. William Dembski, for example, registered and operates UncommonDescent.com, OverwhelmingEvidence.com, and DesignInference.com while the institute's Casey Luskin set up IdeaCenter.org.
- IntelligentDesign.org
- EvolutionNews.org
- IDTheFuture.com
- DissentFromDarwin.org
- DarwinAndDesign.com
- DarwinismAndID.com
- IconsofEvolution.com
- FromDarwinToHitler.com
- PriviledgedPlanet.com
- DarwinDayInAmerica.com
- JudgingPBS.com
- FaithAndEvolution.org
Funding
The institute is a non-profit educational foundation funded by philanthropic foundation grants, corporate and individual contributions and the dues of Institute members. Contributions made to it are tax deductible, as provided by law.The institute does not provide details about its backers, out of "harassment" fears according to Chapman.
In 2001, the Baptist Press reported, "Discovery Institute ... with its $4 million annual budget ($1.2 million of which is for the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture) is heavily funded by Christian conservatives
Conservative Christianity
Conservative Christianity is a term applied to a number of groups or movements seen as giving priority to traditional Christian beliefs and practices...
. Maclellan Foundation of Chattanooga, Tenn., for example, awarded $350,000 to the institute with the hope researchers would be able to prove evolution to be a false theory. Fieldstead & Co., owned by Howard and Robert Ahmanson of Irvine, Calif., pledged $2.8 million through 2003 to support the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture."
In 2003, a review of tax documents on GuideStar
GuideStar
GuideStar USA, Inc. is an information service specializing in reporting on U.S. nonprofit companies. In 2010, their database contained over 5 million IRS Forms 990 filings on 1.9 million organizations.....
showed grants and gifts totalling $1.4 million in 1997. Included in the supporters were 22 foundations. At least two-thirds of these foundations stated explicitly religious missions.
Most Discovery Institute donors have also contributed significantly to the Bush campaign
George W. Bush presidential campaign, 2004
This article is about the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, the former President of the United States and winner of the 2004 Presidential Election. See George W. Bush for a detailed biography and information about his full presidency, and George W. Bush presidential campaign, 2000 for a...
.
In 2005, the Washington Post reported, 'Meyer said the institute accepts money from such wealthy conservatives as Howard Ahmanson Jr., who once said his goal is "the total integration of biblical law into our lives," and the Maclellan Foundation, which commits itself to "the infallibility of the Scripture." '
According to Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator is an independent, non-profit organization that evaluates American charities. Its stated goal is "to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace by evaluating the financial health of America's largest charities."-About:...
, in FYE 2005, the Discovery Institute had $2,989,608 in total revenue and $3,878,186 in expenses.
The Discovery Institute denies allegations that its intelligent design agenda is religious, and downplays the religious source of much of its funding. In an interview of Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer is an American scholar, philosopher and advocate for intelligent design. He helped found the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute , which is the main organisation behind the intelligent design movement. Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at...
, when ABC News' asked about the Discovery Institute's many evangelical Christian donors, the institute's public relations representative stopped the interview saying "I don't think we want to go down that path."
Though in the minority, funding also comes from non-conservative sources: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest transparently operated private foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It is "driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family"...
gave $1 million in 2000 and pledged $9.35 million over 10 years in 2003, including $50,000 of Bruce Chapman's
Bruce Chapman
Bruce K. Chapman is the director and founder of the Discovery Institute, an American conservative think tank often associated with the religious right. He was previously a journalist, a Republican Party politician and a diplomat.- Political career :After graduating from Harvard University in 1962,...
$141,000 annual salary. The money of the Gates Foundation grant is "exclusive to the Cascadia project" on regional transportation, according to a Gates Foundation grant maker.
Published reports state that the institute has awarded $3.6 million in fellowships of $5,000 to $60,000 per year to 50 researchers since the CSC's founding in 1996. "I was one of the early beneficiaries of Discovery largess," says William A. Dembski
William A. Dembski
William Albert "Bill" Dembski is an American proponent of intelligent design, well known for promoting the concept of specified complexity...
, who, during the three years after completing graduate school in 1996 could not secure a university position, received what he calls "a standard academic salary" of $40,000 a year through the institute.
Discovery Institute Press
Discovery Institute Press is the Institute's publishing arm and it has published intelligent design books by its fellows including, David BerlinskiDavid Berlinski
David Berlinski is an American educator and author of several books on mathematics. Berlinski is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, the hub of the intelligent design movement. Though he criticizes the theory of evolution, Berlinski who is an agnostic,...
's Deniable Darwin & Other Essays (2010), Jonathan Wells The Myth of DNA (2011) and an edited volume titled Signature Of Controversy which contains apologetic works in defense of the Institute's Center for Science and Culture director Stephen Meyer.
See also
- Timeline of intelligent designTimeline of intelligent designThis timeline of intelligent design outlines the major events in the development of intelligent design as presented and promoted by the intelligent design movement.-Creationism and Creation science:...
- Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific IntegrityPhysicians and Surgeons for Scientific IntegrityThe Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity , formally registered as PSSI International Inc, is a nonprofit anti-evolution organization promoting intelligent design associated with the Discovery Institute, based in Clearwater, Florida...
External links
- Discovery Institute Official Web Site
- Evolution News Discovery Institute's intelligent design blog
- The Newest Evolution of Creationism Background on the evolution of intelligent design and the Discovery Institute. Barbara Forrest Ph.D. From Natural History, April, 2002, page 80
- The Wedge at Work: How Intelligent Design Creationism Is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic Mainstream Chapter 1 of the book Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics by Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. MIT Press, 2001
- Infidels.org article with further discussion and analysis on the Wedge strategy
- Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism: Clarifying the Connection Barbara Forrest. 2000. Originally published in Philo, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall-Winter 2000), pp. 7–29.
Media
- TVW - A Town Hall "Talk of the Times: Intelligent Design vs. Evolution" debate sponsored by the Seattle Times - Featuring Dr. Peter Ward of the University of Washington, and Dr. Stephen Meyer of the Center for Science and Culture (April 2006).
- TVW - Authors Hour with Dr. Jonathan Wells - Jonathan Wells discusses his book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design" in Seattle.
- Shermer vs. Dembski - A debate between Michael Shermer (Skeptic Magazine) and William Dembski (Discovery Institute)