Discovery Institute Response
Olson invited the Discovery Institute, a hub of the intelligent design movement, to appear in the movie, but rather the institute responded by creating a website, Hoax of Dodos, characterizing the documentary as "revisionist history," and a "hoax" filled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations.
Biologist PZ Myers responded to the institute's "bogus complaint that Olson was lying in the movie" about Ernst Haeckel's drawings of embryos is false. Myers explained the drawings have not been used in recent biology textbooks "other than a mention that once upon a time Haeckel came up with this idea of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny." Myers and other critics of intelligent design have shown that each of these texts treats Haeckel's theory of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny as an example of an outdated exaggeration. Myers notes in his rebuttal of the criticism from design proponents that, "I would add that progress in evolutionary biology has led to better explanations of the phenomenon that vertebrate embryos go through a period of similarity: it lies in conserved genetic circuitry that lays down the body plan."
In early 2007 the Discovery Institute noted Olson claims, "The Discovery Institute is truly the big fish in this picture, with an annual budget of around $5 million." However, they responded that their budget is only $4.2 million, and they spend close to $1 million per year funding intelligent design.
Read more about this topic: Flock Of Dodos
Famous quotes containing the words discovery, institute and/or response:
“That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Because humans are not alone in exhibiting such behavior—bees stockpile royal jelly, birds feather their nests, mice shred paper—it’s possible that a pregnant woman who scrubs her house from floor to ceiling [just before her baby is born] is responding to a biological imperative . . . . Of course there are those who believe that . . . the burst of energy that propels a pregnant woman to clean her house is a perfectly natural response to their mother’s impending visit.”
—Mary Arrigo (20th century)