What Discovery Institute Means to Me: A Reflection

Conversation Side Conversation
1

https://evolutionnews.org/2018/12/what-discovery-institute-means-to-me-a-reflection/

Here is a crass and appalling appeal for money from @Agauger to an organization, Discovery Institute, that has done nothing but create turmoil by touting the benefits of Intelligent Design, a form of creationism, that failed in court (Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District). No @Agauger, Discover Institute is not an organization that deserves praise nor contributions.

And this year is the twentieth anniversary of the Intelligent-Design manifesto, the infamous “Wedge Document”, that proclaimed a victory of their anti-materialist and disguised religiosity within two decades. Here are their goals for this year:

Twenty Year Goals

  • To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
  • To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its influence in the fine arts.
  • To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.

None of this has occurred, of course, despite the books of people like Philip Johnson, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, and Stephen Meyer, as well as the gaseous emissions of Discovery Institute flacks like Michael Egnor and David Klinghoffer. In the absence of any evidence for Intelligent Design—which, we were assured, was “right around the corner”—they’re now entirely devoted to slinging mud at evolutionary biology and its practitioners.

How much money do you want to donate? Perhaps $250,000 salary for Stephen Meyer is not enough for the contributions to humanity that ID brings to the world.

2

Leave @agauger alone. Of course DI is asking for donations, that is what non-profits do. You want things to change we need a better way forward. That is possible now. Don’t lose sight.

3

It is crass and appalling to appeal for donations for an organization who has done nothing of value but instead is a disguised from of creationism. And @Agauger calls herself a Catholic. It really is the height of hypocrisy.

4

Hi @Patrick,

You can find out more about the Discovery Institute’s annual budget here. The annual budget is around $5 or 6 million.

Ann Gauger is a decent human being, as I can attest. She sincerely believes what she proclaims. She does not deserve to be called a hypocrite.

“Creationism” is a term which means different things to different people. Freethinker Thomas Paine, in his book, The Age of Reason, refers to “the Creator” no less than 32 times. And American President Thomas Jefferson, who was a Unitarian, wrote:

I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in it’s [sic] parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of it’s [sic] composition. . . it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is . . . a fabricator of all things.

Some people might call that Creationism.