Re: Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive
- From: "GWhyte" <gwhyte3003@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 12:47:36 -0400
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> Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive
>
> By JODI WILGOREN
> Published: August 21, 2005
>
> SEATTLE - When President Bush plunged into the debate over the teaching of
> evolution this month, saying, "both sides ought to be properly taught," he
> seemed to be reading from the playbook of the Discovery Institute, the
> conservative think tank here that is at the helm of this newly volatile
> frontier in the nation's culture wars.
>
> After toiling in obscurity for nearly a decade, the institute's Center for
> Science and Culture has emerged in recent months as the ideological and
> strategic backbone behind the eruption of skirmishes over science in
school
> districts and state capitals across the country. Pushing a "teach the
> controversy" approach to evolution, the institute has in many ways
> transformed the debate into an issue of academic freedom rather than a
> confrontation between biology and religion.
>
> Mainstream scientists reject the notion that any controversy over
evolution
> even exists. But Mr. Bush embraced the institute's talking points by
> suggesting that alternative theories and criticism should be included in
> biology curriculums "so people can understand what the debate is about."
>
> Financed by some of the same Christian conservatives who helped Mr. Bush
win
> the White House, the organization's intellectual core is a scattered group
> of scholars who for nearly a decade have explored the unorthodox
explanation
> of life's origins known as intelligent design.
>
> Together, they have mounted a politically savvy challenge to evolution as
> the bedrock of modern biology, propelling a fringe academic movement onto
> the front pages and putting Darwin's defenders firmly on the defensive.
>
> Like a well-tooled electoral campaign, the Discovery Institute has a
> carefully crafted, poll-tested message, lively Web logs - and millions of
> dollars from foundations run by prominent conservatives like Howard and
> Roberta Ahmanson, Philip F. Anschutz and Richard Mellon Scaife. The
> institute opened an office in Washington last fall and in January hired
the
> same Beltway public relations firm that promoted the Contract With America
> in 1994.
>
> "We are in the very initial stages of a scientific revolution," said the
> center's director, Stephen C. Meyer, 47, a historian and philosopher of
> science recruited by Discovery after he protested a professor's being
> punished for criticizing Darwin in class. "We want to have an effect on
the
> dominant view of our culture."
>
> For the institute's president, Bruce K. Chapman, a Rockefeller Republican
> turned Reagan conservative, intelligent design appealed to his contrarian,
> futuristic sensibilities - and attracted wealthy, religious
philanthropists
> like the Ahmansons at a time when his organization was surviving on a
> shoestring. More student of politics than science geek, Mr. Chapman
embraced
> the evolution controversy as the institute's signature issue precisely
> because of its unpopularity in the establishment.
>
> "When someone says there's one thing you can't talk about, that's what I
> want to talk about," said Mr. Chapman, 64.
>
> As much philosophical worldview as scientific hypothesis, intelligent
design
> challenges Darwin's theory of natural selection by arguing that some
> organisms are too complex to be explained by evolution alone, pointing to
> the possibility of supernatural influences. While mutual acceptance of
> evolution and the existence of God appeals instinctively to a faithful
> public, intelligent design is shunned as heresy in mainstream universities
> and science societies as untestable in laboratories.
>
> Entering the Public Policy Sphere
>
> From its nondescript office suites here, the institute has provided an
> institutional home for the dissident thinkers, pumping $3.6 million in
> fellowships of $5,000 to $60,000 per year to 50 researchers since the
> science center's founding in 1996. Among the fruits are 50 books on
> intelligent design, many published by religious presses like InterVarsity
or
> Crossway, and two documentaries that were broadcast briefly on public
> television. But even as the institute spearheads the intellectual
> development of intelligent design, it has staked out safer turf in the
> public policy sphere, urging states and school boards simply to include
> criticism in evolution lessons rather than actually teach intelligent
> design.
>
> Since the presidential election last fall, the movement has made inroads
and
> evolution has emerged as one of the country's fiercest cultural
> battlefronts, with the National Center for Science Education tracking 78
> clashes in 31 states, more than twice the typical number of incidents.
> Discovery leaders have been at the heart of the highest-profile
> developments: helping a Roman Catholic cardinal place an opinion article
in
> The New York Times in which he sought to distance the church from
evolution;
> showing its film promoting design and purpose in the universe at the
> Smithsonian; and lobbying the Kansas Board of Education in May to require
> criticism of evolution.
>
> These successes follow a path laid in a 1999 Discovery manifesto known as
> the Wedge Document, which sought "nothing less than the overthrow of
> materialism and its cultural legacies" in favor of a "broadly theistic
> understanding of nature."
>
> President Bush's signature education law, known as No Child Left Behind,
> also helped, as mandatory testing prompted states to rewrite curriculum
> standards. Ohio, New Mexico and Minnesota have embraced the institute's
> "teach the controversy" approach; Kansas is expected to follow suit in the
> fall.
>
> Detractors dismiss Discovery as a fundamentalist front and intelligent
> design as a clever rhetorical detour around the 1987 Supreme Court ruling
> banning creationism from curriculums. But the institute's approach is more
> nuanced, scholarly and politically adept than its Bible-based predecessors
> in the century-long battle over biology.
>
> A closer look shows a multidimensional organization, financed by
missionary
> and mainstream groups - the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides $1
> million a year, including $50,000 of Mr. Chapman's $141,000 annual
salary -
> and asserting itself on questions on issues as varied as local
> transportation and foreign affairs.
>
> Many of the research fellows, employees and board members are, indeed,
> devout and determinedly conservative; pictures of William J. Bennett, the
> moral crusader and former drug czar, are fixtures on office walls, and
some
> leaders have ties to movement mainstays like Focus on the Family. All but
a
> few in the organization are Republicans, though these include moderates
> drawn by the institute's pragmatic, iconoclastic approach on
nonideological
> topics like technology.
>
> But even as intelligent design has helped raise Discovery's profile, the
> institute is starting to suffer from its success. Lately, it has tried to
> distance itself from lawsuits and legislation that seek to force schools
to
> add intelligent design to curriculums, placing it in the awkward spot of
> trying to promote intelligent design as a robust frontier for scientists
but
> not yet ripe for students.
>
> The group is also fending off attacks from the left, as critics liken it
to
> Holocaust deniers or the Taliban. Concerned about the criticism,
Discovery's
> Cascadia project, which focuses on regional transportation and is the
> recipient of the large grant from the Gates Foundation, created its own
Web
> site to ensure an individual identity.
>
> "All ideas go through three stages - first they're ignored, then they're
> attacked, then they're accepted," said Jay W. Richards, a philosopher and
> the institute's vice president. "We're kind of beyond the ignored stage.
> We're somewhere in the attack."
>
> Origins of an Institute
>
> Founded in 1990 as a branch of the Hudson Institute, based in
Indianapolis,
> the institute was named for the H.M.S. Discovery, which explored Puget
Sound
> in 1792. Mr. Chapman, a co-author of a 1966 critique of Barry M.
Goldwater's
> anti-civil-rights campaign, "The Party That Lost Its Head," had been a
> liberal Republican on the Seattle City Council and candidate for governor,
> but moved to the right in the Reagan administration, where he served as
> director of the Census Bureau and worked for Edwin Meese III.
>
> In late 1993, Mr. Chapman clipped an essay in The Wall Street Journal by
Dr.
> Meyer, who was teaching at a Christian college in Spokane, Wash.,
concerning
> a biologist yanked from a lecture hall for discussing intelligent design.
> About a year later, over dinner at the Sorrento Hotel here, Dr. Meyer and
> George Gilder, Mr. Chapman's long-ago Harvard roommate and his writing
> partner, discovered parallel theories of mind over materialism in their
> separate studies of biology and economics.
>
> "Bruce kind of perked up and said, 'This is what makes a think tank,' "
Dr.
> Meyer recalled. "There was kind of an 'Aha!' moment in the conversation,
> there was a common metaphysic in these two ideas."
>
> That summer of 1995, Mr. Chapman and Dr. Meyer had dinner with a
> representative of the Ahmansons, the banking billionaires from Orange
> County, Calif., who had previously given a small grant to the institute
and
> underwritten an early conclave of intelligent design scholars. Dr. Meyer,
> who had grown friendly enough with the Ahmansons to tutor their young son
in
> science, recalled being asked, "What could you do if you had some
financial
> backing?"
>
>
> So in 1996, with the promise of $750,000 over three years from the
Ahmansons
> and a smaller grant from the MacLellan Foundation, which supports
> organizations "committed to furthering the Kingdom of Christ," according
to
> its Web site, the institute's Center for Science and Culture was born.
>
> "Bruce is a contrarian, and this was a contrarian idea," said Edward J.
> Larson, the historian and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the
> Scopes Monkey Trial, who was an early fellow at the institute, but left in
> part because of its drift to the right. "The institute was living
> hand-to-mouth. Here was an academic, credible activity that involved
> funders. It interested conservatives. It brought in money."
>
> Support From Religious Groups
>
> The institute would not provide details about its backers "because they
get
> harassed," Mr. Chapman said. But a review of tax documents on
> www.guidestar.org, a Web site that collects data on foundations, showed
its
> grants and gifts jumped to $4.1 million in 2003 from $1.4 million in 1997,
> the most recent and oldest years available. The records show financial
> support from 22 foundations, at least two-thirds of them with explicitly
> religious missions.
>
> There is the Henry P. and Susan C. Crowell Trust of Colorado Springs,
whose
> Web site describes its mission as "the teaching and active extension of
the
> doctrines of evangelical Christianity." There is also the AMDG Foundation
in
> Virginia, run by Mark Ryland, a Microsoft executive turned Discovery vice
> president: the initials stand for Ad Majorem Dei Glorium, Latin for "To
the
> greater glory of God," which Pope John Paul II etched in the corner of all
> his papers.
>
> And the Stewardship Foundation, based in Tacoma, Wash., whose Web site
says
> it was created "to contribute to the propagation of the Christian Gospel
by
> evangelical and missionary work," gave the group more than $1 million
> between 1999 and 2003.
>
> By far the biggest backers of the intelligent design efforts are the
> Ahmansons, who have provided 35 percent of the science center's $9.3
million
> since its inception and now underwrite a quarter of its $1.3 million
annual
> operations. Mr. Ahmanson also sits on Discovery's board.
>
> The Ahmansons' founding gift was joined by $450,000 from the MacLellan
> Foundation, based in Chattanooga, Tenn.
>
> "We give for religious purposes," said Thomas H. McCallie III, its
executive
> director. "This is not about science, and Darwin wasn't about science.
> Darwin was about a metaphysical view of the world."
>
> The institute also has support from secular groups like the Verizon
> Foundation and the Gates Foundation, which gave $1 million in 2000 and
> pledged $9.35 million over 10 years in 2003. Greg Shaw, a grant maker at
the
> Gates Foundation, said the money was "exclusive to the Cascadia project"
on
> regional transportation.
>
> But the evolution controversy has cost it the support of the Bullitt
> Foundation, based here, which gave $10,000 in 2001 for transportation, as
> well as the John Templeton Foundation in Pennsylvania, whose Web site
> defines it as devoted to pursuing "new insights between theology and
> science."
>
> Denis Hayes, director of the Bullitt Foundation, described Discovery in an
> e-mail message as "the institutional love child of Ayn Rand and Jerry
> Falwell," saying, "I can think of no circumstances in which the Bullitt
> Foundation would fund anything at Discovery today."
>
> Charles L. Harper Jr., the senior vice president of the Templeton
> Foundation, said he had rejected the institute's entreaties since
providing
> $75,000 in 1999 for a conference in which intelligent design proponents
> confronted critics. "They're political - that for us is problematic," Mr.
> Harper said. While Discovery has "always claimed to be focused on the
> science," he added, "what I see is much more focused on public policy, on
> public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth."
>
> For three years after completing graduate school in 1996, William A.
Dembski
> could not find a university job, but he nonetheless received what he
called
> "a standard academic salary" of $40,000 a year.
>
> "I was one of the early beneficiaries of Discovery largess," said Dr.
> Dembski, whose degrees include a doctorate in mathematics from the
> University of Chicago, one in philosophy from the University of Illinois
and
> a master's of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary.
>
> Money for Teachers and Students
>
> Since its founding in 1996, the science center has spent 39 percent of its
> $9.3 million on research, Dr. Meyer said, underwriting books or papers, or
> often just paying universities to release professors from some teaching
> responsibilities so that they can ponder intelligent design. Over those
nine
> years, $792,585 financed laboratory or field research in biology,
> paleontology or biophysics, while $93,828 helped graduate students in
> paleontology, linguistics, history and philosophy.
>
> The 40 fellows affiliated with the science center are an eclectic group,
> including David Berlinski, an expatriate mathematician living in Paris who
> described his only religion to be "having a good time all the time," and
> Jonathan Wells, a member of the Unification Church, led by the Rev. Sun
> Myung Moon, who once wrote in an essay, "My prayers convinced me that I
> should devote my life to destroying Darwinism."
>
> Their credentials - advanced degrees from Stanford, Columbia, Yale, the
> University of Texas, the University of California - are impressive, but
> their ideas are often ridiculed in the academic world.
>
> "They're interested in the same things I'm interested in - no one else
is,"
> Guillermo Gonzalez, 41, an astronomer at the University of Iowa, said of
his
> colleagues at Discovery. "What I'm doing, frankly, is frowned upon by most
> of my colleagues. It's not something a 'scientist' is supposed to do."
Other
> than Dr. Berlinski, most fellows, like their financiers, are
fundamentalist
> Christians, though they insist their work is serious science, not closet
> creationism.
>
> "I believe that God created the universe," Dr. Gonzalez said. "What I
don't
> know is whether that evidence can be tested objectively. I ask myself the
> tough questions."
>
> Discovery sees the focus on its fellows and financial backers as a
> diversionary tactic by its opponents. "We're talking about evidence, and
> they want to talk about us," Dr. Meyer said.
>
> But Philip Gold, a former fellow who left in 2002, said the institute had
> grown increasingly religious. "It evolved from a policy institute that had
a
> religious focus to an organization whose primary mission is Christian
> conservatism," he said.
>
> That was certainly how many people read the Wedge Document, a five-page
> outline of a five-year plan for the science center that originated as a
> fund-raising pitch but was soon posted on the Internet by critics.
>
> "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the
materialist
> worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and
> theistic convictions," the document says. Among its promises are seminars
> "to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidence that
support
> the faith, as well as to 'popularize' our ideas in the broader culture."
>
> One sign of any political movement's advancement is when adherents begin
to
> act on their own, often without the awareness of the leadership. That,
> according to institute officials, is what happened in 1999, when a new
> conservative majority on the Kansas Board of Education shocked the
nation -
> and their potential allies here at the institute - by dropping all
> references to evolution from the state's science standards.
>
> "When there are all these legitimate scientific controversies, this was
> silly, outlandish, counterproductive," said John G. West, associate
director
> of the science center, who said he and his colleagues learned of that 1999
> move in Kansas from newspaper accounts. "We began to think, 'Look, we're
> going to be stigmatized with what everyone does if we don't make our
> position clear.' "
>
> Out of this developed Discovery's "teach the controversy" approach, which
> endorses evolution as a staple of any biology curriculum - so long as
> criticism of Darwin is also in the lesson plan. This satisfied Christian
> conservatives but also appealed to Republican moderates and, under the
First
> Amendment banner, much of the public (71 percent in a
Discovery-commissioned
> Zogby poll in 2001 whose results were mirrored in newspaper polls).
>
> "They have packaged their message much more cleverly than the creation
> science people have," said Eugenie C. Scott, director of the National
Center
> for Science Education, the leading defender of evolution. "They present
> themselves as being more mainstream. I prefer to think of that as
> creationism light."
>
>
>
> A watershed moment came with the adoption in 2001 of the No Child Left
> Behind Act, whose legislative history includes a passage that comes
straight
> from the institute's talking points. "Where biological evolution is
taught,
> the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject
generates
> so much continuing controversy," was language that Senator Rick Santorum,
> Republican of Pennsylvania, tried to include.
>
> Pointing to that principle, institute fellows in 2002 played important
roles
> in pushing the Ohio Board of Education to adopt a "teach the controversy"
> approach and helped devise a curriculum to support it. The following year,
> they successfully urged changes to textbooks in Texas to weaken the
argument
> for evolution, and they have been consulted in numerous other cases as
> school districts or states consider changing their approach to biology.
>
> But this spring, at the hearings in Kansas, Mr. Chapman grew visibly
> frustrated as his supposed allies began talking more and more about
> intelligent design.
>
> John Calvert, the managing director of the Intelligent Design Network,
based
> in Kansas, said the institute had the intellectual and financial resources
> to "lead the movement" but was "more cautious" than he would like. "They
> want to avoid the discussion of religion because that detracts from the
> focus on the science," he said.
>
> Dr. West, who leads the science center's public policy efforts, said it
did
> not support mandating the teaching of intelligent design because the
theory
> was not yet developed enough and there was no appropriate curriculum. So
the
> institute has opposed legislation in Pennsylvania and Utah that pushes
> intelligent design, instead urging lawmakers to follow Ohio's lead.
>
> "A lot of people are trying to hijack the issue on both the left and the
> right," Dr. West said.
>
> Dr. Chapman, for his part, sees even these rough spots as signs of
success.
>
> "All ideas that achieve a sort of uniform acceptance ultimately fall apart
> whether it's in the sciences or philosophy or politics after a few people
> keep knocking away at it," he said. "It's wise for society not to punish
> those people."
>
>
.
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