Discovery Institute Intelligent Design Campaigns - Goal of The Campaigns

Goal of The Campaigns

The overarching goal of the Institute in conducting the intelligent design campaigns is religious; to replace science with "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." To accomplish this the Institute has conducted a number of public relations campaigns. The governing strategy of these various campaigns is called the Wedge strategy and was first made public when the Institute's "Wedge Document" was leaked on the World Wide Web in 1999. The Discovery Institute argues that science, due to its reliance on naturalism, is an inherently materialistic and atheistic enterprise and thus the source of many of society's ills, and that "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview."

None of the campaigns are aimed at directly influencing the scientific community, which the Institute considers dogmatic and hidebound, but rather are focused on swaying the opinions of the public and public policy makers, which, if effective, it is hoped will respond by forcing the academic institutions supporting the scientific community to accept the Discovery Institute's redefinition of 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.

In a Seattle Weekly article, Nina Shapiro quoted Institute founder and president Bruce Chapman when she wrote that behind all Discovery Institute programs there is an underlying hidden religious agenda:

Yet the Discovery Institute as an organization didn't get involved in the issue in order to solve the mysteries of the universe. Chapman is up front about having a social and political agenda. He sees design intelligence as a way to combat the growing reliance on genetic explanations for human behavior and what he sees as an undermining of personal responsibility. As an example of this phenomena, Chapman cites the infamous "Twinkie defense" used by a murder defendant claiming his sugar high made him do it. Others associated with the institute take a bigger leap of logic to argue that welfare, as currently dispensed, is a misguided consequence of the Darwinian outlook. "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. "If they're more than that, you treat the whole person," he argues, which would mean looking at such things as family structure and the role of moral and religious values in their lives. Do you really have to attack a whole branch of science in order to counter liberal views on welfare? The Discovery Institute folk think they do. "Unless you get the science right," Chapman says, "it's very hard to contend with the other arguments."

— Nina Shapiro, The New Creationists

The Institute's approach has been to position itself as opposed to any required teaching intelligent design, while campaigns such as Teach the Controversy and Critical Analysis of Evolution introduce high school students to design arguments through the Discovery Institute-drafted lesson plans. Teach the Controversy and Free Speech on Evolution both require that "competing" or "alternative" "theories" to evolution to be presented while the Critical Analysis of Evolution model lesson plan fills that requirement by listing intelligent design books by Institute Fellows as such alternatives for students.

"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."