2008 Woodie Awards
The Discovery Institute: harming us with pseudoscience
Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: Opinion
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This weekend Dedman Law School's Christian Legal Society will be hosting a controversial and well-known institute that preaches a religious message masked in a capsule of pseudoscience.
The Discovery Institute is one of the nations leading political action groups. It fights to create a theistic world view that corrupts science to fit the doctrines of evangelical and literal Christians who are unable to reconcile their religious beliefs with the material world.
A controversial document (reported as the Wedge Document, a 1998 internal memo) stated the Institute's goal was to "drive a wedge" into "scientific materialism" in order to divorce it from its purely observational and naturalistic methodology and stop the deleterious effects of evolution on Western culture.
As you can see, this Institute, which is on our campus, this weekend does not seek to debate ideas in an academic, scientific or even rational setting. Perhaps more egregious is the fact that the Discovery Institute does not practice science, namely the scientific method. Science is driven by constant self-critique, analysis and experimentation. The scientific method is the cornerstone to this practice and is a tool that has not only progressed humanity into an age of technological, medical and societal marvel, but has helped to correct the flaws and pitfalls within science as well. The thing about the scientific method is that it relies on observable and recordable phenomena in the material world. Keep in mind the phrase "material world." This is key.
If that observable data does not match up with the hypothesis of the scientist then the hypothesis must be changed. This is an error correcting mechanism by the mere fact that if new data or new discoveries are made they can be tested against an accepted hypothesis. If the hypothesis does not stand it is made defunct and the scientific method starts over again to find a new hypothesis or explanation.
This is where the Discovery Institute fails. The claims they make, claims based purely on religious or supernatural grounds, can NOT be tested in the material world. I can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a god or gods via observable phenomena in the material world - and neither can the Discovery Institute no matter what they may tell you. If they do tell you this it is because they are saying it based on a spiritual and supernatural belief masked in scientific language - not in scientific language itself.
The Discovery Institute is one of the nations leading political action groups. It fights to create a theistic world view that corrupts science to fit the doctrines of evangelical and literal Christians who are unable to reconcile their religious beliefs with the material world.
A controversial document (reported as the Wedge Document, a 1998 internal memo) stated the Institute's goal was to "drive a wedge" into "scientific materialism" in order to divorce it from its purely observational and naturalistic methodology and stop the deleterious effects of evolution on Western culture.
As you can see, this Institute, which is on our campus, this weekend does not seek to debate ideas in an academic, scientific or even rational setting. Perhaps more egregious is the fact that the Discovery Institute does not practice science, namely the scientific method. Science is driven by constant self-critique, analysis and experimentation. The scientific method is the cornerstone to this practice and is a tool that has not only progressed humanity into an age of technological, medical and societal marvel, but has helped to correct the flaws and pitfalls within science as well. The thing about the scientific method is that it relies on observable and recordable phenomena in the material world. Keep in mind the phrase "material world." This is key.
If that observable data does not match up with the hypothesis of the scientist then the hypothesis must be changed. This is an error correcting mechanism by the mere fact that if new data or new discoveries are made they can be tested against an accepted hypothesis. If the hypothesis does not stand it is made defunct and the scientific method starts over again to find a new hypothesis or explanation.
This is where the Discovery Institute fails. The claims they make, claims based purely on religious or supernatural grounds, can NOT be tested in the material world. I can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a god or gods via observable phenomena in the material world - and neither can the Discovery Institute no matter what they may tell you. If they do tell you this it is because they are saying it based on a spiritual and supernatural belief masked in scientific language - not in scientific language itself.
Viewing Comments 1 - 10 of 18
Enezio E. de Almeida Filho
posted 4/14/07 @ 6:03 AM CST
I was astonished reading this post: Ben Wells needs to know that Darwin was more liberal than him. Darwin said that there are points in his theory that are debatable, and need to be fairly considered. (Continued…)
Scott Beach
posted 4/14/07 @ 3:13 PM CST
The proponents of intelligent design frequently state that ID is the "best" explanation for "certain features of the universe". They state that opinion of ID but they never present ID in the form of a scientific hypothesis. (Continued…)
Paul Burnett
posted 4/14/07 @ 8:24 PM CST
Unfortunately, the Disco Institute has already issued a response to Ben's story - at http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/04/ignorance_is_bliss_when_it_com. (Continued…)
Floyd Lee
posted 4/15/07 @ 3:08 PM CST
Just a small but important reminder from (non-creationist) philosopher of science Larry Laudan:
"If we could stand up on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like 'pseudo-science. (Continued…)
Ben Wells
posted 4/15/07 @ 5:11 PM CST
I would just like to state a few clarifications that came up in a few of the Discovery Institutes biased blogs.
First of they obviously did not read my article with an unbiased eye - my ONLY point was that the Discovery Institute begs the question that a deity (they don't refer to it of course as such because then they cant pretend to be a non-religious scientific institution) and that because they do such a thing they can not base their claims in science. (Continued…)
bryan dunn
posted 4/15/07 @ 9:29 PM CST
Good critique of the Disovery Institute and exposing of their tactics.
We have to be aware that science can be hijacked by shysters and need to be vigilant against pseudoscience. (Continued…)
Tim
posted 4/15/07 @ 10:18 PM CST
Enezio needs to remember that the Theory of Evolution is no longer 'Darwin's Theory' -- it has been tested, modified and expanded enormously since Darwin's time. (Continued…)
The Goldstein Gang
posted 4/16/07 @ 6:23 AM CST
And what about groups actually pushing an atheist agenda and using science as a front?
He have a "science" group in Kansas, in the heart of the controversy, that pretends to be about science but is dominated by board memebers with an anti religious agenda and devoted, by their own admission, to making the religious appear in the harshest light possible. (Continued…)
Ben (the other one)
posted 4/16/07 @ 10:00 AM CST
I congratulate you on outing the quackery of Intelligent Design. I don't believe scientific inquiry at American universities are at all threatened by the ID political agenda, but the American public is another story. (Continued…)
David Hardy
posted 4/16/07 @ 9:24 PM CST
Interesting editorial, even though you never saw the science presented by the ID folks, which is obvious, you never offered any science of your own. That is mainly because none exist, especially those that the SMU Prof's proposed in the Dallas Morning News editorial last week which have also never been proved and have been dispelled thousands of times but yet claim to be solid science. (Continued…)
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