Is the Discovery Institute on its last legs?

It will end when the money ends. I think it will end not with a bang but with a whimper. They’ll just continue to become increasingly irrelevant, until it doesn’t matter how shrill their cries for attention are, no one will be listening. The product they’re marketing has an absolutely fractionally small audience; worldwide the overwhelming number of Christians belong to denominations which accept or accommodate evolution in some way.

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What web series are you talking about?

I think it might be this one:

Wow. That came out this year, but it didn’t even register for me. Was there anything new in it or was it just marketing gloss?

The marketing on it seems to seriously undermine them too. They are presenting themselves as a conspiracists rather than scientists. That seems to be a bad rhetorical move.

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The optics are really bad, as the saying goes.

Well at least they’re being honest.

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I suspect that rather depends on how narrowly you define “new” – it’s rather hard to find any Creationist argument these days that isn’t in some way a retread of an earlier argument. Anyway, here’s their summaries of their episodes:

01 Reality: Real vs. Material (June 3)
Has science proven we are all just matter? Or does reality extend beyond what we can see and touch?
02 Mind: The Inescapable I (June 10)
Are we simply robots made out of meat? Or is there an inescapable “I” who makes real choices that can change our lives?
03 DNA: The Programmer (June 17)
Is the software that runs life the result of accumulated copying errors? Or does it require a programmer?
04 Fine Tuning: You Don’t Suck (June 24)
Is our universe an accident? Or does it display exquisite evidence of intentional design?
05 Origin of Life: Intelligence Required (July 1)
Can life spontaneously generate itself from chemicals? Or are detailed instructions required?
06 Mutations: Failure to Invent (July 8)
Are chance mutations really “the key to our evolution”? Or are there strict limits to what they can accomplish, limits that point to the need for an overarching designer?
07 Human Evolution: The Monkey Bias (Late Fall 2019)
Are we “modified monkeys”? Or does nature suggest we are something truly unique?

(Ep7 doesn’t appear to be out yet.)

Addendum: most episodes got around 100k Youtube views, except for E3 which got 150k.

Agreed. They are bringing in $5 million a year in donations, and the best they can do is gripe about what other scientists are doing. There are plenty of scientists who would be more than happy to set up a research program with $5 million a year. If the Discovery Institute doesn’t want to waste research money on ID, then why would they expect anyone else to?

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@T_aquaticus
They do have their Biologic Institute, which is meant to be their ‘research arm’. Admittedly, the BI hasn’t put up anything new on their site since January 2018, so its not completely clear what they’re currently spending their research budget (if any) on.

Or both :slight_smile: ?

@swamidass
You’ll have to wait until “late fall” to find out. :stuck_out_tongue:

(Incidentally, you startled me and made me wonder if I’d suddenly started raving about monkeys without remembering it – until I worked out you were quoting from my quote of their summaries.)

Addendum: we could however hold a sweep on who’s going to be presenting this fascinating topic. Who is the DI’s current Human Evolution ‘expert’?

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08 Rhetoric: Superior to Science (Mid-Winter 2019)
Should we give any credence to scientific consensus resulting from repeatedly validated hypotheses and exhaustive experimentation? Or should it simply be ignored in favour of false dichotomies?

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I forgot about that aspect of the DI. I try to be civil when discussing ID, since there are deep religious commitments involved and I don’t think ID does much harm, beyond making the human collective slightly dumber. Climate change denialism, on the other hand, is doing immense harm to the planet and to real people. The money they take to support has blood on it.

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Then there is the matter, noted in another thread on PS, of the HIV denialism that exists in the DI crew.

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Not problem at all, I just didn’t want to take credit for the list Faizal had put together.

I think I read something about the denialism years ago, but is that STILL an issue with DI?

Far more interesting is whether or not they will include Behe and explain the evidence for common descent that he affirms. We really are modified apes, but we are also exceptional.

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When has the DI ever acknowledged evidence that undermines their position? I would not quibble about “exceptional” (though would suggest that many species are exceptional in their own ways), but do find “truly unique” to be an obvious exageration.

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Obviously unique in our own exceptional way :slight_smile: .

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One of the clearest indicators that the DI is not a legitimate scientific organization is that it shies away from addressing points of disagreement such as common ancestry or the age of the earth. If ID was a real scientific hypothesis, then it would be crucial to resolve these issues.

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I’ll admit that I don’t keep up with everything coming out of the DI camp, but I do not recall anyone, either the principals or their colleagues, disavowing the HIV denial advocated by the likes of Johnson and Wells.