Results tagged “discoveryinstitute”

So there's an article about bus fares over on Crosscut--by the Cascadia Center for Regional Development's Matt Rosenberg--that suggests raising the one-zone peak bus fare to $3.50, an amount to make even the most evangelical of bus riders clutch their wallet. (We throw in "evangelical" because the Cascadia Center is a division of the intelligent-designing Discovery Institute.) But it could be a very good idea, we think, against our skinflint judgment.

Oh, the Discovery Institute minions must be wriggling with glee over this one. Apparently bowing to pressure from the Bush administration, Grand Canyon rangers are no longer allowed to tell park visitors how old our most famous chasm is. In order to avoid "offending religious fundamentalists" who seem to think that Noah might have parked his ark there. Seriously, could there be a better time to easily ignore that man, when everything that comes out of his mouth has a 99% chance of being dead wrong? Dear National Park Service: grow a pair, pronto.

Seattlest went undercover last night, attending a book launch party for The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design by Dr. Jonathan Wells, senior fellow of the Discovery Institute. The party was held in the Rainier Square Atrium and was open to the public - when a press release announcing the event popped up on our Technorati watchlist for "book signing Seattle" last month we put it immediately on our calendar.

Transportation nerds, civics geeks and mayor's office moles will all likely be in attendance tonight for the People's Waterfront Coalition's event at Town Hall with John Norquist (former mayor of Milwaukee, New Urbanist type), Scott Bernstein (Brookings Institute Center for Urban and Metropolitan Policy), Anne Vernez Moudon (UW professor of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design and Planning), Bruce Agnew (Cascadia Center, Discovery Institute) and David Brewster (founded Town Hall, founded Seattle Weekly). That's a lot of expertise in one room, even for Town Hall. They're going to talk about the impact of replacing elevated highways with grade-level streets in presentation and discussion formats.

We wanted to attend the Town Hall evolution vs Jesus Freaks debate last night. It was on our calendar and we had all our stuff layed out. Pen, notebook, pillowcase full of doorknobs... That's the wrong attitude, though. You can't beat science into someone's head, it turns out. Someone emailed us with the right attitude today, though, and we'd like to share it with you. Thanks for the email Samantha.

There are some amazing, talented scientific minds at work here in Seattle. Sadly, barring some recent high-profile exceptions, they don't get much media time. Instead, who do the press turn to when pimping a story about "mysterious sonic boom sounds" with a seemingly scientific slant? Local Seattle UFO experts. Thanks San Diego Union Tribune, we'll put that on our mantle right next to all the press about the Discovery Institute.

We mentioned briefly yesterday that Seattle was on the list of potential sites for the 2008 Republican National Convention and that we have been itching for someone to shout at for a while now. If their convention came to be here in 2008 would it be a WTO type of mess of democracy or would protesters be contained in their pens and ignored by the TV? There's no way of knowing. Still, you have to wonder why exactly the GOP would even consider a liberal outpost like Seattle (or Portland, also on the list, for that matter) believes itself to be. We're within driving distance from the border and Eugene, Oregon. Shouldn't that exclude us from consideration? What are the criteria?

Roger Downey and his merry band of straight-faced reporter types who just happen to write for an alternative weekly newspaper printed everything you never wanted to know about the Discovery Institute in today's paper. We say "everything you never wanted to know" because, really, who cares about Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute? Isn't that something that Pennsylvania and Arkansas and Conservative Wackolandia have to pay attention to for a few minutes while their courts shoot down the best efforts of their "educators" to trump science with godliness?

This week, federal judge John Jones knocked down the mandate from a Pennsylvania school board that their science teachers present Intelligent Design as a valid alternative to evolution in their classrooms. While he was at it, he smacked the Dover School board for being a bunch of disingenuous liars. Scientists, teachers, and intelligent people from all walks of life, religious or otherwise, rejoiced.

Seattle as a city is currently in danger of becoming the guy at the party with the undone zipper. When we come strutting out of the men's room anxious to talk about technology and the environment and progressive politics all anyone can see is the Discovery Institute hanging out of our pants. Seattlest cringes every time the national media references a particular "Seattle-based think tank" - They won't let us pretend for a minute that we're not ground zero of the Intelligent Design "controversy."

Salon.com is reporting today that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, local philanthropy extrodinaire, has pledged ten million smackaroos to the Discovery Institute since 2000. Wait, you say, the same Discovery Institute tank of thinkers that promotes Intelligent Design? Yes, we tell you, that same Discovery Institute. Say it ain't so, Bill.

When accounts of George Bush's apparent endorsement of "Intelligent Design" hit the media a while back Seattlest saw it as the president's way of boosting the result count for a google search of "bush intelligent". Soon after, though, our jaw slackened and we began staring through a poster on the wall and into the middle distance. Our tools have been getting progressively cruder since then, and ooooOO! OOoo-Oooo Ahhhh!

From time to time we suck at Seattlest. It's not often, but it does happen. On Friday, for example, we sucked. When talking about The Stranger we confused two separate incidents that have nothing in common except that they both involved Seattle police mistreating young black males in front of Seattle nightspots (1, 2). That's terrible of us and we apologize. Misspelling the names of Stranger writers is not cool either. We also reported not one, but two events as if they were taking place this past weekend when they are actually still in the future. That's great if you wanted to attend but thought you missed them, but not so great if you care about things like accurate reporting.

Occasionally, Seattle likes to put its wrong foot forward. This time it's the Discovery Institute, which normally spends its time wonking about land use and transportation issues. Now they're encouraging high school science teachers to "teach the controversy" surrounding evolutionary theory, a controversy that they're busy creating. The Discovery Institute claims that it has no Creationist aims up its sleeve, and is only advocating scientific criticism of a too-venerated theory.