Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Did the Discovery Institute Take a Hypocritical Oath?

Before getting into their post, I want to remind you something about the Discovery Institute (DI), they loves them some politicians.  Seriously, if you look at the campaigns they have been promoting to demolish actual science, you will see their targets are never scientists, but school children, parents, church groups, and politicians.  Prime example: Rick Santorum.

Remember George W. Bush's 'No Child Left Behind'?  Santorum proposed an amendment, called 'The Santorum Amendment', which encouraged the teaching of Intelligent Design.  Now while Rick was listed as the author, guess where it originated?
"The origin of the amendment can be traced back to 2000, when leading intelligent design (ID) proponents through the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank that is the hub of the intelligent design movement, held a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., to promote their agenda to lawmakers. Sen. Rick Santorum was one of intelligent design's most vocal supporters on Capitol Hill.
One result of this briefing was that in 2001 Senator Santorum proposed incorporating pro-intelligent design language, crafted in part by the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, into the No Child Left Behind bill." (Wikipedia: The Santorum Amendment)
Yes, at the DI, of course.  Even though the amendment wasn't passed with the bill, its words were left in at part of the Bill's Conference Report -- while meaningless as law, the DI love to trot out the amendment as one of their successes.  Still not sure of the political targeting by the DI? How about the so-called Academic Freedom Bills?
"Between 2004 and 2008 a number of anti-evolution 'Academic Freedom' bills were introduced in State legislatures in Alabama, Oklahoma, Maryland, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri and Michigan, based largely upon language drafted by the Discovery Institute." (Wikipedia: Academic Freedom Campaign)
I think the Wikipedia entry needs to be changed, because these bills have appeared periodically on the political landscape many times since 2008.  If you dare look, here is the link to the DI's Model bill.  The URL might not say it's the DI, but look at the point of contact for the bill:
"If you have questions or would like to consider proposing an academic freedom bill in your state, please e-mail Sarah Chaffee, Program Officer for Education and Public Policy at schaffee@discovery.org."
They love hiding their affiliation behind other URL's.  So we know that the DI loves politicians and rarely aims at actual scientists, why is that?  Scientists require that you do actual science to be taken seriously.  We know the DI has either been unable or unwilling to take this step, the one step that could get them all they wish to achieve -- providing they back it up with actual science.  Instead they target everyone else involved in setting curriculum, especially politicians.  Why do politicians suck up to the DI, it's called pandering for votes.  Look at the election of the hamster-haired misogynist serial-liar and his cronies and tell me pandering Christian Evangelicals doesn't work?

So why am I bringing this up now?  It's because the DI is whining.  Little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer has a new post at the DI's Evolution 'news' and Views site,
Science March Massively Confuses Science with Politics.  So . . . when real scientists try and get politicians to think about science and science funding - it's a bad thing, but when the DI aims at politicians to support their religion, that's OK?  I guess they would prefer scientists just pretend to do science, you know like they do.

Check out this sign, loved it!

Just had to throw that in!  Yes the March for Science was aimed at politicos, the same ones who want to cut an incredible amount of scientific funding.  Who else would the March for Science be aiming at?  They already have the scientists, you know the people who are doing all the work on disease prevention and cures, food-born illness prevention and treatment, technologists who created the theories running on the Internet and even hamster-hair's favorite app: Twitter.  Can you point to anything that we eat, use, drive, and even play that science did not have  a part in?  Today's politicians are seriously being short-sighted and the DI just loves it because those politicians are just the ones to help them destroy real science.

Actually it's pretty normal for the DI. Everything they do is in God's name, even if they refuse to admit it 'officially', so complaining when someone else uses similar tactics in opposition to you, they just have to whine about it.  Therein lies the hypocrisy!

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