Move over Institute for Creation Research, here comes the Biologic Institute

For any who has ever read the Discovery Institute's Wedge Document, it's clear that DI skipped over Phase I of their plan to restore morality to America and dove right into the media blitz of Phase II and Phase III. This is especially odd as the DI seems to recognize that without a solid scientific basis, their premise would ultimately fail, but like the Iraq war the promised "Shock and Awe" turned out merely to be shockingly awful. I've been carrying out debates with some pro-ID folks over the past few weeks, asking for any empirical evidence to discuss, but instead all I have received are God of the Gaps arguments (if we can't figure it out, God did it) and hypothetical statements that are based on flawed logic. A certain new research lab, however, is promising to change this. Yes, although creationists have been running their own peer-reviewed journal and threatening to destory methodological naturalism for years, the Biologic Institute (made possible by oodles of cash from the Discovery Institute) will finally put us uppity evolutionary scientists in our place.

Articles in both the New York Times and New Scientist give the world the first few peeks at the new research facility, although details remain sketchy at best. Intelligent Design advocates continue to cry "Conspiracy!" when asked why the scientific community at large will not embrace their claims, recently touting over $4 million dollars dumped into various projects that no scientist outside the ID clubhouse can know about as, should any information get out, Richard Dawkins and a pack of rabid atheist scientists will kill and devour any scientist engaging an in ID study... just kidding, but from the way the DI keeps things secret, you would think that was the case. In any case, it appears the ID camp has wizened up a bit and realized that if they are to be taken seriously, they need to actually do some real scientific work.

Although I am doing my best to keep an open mind about the institute and whatever work they may eventually produce, it seems more like a public relations strategy than anything else. Scientists will likely continue to rip up anything involved with the Discovery Institute, but at least the DI can claim that they have people doing work and putting out papers, looking very impressive to laypeople. Indeed, there seems to be a shift in the creationist camp as well, focusing more and more on cosmology and other lofty studies that sound impressive and are beyond the scope of knowledge held by most people, gaining authority by the use of big words. In truth, anti-evolutionary pundits often use the weight of their doctorates (or in cases like Jonathan Wells, get new one) to mak themselves sound credible while their views are disputed and refuted by the majority of scientists; just because someone has a doctorate or two doesn't mean they're right. This isn't to say that anti-evolutionists aren't smart, many are, but it's more on the side of cunning and deceitful in order to indoctrinate than anything else.

Ever since Darwin proposed natural selection, the mechanism that gave life to evolutionary thought, there have been scientists and philosophers trying to discredit the idea. Even Lord Kelvin took issue with Darwin's idea, attempting to prove Darwin wrong by showing that the earth could not possibly be old enough for all the species on earth to evolve from a common ancestor. Unfortunately for Kelvin, he based his calculations of 4 assumptions that have all been shown to be false, making the attempted refutation by Kelvin nothing more than a footnote to evolution's epic history.

What papers or results the Biologic Institute will produce remains to be seen, although it's fair to assume that much of their work will most likely focus on microbiology in order to tie in with Behe's hypothesis of IC in biological systems, and perhaps computer algorithms and models to show evolution could not have happened. In the meantime, there are plenty of fascinating papers directly or indirectly impacting our ideas about evolution produced every week (I reccomend a subscription to the journal Nature if you can afford it, only $70 for students), and I'm sure the debate will continue to simmer until a new DI book comes out or there is another court case or a major evolutionary event is discovered, but at present ID is dazed on the ropes and that's a very good thing.