Foundations

Documents show Gonzalez was denied fair tenure process by hostile colleagues who plotted behind his back, suppressed evidence, and then misled the public. Click Here To See a PDF Version of this Document with Citations Included. Executive Summary.Internal e-mails and other documents obtained under the Iowa Open Records Act contradict public claims by Iowa State University (ISU) that denial of tenure to astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez was unrelated to his writing on the theory of intelligent design. According to these documents: The bottom line according to these documents is that Dr. Gonzalez’s rights to academic freedom, free speech, and a fair tenure process were trampled on by colleagues who were driven by ideological zeal when they should have made an impartial Read More ›

Some Darwinists are presently making the false assertion that Discovery Institute wanted Judge Jones to rule broadly on whether ID is science in the Kitzmiller case. All this comes in the wake of Judge Jones’ recent admissions regarding the activist nature of the Kitzmiller ruling. The Darwinist response to Judge Jones’s admissions is revealing: Rather than defending the Judge Jones activist behavior in the Kitzmller ruling, Darwinists have implicitly conceded the activism by changing the subject, and attacking us for allegedly encouraging its activism. As is the usual case when ID proponents make a good point, Darwinists try to deflect the issue by changing the subject and launching into personal attacks. This tells you that we have done something right Read More ›

You can tell when the Christmas season is approaching — by the nip in the air, and by the jump in the level of crankiness exhibited by Darwinists in the blogosphere. This year Christmas apparently has come early for internet Darwinists, who have been raising a kerfluffle on their blogs about Discovery Institute Senior Fellow William Dembski’s usage of a clip of some Harvard-commissioned animation of the cell in a few of his lectures. In typical high dudgeon, Darwinists have accused Dr. Dembski of all sorts of nefarious violations of intellectual property law. Some have even claimed (as usual, without an iota of evidence) that Discovery Institute supports the disregard of copyright laws or even had something to do with Dr. Dembski’s usage of the animation in question. (Wrong on both counts.)

According to a recent article in the Seattle Times, “School officials unite in banning Wikipedia,” because “[t]here have been many cases of incorrect information on the Web site, some of which has been biased.” The article reports that sadly, “A teacher researching Martin Luther King Jr. found white supremacist information in his entry.” Dr. King is one of my personal heroes. His perseverance in support of a just cause, and his calls for civil, reasoned responses to false personal attacks and persecution should be seen as a model for any ID proponent on how to behave in the present political climate. Thus, it is tragically unsurprising that Wikipedia, which promotes so much incorrect and biased information against intelligent design, should Read More ›

As part of our response to the PBS-NOVA documentary “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design,” Discovery Institute recently released “The Theory of Intelligent Design: A Briefing Packet for Educators” (available free for download, here). The packet contains numerous resources for educators trying to effectively teach about biological origins in public schools. These resources include: The packet also details Discovery Institute’s preferred policy for teaching intelligent design (ID) and evolution in public schools, explaining that we oppose mandating ID in public schools: As a matter of public policy, Discovery Institute opposes any effort require the teaching of intelligent design by school districts or state boards of education. Attempts to mandate teaching about intelligent design only politicize the theory and will hinder fair and Read More ›

PBS-NOVA’s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary has evoked much commentary and response. In fact, we have recently received a flood of e-mails from members of the public who felt that “Judgment Day” was heavily biased and inaccurate, including e-mails from educators and teachers who thanked us for correcting the misinformation promoted by PBS. Other e-mails have not been so nice, showing that sadly, some Darwinists apparently lack the Thanksgiving holiday spirit. Below is a sampling of some of the e-mails we have received recently: One Darwinist wrote us to explain that he is a “science teacher,” showing the type of example that he sets for his students regarding how to discuss controversial scientific and social issues: “May you Read More ›

Federal judges don’t ordinarily travel around the country speaking about their judicial rulings, but Judge Jones is no ordinary federal judge. While promoting the PBS-NOVA special on intelligent design, he recently appeared the Lehrer Newshour, where he made striking admissions that demonstrate the activist nature of the Kitzmiller ruling. Two hallmarks of judicial activism are (1) the tendency to resolve questions outside the scope of the judiciary, which are best left to other branches of government,1 and (2) the intent to make policy and influence parties outside of the case.2 Judge Jones’ own admissions on the Lehrer Newshour demonstrate that both of these criticisms correctly apply to his Kitzmiller ruling. Judge Jones’ Expansive Intrusion into Legislative QuestionsFirst, Judge Jones admitted Read More ›

Nearly 20 years ago, a small non-profit in Texas, The Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), published a short supplemental textbook called Of Pandas and People (Pandas). This event did not go unnoticed. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) soon thereafter published numerous reviews condemning Pandas as a “creationist … ‘equal time’ tract” that presented “a pot pourri of half-truths, untruths, and nonsense.” Law review articles were published hoping to prove Pandas unconstitutional. In 2005, a federal judge banned Pandas outright from science classrooms in Dover, Pennsylvania — but only after denying FTE the right to appear before the court to defend the book. Most troubling, the judge largely ignored the published text of Pandas, instead scrutinizing long-forgotten pre-publication Read More ›

Today’s edition of the student newspaper at Baylor University carries a devastating investigative report exposing new details of the university’s shameful treatment of pro-ID engineering professor Robert Marks. Anyone who thinks Baylor science faculty have academic freedom to research and write about ID should read this article, which provides extensive documentation of the lengths to which some Baylor administrators will go to censor and shut down open discussion and research about intelligent design. From reading the article, it appears that the intolerance of pro-ID faculty comes from the very top of the institution. This account makes a mockery of Baylor’s own Faculty Handbook, which promises faculty that

Paula Apsell was the executive producer of PBS/NOVA’s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design” documentary, which tries to inaccurately paint ID as a creationist idea that has been refuted by science. But in fact, a few years ago Ms. Apsell produced a different NOVA documentary entitled “Mystery of the Megaflood.” For a geologist like me, it’s a fascinating tale about how mainstream geologists took decades to accept the view that a giant post-glacial flood was responsible for much of the bizarre geological features found in eastern Washington. According to Apsell’s “Megaflood” documentary, a geologist in the early 1900s named J. Harlen Bretz proposed a catastrophic local flood theory to explain this geology. Bretz was ridiculed by his contemporary geologists because his ideas Read More ›