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A evolutionary biology professor at the University of Vermont, Nicholas Gotelli, got an invitation to debate one of the pushers of "intelligent design" at the Discovery Institute. Whatever your faith (or non faith), it is a fact that "intelligent design" is a dishonest framing of creationism as real scientific theory to score political points. Instead of placating the pseudo-scientist movement as many seem willing to do, he gave what I thought was a far more useful and blunt response:

" Dear Dr. Klinghoffer:

Thank you for this interesting and courteous invitation to set up a debate about evolution and creationism (which includes its more recent relabeling as "intelligent design") with a speaker from the Discovery Institute. Your invitation is quite surprising, given the sneering coverage of my recent newspaper editorial that you yourself posted on the Discovery Institute's website:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/

However, this kind of two-faced dishonesty is what the scientific community has come to expect from the creationists.

Academic debate on controversial topics is fine, but those topics need to have a basis in reality. I would not invite a creationist to a debate on campus for the same reason that I would not invite an alchemist, a flat-earther, an astrologer, a psychic, or a Holocaust revisionist. These ideas have no scientific support, and that is why they have all been discarded by credible scholars. Creationism is in the same category.

Instead of spending time on public debates, why aren't members of your institute publishing their ideas in prominent peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences? If you want to be taken seriously by scientists and scholars, this is where you need to publish. Academic publishing is an intellectual free market, where ideas that have credible empirical support are carefully and thoroughly explored. Nothing could possibly be more exciting and electrifying to biology than scientific disproof of evolutionary theory or scientific proof of the existence of a god. That would be Nobel Prize winning work, and it would be eagerly published by any of the prominent mainstream journals.

"Conspiracy" is the predictable response by Ben Stein and the frustrated creationists. But conspiracy theories are a joke, because science places a high premium on intellectual honesty and on new empirical studies that overturn previously established principles. Creationism doesn't live up to these standards, so its proponents are relegated to the sidelines, publishing in books, blogs, websites, and obscure journals that don't maintain scientific standards.

Finally, isn't it sort of pathetic that your large, well-funded institute must scrape around, panhandling for a seminar invitation at a little university in northern New England? Practicing scientists receive frequent invitations to speak in science departments around the world, often on controversial and novel topics. If creationists actually published some legitimate science, they would receive such invitations as well.

So, I hope you understand why I am declining your offer. I will wait patiently to read about the work of creationists in the pages of Nature and Science. But until it appears there, it isn't science and doesn't merit an invitation.

In closing, I do want to thank you sincerely for this invitation and for your posting on the Discovery Institute Website. As an evolutionary biologist, I can't tell you what a badge of honor this is. My colleagues will be envious.

Sincerely yours,

Nick Gotelli

P.S. I hope you will forgive me if I do not respond to any further e-mails from you or from the Discovery Institute. This has been entertaining, but it interferes with my research and teaching."

As a telecom beat writer, I deal with the Discovery Institute on a different topic: the "exaflood." The Exaflood is a term coined by Discovery that suggests there's an unstoppable surge in bandwidth demand that cannot be resolved unless you give the nation's largest telecom carriers whatever they want (be it less regulation, tax breaks, subsidies). It's as equally un-scientific as ID (a fabricated pseudo-scientific point constructed to win political fights for the Institute's paying clients), but like ID, unfortunately tends to pop up all too often as a legitimate debate instead of the fabricated pile of steaming otter shit that it really is, largely because there's not enough people willing to stand up and call a spade a spade.

Religion is not science. The Discovery Institute is in the business of public relations, not science. People need to start distinguishing these differences bluntly and brutally.