THE ARGUMENTS OVER THE FATE of Terri Schiavo have sowed distrust among the courts and the political branches of government, and forced a state legislature, a popular governor, both houses of Congress, and the president of the United States into tight, uncomfortable political corners. The pending death-by-dehydration of this disabled, 41-year-old Clearwater, Florida, woman—thanks to a court order sought by Read More ›
Original article EDWARDSVILLE, ILLINOIS–The Madison County Courthouse is an imposing structure: a full block long, four stories high, a marble edifice built in 1921 as a symbol of the era when Madison was the most industrialized county in Illinois. Today the county seat, Edwardsville, is home to only 21,000 people, and the surrounding county has been through a wrenching de-industrialization. Read More ›
The Silicon Eye is the soon to be released title of bestselling author and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow George Gilder. The Silicon Eye tells the stirring and at times tragic story of an unprecedented invention that sprung from a Caltech effort to simulate a human retina in electronic form. This one-chip imager captures all three primary colors in each pixel Read More ›
George Gilder delivered the keynote address at the Fourth Annual Hot Topics in Intellectual Property Law Symposium held at Duke Law School on April 1, 2005.
This article, published by The Seattle Times, quotes Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Stephen Meyer.
Three years ago, the Ohio Board of Education invited a small but influential Seattle think tank to debate the way evolution is taught in Ohio schools.
It was an opportunity for the Discovery Institute to promote its notion of intelligent design, the controversial idea that parts of life are so complex, they must have been designed by some intelligent agent.
Instead, leaders of the institute’s Center for Science and Culture decided on what they consider a compromise. Forget intelligent design, they argued, with its theological implications. Just require teachers to discuss evidence that refutes Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, as well as what supports it.
They called it “teach the controversy,” and that’s become the institute’s rallying cry as a leader in the latest efforts to raise doubts about Darwin in school. Evolution controversies are brewing in eight school districts, half a dozen state legislatures, and three state boards of education, including the one in Kansas, which wrestled with the issue in 1999 as well.
“Why fight when you can have a fun discussion?” asks Stephen Meyer, the center’s director. The teach-the-controversy approach, he says, avoids “unnecessary constitutional fights” over the separation of church and state, yet also avoids teaching Darwin’s theories as dogma.
But what the center calls a compromise, most scientists call a creationist agenda that’s couched in the language of science.
There is no significant controversy to teach, they say.
“You’re lying to students if you tell them that scientists are debating whether evolution took place,” said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit group that defends teaching of evolution in school.
The Discovery Institute, she said, is leading a public-relations campaign, not a scientific endeavor.
The Discovery Institute is one of the leading organizations working nationally to change how evolution is taught. It works as an adviser, resource and sometimes a critic with those who have similar views.
“There are a hundred ways to get this wrong,” says Meyer. “And only a few to get them right.”
Read More ›In an op-ed in the March 29 Los Angeles Times Michael Shermer claims that after a recent debate with him at Westminster College I admitted that “suboptimal designs and deadly disease are not examples of an unintelligent or malevolent designer, but instead were caused by “the Fall” in the “Garden of Eden.” Michael Shermer is misrepresenting my position and putting Read More ›
Original Article Those who think the “Intelligent Design” advocates are a bunch of religious whackos show that they have simply not looked into the issues being raised before the Kansas Board of Education. Regarding evolution, there is much that classical evolutionary theory answers well, and much that it does not answer well. Evolutionary theory proposes that there are two fundamental Read More ›
This transcript is from an interview with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley Smith on The Rush Limbaugh Show: Direct Transcript From the March 29, 2005 Rush Limbaugh radio program: RUSH: I went ahead and printed out this piece by Wesley Smith at National Review Online. He is a senior fellow, which means he’s a scholar like me, at an Institute. Read More ›