Discovery Institute channels BushCo for lies and spin

There’s more than one bit of deception in the Discovery Institute’s latest attempt to spin the Dover, Pa. school board suit over intelligent design

Example no. 1:

“The future of intelligent design, as far as I’m concerned, has very little to do with the outcome of the Dover case,” (John G. West, a political scientist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute), said. “The future of intelligent design is tied up with academic endeavors. It rises or falls on the science.”

That’s a good first lie, or first part of a series. Discovery has always played down the religious background of ID when trying to “get the controversy taught” — the alleged controversy over the fallibility of the theory of evolution.

So, here’s lie no. 2:

Advocates of intelligent design perceived the risk as so great that the Discovery Institute said it had tried to dissuade the school board in Dover from going ahead and taking a stand in favor of intelligent design. The institute opposed the Dover board's action, it said, because it “politicized” what should be a scientific issue.

Really? I didn’t see Discovery complaining about “politicization” either the first or second time fundamentalists got elected to a majority of the Kansas Board of Education.

Nor did we see them complain about politicization when our nation’s non-scientist in chief said schools ought to teach “both sides.”

As one scientist says, why can’t they just be honest? A professor at Baptist stalwart Baylor University tells them just that:

Derek Davis, director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor …, noted that the advocates of intelligent design claim they are not talking about God or religion. “But they are, and everybody knows they are,” Mr. Davis said. “I just think we ought to quit playing games. It’s a religious worldview that's being advanced.”

A wonderful idea, but Discovery’s only chance is bait-and-switch obfuscation and people like West know that. Else, why wouldn’t Discovery still post its wedge strategy on its website?