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The Discovery Institute (DI) is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of the pseudoscience "intelligent design" (ID). Its "Teach the Controversy" campaign aims to teach creationist anti-evolution beliefs in United States public high school science courses alongside accepted scientific theories, positing that a scientific controversy exists over these subjects.〔 Nick Matzke's analysis shows how teaching the controversy using the ''Critical Analysis of Evolution'' model lesson plan is a means of teaching all the intelligent design arguments without using the intelligent design label.〕 In ''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'' (2005), the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania found: The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board's ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.〔 Curriculum, Conclusion, p. 136.〕 This federal court—along with the majority of scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science—say that the Institute has manufactured the controversy they want to teach by promoting a false perception that evolution is "a theory in crisis"〔 through incorrectly claiming that it is the subject of wide controversy and debate within the scientific community.〔 Whether ID Is Science, p. 89. "ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the ''controversy'', but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard."〕 The court ruled that the Discovery Institute pursues "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions,"〔〔 Curriculum, Conclusion, p. 131.〕 and the Institute's manifesto, the Wedge Document, describes a religious goal: to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."〔 * The Institute's response to the leaking of the Wedge strategy raises the same objection to the materialistic worldview: "We think the materialist world-view that has dominated Western intellectual life since the 19th century ''is false'' and we want to refute it. We further want to reverse the influence of such materialistic thinking on our culture."〕 It was the court's opinion that intelligent design was merely a redressing of creationism and that, as such, it was not a scientific proposition. ==History== The Institute was founded in 1990〔 as a non-profit educational foundation and think tank. It was founded as a branch of the Hudson Institute, an Indianapolis-based conservative think tank, and is named after the Royal Navy ship HMS ''Discovery'' in which George Vancouver explored Puget Sound in 1792. In 1966, Bruce Chapman and George Gilder—who were roommates at Harvard and who later co-founded the Institute, with Chapman serving as its first president—participated in the Ripon Society, a group for Republican liberals, and collaborated on ''Advance'', dubbed "the unofficial Republican magazine," which criticized the party from within for catering to segregationists, John Birchers, and other "extremists." Following their graduation, Chapman and Gilder advanced their "progressive" Republican campaign in their 1966 polemic book ''The Party That Lost Its Head''. The book critiqued Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential candidacy and dismissed the GOP's embrace of rising star Ronald Reagan as the party's hope to "usurp reality with the fading world of the class-B movie." ''The Party That Lost Its Head'' denounced Goldwater's conservative backers for their "rampant" and "paranoid distrust" of intellectuals. The book labeled the Goldwater campaign a "brute assault on the entire intellectual world," and placed the blame for this development on what they viewed as a wrong political tactic; "In recent years the Republicans as a party have been alienating intellectuals deliberately, as a matter of taste and strategy." Chapman moved to the right in the Reagan administration,〔Mooney 2005, ("Chapter 11: 'Creation Science' 2.0" )〕 where he served as director of the United States Census Bureau. Chapman left the Census Bureau to work in the White House under Reagan adviser Edwin Meese III and was appointed United States Ambassador to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna. Gilder wrote several books addressing culture, technology, and poverty, including ''Visible Man'' (1978), which criticised American culture for its failure to promote the ideals of the traditional nuclear family. His next work, ''Wealth and Poverty'' (1981), was cited by President Reagan. Gilder's later books have dealt more with developments in technology, such as ''Microcosm'' (1989) and ''Life After Television'' (1990). Chapman had built a political platform, but lacked funding and a defining issue. In December 1993, Chapman noticed an essay in ''The Wall Street Journal'' by Stephen C. Meyer about a dispute when biology lecturer Dean H. Kenyon taught intelligent design creationism in introductory classes. Kenyon had co-authored ''Of Pandas and People'', and in 1993 Meyer had contributed to the teacher's notes for the second edition of ''Pandas''. Meyer was an old friend of Gilder, and over dinner about a year later they formed the idea of a think tank opposed to materialism. In the summer of 1995, Chapman and Meyer met a representative of Howard Ahmanson, Jr.; Meyer, who had previously tutored Ahmanson's son in science, recalls being asked "What could you do if you had some financial backing?" In 1996, the promise of $750,000 over three years from the Ahmansons and a smaller grant from the conservative Maclellan Foundation was used to fund the Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, which went on to form the motive force behind the intelligent design movement.〔 In 2002, the name was changed to the Center for Science and Culture. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Discovery Institute」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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