The PR to Research Ratio
Does the Discovery Institute practice science? The Questionable Authority takes them on.
How can you tell it isn’t science?
[Let’s] look at [the Discovery Institute’s] claims. The list, as I have previously noted, contains some items that are trade press books. It contains some articles that are found in the philosophy literature. It lists a book as one item on the list, then goes on to use every chapter in the book as a separate entry. It even lists some articles both in a “featured articles” section at the start of the list, then lists them again later on. The total number of entries in their list, duplicates included, is thirty-four.
That’s not a lot by scientific standards. Last semester, I wrote a review article for a class that discussed the geographic modes of speciation observed in Hawaiian insects and spiders. That’s a limited group of organisms, living in a very limited area, and I was only looking at one aspect of evolution in the group. I still wound up citing 124 separate articles …
So, instead of comparing the scientific output of the Discovery Institute to the scientific output of scientists, I’m going to compare it to something else. Let’s see how their scientific output stacks up against their public relations machine.In addition to containing a list of “scientific articles” supporting ID, the Discovery Institute lists favorable news articles. Some of these are written by reporters or op-ed columnists not affiliated with the Discovery Institute. Others are written by DI fellows. Many are press releases issued by the DI.
Let’s see just how their PR output stacks up against their scientific output.
The results are amusing and instructive, to say the least.
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