Another poll from the Discovery Institute, oh boy, oh boy!

The Discovery Institute (DI) conducted another poll and, just like the last one, the poll came to a conclusion supporting the DI.  Wow, how incredible is that, two for two!

This time the poll was announced here: "For Darwin's Birthday, Poll Shows Broad Support for Teaching Evidence For and Against Darwin's Theory"  You might recall my issues with their last poll, ("A New 'Poll' conducted by the DI says what the DI says, what a surprise!"), where the main issue was how the questions being asked drove the answers in a certain direction.  Well, can't make that complaint this time since they failed to tell us exactly what they asked, they did put a couple of phrases within quotes, so I am going to assume those were the questions, or at least part of the questions.  They are:

• "when teaching Darwin's theory of evolution, biology teachers should cover both scientific evidence that supports the theory and scientific evidence critical of the theory."
• "biology teachers should cover only scientific evidence that supports the theory."

Before looking at their conclusion, let's look at the questions.  Pretty innocuous, aren't they?  But look at what the questions imply.  By asking this way they are implying that biology teachers are only considering pros of evolution, not the negatives and that the teachers are also engaging in some sort of cover-up by only teaching the scientific evidence.   What they fail to do is provide any actual context for the questions, yet imply things to lead the respondents in the direction they wish.  Here are a few contextual things that someone should know before answering the poll:

• Did the DI mention how that in past 150 years, not a single Creationist, including the Discovery Institute, has managed to provide any evidence contradicting the theory of evolution?  Of course not, that wouldn't drive the poll in the direction they want.
• Did they simply forget to mention that science classes are already encouraged to teach  pros and cons, providing those pros and cons are based on actual science.  No they didn't forget, they deliberately left that part out.
  
• Are biology teachers even qualified to teach any non-scientific evidence?  Regardless of the fact non-scientific evidence would be nothing but conjecture and wishful thinking. 
• Should they have mentioned who the DI is their agenda?  I think so!  It might have affected the result and not in a way the DI would have liked.

One other thing  . . . just what are the possible answers allowed by the poll?  I don't know and they don't tell you.  Often a simple 'yes' or 'no' actually makes the poll harder for people to understand because they don't fully allow people to express their opinion.  For example if a poll asked "Is it OK to yell 'Fire!' in a crowed movie theater?"  Yes or No!  It's impossible to use any data from this poll effectively.  Most people would answer something like "Yes, if there is an actual fire!", but the poll doesn't allow for that.  Go back to the questions themselves and imagine a simple "yes or no" option.  Can you think of things that would make such a simple answer to a complex question worthless?  I know I can!  I do wonder how many people surveyed did not respond on the basis of a lack of context?  Now that would be an interesting statistic.  The only thing claimed is a little over 2,000 respondents out of a pool of something like 6,000,000.  Hmmm, statistically not very significant.

Would the DI ever be guilty of these type of lawyer-word-games?  Let me take you back a few years.  Do you remember this:

"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

This is the text to a petition the DI put out back in 2001.  Look at the wording, it is fairly innocuous.  The wording can also take on multiple meanings.  By itself this statement doesn't imply issues with current evolutionary theory, but that was exactly how this little petition was used in 2001 and is still used today.  Here is a couple of different points of view on the DI's little petition:

"Southeastern Louisiana University philosophy professor Barbara Forrest and deputy director of the National Center for Science Education Glenn Branch comment on the ambiguity of the statement and its use in the original advertisement:

Such a statement could easily be agreed to by scientists who have no doubts about evolution itself, but dispute the exclusiveness of "Darwinism," that is, natural selection, when other mechanisms such as genetic drift and gene flow are being actively debated. To the layman, however, the ad gives the distinct impression that the 100 scientists question evolution itself."
(Wikipedia: Dissent from Darwinism)

The 'ad' mentioned was a reference to how this list of signatories was advertised in a number of prominent periodicals as a list of over 100 (That was back in 2001, since then they have managed to get over 800 signatories in recent years) scientific dissenters from what the DI called 'Darwinism.  We've talked about this list before, how the New York Times and the National Center for Science Education pretty well ripped it to shreds.  How the majority of the signatories had philosophical (religious) issues with evolution, not scientific ones.  How there were very few biologists, and many had their organizational affiliations inflated, or in the case of folks from the DI itself, hidden.  And how some of the scientists who signed the list didn't know what the DI was or how the list was going to be used.  Skip Evans, also of the National Center for Science Education, noted:

"that when interviewed, several of the scientists who had signed the statement said they accepted common descent. He thus suggests that this confusion has in fact been carefully engineered."(Wikipedia: Dissent from Darwinism)

'Carefully engineered'!  Sound familiar?  A fancy expression for marketing word games.  So, yes, the DI is very guilty of playing those games, and playing them often.  Remember the BS about calling ID a theory and then in the saem breath trying to compare it to an actual scientific theory?  Lots of word games!

Back to their poll, and here is their conclusion:

"Americans agree by an overwhelming margin that students should learn about all of the scientific evidence relating to Darwinian evolution, pro and con," said Dr. John West, Vice President of Discovery Institute.

Do they really?  Since when is 2,117 out of 6,000,000 an overwhelming margin?  Based on these numbers the only thing you can really say is an overwhelming majority did not respond.  If you look at the American population of 318,000,000 the 2,117 respondents start looking even less and less representative.  In addition we have no idea what audience group the DI targeted.  Don't forget, when you run a survey through Survey Monkey, you get to select the type of audience to aim the survey toward.  More information we don't have.  I will even go so far as to agree with the face-value statement I quoted from John West, with a slight wording change.  Students should learn all about the scientific evidence related to the Theory of Evolution.  But since that evidence would not include Creationism or Intelligent Design, I don't think that John really means just scientific evidence.

Here is my main takeaway.  Two things, since science classes already allow, and encourage, an examination of the scientific evidence, asking this as a poll question serves no purpose.  This does not indicate support for teaching Intelligent Design or even support for the pseudo-academic freedom bills like the LSEA.  If this conclusion were not associated with the DI, you might take it as face value, but since it was uttered by John West, you know there is a not-well-hidden agenda! My final takeaway, if the DI says it, you shouldn't place your trust in it!  After years of reading the foolishness that comes out of the DI, if they came out and said the sun rose this morning, I would still look outside to verify they aren't lying to me.

Based on their track record they would like me to believe the sun rose due to the actions of a sort-of unnamed Deity designer that we need to pay homage to with our every waking breath.  Sorry, Johnnie . . . the reason the sun 'rose' is due to a number of factors, chief among them is gravity . . . which is a fact and also a scientific theory.

A New 'Poll' conducted by the DI says what the DI says, what a surprise!

Since the United Methodist Church (UMC) has seen fit to not allow the Discovery Institute to present their marketing material at their General Conference, the DI has been quite vocal about it.  Multiple press releases and posts about their 'banning'.  Now they have hit a new low . . . which before today I wouldn't have believed possible.  I really should know better by now.

A new post on their Evolution 'news' and Views site looks like this:

What the headline forgot to tell you is that Discovery Institute itself conducted the poll.  That raised a question, or several, for me.  The reason is simple, polling, like any human endeavor, can be twisted and spun to produce the results that you want, and the DI are masters of the spin!  A lot depends on what question you ask and who you ask.  I recall a bad joke from years ago, you ask someone "So, when did you stop beating your spouse?"  Of course how you answer that question can be taken a number of different ways.  But no matter what, it immediately puts one on the defensive, intentionally so.

Here is the question that got asked:

"The United Methodist Church recently banned a group from renting an information table at the Church’s upcoming general conference because the group supports intelligent design—the idea that nature is the product of purposeful design rather than an unguided process. Some have criticized the ban as contrary to the United Methodist Church’s stated commitment to encourage “open hearts, open minds, open doors.” Rate your level of agreement or disagreement with the following statements:

• The United Methodist Church should not have banned an intelligent design group from renting an information table at its conference. 

• The United Methodist Church’s ban on the intelligent design group seems inconsistent with the Church’s stated commitment to encourage “open hearts, open minds, open doors.” "

Now, if anyone has used Survey Monkey, you know they do not write the survey questions and the possible responses.  They are simply the medium by which surveys can be asked.  They also let you define the type of audience you are trying to reach.  The wording and audience for this is straight from the DI!  Yes, that makes a difference.

But this is quite a long question, but please note the wording.  First of all, they use the word 'banned'.  That tells me which way they want the result skewed.  Anyone, especially people who aren't familiar with the nefarious marketing methods of the DI, would not like the term 'banned', it creates an instant negative connotation.  Many people would automatically vote in opposition to it regardless of the rest of the question simply because of the word 'banned'. 

But did the UMC actually 'ban' the DI?  No, they simply said that this time, the first they have considered outside exhibitors, that the DI couldn't have a table.  Can they, the DI, apply at the next one?  Certainly.  Did they issue some proclamation?  No, the UMC simply said, 'No!' and only for their General Conference.  The UMC holds many meetings at many levels, the DI is certainly free to try and horn in on one of those.  But for this General Conference, the answer is 'No!'  Of course we know how much the DI likes hearing that.

They sort of left out a few things, things that might have framed the question within a very different context:

• Did the question mention the UMC's stand on supporting real science?  Or that the UMC is a supporter of the Clergy Letter Project?  Which means the UMC already rendered judgement on ID, and that was also something the DI didn't like.
• Did it mention that Intelligent Design is considered by the rest of the world to be pseudo-science?  That might have had the respondents seeing things differently.
• Did they forget to mention that the definition the say for ID is not their complete definition, just the soft-soap one, sort of the pablum-version?  Wikipedia defines ID as "is the pseudoscientific view that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."  That certainly reads a bit differently, doesn't it.
• Now they did mention "Some have criticized the ban  . . .", but did they mention who that 'Some' were?  Guess who they are?  The criticisms I have been able to find, to the tune of multiple posts and press releases, are from the DI itself, or people who already support the DI.  Funny how they forgot to mention that little detail.

 Don't you love how they worked in their main whine, the supposed stated commitment of the UMC, "open hearts, open minds, open doors".  Funny how come I can't find that commitment on the UMC's website?  Sounds like a slogan of sorts.  But of course the DI wants to see it used as if it were carved in stone.  

So suppose it is the UMC's commitment, does that mean the DI should be allowed a table?  Again, let's take into account that the UMC is against teaching Creationism is their schools.  They formalized this doctrine back in 2008.  In other words, they've already considered Creationism/ID and they have already rejected it.  They 'opened their minds' and came to a conclusion and decided it was not for them.  So does the DI expect everyone who has rejected it to have an open door policy based on the words of a slogan?  Not very reasonable . . . but then the DI is never reasonable when they aren't getting their way.

OK, to sum things up.  The DI conducted a poll which, to no surprise, tilted in the way the DI wanted it to tilt.  They are now publicizing the results of their poll while completely disregarding the context of the discussion.  In fact the only way you know they were the ones who did the poll is the read much further down in the article.

I started a poll at Survey Monkey.  I would be curious as to the results.  I did this off-the-cuff and have no intention to pay Survey Monkey for passing the survey out to a defined audience.  But I hope the results are fun to talk about anyway.

My survey looks a little different. First I set the context of the survey:

"The United Methodist Church (UMC) is an endorser of the Clergy Letter Project which takes a stand for science and against supernatural causation. Recently the UMC decided not to allow an organization, The Discovery Institute, from sponsoring a table at the General Conference. Just so you know, the Discovery Institute is an organization dedicated to replacing current science with what they call 'theistically-friendly' science, in direct opposition to what the UMC stands for."

Then I asked two questions:

• Does the United Methodist Church have an obligation to allow the Discovery Institute to sponsor a table at their general conference?
• Is Intelligent Design a viable alternative to Evolutionary Theory? Intelligent Design is defined as "is the pseudoscientific view that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." (Wikipedia)

Again, please drop by and take my very unscientific survey.  If nothing else, we might get a laugh.