Discovery Institute

Todd Wood of the Center for Origins Research at Bryan College has gotten around to doing what I haven’t done, updating my analysis of the market for creationism that I did in early 2007. He confirms some of the trends I noted, such as that the market for creationism has been growing and is dominated by Answers in Genesis. His update goes further, and includes a comparison to the National Center for Science Education, noting that he market for criticism of creationism has grown along with the market for creationism. He also points out that the groups involved got a boost revenue in 2005 during the Dover trial, that the AiG split from Creation Ministries International doesn’t appear to have hurt AiG, and that “Godquest,” formerly known as Creation Science Evangelism, the Hovind organization, is the #3 creationist organization for revenue behind AiG and the Institute for Creation Research. Wood reports the following numbers for recent years: ...

I’ve previously written to critique claims that Sarah Palin is a Christian reconstructionist or dominionist, or that she’s a young-earth creationist or tried to put creationism in the public schools. I still stand behind the former argument, but I think there is now some evidence that she is a young-earth creationist and supported Mat-Su Borough School Board candidates who aimed to put creationism in the public schools, but never got a majority on the school board. There’s also now evidence that Palin is an advocate of pushing an allegedly secularized version of principles from Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles, which I previously wrote about here when serial killer Matthew Murray blamed them for his problems. Palin’s Creationism David Talbot’s article at Salon.com about Sarah Palin’s clashes with Rev. Howard Bess over his book about how churches should deal with homosexuality contained a passage that stated that she is a young-earth creationist: Another valley activist, Philip Munger, says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. “She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board,” said Munger, a music composer and teacher. “I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, ‘Sarah, how can you believe in creationism – your father’s a science teacher.’ And she said, ‘We don’t have to agree on everything.’ “I pushed her on the earth’s creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she’d seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them."Munger said the same thing on his own blog: In June 1997, both Palin and I had responsibilities at the graduation ceremony of a small group of Wasilla area home schoolers. I directed the Mat-Su College Community Band, which played music, and she gave the commencement address. It was held at her [former -jjl] church, the Wasilla Assembly of God. Palin had recently become Wasilla mayor, beating her earliest mentor, John Stein, the then-incumbent mayor. A large part of her campaign had been to enlist fundamentalist Christian groups, and invoke evangelical buzzwords into her talks and literature. As the ceremony concluded, I bumped into her in a hall away from other people. I congratulated her on her victory, and took her aside to ask about her faith. Among other things, she declared that she was a young earth creationist, accepting both that the world was about 6,000-plus years old, and that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time. I asked how she felt about the second coming and the end times. She responded that she fully believed that the signs of Jesus returning soon “during MY lifetime,” were obvious. “I can see that, maybe you can’t - but it guides me every day."I spoke with Philip Munger by telephone on September 17, hoping to be able to find others who could confirm Palin’s creationist views. Unfortunately, he said that there weren’t other witnesses to his conversation, but he did give me a lot of background information about Palin’s political career. He said that the Wasilla government had been dominated by Democrats until 1994, when it shifted to Republicans and John Stein became mayor. Stein was Palin’s original political mentor, but she decided to run against Stein in 1996, under the tutelage of Alaska State Rep. Victor Kohring, Republican representative from Wasilla, who began a 3.5-year prison term for corruption in July. Munger described Kohring, a member of the Christian Businessman’s Association, as a member of the religious right. Stein, while a Republican, was vulnerable to attack as being not sufficiently conservative, due to the fact that his wife is a pro-choice Democrat who hasn’t taken his last name. Munger told me that Palin also supported a slate of religious right candidates for the Mat-Su Borough School Board, including Cheryl Turner, who he described as a creationist. But he said that the creationists didn’t win a majority on the school board, and as a result made no attempt to push that agenda. Munger said that he called in a question to Sarah Palin when she appeared on the Don Fagan program around October of 2006, and he asked her if her views on creationism had moderated since the Dover case. Her response indicated that her views had not changed, and that she had no idea what the Dover case was. Munger offered to explain it to her in detail if she contacted him, but she never did. He said that she didn’t say anything to explicitly endorse creationism, instead resorting to the same tactics suggested by the Discovery Institute of protecting academic freedom, allowing “both” views to be taught, teaching the controversy, etc. My impression is that Palin is likely a young-earth creationist, but not one who knows much about it or has it high on her agenda for political change. She’s probably smart enough to see that such could be a liability for her future political career and so will avoid questions about it or answer in generalities. Palin and Bill Gothard Sarah Posner has a new article at Salon.com titled “Sarah Palin, faith-based mayor." This article points out that the Wasilla City Council passed a resolution in April 2000 at her direction declaring Wasilla to be a “City of Character” and a supporter of the International Association of Character Cities, run by Steven Menzel. This organization promotes a secularized version of the principles from Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles, which is a sort of Christianity-lite cult that promotes the prosperity gospel and a whole lot of craziness like this: Wives who work outside the home are to be compared to harlots — Bill Gothard ...

Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute, writing at the Evolution News & Views blog (which accurately describes itself with its motto that begins “The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site”), has outdone himself again. Regarding a paper by Neil Shubin about Tiktaalik, Luskin complains that Shubin makes a comparison to the wrist bones of tetrapods, but never identifies any by name: When discussing Tiktaalik’s “wrist,” Shubin says he “invites direct comparisons” between Tiktaalik’s fin and a true tetrapod limb. Surely this paper must have a diagram comparing the “wrist”-bones of Tiktaalik to a true tetrapod wrist, showing which bones correspond. So again I searched the paper. And again he provides no such diagram comparing the two. So we are left to decipher his jargon-filled written comparison in the following sentence by sentence analysis: ...

Barbara Forrest has an excellent article describing the passage of the recent “academic freedom” stealth creationism bill in Louisiana that’s was just signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal and will no doubt serve as a model for other states. She discusses the Louisiana Family Forum, which is behind the bill, as well as the involvement of the Discovery Institute.

Charlie Black, a senior advisor to the McCain campaign, lent his name to and helped arrange the bizarre March 23, 2004 event on Capitol Hill in which Rev. Sun Myung Moon was crowned King of America and declared himself to be the Messiah. Rev. Moon is a very powerful, wealthy man who has been regularly supported at public events by people such as former President George H. W. Bush and evangelical Christians like Tim and Beverly LaHaye (he helped found the Institute for Creation Research through his Christian Heritage College, co-author of Left Behind; she is the head of Concerned Women for America) and Jerry Falwell. Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute is a member of Moon’s Unification Church, which makes DI another organization where evangelical Christians join hands with members of Moon’s cult. Most of these people probably don’t agree with Moon’s nonsense, but they like his money and aren’t above prostituting themselves in order to receive some of it. UPDATE (May 13, 2008): More on Charlie Black, from FiretheLobbyists.com: Charlie Black, McCain’s senior counsel and spokesman, began his lobbying career by representing numerous dictators and repressive regimes ...

We’re back from a week of vacation in Seattle–this was my third time in the city, but my first time with free time to do touristy things. We saw the usual sights–the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square and the Underground Tour, and we took a Snoqualmie Falls/winery tour and paid a visit to Bainbridge Island. We also saw the Klondike Gold Rush Museum, the Olympic Sculpture Garden, the UPS Waterfall Garden, the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, and the oddities at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, including the feejee-mermaid-like objects pictured and a collection of tsantsas (shrunken heads). We also managed to see some local crazies–a 9/11 conspiracy theorist outside Pike Place Market, Lyndon LaRouchies at Westlake Center, a Church of Scientology “free stress test” center, and building housing the Discovery Institute. And we had plenty of great meals, including a few with friends we haven’t seen in a while (or hadn’t met before in person). Lots of Thai and Indian food. We didn’t get around to visiting the Seattle Aquarium, the Museum of Flight, the fish ladder at the Ballard Locks, the Roman exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, or trying a doughnut at Top Pot Doughnuts. Maybe next time for most of those. Seattle is a fun city, we had great weather almost the entire time, and we were happy to see how dog-friendly it is. I’m sure we’ll return. ...

Ross Anderson, journalist and former Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute, gives an interesting history of the founding of the organization. He describes how DI got into the intelligent design business, which has proved to be its major source of funding. About two years ago, the Discovery Institute founded the Biologic Institute to perform scientific research. At long last, they finally have a website up, and its cast of characters contains many names recognizable from the film “Expelled.” Still no scientific theory of intelligent design, however.

Scientific American: …it seems a safe bet that the producers hope a whipping from us would be useful for publicity: further proof that any mention of ID outrages the close-minded establishment. (Picture Ben Stein as Jack Nicholson, shouting, “You can’t handle the truth!”) Knowing this, we could simply ignore the movie–which might also suit their purposes, come to think of it. Unfortunately, Expelled is a movie not quite harmless enough to be ignored. Shrugging off most of the film’s attacks–all recycled from previous pro-ID works–would be easy, but its heavy-handed linkage of modern biology to the Holocaust demands a response for the sake of simple human decency. ...

XVIVO LLC has sent a copyright infringement warning letter to Premise Media about the computer animation that appears to have been based on XVIVO’s “The Inner Life of a Cell.” Some have speculated that “Expelled”’s release was moved from February to April because it had used the XVIVO film directly (just as William Dembski and other Discovery Institute fellows had been doing in public lectures), and they used the time to re-create the animation on their own. The letter says that XVIVO considers the segment in the film to still be close enough to be an infringement of their intellectual property rights, and demands: That Premise Media, Rampant Films, and its officers, employees, and agents remove the infringing segment from all copies of the “Expelled” film prior to its scheduled commercial release on or before April 18, 2008; ...

[UPDATE (April 15, 2008): See the NCSE’s “Expelled Exposed” website for a look at the deceptive tactics of the filmmakers and the real facts that they aren’t showing you.] [UPDATE (April 18, 2008): Further updates on “Expelled” theater counts, box office take, and ratings are here.] “Expelled” was originally claimed to be opening in February 2008, and I recall seeing claims that it would be on 4,000 screens. Its website has subsequently been claiming an April 18 opening date (“in theatres nationwide”), and somewhere I’ve seen an estimate of about 1,000 screens. (UPDATE: This was said by John Sullivan, an “Expelled” producer, on the Expelled blog in December 2007, as the estimated screen count for a February 2008 release.) But for some reason, the film is not listed on April 2008 distribution schedules: IMDB April 18 releasesRottentomatoes.com upcoming releases Launchingfilms.com April 2008 releasesFilm-releases.com upcoming 2008 releasesPopculturemadness.com April 2008 releases I only found it listed with an April 18 date at AOL’s MovieFone, with no photo or trailer. Movieweb.com lists it with “To Be Announced 2008” as the release date. (UPDATE: It’s also at movies.go.com with an April 18 release date, and a poll to grade the movie. It’s polling at 85% “F,” 11% “A,” 2% “D,” and 1% each for “B” and “C,” with 474 votes.) Is it really going to show in theaters at all on April 18? Or are they just going to continue with these “private screenings” and then go direct to DVD, suitable for church and homeschool distribution? The distributor for the film is Rocky Mountain Pictures (formerly R.S. Entertainment) of Salt Lake City, UT, distributor for the following films: Akira (1988, lots of distributors)Carman: The Champion (made 2001, released 2 March 2001, grossed $1,743,863, $769,080 opening weekend)Race to Space (2001, released 15 March 2001)Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 (made 2001, released 21 September 2001, grossed $5,974,653, $1,573,454 opening weekend)Manna from Heaven (made 2002, grossed $505,675, shown in 5 cities, made $5,340 opening weekend on 4 screens)Elvira’s Haunted Hills (made 2001, released 31 October 2002)Luther (made 2003, released 30 October 2003, grossed $5,791,328, $908,446 opening weekend)Unspeakable (made 2002, released 27 February 2004)End of the Spear (2005, released 20 January 2006, grossed $11,703,287, $4,281,388 opening weekend)These guys are clearly not a blockbuster powerhouse of distributors–their biggest film ever was back in 1988 when they were one of many distributors, they specialize in small independent films, mostly “family films” and often with an explicitly Christian theme, and they have rarely seen their films have an opening weekend of over $1,000,000. The two partners in Rocky Mountain Pictures are Ronald C. Rodgers and Randy Slaughter. Rodgers got his start in film with Sunn Classic Pictures in 1968, which made and distributed movies in the seventies and eighties like bad documentaries about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, The Bermuda Triangle, psychics, space aliens, conspiracy theories, and Noah’s Ark, several of which were written by David W. Balsiger. Balsiger was the ghost author of several fabricated autobiographies, such as those of alleged Ark-finder Fernand Navarra, phony ex-Satanist Mike Warnke, and phony faith healer Morris Cerullo. (See my 1993 Skeptic magazine article on George Jammal’s Noah’s Ark hoax, which Balsiger helped foist upon the American public along with a whole slew of bogus claims.) Slaughter has had a more mainstream career with bigger studios and distributors and working for a Texas theater chain. “End of the Spear” was financed by Philip Anschutz, founder and former head of Qwest Communications who also funded “The Chronicles of Narnia” (and has also been a contributor to the Discovery Institute). “End of the Spear” received some extra publicity because lead actor Chad Allen, who plays the lead in the film, came out as gay. (He told the producers before his contract was signed in 2003, when he came out publicly, and they did the right thing and continued with him in the project anyway). I suspect “Expelled” will have trouble doing anywhere near as well as “End of the Spear,” which appears to be the best Rocky Mountain Pictures has done to date. I’ll offer five predictions for “Expelled”–if it opens in theaters at all on April 18, it will (1) be on fewer than 500 800 screens, (2) will have an initial weekend box office of less than $2 million, with (3) a per-screen take of less than $2,500, (4) won’t break the top ten despite it being a slow opening week, and (5) will make less than $10 million in box office take by the end of 2008 (though it may make more than that through DVD sales). Note that Philip Anschutz owns the Regal Entertainment Group, which Wikipedia says is “the largest theater chain in North America” with “6,423 screens in 529 locations in 41 U.S. states.” He may well push the film, but there’s no way he’s going to allow it to get in the way of making profit, but I’ll adjust my prediction (1) to be fewer than 800 screens on the assumption that Anschutz might put the film into each of his theaters. (UPDATE: Chez Jake has found and commented below that Anschutz is only showing “Expelled” in 141 of his 529 locations, which he suggests indicates a 27% level of confidence in the film by Anschutz.) (For my previous comments about a film’s opening weekend, see my blog post on the film “Untraceable." In the comments there, I offered this bet to the film’s insiders who showed up at my blog to defend the film: “How about a deal–if it gets a ‘cream of the crop’ freshness percentage above 70% at rottentomatoes.com (say, by a week after release, when there are at least a dozen or so reviews), I’ll agree to watch it, if you’ll agree on a percentage of below 30% to post here that you were wrong, and it really does suck. Anywhere in between, we can agree to disagree.” Needless to say, I didn’t have to see that movie, as it ended up with a “freshness” rating of 15%.) UPDATE (March 28, 2008): Using Reed Esau’s excellent suggestion of using the theater locator on the Expelled website, here’s the current number of theaters where it’s planned to be showing per state: AK: 1 AL: 15 AR: 10 AZ: 5 CA: 52 CO: 10 CT: 3 DC: 0 DE: 0 FL: 51 GA: 11 HI: 3 IA: 6 ID: 6 IN: 19 IL: 21 KS: 4 KY: 6 LA: 2 MA: 0 MD: 0 ME: 0 MI: 11 MN: 7 MO: 6 MS: 3 MT: 5 NC: 4 ND: 1 NE: 1 NH: 1 NJ: 0 NM: 2 NV: 6 NY: 2 OH: 9 OK: 5 OR: 6 PA: 11 RI: 0 SC: 5 SD: 1 TN: 17 TX: 62 UT: 3 VA: 3 VT: 0 WA: 16 WI: 17 WV: 5 WY: 1 Total U.S. theaters: 435 UPDATE (March 28, 2008, 6:00 p.m.): The numbers have changed a bit: AK: 2 (up from 1) AL: 17 (up from 15) AR: 9 (down from 10) AZ: 7 (up from 5) CT: 2 (down from 3) DC: 1 (up from 0) FL: 50 (down from 51) GA: 17 (up from 11) IA: 7 (up from 6) IL: 18 (down from 21) KS: 7 (up from 4) KY: 7 (up from 6) LA: 6 (up from 2) MD: 7 (up from 0) MI: 10 (down from 11) MN: 10 (up from 7) MO: 16 (up from 6) MS: 4 (up from 3) MT: 3 (down from 5) NC: 17 (up from 4) NH: 0 (down from 1) NM: 1 (down from 2) NY: 1 (down from 2) OH: 13 (up from 9) OK: 8 (up from 5) OR: 7 (up from 6) PA: 6 (down from 11) SC: 10 (up from 5) TN: 16 (down from 17) TX: 61 (down from 62) VA: 16 (up from 3) WI: 14 (down from 17) WV: 1 (down from 5) All the others have remained the same. That’s a net increase of 55 theaters to a new total of 490. UPDATE (March 31, 2008, 2:45 p.m. PDT): AK: 1 AL: 20 AR: 12 AZ: 8 CA: 60 CO: 11 CT: 3 DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 58 GA: 19 HI: 3 IA: 9 ID: 6 IN: 20 IL: 23 KS: 10 KY: 7 LA: 6 MA: 0 MD: 8 ME: 0 MI: 20 MN: 13 MO: 18 MS: 6 MT: 5 NC: 35 ND: 2 NE: 1 NH: 1 NJ: 3 NM: 5 NV: 6 NY: 12 OH: 19 OK: 9 OR: 7 PA: 27 RI: 0 SC: 16 SD: 1 TN: 23 TX: 63 UT: 3 VA: 24 VT: 0 WA: 19 WI: 19 WV: 5 WY: 1 New total: 651 theaters. UPDATE (April 4, 2008, 7:13 a.m. PDT): AK: 1 AL: 20 AR: 12 AZ: 17 (up from 8) CA: 65 (up from 60) CO: 11 CT: 5 (up from 3) DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 60 (up from 58) GA: 29 (up from 19) HI: 3 IA: 9 ID: 7 (up from 6) IN: 22 (up from 20) IL: 29 (up from 23) KS: 11 (up from 10) KY: 10 (up from 7) LA: 12 (up from 6) MA: 2 (up from 0) MD: 11 (up from 8) ME: 1 (up from 0) MI: 27 (up from 20) MN: 23 (up from 13) MO: 20 (up from 18) MS: 8 (up from 6) MT: 5 NC: 38 (up from 35) ND: 2 NE: 4 (up from 1) NH: 2 (up from 1) NJ: 8 (up from 3) NM: 8 (up from 5) NV: 6 NY: 18 (up from 12) OH: 24 (up from 19) OK: 13 (up from 9) OR: 11 (up from 7) PA: 31 (up from 27) RI: 0 SC: 18 (up from 16) SD: 1 TN: 28 (up from 23) TX: 75 (up from 63) UT: 3 VA: 31 (up from 24) VT: 0 WA: 23 (up from 19) WI: 20 (up from 19) WV: 6 (up from 5) WY: 1 New total: 795 theaters (up 144 since March 31). UPDATE (April 6, 2008, 12:45 p.m. PDT): I checked again after seeing Kevin Miller claiming that the film is now set to open on 1,000 screens. There must be several theaters planning to show it on multiple screens, then. AK: 2 (up from 1) AL: 20 AR: 12 AZ: 17 CA: 64 (down from 65) CO: 11 CT: 5 DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 60 GA: 29 HI: 3 IA: 9 ID: 7 IN: 22 IL: 29 KS: 11 KY: 10 LA: 12 MA: 2 MD: 11 ME: 1 MI: 27 MN: 23 MO: 20 MS: 8 MT: 5 NC: 38 ND: 2 NE: 4 NH: 2 NJ: 8 NM: 8 NV: 6 NY: 18 OH: 24 OK: 14 (up from 13) OR: 12 (up from 11) PA: 31 RI: 0 SC: 18 SD: 1 TN: 28 TX: 74 (down from 75) UT: 3 VA: 31 VT: 0 WA: 23 WI: 20 WV: 6 WY: 1 New total: 796 theaters (up by one theater since Friday). UPDATE (April 12, 2008, 8:16 a.m. MST): AK: 3 (up from 2) AL: 23 (up from 20) AR: 12 AZ: 18 (up from 17) CA: 105 (up from 64) CO: 19 (up from 11) CT: 7 (up from 5) DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 79 (up from 60) GA: 38 (up from 29) HI: 4 (up from 3) IA: 12 (up from 9) ID: 7 IN: 28 (up from 22) IL: 46 (up from 29) KS: 12 (up from 11) KY: 13 (up from 10) LA: 14 (up from 12) MA: 12 (up from 2) MD: 14 (up from 11) ME: 1 MI: 36 (up from 27) MN: 25 (up from 23) MO: 20 MS: 8 MT: 5 NC: 45 (up from 38) ND: 2 NE: 4 NH: 3 (up from 2) NJ: 24 (up from 8) NM: 8 NV: 9 (up from 6) NY: 26 (up from 18) OH: 35 (up from 24) OK: 14 OR: 17 (up from 12) PA: 32 (up from 31) RI: 1 (up from 0) SC: 20 (up from 18) SD: 2 (up from 1) TN: 28 TX: 80 (up from 74) UT: 14 (up from 3) VA: 33 (up from 31) VT: 1 (up from 0) WA: 30 (up from 23) WI: 20 WV: 8 (up from 6) WY: 1 New total: 1022. They now have theaters in every state, and clearly have more than 1,000 screens, falsifying my prediction (1). At this point, I think my prediction (4) may also be falsified, but prediction (3) has probably become more likely since their audience will be diluted across a larger number of theaters and screens. UPDATE (April 14, 2008): “Expelled” has finally shown up in the “opening” category at Rotten Tomatoes (and was never listed as “upcoming”), with a 0% fresh (i.e., 100% rotten) rating. The only review counted at the moment is Variety’s review. UPDATE (April 16, 2008, 7:00 p.m. MST): AK: 2 (down from 3) AL: 23 AR: 12 AZ: 19 (up from 18) CA: 110 (up from 105) CO: 19 CT: 9 (up from 7) DC: 1 DE: 3 FL: 81 (up from 79) GA: 42 (up from 38) HI: 5 (up from 4) IA: 12 ID: 7 IN: 29 (up from 28) IL: 47 (up from 46) KS: 12 KY: 13 LA: 14 MA: 16 (up from 12) MD: 13 (down from 12) ME: 1 MI: 37 (up from 36) MN: 24 (down from 25) MO: 22 (up from 20) MS: 8 MT: 5 NC: 43 (down from 45) ND: 3 (up from 2) NE: 4 NH: 4 (up from 3) NJ: 26 (up from 24) NM: 8 NV: 9 NY: 27 (up from 26) OH: 36 (up from 35) OK: 14 OR: 16 (down from 17) PA: 34 (up from 32) RI: 1 SC: 20 SD: 2 TN: 28 TX: 81 (up from 80) UT: 14 VA: 33 VT: 1 WA: 31 (up from 30) WI: 19 (down from 20) WV: 8 WY: 1 New total: 1,049 theaters, up from 1,022 despite a few states losing a theater here and there. (The big drop will come next week.) Reviews are starting to show up at Rotten Tomatoes; it’s currently scoring one positive review and six negative, for a 14% freshness rating and an average rating of 2.8/10. UPDATE (April 18, 2008, 8:10 a.m. MST): It’s opening day, and further updates on theater counts, ratings, and box office will be posted here (and won’t include state-by-state breakdowns). The-Numbers.com reports that “Expelled”’s opening theater count is three more theaters than Wednesday’s total, 1,052. ...