Arthur Silber: A Know-Nothing Paper for a Know-Nothing Nation

August 20th, 2005

If you want to see a lot of what’s wrong with our media in one story, take a look at this: “Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive.” The story by Jodi Wilgoren has a wealth of details about the Discovery Institute, how it was founded, how it’s funded, and how it has been so successful in getting its message out into the general culture—including how Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act has proved to be a key part of its strategy.

And nowhere in this entire, very lengthy article will you learn that everything the Discovery Institute stands for and every aspect of its message is a pile of anti-rational, anti-scientific bullshit. There is nothing to support the Discovery Institute’s beliefs: NOTHING. Its message is one of pure, unadulterated religious belief: arbitrary statements supported by not one fact. But the NYT somehow fails to tell its millions of readers this rather crucial fact. (I will not go over the intelligent design/creationism vs. evolution debate again, primarily because I’ve covered it in some detail, and I consider it moronically simple. There are a number of entries under Science if you’re interested in the details of the alleged “controversy.”)