RALPH NADER once mused to me about what a terrible thing it was that Jack Kevorkian was (at the time) the world’s most famous doctor. He was right. That distinct honor should have belonged to Dame Cecily Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement who died last week at age 87 in London at St Christopher’s, the hospice she Read More ›
Truth Sheet #05-01 Overview: Periodically certain Darwinists make false and unsubstantiated claims that Discovery Institute advocates “theocracy” or is part of the “radical Christian right” or supposedly supports something called “Christian reconstructionism.” These charges are little more than smears, and they show the bankruptcy of the Darwinists’ own position. Rather than argue about the substance of the scientific debate over neo-Darwinism, Read More ›
Since our argument in The Privileged Planet was virtually unknown before the book was published, we didn’t have the advantage of years of thoughtful criticism. So as we worked on the manuscript, we tried to imagine the best objections that could be raised against our argument. We eventually decided to include these objections, along with our answers, as chapter 16, “The Read More ›
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is one of the world’s most successful and effective advocacy organizations. Dedicated to the “rights” of animals with a devotion so fierce it borders on fanaticism, PETA activists practice propaganda as an art form and are so skilled at in-your-face advocacy and agitation that executives of the world’s most powerful corporations cow when the PETA activists pound on their doors.
The constant flow of press releases, boycotts, movie-star endorsements, and never-ending (and often funny) street demonstrations–such as the recent “Running of the Nudes,” a naked protest against Pamplona, Spain’s famous running of the bulls–not only keeps PETA continually in the news, but also serves to mask the organization’s bizarre and rigid ideology. But now with the recent arrest of two of its employees for cruelty to animals in North Carolina, the true weirdness of the cult-like group may finally receive the attention it deserves.
For those who missed it, here’s the story: Adria J. Hinkle, 27, and Andrew B. Cook, 24, were arrested in Ahoskie, North Carolina, after a four-week law-enforcement investigation into the illegal dumping of about 100 dead dogs into area trash receptacles. The illegal dumping began around the time PETA arranged with local animal shelters to transport stray animals that would otherwise be killed in area pounds to their Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters, purportedly to find homes for the animals–or, for the ill and unadoptable, to submit them to euthanasia.
Read More ›Original article Last month’s United States Supreme Court decision in the Kelo v. New London case strikes at the heart of our freedoms and, if left unchallenged, imperils our right to life itself. How do we derive such a broad threat from this private property case? Let’s look at the conclusions of the court. In the Kelo decision, the Read More ›
Assume you decided to build a new home and contracted with a builder to construct it for $300,000. Several months later, after the basement is finished, the builder comes back and says, “I underestimated my costs, and the house will now cost $900,000.” Would you pay the additional amount?
Assume you ordered a new car from a dealer for an agreed upon $20,000 price. Two weeks later, the dealer calls and says the car will now cost $60,000. Would you pay more?
In both the above cases, you would refuse to pay the additional amount, because in the real world of competitive private sellers and buyers, such behavior by a seller would be unacceptable. However, what we find unacceptable behavior in our private dealings becomes the norm when dealing with government.
Read More ›Seattle, July 13 – Discovery Institute Senior Fellow for Technology and Society John C. Wohlstetter is pleased to announce the launch of his online diary, Letter from The Capitol. A true renaissance man, Wohlstetter will offer his insights on topics as diverse as D.C. politics, the war on terrorism, and jazz. “For years, John has provided fascinating commentary for a Read More ›
SEATTLE, JULY 12 – “The mainstream media in the U.S. and Russia do a poor job of reporting on issues that impact U.S. / Russian relations – attributable in part to the limited amount of space in most major newspapers,” said Yuri Mamchur, a Foreign Policy Fellow at Discovery Institute and a Russian national. “So we’ve launched Russiablog to report Read More ›
SEATTLE – Discovery Institute has filed a public records request with the Ohio State University (OSU) seeking all documents related to Darwinist attacks on OSU doctoral candidate Bryan Leonard. The request was submitted under the Ohio Public Records Act. In June, Leonard’s dissertation defense in the area of science education was suddenly postponed after three Darwinist professors at OSU attacked Leonard’s Read More ›
In July of 2005 The New York Times published an opinion by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna who was the lead editor of the official 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church. In a rare instance of a newspaper reporting on its own editorial page, the Times’ published a front-page article Saturday about Schönborn’s piece where he explained that Read More ›