Discovery Institute intelligent design campaignsThe Discovery Institute has conducted a series of related public relations campaigns which seek to promote intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolutionary biology, which the Institute terms "Darwinism". The Discovery Institute promotes the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement and is represented by Creative Response Concepts, a public relations firm. Prominent Institute campaigns have been to 'Teach the Controversy' and to allow 'Critical Analysis of Evolution'.
A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism"A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" (or "Dissent from Darwinism") was a statement issued in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a Christian, conservative think tank based in Seattle, Washington, U.S., best known for its promotion of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design. As part of the Discovery Institute's Teach the Controversy campaign, the statement expresses skepticism about the ability of random mutations and natural selection to account for the complexity of life, and encourages careful examination of the evidence for "Darwinism", a term intelligent design proponents use to refer to evolution.
Teach the ControversyThe "teach the controversy" campaign of the Discovery Institute seeks to promote the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design (a variant of traditional creationism) as part of its attempts to discredit the teaching of evolution in United States public high school science courses. Scientific organizations (including the American Association for the Advancement of Science) point out that the institute claims that there is a scientific controversy where in fact none exists.
Intelligent design movementThe intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the pseudoscientific idea of intelligent design (ID), which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." Its chief activities are a campaign to promote public awareness of this concept, the lobbying of policymakers to include its teaching in high school science classes, and legal action, either to defend such teaching or to remove barriers otherwise preventing it.