 Sometimes people mistakenly think Discovery Institute is a religious organization. Maybe because they've seen inaccurate media reports or read rumors on the internet. Actually, Discovery Institute is a secular think tank. I and others have made videos regarding the Discovery Institute, the primary think tank for the intelligent design movement. But it occurs to me that I don't know much about the Discovery Institute. So I did a little research on the organization focusing on activities regarding biology and evolution. First, let's answer the who, what, and where. This is the Discovery Institute's mission statement. I've highlighted a few bits, but it sounds awfully innocuous. Only one reference to religion, although there are references to God-given reason in other statements. There are several groups within the DI, Cascadia, which apparently has something to do with regional transportation, Bioethics, and the Real Russia Project, which seeks to dispel misconceptions about Russian-U.S. relations. It's an odd hodgepodge, and I can't help but wonder why they would stick such diverse interests into one group. Many of the positions of the DI's groups can be described as right wing or big L libertarian. The group I am most interested in is called the Center for Science and Culture. The Discovery Institute has offices in Seattle and Washington, D.C. The DI receives about $1 million a year from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, although the funds are earmarked for the Cascadia group's work on regional transportation. $50,000 of that million goes towards the salary of the Institute's president, Bruce Chapman, who gets paid $141,000 annually. The agency is a non-profit, and contributions are tax-deductible. The Discovery Institute is adamant that they are not religious in nature, and so far so good. They sound like a legitimate think tank for conservative viewpoints on a variety of topics. But what can we infer from their other funding sources? In 1997, the DI received $1.4 million in grants and gifts, including funds from 22 foundations, two-thirds of which have explicitly religious missions. In 2001, the Baptist Press reported, Discovery Institute, with its $4 million annual budget, 1.2 million of which is for the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, as its name was at the time, is heavily funded by evangelical Christians. McClellan Foundation of Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example, awarded $350,000 to the Institute with the hope that researchers would be able to prove evolution to be a false theory. Fieldstead & Company, owned by Howard and Robert Amundsen of Irvine, California, pledged $2.8 million through 2003 to support the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. In the same article in the Baptist Press, DI president Bruce Chapman is quoted as saying, We seek to advance a realistic internationalism and traditional Judeo-Christian moral principles, Chapman said. The agenda is one we set ourselves rather than responding to funding sources. In 2005, the Washington Post reported, Stephen C. Meyer said the Institute accepts money from such wealthy conservatives as Howard Amundsen Jr., who once said his goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives, and the McClellan Foundation, which commits itself to the infallibility of the Scripture. According to a 2005 ABC News World Report, the Discovery Institute denies allegation that its true agenda is religious. Their public relations representative, this is Stephen C. Meyer again, stopped ABC News interview when asked about the organization's many evangelical Christian donors. I don't think we want to go down that path, he said. Meyer says, No matter who provides financial support, his goals are scientific, and that science may one day prove his belief that the intelligent designer is God. So, for a non-religious organization, they are primarily funded by explicitly religious organizations. What about the personnel? Are they a dream team of scientists, engineers, and educators? I'm going to focus on just the Center for Science and Culture, the anti-evolution wing of the Discovery Institute. I was able to obtain information about 39 fellows and directors of the CSC. I've counted up the PhDs by category, where a person has got help from two PhDs like Jonathan Wells, who has a PhD in religion and molecular biology. I've counted each PhD separately in its own category. I've grouped the PhD into four categories, theology and philosophy, fine arts or government, non-biological sciences, and biology. I have put the two bio-physicists in the non-biological sciences because they were both software biologists, more trained in bioinformatics than soft biology. As you will see, it makes very little difference which category they are in. So, which category will dominate in the Center for Science and Culture? The largest category by far is philosophy and theology, with an astounding 18 of the 39 fellows having PhDs in this area. Quite a science think-tank. Second place is a tie between the fine arts government category, including such areas of specialty as Hebrew and literary studies, and the non-biological sciences, which included specialists in astronomy and nuclear physics. To be fair, the CSC is combating naturalism in several areas of science, and some of these people were in the movie Expelled, so they're practically movie stars. Biologists are the smallest category at the CSC, with only five of the 39 PhDs being in biological sciences. One is Raymond Bolan, who received his PhD from UT Dallas, the same school that is blessed with Air and Raw. Is Bolan a professor there or anywhere? Perhaps toiling away in a research lab? No, actually he's the president of probe ministries, which describes itself as a Christian worldview and apologetics ministry offering resources to help you think biblically about a wide range of topics. Apparently he didn't get the memo about the DI being non-religious in nature. What about the other four biologists? Jonathan Wells, who has a PhD in religion and molecular cell biology. Amazing, but PhD in religion. Michael Beehe, who I think many of you are familiar with, a devout Roman Catholic, hasn't written a paper journal article since Bill Clinton was president. That leaves only Paul Qian and Scott Minich. Dr. Minich is an associate professor at University of Idaho, his only distinguishing points being his work on the Shroud of Turin and his participation in the search for biological weapons in Iraq. Paul Qian is a Hong Kong-born marine biologist and has a legitimate if uninspiring background. He has produced six publications in 40 years. Two as first author and none in a first or second-tier journal. His last paper was 15 years ago. He currently teaches at a small Jesuit University in San Francisco. What makes his story really odd is that they have him in charge of the paleontology program, which by his own admission he has no qualifications in. He also translates intelligent design books into Chinese.