Center For Science and Culture - Criticism

Criticism

Most criticism of the CSC and the Discovery Institute is that the Institute intentionally misrepresents many facts in the promoting of its agenda. A wide spectrum of critics level this charge; from educators, scientists and the Smithsonian Institute to individuals who oppose the teaching of creationism alongside science on ideological grounds. The following are most common areas in which the Institute is accused of being intentionally misleading:

• Teach the Controversy Mainstream scientific organizations maintain that there is no controversy to teach, in the sense that the theory of evolution is fully accepted by the scientific community. Such controversies that do exist concern the details of the mechanisms of evolution, not the validity of the overarching theory of evolution, and the controversy alleged by the Discovery Institute is manufactured.

• Santorum Amendment Despite the amendment lacking the weight of law, consistent with the Discovery Institute's Wedge strategy, the amendment's inclusion in the conference report of the No Child Left Behind Act is constantly cited by the Discovery Institute as evidence that "federal education policy" calls for a "teach the controversy approach".

• Wedge strategy and the Discovery Institute agenda A common allegation often leveled at the CSC by critics is that it is conducting a campaign, the ultimate goal of which is to reshape American culture by influencing public policy to reflect conservative Christian values. The Wedge document bolsters this claim. They claim that the Center's dismissal of the document and strategy is disingenuous, as when the Center's actions in the political sphere, such as its Teach the Controversy campaign, are taken into account it becomes apparent that the Wedge strategy is indeed being followed.

• Peer review Though the CSC often claims that articles and books asserting intelligent design are published in the peer-reviewed scientific press, no pro-ID article has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The one article that had been was quickly retracted by the publisher. The article, titled The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories, was by the institute's Stephen C. Meyer and was published in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington in 2004. One month after its publication, the journal's publisher issued a statement repudiating the article as not meeting its scientific standards and as having sidestepped peer review (see Sternberg peer review controversy).

Intellectual dishonesty, in the form of misleading impressions created by the use of rhetoric, intentional ambiguity, and misrepresented evidence and a lack of rigour is one of the most common criticisms of the Center. It is alleged that its goal is to lead an unwary public to reach certain conclusions, and that many have been deceived as a result. Its critics, such as Eugenie Scott, Robert Pennock and Barbara Forrest, claim that the CSC knowingly misquotes scientists and other experts, deceptively omits contextual text through ellipsis, and makes unsupported amplifications of relationships and credentials.

Barbara Forrest, author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design and Glenn Branch say that the CSC uses academic credentials and affiliations opportunistically. In 2001 the Discovery Institute purchased advertisements in three national publications (the New York Review of Books, the New Republic and the Weekly Standard) to proclaim the adherence of approximately 100 scientists to the following statement: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

Such statements commonly note the institutional affiliations of signatories for purposes of identification. But this statement strategically listed either the institution that granted a signatory's PhD or the institutions with which the individual is presently affiliated. Thus the institutions listed for Raymond G. Bohlin, Fazale Rana, and Jonathan Wells, for example, were the University of Texas, Ohio University, and the University of California, Berkeley, where they earned their degrees, rather than their current affiliations: Probe Ministries for Bohlin, the Reasons to Believe ministry for Rana, and the CSC for Wells. During controversies over evolution education in Georgia, New Mexico, Ohio, and Texas, similarly confusing lists of local scientists were circulated.

In another instance, the CSC frequently mentions the Nobel Prize in connection with Henry F. Schaefer, a CSC fellow, and chemist at the University of Georgia. Critics allege that CSC is inflating his reputation by constantly referring to him as a "five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize" since Nobel Prize nominations remain confidential for fifty years.

Alongside the allegation that the center intentionally misrepresents facts, Eugenie Scott and other critics say there is a noticeable conflict between what the CSC tells the public through the media and what they say before conservative Christian audiences. They contend that this is a studied and deliberate attempt at the obfuscation advocated by Wedge strategy author Phillip E. Johnson. When speaking to a mainstream audience and to the media, the institute portrays ID as a secular, scientific theory, that the teaching the controversy campaign does not promote ID, and that their agenda is not religiously motivated. But when speaking to what the Wedge document calls their "natural constituency, namely (conservative) Christians," the institute's officers express themselves in unambiguously religious language that contradicts these statements. This in the belief that they cannot afford to alienate their constituency and major funding sources, virtually all of which are conservative religious organizations and individuals such as Howard Ahmanson, Jr..

Critics can also be found outside of the scientific community. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has voiced First Amendment concerns over Discovery Institute's activities. He described the approach of the teach the controversy movement's proponents as "a disarming subterfuge designed to undermine solid evidence that all living things share a common ancestry":

"The movement is a veneer over a certain theological message. Every one of these groups is now actively engaged in trying to undercut sound science education by criticizing evolution," said Lynn. "It is all based on their religious ideology. Even the people who don't specifically mention religion are hard-pressed with a straight face to say who the intelligent designer is if it's not God."

In 2004 Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross published Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design documenting the history of the intelligent design movement and the DI's Center for Science and Culture as well as critiquing the ID "research"(Oxford University Press). Forrest and Gross referred to the group as an outgrowth of Johnson's religious mission and explored its plans for "a rigorously God-centered view of creation, including a new 'science' based solidly on theism."