Monday, February 20, 2006
Discovery Institute Out for a Spin
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What the AAAS is discussing is the political and educational response it should mount to a political movement seeking to force pseudoscience into public schools as cover for the theological beliefs that it wants to teach there in violation of the United States Constitution. If ID advocates were interested in contributing to that debate, well, they wouldn’t be ID advocates, would they?
I must admit, though, I liked Eugenie Scott’s response to the Discovery Institute’s whining:
For more on the formation of the Alliance for Science, see the article, "Scientists rally here for evolution," in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, about the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science:
For the first time, the scientists invited public school teachers to their annual conference to voice their needs in the contentious national debate.
Recent court rulings have gone in favor of evolution. But many teachers are still worried. More than 300 came here from across the Midwest. They arrived with stories of finger-wagging parents who insist they abandon high school biology texts in favor of biblical creationism or intelligent design - the theory that life is so complex that it must be the work of a supernatural designer. They told of school board pressure in the science classroom. They spoke of helping students torn between academics and Sunday school learning.
Presenters at the conference said the battle is far from over. On Sunday morning, they announced the formation of a new organization of scientists, scientific groups and supporters -- the Alliance for Science -- to fight what they see as an assault on science from religious conservatives. The new organization aims to create graduate fellowships, increase funding for research, train math and science teachers, and build tax incentives for research and development, said co-chairman Paul Forbes.
Of course, the Discovery Institute is busily doing what it does best . . . not science, that’s for sure, but public relations spin:
"I don't understand how you can have a discussion of intelligent design if you only invite critics," said John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that supports scholars researching intelligent design. "That sounds like a monologue, not a discussion. I thought this was supposed to be science, not a pep rally."
What West slides over is, while this is a science conference, the scientific community is not debating Intelligent Design. It has already reached an overwhelming consensus that ID was not science back when it was called "Natural Theology" and that it isn’t science now just because some people slapped a new coat of paint on it.
What the AAAS is discussing is the political and educational response it should mount to a political movement seeking to force pseudoscience into public schools as cover for the theological beliefs that it wants to teach there in violation of the United States Constitution. If ID advocates were interested in contributing to that debate, well, they wouldn’t be ID advocates, would they?
I must admit, though, I liked Eugenie Scott’s response to the Discovery Institute’s whining:
Scott said that she and her colleagues had devoted a great deal of effort to organizing sessions for the AAAS meeting on the science of evolution.
Her advice to those who felt left out took on a biblical tone. "Go forth and do thou likewise," she said.
But I'm afraid that, as long as there is a PR stone left unturned, the Discovery Institute will not do anything as rash as going out and actually trying to discover something.
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