Discovery Institute

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See Discovery Institute in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Discovery Institute (DI) is a conservative think tank based in Seattle Washington. DI maintains www.discovery.organd is the most visible arm of the "Intelligent Design" movement. DI proponents claim to be a non-sectarian research program investigating the appearance of design in nature. Articles about "Intelligent Design" by DI fellows are located at the above-mentioned site. Op-ed pieces written by DI fellows including sympathetic news stories featuring DI or their fellows, are also archived within their site.


See Center for Science and Culture in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The DI has authored a document, known as the "Wedge document", outlining their political opposition to the evolutionary sciences and their strategy to popularize intelligent design amongst non-scientists. While DI has multiple activities, their anti-evolution activity is contained in a sub-group, Center for Science and Culture [1], formerly known as Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.

Lately they have been involved in the adoption of biology texts in Texas. They prepared an analysis of textbooks based upon Jonathan Wells' book Icons of Evolution and have appeared at public hearings into textbook adoption criticizing "Neo-Darwinism" as "propaganda" (J. Buziwesksi) and the textbooks as containing "weaknesses" and "factual errors". In the recent past they - meaning DI or fellows of DI, who do not always identify themselves as associated with DI - have been involved in lobbying for curriculum changes in Ohio and other states. I attended the hearing in Texas in September. My observation of their actions and subsequent press such as Steve Meyer's op-ed piece printed in the Houston Chronicle is that DI fellows are extremely slick, extremely well-spoken, and most of what they say is counterfactual when you check it out. However, it is very difficult to counter them because they throw out so many good-sounding one-liners that take half a page to several pages to analyze and rebut.

I highly recommend the book Reason in the Balance by Phillip Johnson if you want to understand where they are coming from. This book is short, highly readable, and outlines a definitive persuasive argument for why he thinks Christians should be interested in Intelligent Design.

External Links

List of DI Fellows and Board members

Retrieved from "http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Discovery_Institute"
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