The Discovery Institute has something special planned

My Google Alerts for Intelligent Design sent me this little gem "For Next Week's 90th Scopes Trial Anniversary, We've Got Something Special Planned".  It's by one of my "favorite' Discovery Institute (DI) mouthpieces, whom I call klingy.  

Now before reading the article, I tried to think about what would be truly special that the DI should be telling us about.  I know what I hope it is, but I doubt I am correct.  What I think they ought to be doing is some actual scientific research.  I know, I set the bar way too high, but that is the one area in which their pet religious idea might stand a chance of getting a smidgen of respect from the scientific community.  It's also the area in which that have been wholly lacking.  But now let me read the article and see what klingy has planned for us.

Oh wait, I completely ignored a key component in the title, the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Trial.  Hmmm, that does change my thinking.  Based on my experience with the writings of klingy and his buddies, what might they be cooking up?  One last guess and then I will read the actual article.  The DI's treatment of most historical figures and events is to twist them around and make it look like the figure or event in some way supports their pet religious concept.  Let's see, if memory serves, and I really don't feel like doing the research so I am working from memory, but haven't they re-cast Alfred Russel Wallace as an ID supporter?  Yes, OK, I cheated and checked my past blog entries and here it is "DI's next cruel trick -- re-baptizing Alfred Russel Wallace".  They have also done their best to blame Darwin on everything from the Civil War to recent bouts of violence.  I think they also tried to re-christen Thomas Jefferson and Isaac Newton, although that might have been someone else.  In any event there is my new prediction, they are somehow going to take the Scopes Trial and turn it into something that they claim validates ID.  OK, enough fooling around, time to read klingy's little article.

First thing I noticed is klingy apparently gathered the whole crowd and everyone has a part to play.  The names are common ones for anyone who has been reading about the shenanigans at the DI, and their pet 'research' lab, the Biologic Institute:  Berlinski, Nelson, Axe, Gauger, Luskin, and even klingy himself  had a hand in whatever is coming down the pike.  Oh this should be good.  Is it time for another Paul Nelson Day? Oh no, that's in April.  OK, so the gang has been gathered . . . now what are they going to do with their 'brain trust'?  Wait a moment, I noticed Behe isn't on the list.  How could they not invite Michael Behe? 

OK, the next point makes no sense:

" . . . Darwinists' fiction that time somehow stands still and has done so for nearly a century." 

What part of science has made any claims that time has stood still for nearly a century?  I know scientific progress has continued, in spite of what Creationists (including klingy and his buds) have done.  What has pretty well stayed pretty still are the Creationists arguments.  I mean have their arguments changed much since William Jennings Bryan testified at that trial?  Other than new labels, nothing underneath seems to have changed at all. SImply put "God Did It! And if you don't believe that you are going to burn in hell!"  I think that sums it up pretty well, don't you?

Next up, he really stretches things:

"They present the subject of evolution versus intelligent design as if there were no real debate, as if nothing much had happened in science in the past 90 years to challenge Darwinian biology or to suggest an alternative . . ."

First of all, is there a REAL debate?  Sort of!  It's a cultural debate, not a scientific one.  And there have been many challenges to the Theory of Evolution since 1925.  Darwin himself would probably barely recognize many pieces and parts of the modern theory.  Although I do understand how klingy might be mistaken, since they would much prefer to try and poke holes in the 1925 version of evolutionary theory, since their hole-poking has proven so ineffective against current science. 

Oh hell!  Klingy doesn't really say anything else, but he's trying to make us think he's got something:

"The past couple of years have been particularly important. It's the scientific controversy that can no longer be denied. Next week we are going to document that in a very substantial fashion."

Does anyone believe either of those two things.  That they have somehow done something in the past two years that will make their imagined 'scientific controversy' a reality?  Does anyone think if they really had anything, they would have sat on it just to deliver it on the 90th anniversary of a trial they their side won? 

I will borrow a phrase from one of my favorite movies.  Klingy used the word 'substantial',  "I don't not think that word means what you think it means", klingy.  The Discovery Institute, along with their pet lab and even their own publishing group, hasn't been able to provide anything substantial in the way of science yet.  While I look forward to what he will be posting next week, I full expect klingy and his gang will meet my expectations, as usual.