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The Center for Science and Culture (CSC), formerly known as the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank[1] in the United States. The CSC conducts a campaign promoting a religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes centering around intelligent design. It lobbies for the inclusion of intelligent design (ID) in public school science curricula as an explanation for the origins of life and the universe while casting doubt on the theory of evolution by portraying it as a "theory in crisis." Intelligent design (ID) is the concept that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. ...
Irreducible complexity is a controversial concept invoked in support of intelligent design which claims that the generally accepted scientific theory that life evolved through biological evolution by natural selection is incomplete and flawed and that some additional mechanism is required to explain the origins of life. ...
Specified complexity is a concept developed by intelligent design proponent William Dembski. ...
It has been suggested that Fine-tuning be merged into this article or section. ...
An intelligent designer, also referred to as an intelligent agent, is the entity that the intelligent design movement argues had some role in the origin and/or development of life and who supposedly has left scientific evidence of this intelligent design. ...
The intelligent design movement is a campaign based in the United States that calls for broad social, academic and political changes derived from the notion of intelligent design, a form of neo-creationism. ...
The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank, structured as a non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Its areas of interest, social and political action include intelligent design, public school education, and transportation and bi-national cooperation in the international Cascadia region. ...
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, an organization that works to promote a Neo-Creationist religious agenda centering on Intelligent design, and is the hub of the Intelligent design movement. ...
Teach the Controversy is a slogan the Discovery Institute uses to promote intelligent design[1] and advance an education policy for US public schools which introduces creationist explanations for the origin of life to public-school science curricula. ...
The intelligent design movement has conducted a far-reaching organized campaign largely in the United States that promotes a Neo-Creationist religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes centering around intelligent design. ...
The introduction of this article does not provide enough context for readers unfamiliar with the subject. ...
The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank, structured as a non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Its areas of interest, social and political action include intelligent design, public school education, and transportation and bi-national cooperation in the international Cascadia region. ...
Christian Right is a term collectively referring to a spectrum of conservative Christian political and social movements and organizations characterized by their strong support of social values they deem traditional in the United States and other western countries. ...
This article is about the institution. ...
Intelligent design (ID) is the concept that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. ...
Intelligent design (ID) is the concept that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. ...
Wiktionary has related dictionary definitions, such as: life, living Life is a multi-faceted concept that may refer to the ongoing process of which living things are a part or the period between fertilisation or mitosis and death. ...
The deepest visible-light image of the cosmos, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. ...
A speculative phylogenetic tree of all living things, based on rRNA gene data, showing the separation of the three domains, bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. ...
These positions have been rejected by the wider scientific community, which identifies intelligent design as pseudoscientific Neo-creationism and challenges the notion that evolution is anything but widely accepted within science. [2] The scientific community consists of the interactions and relationships of scientists. ...
Phrenology is regarded today as being a classic example of pseudoscience. ...
Neo-Creationism is a movement whose goal is to restate creationism in terms more likely to be well-received by the public, policy makers, educators, and the scientific community. ...
The Center for Science and Culture serves as the hub of the intelligent design movement. Nearly all of the luminaries of intelligent design are either CSC advisors, officers, or fellows. Stephen C. Meyer, a founder of the Discovery Institute and CSC serves as Senior Fellow and Vice President, and Phillip E. Johnson is the Program Advisor. Johnson is considered the movement's "father" and architect of the center's Wedge strategy and "Teach the Controversy" campaign, as well as the Santorum Amendment. The intelligent design movement is a campaign based in the United States that calls for broad social, academic and political changes derived from the notion of intelligent design, a form of neo-creationism. ...
Stephen C. Meyer is an American philosopher of science and theologian. ...
The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank, structured as a non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Its areas of interest, social and political action include intelligent design, public school education, and transportation and bi-national cooperation in the international Cascadia region. ...
Phillip E. Johnson Phillip E. Johnson (born 1940) is a retired UC Berkeley American law professor and author. ...
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, an organization that works to promote a Neo-Creationist religious agenda centering on Intelligent design, and is the hub of the Intelligent design movement. ...
Teach the Controversy is a slogan the Discovery Institute uses to promote intelligent design[1] and advance an education policy for US public schools which introduces creationist explanations for the origin of life to public-school science curricula. ...
The Santorum Amendment is a specific amendment to a 2001 education funding bill proposed by Republican United States senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania, which relates to the teaching of evolution in U.S. public schools. ...
History
Concurrent with the founding of the intelligent design movement, sometime prior to 1991, Phillip E. Johnson met Stephen C. Meyer. Through Meyer, Johnson met others who were developing what became the intelligent design movement, including Michael Denton, and became the de facto leader of the group. [3] This group formed the CSC and has continued to operate through it, forming the nucleus of the movement, which it remains to this day, with both Johnson and Meyer serving as CSC officers. The intelligent design movement is a campaign based in the United States that calls for broad social, academic and political changes derived from the notion of intelligent design, a form of neo-creationism. ...
Phillip E. Johnson Phillip E. Johnson (born 1940) is a retired UC Berkeley American law professor and author. ...
Stephen C. Meyer is an American philosopher of science and theologian. ...
Originally called the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, it was founded in 1996 by the Discovery Institute with funding provided by Howard Ahmanson, Jr. and the MacLellan Foundation. The evolution of the Center's name reflects its attempt to present itself as less religiously motivated in the public's eye. The "renewal" in its name referred to its stated goal of "renewing" American culture by grounding society's major institutions, especially education, in religion as outlined in the Wedge document. Since that time the Center has disavowed any religious motivations to its agenda and so has dropped "renewal" from its title and moderated its formerly overtly religious language of its public statements [4]. This was done to appeal to a more secular audience to which the Center hopes its social and political programs will appeal and make inroads. 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ...
The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank, structured as a non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Its areas of interest, social and political action include intelligent design, public school education, and transportation and bi-national cooperation in the international Cascadia region. ...
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Jr (born 1950) is an American millionaire philanthropist who funds the causes of Christian fundamentalism. ...
Despite these changes to attempt to appeal to a broader, less religious, audience, the CSC still states as a goal a redefinition of science, and the philosophy on which it is based, particularly the exclusion of what it calls the "unscientific principle of materialism", and in particular the acceptance of what it calls "the scientific theory of intelligent design". The position of the overwheming majority of the scientific community is that the principle of naturalism allows falsifiability and that supernaturalism is unfalsifiable, meaning any suggested policies or curricula put forth by the Center that rest on supernatural suppositions are by definition pseudoscience, not science. In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. ...
In mathematics, theory is used informally to refer to a body of knowledge about mathematics. ...
Intelligent design (ID) is the concept that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. ...
Naturalism is any of several philosophical stances, typically those descended from materialism and pragmatism, that do not distinguish the supernatural from nature. ...
In science and the philosophy of science, falsifiability, contingency, and defeasibility are roughly equivalent terms referring to the property of empirical statements that they must admit of logical counterexamples. ...
The supernatural refers to conscious magical, religious or unknown forces that cannot ordinarily be perceived except through their effects. ...
Phrenology is regarded today as being a classic example of pseudoscience. ...
CSC's Wedge strategy - Main article: Wedge strategy
In 1999 an internal CSC report dating from 1998 was leaked to the public, which outlined a five-year plan for fostering broader acceptance of ID. This plan become known as the Wedge strategy. The 'wedge document' explained the CSC's key aims are "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies." and to "replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God." The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, an organization that works to promote a Neo-Creationist religious agenda centering on Intelligent design, and is the hub of the Intelligent design movement. ...
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, an organization that works to promote a Neo-Creationist religious agenda centering on Intelligent design, and is the hub of the Intelligent design movement. ...
The scope of this article is limited to the empirical sciences. ...
In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. ...
A moral is a one sentence remark made at the end of many childrens stories that expresses the intended meaning, or the moral message, of the tale. ...
The word culture, from the Latin colo, -ere, with its root meaning to cultivate, generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ...
Politics, sometimes defined as the art and science of government[1], is a process by which collective decisions are made within groups. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
{{dablink|For alternative meanings, see nature (disambiguation). ...
Trinomial name Homo sapiens sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Humans, or human beings, are biologically classified as bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin for wise man or thinking man) under the family Hominidae (the great apes). ...
Image:Http://www. ...
To accomplish this, the document sets as "Five-Year Goals" "To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory." and notably "To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda." This is being seen now, with public debates over the teaching of intelligent design in public school classrooms taking place in many states as part of the Teach the Controversy campaign. Intelligent design (ID) is the concept that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. ...
Teach the Controversy is a slogan the Discovery Institute uses to promote intelligent design[1] and advance an education policy for US public schools which introduces creationist explanations for the origin of life to public-school science curricula. ...
If the CSC's strategy is successful, within twenty years the goals are "To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science. " and "To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life." The scope of this article is limited to the empirical sciences. ...
Fishers of Men, oil on panel by Adriaen van de Venne (1614) Various religious symbols Religion is commonly defined as a group of beliefs concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals associated with such belief. ...
CSC campaigns
Teach the Controversy - Main article: Teach the Controversy
The CSC's Teach the Controversy campaign seeks to portray evolution as a "theory in crisis" while advancing an education policy for US public schools that introduces intelligent design to public school science curricula and seeks to redefine science to allow for supernatural explanations. Teach the Controversy is a slogan the Discovery Institute uses to promote intelligent design[1] and advance an education policy for US public schools which introduces creationist explanations for the origin of life to public-school science curricula. ...
// Public education is education mandated for the children of the general public by the government, whether national, regional, or local, provided by an institution of civil government, and paid for, in whole or in part, by taxes. ...
The strategy has been to move from standards battles, to curriculum writing, to textbook adoption, all the while undermining the central positions of evolution in biology and methodological naturalism in science. The CSC is the primary organizer and promoter of the Teach the Controversy campaign. It adopted the tactic of remaining behind the scenes and orchestrating, underwriting and otherwise supporting local campaigns, ID groups, and proponents to act on its behalf in lobbying state and local politicians and school boards.
Examples of Teach the Controversy in action were the Kansas evolution hearings, the Santorum Amendment, 2002 Ohio Board of Education intelligent design controversy, and the Dover, Pennsylvania Board of Education intelligent design controversy. The Kansas Evolution Hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas in 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how the origin of life would be taught in the states public schools. ...
The Santorum Amendment is a specific amendment to a 2001 education funding bill proposed by Republican United States senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania, which relates to the teaching of evolution in U.S. public schools. ...
The intelligent design movement is a campaign based in the United States that calls for broad social, academic and political changes derived from the notion of intelligent design, a form of neo-creationism. ...
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. ...
The CSC alleges that the program and curricula they advocate presents evidence both for and against evolution and then encourages students to evaluate the arguments themselves. Casting the conflicting points of view and agendas as an academic and scholarly controversy was proposed by Phillip E. Johnson of the Discovery Institute in his book The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism. In it, he writes of the 1999-2000 Kansas evolution hearings controversy over the teaching of intelligent design in public school classrooms: "What educators in Kansas and elsewhere should be doing is to "teach the controversy." A speculative phylogenetic tree of all living things, based on rRNA gene data, showing the separation of the three domains, bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. ...
Phillip E. Johnson Phillip E. Johnson (born 1940) is a retired UC Berkeley American law professor and author. ...
1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
This article is about the year 2000. ...
The Kansas Evolution Hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas in 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how the origin of life would be taught in the states public schools. ...
Intelligent design (ID) is the concept that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. ...
In its early years the CSC (then called the CRSC) offered science curriculum that assured teachers that its "Web curriculum can be appropriated without textbook adoption wars." This had the net effect of encouraging ID sympathetic teachers to side-step standard textbook adoption procedures. Anticipating a test case, Discovery Institute director Stephen C. Meyer along with David K. DeWolf and Mark Edward DeForrest published in the Utah Law Review a legal strategy for winning judicial sanction.[5]
According to published reports, the nonprofit Discovery Institute spends more than $1 million a year for research, polls, lobbying and media pieces that support intelligent design and their Teach the Controversy strategy [6].
In August 2005 the New York Times reported that since 2004 there have been 78 campaigns in 31 states to either Teach the Controversy or include intelligent design in science curricla, twice the number seen in 2002-2003.
Intelligent design in higher education The cultivation of support for ID and its social and political agenda in higher education is a very active part of CSC's strategy. The CSC claims to have faculty supporters on every university campus in this country, including the Ivy League schools. Among these, Alvin Plantinga at Notre Dame and Frank Tipler at Tulane University, are high-profile figures in academia. The Ivy League consists of eight private institutions of higher education located in the northeastern United States. ...
Alvin Cornelius Plantinga (born 15 November 1932 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, of Frisian ancestry) is a contemporary American philosopher known for his work in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion. ...
This article is about the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris. ...
Frank J. Tipler is a professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University, New Orleans, physicist, theologian and cornucopian philosopher. ...
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana. ...
CSC recommended curricula benefits from special status at number of religious schools. Biola University and Oklahoma Baptist University are listed on the Access Research Network website as "ID Colleges." In addition, the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center, which began as a student organization at the University of California, San Diego, helps establish student IDEA clubs on university and high school campuses. The Intelligent Design and Undergraduate Research Center, ARN’s student division, also recruits and supports followers at universities. Campus youth ministries play an active role in bringing ID to university campuses through lectures by ID leaders Phillip Johnson, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, Michael Behe and others. This activity takes place outside university science departments. Biola University is a private Christian university, located in the city of La Mirada in Los Angeles County, California with a satellite campus in Vista. ...
Categories: Possible copyright violations ...
ARN logo Access Research Network (ARN) formerly known as Students for Origins Research is a charitable American organisation that publishes online essays that promote intelligent design and other issues important to the religious right. ...
The University of California, San Diego (popularly known as UCSD) is a public, coeducational university located in La Jolla, California. ...
Several public universities, including the University of California at Berkeley and the University of New Mexico have had ID courses slipped past academic scrutiny by sympathetic faculty, often as freshman seminars, honors courses and other courses outside required curricula in which instructors have wider latitude regarding course content. Critics of the movement allege this subverts the purpose of academic standards and raises the question of professional competence of the instructors; students should not pay the price for the negligence of instructors who are either not qualified to teach classes purporting to be about science or have subordinated scientific integrity to personal religious loyalties. The University of California, Berkeley (also known as Cal, UC Berkeley, UCB, or simply Berkeley) is a prestigious, public, coeducational university situated in the foothills of Berkeley, California to the east of San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate and its bridge. ...
The University of New Mexico (UNM) is a public university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. ...
Research fellowships The CSC offers lucrative fellowships of up to $60,000 a year for "support of significant and original research in the natural sciences, the history and philosophy of science, cognitive science and related fields." Published reports state that the CSC has awarded $3.6 million in fellowships of $5,000 to $60,000 per year to 50 researchers since its founding in 1996 [7].
To date none of the Center’s fellows has produced scientific research which has found wide acceptance within the broader scientific community. What research has been published is consistent with that called for in the Wedge Document however, which it says is to form the foundation of the center's Wedge strategy. Among these are 50 books on intelligent design, such as those by William A. Dembski, many published by religious presses like InterVarsity or Crossway, and two documentary films, Unlocking the Mystery of Life, and The Privileged Planet. The former was broadcast briefly on public television creating a controversy. The scientific community consists of the interactions and relationships of scientists. ...
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, an organization that works to promote a Neo-Creationist religious agenda centering on Intelligent design, and is the hub of the Intelligent design movement. ...
William Albert Bill Dembski (born July 18, 1960) is an American mathematician, philosopher, theologian, and neo-creationist known for advocating the controversial idea of intelligent design in opposition to the mainstream theory of evolution through natural selection. ...
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, commonly referred to as InterVarsity or simply IV, is a nondenominational, evangelical Christian ministry for college students. ...
The intelligent design movement is a campaign based in the United States that calls for broad social, academic and political changes derived from the notion of intelligent design, a form of neo-creationism. ...
Since its founding in 1996, the CSC has spent 39 percent of its $9.3 million on research according to Meyer, underwriting books or papers, or often just paying universities to release professors from some teaching responsibilities so that they can ponder intelligent design. Over those nine years, $792,585 was spent to finance laboratory or field research in biology, paleontology or biophysics, while $93,828 was spent to help graduate students in paleontology, linguistics, history and philosophy.
The results of this are found in Discovery Institute-authored science class curricla, "model lesson plans," that are at the center of many of the current debates about including intelligent design in public school science classes. These are promoted by the CSC which urges states and school boards to include criticism of evolution science lessons, to "Teach the Controversy," rather than actually teach intelligent design which is susceptible to legal challenges on First Amendment grounds. The intelligent design movement is a campaign based in the United States that calls for broad social, academic and political changes derived from the notion of intelligent design, a form of neo-creationism. ...
Teach the Controversy is a slogan the Discovery Institute uses to promote intelligent design[1] and advance an education policy for US public schools which introduces creationist explanations for the origin of life to public-school science curricula. ...
The first ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. ...
Controversies In May 2005 the Discovery Institute donated $16,000 to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and by museum policy, this minimum donation allowed them to celebrate their donation inside the museum in a gathering. The Discovery Institute decided to screen a film entitled The Privileged Planet, based on the book The Privileged Planet, written by two senior fellows of the Discovery Institute. Notably, the video was also a production of Illustra Media, which has been identified as a front for a creationist production company. Upon further review, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History determined that the content of the video was inconsistent with the scientific research of the institution. They therefore refunded the $16,000, clearly denied any endorsement of the content of the video or of the Discovery Institute, and allowed the film to be shown in the museum as per the original agreement. Recent editorials have decried as naïve and negligent the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's failure to identify the Discovery Institute as a creationist organization, exclude the video with its review process in the first place, and identify the entire incident as an example of Wedge Strategy in action. The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank, structured as a non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Its areas of interest, social and political action include intelligent design, public school education, and transportation and bi-national cooperation in the international Cascadia region. ...
The museum as seen from the National Mall, the Old Post Office Building visible in the distance National Mall museum entrance The National Museum of Natural History is a museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museums collections total over...
The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank, structured as a non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Its areas of interest, social and political action include intelligent design, public school education, and transportation and bi-national cooperation in the international Cascadia region. ...
The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank, structured as a non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Its areas of interest, social and political action include intelligent design, public school education, and transportation and bi-national cooperation in the international Cascadia region. ...
A front organization (or organisation), also known as a front group (if it is structured to look like a voluntary association); a front company, a shell corporation or simply a front (if it is structured to look like a company), is any entity set up by and controlled by another...
The museum as seen from the National Mall, the Old Post Office Building visible in the distance National Mall museum entrance The National Museum of Natural History is a museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museums collections total over...
The museum as seen from the National Mall, the Old Post Office Building visible in the distance National Mall museum entrance The National Museum of Natural History is a museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museums collections total over...
The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank, structured as a non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Its areas of interest, social and political action include intelligent design, public school education, and transportation and bi-national cooperation in the international Cascadia region. ...
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, an organization that works to promote a Neo-Creationist religious agenda centering on Intelligent design, and is the hub of the Intelligent design movement. ...
The Center also funded research for the controversial book From Darwin to Hitler by Center fellow Richard Weikart [8]. Weikart claims that Darwinism's impact on ethics and morality played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all ultimately embraced by the Nazis. The reasoning and language Weikart employs mirrors both the preamble to the Wedge document and the center's early mission statement: "The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. Materialists denied the existence of objective standards binding on all cultures, claiming that environment dictates our moral beliefs." ... "materialism spawned a virulent strain of utopianism. Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth." [9] The Center also republishes similar articles from Weikart in which he expands on this theme [10]. Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ...
A euthanasia machine. ...
In sociology and biology, infanticide is the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species. ...
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, an organization that works to promote a Neo-Creationist religious agenda centering on Intelligent design, and is the hub of the Intelligent design movement. ...
Criticisms At the foundation of most criticism of the CSC and the Discovery Institute is the charge that the Institute intentionally misrepresents many facts in the promoting of its agenda. A wide spectrum of critics level this charge; from educators, scientists and the Smithsonian Institute to individuals who oppose the teaching of creationism alongside science on ideological grounds. The following are most common areas in which the Institute is accused of being intentionally misleading: - Teach the Controversy Mainstream scientific organizations maintain that there is no controversy to teach, in the sense that the theory of evolution is fully accepted by the scientific community. Such controversies that do exist concern the details of the mechanisms of evolution, not the validity of the over-arching theory of evolution, and the controversy alleged by the Discovery Institute is manufactured.
- Santorum Amendment Despite the amendment lacking the weight of law, consistent with the Discovery Institute's Wedge strategy, the amendment's inclusion in the conference report of the No Child Left Behind Act is constantly cited by the Discovery Institute as evidence that "federal education policy" calls for a "teach the controversy approach" [11].
- Wedge strategy and the Discovery Institute agenda A common allegation often leveled at the CSC by critics is that it is conducting a campaign, the ultimate goal of which is to reshape American culture by influencing public policy to reflect conservative Christian values. The Wedge document bolsters this claim. They claim that the Center's dismissal of the document and strategy is disingenuous, as when the Center's actions in the political sphere, such as its Teach the Controversy campaign, are taken into account it becomes apparent that the Wedge strategy is indeed being followed.
- Peer review Though the CSC often claims that articles and books asserting intelligent design are published in the peer-reviewed scientific press, the only pro-ID article that has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal was quickly retracted by the publisher. That article, titled The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories, was by the institute's Stephen C. Meyer and was published in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington in 2004. One month after its publication, the journal's publisher issued a statement repudiating the article as not meeting its scientific standards and as having side-stepped peer review. [12]
Intellectual dishonesty, in the form of misleading impressions created by the use of rhetoric, intentional ambiguity, and misrepresented evidence and a lack of rigour is one of the most common criticisms of the Center. It is alleged that its goal is to lead an unwary public to reach certain conclusions, and that many have been deceived as a result. Its critics, such as Eugenie Scott, Robert Pennock and Barbara Forrest, claim that the CSC knowingly misquotes scientists and other experts, deceptively omits contextual text through ellipsis, and makes unsupported amplifications of relationships and credentials. The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, an organization that works to promote a Neo-Creationist religious agenda centering on Intelligent design, and is the hub of the Intelligent design movement. ...
Signing ceremony at Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ohio. ...
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, an organization that works to promote a Neo-Creationist religious agenda centering on Intelligent design, and is the hub of the Intelligent design movement. ...
Intellectual dishonesty is the creation of misleading impressions through the use of rhetoric, logical fallacy, fraud, or misrepresented evidence. ...
For the medical term see rigor (medicine) Look up Rigour on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Rigour (American English: rigor) has a number of meanings in relation to intellectual life and discourse. ...
Eugenie Scott. ...
Robert T. Pennock is a philosopher now working on the Avida digital organism project at Michigan State University where he is an associate professor. ...
Barbara Forrest, PhD. is a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. ...
For the Figure of speech, see Ellipsis (figure of speech). ...
Critics claim that the CSC uses academic credentials and affiliations opportunistically. In 2001 the Discovery Institute purchased advertisements in three national publications (the New York Review of Books, the New Republic and the Weekly Standard) to proclaim the adherence of approximately 100 scientists to the following statement: "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." The New York Review of Books (or NYRB) is a biweekly magazine on literature, culture, and current affairs published in New York which takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity. ...
For other uses, see the disambiguation section. ...
The Weekly Standard is an American Conservative political magazine published 48 times per year. ...
Such statements commonly note the institutional affiliations of signatories for purposes of identification. But for some signatories, this statement strategically listed the institution that granted their PhD rather than the institutions with which individuals were then affiliated. For example, the institutions listed for Raymond G. Bohlin, Fazale Rana, and Jonathan Wells were the University of Texas, Ohio University, and the University of California, Berkeley, where they earned their degrees, rather than their current affiliations: Probe Ministries for Bohlin, the Reasons to Believe ministry for Rana, and the CSC for Wells. During controversies over evolution education in Georgia, New Mexico, Ohio, and Texas, similarly confusing lists of local scientists were circulated.
In another instance, the CSC frequently mentions the Nobel Prize in connection with Henry F. Schaefer, a CSC fellow, and chemist at the University of Georgia. Critics allege that CSC is inflating his reputation by constantly referring to him as a "five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize" because Nobel Prize nominations remain confidential for fifty years. The University of Georgia, often abbreviated UGA, is located approximately 70 miles north-east of Atlanta in Athens, Georgia and is the largest institution of higher learning and research in the State of Georgia. ...
Alongside the allegation that the Center intentionally misrepresents facts, critics also note that there is a noticeable conflict between what the CSC tells the public through the media and what they say before conservative Christian audiences. They allege that this is a studied and deliberate attempt at the obfuscation advocated by Wedge strategy author Phillip E. Johnson.[13] When speaking to a mainstream audience and to the media, the Institute portrays ID as a secular, scientific theory, that the teaching the controversy campaign does not promote ID, and that their agenda is not religiously motivated. But when speaking to what the Wedge document calls their "natural constituency, namely (conservative) Christians," the Institute's officers express themselves in unambiguously religious language that contradicts these statements. This in the belief that they cannot afford to alienate their constituency and major funding sources, virtually all of which are conservative religious organizations and individuals such as Howard Ahmanson, Jr.. Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Jr (born 1950) is an American millionaire philanthropist who funds the causes of Christian fundamentalism. ...
Another common criticism is that since no intelligent design research has been published in mainstream, peer-reviewed scientific journals, the Center and its fellows often misuse the work of mainstream scientists by putting out lists of articles that allegedly support their arguments for intelligent design, drawing from mainstream scientific literature. Often, the original authors respond that their articles cited by the Center don't support their arguments at all. Many times, the original authors have publicly refuted them for distorting the meaning of something they've written, for the Center's own purposes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...
University of Texas molecular biologist Sahotra Sarkar, who has testified that intelligent design advocates, and specifically the Discovery Institute, have misused his work by misrepresenting its conclusions to bolster their own claims, has gone on to allege that the extent of the misrepresentations rises to the level of professional malfeasance [14]: The University of Texas at Austin, often called UT or Texas, is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. ...
Molecular biology is the study of biology at a molecular level. ...
The expressions misfeasance and nonfeasance, and occasionally malfeasance, are used in English law with reference to the discharge of public obligations existing by common law, custom or statute. ...
"When testifying before the Texas State Board of Education in 2003 (in a battle over textbook adoption that we won hands down), I claimed that my work had been maliciously misused by members of the Discovery Institute. ...The trouble is that it says nothing of the sort that Meyer claims. I don't mention Dembski, ID, or "intelligent" information whatever that may be. I don't talk about assembly instructions. In fact what the paper essentially does is question the value of informational notions altogether, which made many molecular biologists unhappy, but which is also diametrically opposed to the "complex specified information" project of the ID creationists. ...Notice how my work is being presented as being in concordance with ID when Meyer knows very well where I stand on this issue. If Meyer were an academic, this kind of malfeasance would rightly earn him professional censure. Unfortunately he's not. He's only the Director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture." Critics can also be found outside of the scientific community. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has voiced First Amendment concerns over Discovery Institute's activities. He described the approach of the teach the controversy movement's proponents as "a disarming subterfuge designed to undermine solid evidence that all living things share a common ancestry": Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Americans United or AU for short) is an advocacy group in the United States which promotes the separation of church and state, a legal doctrine derived from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. ...
The first ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. ...
- "The movement is a veneer over a certain theological message. Every one of these groups is now actively engaged in trying to undercut sound science education by criticizing evolution," said Lynn. "It is all based on their religious ideology. Even the people who don't specifically mention religion are hard-pressed with a straight face to say who the intelligent designer is if it's not God." [15]
Funding The Center is funded through the Discovery Institute, which is largely underwritten by grants and gifts from wealthy Christian fundamentalist conservative individuals and groups, such as Howard Ahmanson Jr., Philip F. Anschutz, Richard Mellon Scaife, and the MacLellan Foundation[16]. The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank, structured as a non-profit educational foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Its areas of interest, social and political action include intelligent design, public school education, and transportation and bi-national cooperation in the international Cascadia region. ...
Fundamentalist Christianity is a fundamentalist movement, especially within American Protestantism. ...
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Jr (born 1950) is an American millionaire philanthropist who funds the causes of Christian fundamentalism. ...
Philip F. Anschutz(1939-) is an American billionaire who lives in Denver, Colorado. ...
Richard Mellon Scaife (born July 3, 1932 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a U.S. billionaire and owner–publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. ...
Published reports place the Discovery Institute's budget for ID-related programs at over $4 million per year. The Center's expenditures can be assumed to be substantial based on the scope and quality of the Center's extensive public relations campaigns, materials and contributions to local and regional ID and Teach the Controversy efforts.
CSC director, Stephen C. Meyer, admits most of the Center's money comes from wealthy donors from the Christian right. Howard Ahmanson Jr., who provided $1.5 million in funding that established the Center, has said his goal is "the total integration of biblical law into our lives." [17] The MacLellan Foundation commits itself to "the infallibility of the Scripture." [18] Most Discovery Institute donors have also contributed significantly to the Bush campaign. Until 1995, Ahmanson sat on the board of the Christian reconstructionist Chalcedon Foundation [19], and funds many causes important to the Christian right, including Christian Reconstructionism, whose goal is to place the U.S. "under the control of biblical law." Stephen C. Meyer is an American philosopher of science and theologian. ...
Christian Right is a term collectively referring to a spectrum of conservative Christian political and social movements and organizations characterized by their strong support of social values they deem traditional in the United States and other western countries. ...
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Jr (born 1950) is an American millionaire philanthropist who funds the causes of Christian fundamentalism. ...
This article is about the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, the incumbent President of the United States and victor of the 2004 Presidential Election. ...
Christian Right is a term collectively referring to a spectrum of conservative Christian political and social movements and organizations characterized by their strong support of social values they deem traditional in the United States and other western countries. ...
Christian Reconstructionism is a highly controversial religious and theological movement within Protestant Christianity. ...
Fellows Program Advisor Phillip E. Johnson Phillip E. Johnson (born 1940) is a retired UC Berkeley American law professor and author. ...
Senior fellows Michael Behe Professor Michael J. Behe (born 1952) is an American biochemist and intelligent design advocate. ...
David Berlinski (born 1942) is a mathematician who is the author of A Tour of the Calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm (ISBN 0156013916), On Systems Analysis, Newton’s Gift, The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky, and, most recently, Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics. ...
William Albert Bill Dembski (born July 18, 1960) is an American mathematician, philosopher, theologian, and neo-creationist known for advocating the controversial idea of intelligent design in opposition to the mainstream theory of evolution through natural selection. ...
Guillermo Gonzalez is an astrophysicist and assistant research professor at Iowa State University. ...
Nancy Pearcey Nancy Randolph Pearcey is an American author who is Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar at the World Journalism Institute. ...
John Corrigan Jonathan Wells is a biologist and Fellow of the Discovery Institutes Center for Science and Culture. ...
Fellows Francis J. Beckwith (1960-) was born in New York City and is the associate director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies and an associate professor of Church-State studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. ...
Raymond Bohlin, Ph. ...
Jack Collins (born 5 January, 1930) is a former Australian rules footballer. ...
Robin Collins is an American philosopher. ...
William Lane Craig (born August 23, 1949) is an American philosopher, theologian, and Christian apologist. ...
Dean H. Kenyon is Professor Emeritus of Biology at San Francisco State University and author of a controversial textbook on intelligent design. ...
Scott Minnich is an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho, and a fellow at the Discovery Institutes Center for Science and Culture. ...
J. P. Moreland is a well-known Christian author and apologist, and professor of theology at Biola University in La Mirada, California (suburban Los Angeles). ...
Paul Nelson may refer to: Paul Nelson (musician) Paul Nelson (creationist) This is a disambiguation page — a list of articles associated with the same title. ...
Henry Schaefer, Ph. ...
Charles Thaxton, Ph. ...
External links The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. ...
Reference notes - ↑ Patricia O’Connell Killen, a religion professor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma whose work centers around the regional religious identity of the Pacific Northwest, recently wrote that "religiously inspired think tanks such as the conservative evangelical Discovery Institute" are part of the "religious landscape" of that area. [20]
- ↑ Robert Pennock has pointed out that over 60 scientific societies have issued policy statements endorsing evolution as valid science [21], including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Scientific American, Society for Neuroscience, The Lancet, the National Academy of Sciences.
- ↑ "So the question is: "How to win?" That’s when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing"—the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do." Phillip E. Johnson. Touchstone Magazine interview, June 2002.
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