Discovery Institute

A central progressive theme was historicism, crediting history almost exclusively with the development of culture.

Political “middlemen” who infringe on the relationship between the people and their elected representatives constitute a growing danger to democracy, according to new book, Politicians, by Bruce K. Chapman. “Politicians themselves are partly to blame for ceding responsibilities to unelected powers,” says Chapman, himself a former elected and appointed official. “Those powers include bureaucrats and judges, but also media, academics, non-profit cause groups, ‘professional reformers’ and  campaign businesses that ‘live off of’ politics, rather than ‘for it.” A good example of shifted responsibility, says Chapman, is Congress’ relinquishment of authority to government regulatory agencies. Another, Chapman says, is the “scandal business” that increasingly monopolizes public attention and is incentivized by unrealistic federal legislation. The advent of social media, which might Read More ›

Most of us think of science as the enterprise of seeking truth by formulating hypotheses and testing them against the evidence. This is empirical science.

Its promise of a kind of immortality is an ersatz version of Christian hope for a resurrection in a glorified body.

Preoccupation with form over substance combined with denial and avoidance behavior are the chief causes of human failure — from the individual and family right up to the national level. World War II became inevitable because of denial by the British, French and Americans that Hitler meant what he said in “Mein Kampf” and was rearming to carry it out.  Subsequent denial in the form of appeasement policies enabled Hitler’s early swift success in conquering and subjugating almost all of continental Europe, until Churchill rallied the British people with his famous declaration that “we shall never surrender.” An Islamified Western Europe is arguably one of the biggest stories of our time.  Yet elites on both sides of the Atlantic are in denial Read More ›

The paradigm of cladistic classification based on assumed common ancestry should be reconsidered in favor of a traditional phenetic classification based on maximum similarity.

I think it’s the first time I’ve heard a discussion of the second of law thermodynamics on cable TV.

This is one key issue on which proponents of ID and of theistic evolution differ.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) makes no moral distinctions between humans and animals, believing, as its alpha wolf Ingrid Newkirk put it once, “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” The organization opposes any instrumental use of animals—no matter how beneficial to human thriving—insisting that they are “not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.” PETA’s adamant opposition to animal research puts it squarely in the anti-science camp. Not because they are ethically opposed to such experiments—although that marks the group as anti-human in my book—but because the organization routinely slanders animal researchers as cruel and sadistic and persists in its false and dishonest claim Read More ›

The world’s information is literally at our fingertips every hour of the day. Getting info is as easy as pulling out that smartphone or tablet and asking a search engine for the answer. In less than a second, there it is. “How many millimeters are in an inch?” Boom, there it is. “There are 25.4 millimeters in one inch,” the virtual assistant responds. “What’s the capital of Peru?” “Lima is the capital and largest city in Peru.” Done. You are now smarter than you were a few seconds ago. Or are you? It turns out that learning is not as efficient a process as Big Tech would like it to be. The latest research in cognition shows that learning takes time, requires repetition, Read More ›