Responding to the Discovery Institute

The sleaze factor of the Intelligent Design movement is high, but the Discovery Institute is off the charts in this respect. A casual visitor to the Institute's website wouldn't necessarily notice that their goal is to control public education. They try to pass themselves off as champions of free thought, open discourse, and science. Unfortunately, they have no clue what science is, and their real goal is to get back to how things worked before the Scopes monkey trial, when teachers could be fired for teaching the theory of evolution.

The Discovery Institute's attitude toward science is best exemplified by the "Dissent from Darwinism" page that appears on their website. That page lets you add your name to a list of people who don't like the theory of evolution. The page contains two quotes. (a) "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." (b) "Darwinian evolution ... does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology" (Dr. Philip S. Skell). If you agree with those two claims, simply fill out a webform to add your voice to the growing groundswell of resistance to Darwinism.

It certainly sounds democratic, having people vote for their favorite explanation of how the universe works. But voting is a political solution, not a scientific one.

Of course, the Discovery Institute isn't so crass as to ask people to blindly vote for or against Darwinism. They provide rational, logical explanations for their stance on the matter. Under the heading of "Scientific Research and Scholarship," the Discovery Institute's website lists a number of scholarly articles, one of which is "DNA and the Origin of Life" by Stephen C. Meyer. According to Meyer's sixty page article, "the design hypothesis does constitute a better explanation than its materialistic or naturalistic rivals for the origin of specified biological information. Surely, simply classifying an argument as metaphysical does not refute it."

The term "God" does not appear in Meyer's article, and the term religion appears only in the footnote section. The Bible is never mentioned or quoted directly. In particular, references to the book of Genesis are explicitly avoided. This is the level of subterfuge these folks are willing to practice in order to slime their way back into the classroom.

But, as with earlier, more overt forms of Intelligent Design and its predecessor, Creationism, the Discovery Institute's approach still tries to pawn off convoluted logic, five dollar words, and scientific-sounding terminology as science. Meyer sounds reasonable and fair-minded when he says, "Surely, simply classifying an argument as metaphysical does not refute it." Of course, no one is saying that metaphysical arguments are inherently wrong. Science merely says that metaphysical arguments aren't useful for revealing new knowledge or leading us to new discoveries.

When we ask a question like, "Why was Mrs. Smith's baby born without arms or legs?", the simplest, most complete, and most irrefutable answer is, "Because that's how God wants it." Unfortunately, while that sort of answer might lead us to attend church more regularly and contribute more faithfully to the offering plate, it gives us no direction as to how to prevent similar tragedies happening in the future.

A scientific theory isn't something you vote for. It isn't something that wins because it makes sense or sounds impressive. It isn't a mere explanation of existing knowledge. Rather, a scientific theory must have predictive power which leads us to new knowledge and, ultimately, new pragmatic applications. Darwinism leads to the study of genetics, to an understanding of the impact of climate change on ecosystems, to improved agricultural methods, and to a host of other new ideas and applications. This is what makes it scientific, what validates it.

Here's a worthwhile goal for the Discovery Institute, as well as for all other promoters of Creationism and Intelligent Design: instead of funding yet more political lobbying and pseudo-scientific papers, let them find the cure for a disease. If they think modern biology and Darwinism are flawed, let's see them demonstrate a viable alternative. Not in words, not via more sophistry, but through practical application.

Not only has the Discovery Institute never cured a single disease or solved a single pragmatic problem, they never will. In fact, they'll never even make an honest attempt. (Given the sleaze factor, we acknowledge that they might at least pretend.) Why won't they really try? Because, deep down, they know that what they're promoting isn't science. Deep down, they know that Intelligent Design leads people to pray and read The Bible, but doesn't lead to this-worldly, pragmatic solutions.

If you have any doubts on the matter, try it yourself. Take Muscular Dystrophy, for example. How would you use Intelligent Design to find a cure for this horrible disease? Since the universe and all life in it is designed, maybe you'd try to get in contact with the original designer, if that entity is still around. "Yo, dude, some of your stuff is broke. How about a little help here. An owner's manual, maybe?"

Science is about using human intelligence to solve here-and-now problems. Religion is about figuring out how to make God happy, how to live a moral life, and how to get into heaven. When religious people try to undercut science, they do everyone a disservice, because if they succeeded, we would find ourselves back living a medieval existence, where half of all children died before the age of five, and anybody who failed to obey religious dictates found themselves burned at the stake.

The Discovery Institute claims that they are the keepers of superior morality, and that is why they need the political authority to rein in heartless, soulless science.

If you want to see how moral and compassionate a religiously-controlled government is, get thee to Iran or some Taliban-dominated area, and hang out there for a while. If you think Christians wouldn't be as violent or repressive as the Muslims, grab a history book covering England in the late 1400s and early 1500s. If you think Christians have learned their lesson in the years since, check out their persecution of Mormons during the mid-1800s. Or their bigotry toward gays today.

Make no mistake, these people know they're right, and they're not afraid to lie, subvert the constitution, or endanger the health of millions of people by undermining modern science and medicine, in order to get their way. Nor would they be satisfied merely with "equal time" in the science classroom. Their ultimate goal is to do the Lord's work, and if a bunch of people have their rights -- or their lives -- taken away as a result, well, that's just too bad.