[1] The Discovery Institute promotes the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement and is represented by Creative Response Concepts, a public relations firm.
[6][7] These three claims are all publicized in the pro-ID movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed; the Anti-Defamation League said the film's attempt to blame science for the Nazi Holocaust was outrageous.
[10][11] Intelligent design has been rejected, both by the vast majority of scientists and by court findings, such as Kitzmiller v. Dover, as being a religious view and not science.
Public high school science curricula has been the most common and visible target of the campaigns, with the Institute publishing its own model lesson plan, the Critical Analysis of Evolution.
"If you see human beings as nothing but matter and motion, than all you do is treat them like mouths to feed," says Jay Richards, program director for the institute's Center for Science and Culture.
[citation needed] "Discovery Institute opposes mandating the teaching of intelligent design, but it supports requiring students to know about scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory, which is the approach adopted by the science standards in Ohio, Minnesota, New Mexico, and currently under discussion in Kansas.
Discovery Institute also supports the right of teachers to voluntarily discuss the scientific debate over intelligent design free from persecution or intimidation.
"[15]Previously, attempts to introduce creationism into public high school science curricula had been derailed when this was found to have violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
[16]Gordy Slack of Salon interpreted this tactic as: "the 'more' they want to teach, of course, is what they see as evolution's shortcomings, leaving an ecological niche that will then be filled by intelligent design.
[citation needed] The claim that "scientists, teachers, and students are under attack for questioning evolution" and have been discriminated against,[20] is the centerpiece of a number of campaigns conducted by the Institute.
[citation needed] Notable among these campaigns is the Sternberg peer review controversy and in the more recent case of Guillermo Gonzalez's denial of tenure.
[further explanation needed] As part of a long term strategy the Institute actively promotes an image of intelligent design proponents suffering professional setbacks or failing to advance as victims of "Darwinist inquisitions" conducted by "Thought Police".
[21][failed verification] Critics of intelligent design and the Institute such as PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott and Barbara Forrest frequently find themselves the subjects of unflattering articles on the Institute's blog which ignores or downplays the responses of large scientific and academic organizations rejecting intelligent design while portraying opponents as members of an academic and scientific fringe and minority.
[citation needed] In August 2007, an upcoming movie publicising a number of these incidents was announced, entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and starring Ben Stein.
[34] The primary message of the campaign was: "Across America, the freedom of scientists, teachers, and students to question Darwin is coming under increasing attack by what can only be called Darwinian fundamentalists.
In 2006, Discovery Institute Fellow John West nominated the book Of Pandas and People, on the basis of it being "at the heart of" Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
[49] Between 2004 and 2008 a number of anti-evolution 'Academic Freedom' bills were introduced in State legislatures in Alabama, Oklahoma, Maryland, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri and Michigan, based largely upon language drafted by the Discovery Institute.
They purport that teachers, students, and college professors face intimidation and retaliation when discussing scientific criticisms of evolution, and therefore require protection.
[50]Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs at Discovery Institute, is the contact person for the campaign's Model Academic Freedom Statute on Evolution.
The 'Judeo-Christian' worldview is unproblematically associated here with many beliefs – such as opposition to birth control, legalized abortion, and assisted suicide--that many believing Christians and Jews would reject.
[63] Peter Irons responded to the DeWolf et al. article, arguing that the decision was extremely well reasoned, and that it marks the end to legal efforts by the intelligent design movement to introduce creationism in public schools.
"[66] The study, though making no specific allegations of wrongdoing, implies that Judge Jones relied upon the plaintiff's submissions in writing his own conclusions of law.
These denials are at times bitter and abrasive, for example: [John Derbyshire] still can't understand the obvious differences between creationism and intelligent design, continually conflating the two and looking like an ill-informed crank.However this assertion has been refuted both in court and academia.
In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Judge John E. Jones III found that "the overwhelming evidence at trial established that intelligent design is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.
"[72] Numerous books have been written by prominent academics documenting intelligent design as a form of creationism, e.g.: The Discovery Institute has created a number of petitions to give the impression that there are widespread doubts about the Theory of Evolution among scientists and scientifically-literate professionals.
The medical doctors and comparable professionals are signatories to a statement which disputes evolution, which they refer to as "Darwinian macroevolution" or "Darwinism", which are both misleading terms.
The statement is similar to the one of the A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism of the Discovery Institute which has come under extensive criticism from a variety of sources as misleading, poorly phrased and containing only a tiny fraction of professionals in relevant fields.
Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.The value of the opinions of physicians, surgeons, veterinarians, optometrists and other signatories of this petition is not clear.
[91][92][93][94] McGill University Professor of Education Brian Alters states in an article published by the NIH that "99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution".
The Templeton Foundation, who once provided grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design has since rejected the Discovery Institute's entreaties for more funding, Foundation senior vice president Charles L. Harper Jr. said "They're political – that for us is problematic," and that while Discovery has "always claimed to be focused on the science," "what I see is much more focused on public policy, on public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth.