LA Philanthropy Watch

Concluding post in a 7-part series on a legal dispute between two local nonprofits – and the national cultural controversy that underlies the dispute.

On January 6, I began this series of posts with the question, “Why is one local nonprofit suing another?”  I have tried to answer the question by taking a closer look at each of the nonprofits involved in this dispute and at the issues animating their disagreement.

This is the story in outline:

The American Freedom Alliance rented the IMAX Theater at the California Science Center for an October 6 screening of the film, “Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record,” a documentary challenging the theory of evolution and promoting the theory of intelligent design.

The California Science Center, acting after receipt of a complaint from the Smithsonian Institute about a press release issued by Discovery Institute promoting the screening of “Darwin’s Dilemma,” canceled the rental.

The American Freedom Alliance filed suit on October 14 for breach of contract and violation of its First Amendment right to free speech.  (According the AFA’s complaint, “The lawsuit is believed to be the first since the 2005 case of Kitzmiller v. Dover to consider the public’s right to learn about intelligent design.”)

Discovery Institute, which on October 9 had requested all Science Center documents relevant to the case, filed suit on December 1 alleging that not all documents had been turned over, in violation of the California Public Records Act.

Over the past several days, I focused especially on the cultural dispute over evolution and intelligent design – and on the role of Discovery Institute, the prime mover nationally on the religious side of the debate.  Discovery Institute has skillfully manufactured controversy (suggesting a lack of scientific consensus regarding evolution) to influence public opinion.  Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture, is among the advocates of intelligent design featured in “Darwin’s Dilemma” and affiliated with Discovery Institute.

The American Freedom Alliance, which has taken no public position on the merits of either evolution or intelligent design, is allied with Discovery Institute in fueling this manufactured controversy.

I’ll elaborate a bit about this story by highlighting a couple of links that I didn’t feature in my earlier posts.

First is the news release that Discovery Institute issued about the screening.  (This link was provided by Discovery Institute in response to my request.)

Second, an excerpt  – which Discovery Institute regards as confirming evidence of the First Amendment violation – from the email message from the California Science Center Foundation to the American Freedom Alliance, which acknowledges that the “press release has damaged our relationship with the Smithsonian and the reputation of the California Science Center” in explaining why the event was canceled.  (Scroll down to the heading, ‘E-mails Show Viewpoint Discrimination.’)

It is apparently the first sentence of Discovery Institute’s news release that officials at the Smithsonian objected to:  “The debate over Darwin will come to California on October 25^th, when the Smithsonian Institution’s west coast affiliate premieres Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record, a new intelligent design film which challenges Darwinian evolution.”

It is certainly misleading to describe the California Science Center (identified by name in the first sentence of the second paragraph) as “the Smithsonian’s west coast affiliate.”  More accurately, it is one of 165 national affiliates of the Smithsonian.  Furthermore, although the IMAX theater is the venue for the showing, a casual reader might infer from the active verb ‘premiers’ that the California Science Center has a more significant role in the presentation than as the landlord of a rental space.

It doesn’t follow, of course, that stretching the truth in a press release (by a third party) – and receiving a complaint about the wording from the Smithsonian – justified the California Science Center’s cancellation of its contract with the American Freedom Alliance.

As a fan of the California Science Center, I hope that the institution had clear policies in place regarding rental contracts and rental cancellations, and a culture of compliance with policy within the institution.  The public side of the Center’s public-private partnership, as noted previously, requires fidelity to the First Amendment, so following policy prescriptions is paramount.

If this is the case, I would expect the Science Center to prevail in the AFA lawsuit.  I would make the same points about Discovery Institute’s lawsuit regarding the California Public Records Act.

A hearing in the case of American Freedom Alliance v. California Science Center Foundation (Case number BC423687) is scheduled for January 26 at 8:45 a.m. in Los Angeles Superior Court, Department 14, 111 N. Hill Street.

A hearing in the case of Discovery Institute vs. California Science Center (Case number BS123905) is scheduled for March 9 at 9:30 a.m. in Department 85 of the same courthouse.

To access case summaries, enter the case number at this link.

Previous posts in this series:

• Sixth post: Discovery Institute and the Strategy of Manufactured Controversy
• Fifth post: Discovery Institute on Intelligent Design, Intelligent Agency, and Science
• Fourth post: Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design, and Neo-Darwinism
• Third post: American Freedom Alliance and the Scientific Establishment
• Second post: California Science Center: A Public-Private Partnership
• First post: California Science Center Sued by American Freedom Alliance

Post #6 – Discovery Institute seeks to manufacture controversy in order to create doubts about matters of clear scientific consensus.

A central feature of Discovery Institute’s strategic approach in the debate over evolution and intelligent design has been well-documented: to manufacture controversy so that established theories and accepted findings (about which there is clear scientific consensus) appear (at least to a public that lacks a robust understanding of science) unsettled or doubtful.

Discovery Institute is hardly the only institution or industry to manufacture controversy when science and empirical evidence are regarded as unfavorable to its interests.  “The Denial Industry,” by George Monbiot (in the September 19, 2006 Guardian) illustrates this technique.  The article – which does not address evolution or intelligent design – describes how the oil industry (battling proposals to halt climate change) has borrowed techniques from the tobacco industry (which opposed restrictions on smoking) to sow doubts – in the public’s mind – and manufacture controversy where there is clear scientific consensus.

One quotation (cited in the article) from a Brown & Williamson tobacco company document crisply clarifies this strategy: “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.”

In this instance, the science (‘body of fact’) was for all practical purposes unassailable – and the facts were unwelcome to the tobacco industry.  So the B&W strategy was to create a diversion that cast doubt: to manufacture a controversy; to create a false impression in the minds of the public (and political cover for congenial politicians) that doubts about the scientific evidence were widespread.  Mr. Monbiot reports that ExxonMobil, in channeling the tobacco industry’s methods, has even borrowed phrases invented by Phillip Morris’s consultants in its campaign to mislead.  Other gambits: sponsor research (not subject to peer-review); highlight actual scientific findings – when it serves the industry’s purposes. When a contradictory study is found, cite it relentlessly – even after it has been discredited by further research.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned the semblance of scientific discourse depicted on the Discovery Institute / Center for Science and Culture website.  Add to this scientific veneer an abundance of indignation and exasperation.  The Center for Science and Culture consistently portrays itself as an underdog battling the scientific establishment.

After a quarter century of dispute on familiar terrain, few scientists have much interest in the endless diversions of intelligent design proponents; Discovery Institute proclaims every apparent slight and perceived rebuff as the bias of an arrogant foe.

But at this stage, scientists are only a foil.  Discovery Institute no longer concentrates on changing the scientific consensus.  Plan B is to “teach the controversy.”  More likely audiences for the manufactured controversy are pliable school boards, an inattentive public, and donors among Discovery Institute’s base.  So the controversy shifts from the realm of science to a host of outrages (as a quick review of Discovery Institute’s website reveals):

• threats to free speech (October 9, 2009),
• bullying by the Smithsonian (October 10, 2009),
• discrimination against documentary film (November 25, 2009),
• suppressing public documents and viewpoint discrimination (December 2, 2009),
• censorship (December 30, 2009),
• illegal cover-up (January 4, 2010), and
• trampling academic freedom (January 4, 2010).

This endless cycle of controversy explains why the American Freedom Alliance, a stalking horse for Discovery Institute, “has no position on Darwinism and intelligent design but is concerned that debate is being stifled by the scientific establishment.”  The indispensable purpose this dispute serves is to manufacture controversy.  And DI’s Center for Science and Culture is having a field day with it.

In this light, it is apparent why the California Science Center – which has no interest in furthering a contentious dispute – has taken a low visibility posture.  In a prepared statement [sent via email correspondence] about the legal case, Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph said: “The private American Freedom Alliance event was cancelled because of issues related to the contract. We don’t discuss contract issues with the public and we are limited in the information we can provide due to pending litigation.”  This quite polite and marginally more forthcoming version of ‘No comment’ is hardly noteworthy.  It’s just the response that attorneys at big institutions often counsel organizations to offer.

In contrast, the AFA’s attorney had this to say:

“Certain museum officials and their cronies in academia and throughout the scientific community are part of a subtle but effective movement to marginalize a scientific theory that challenges their world view,” said AFA’s attorney, William J. Becker, Jr., of The Becker Law Firm in Los Angeles. “The public should be allowed to make up its own mind whether intelligent design has any merit. Any time public officials stand in the way of legitimate debate, they reveal their hostility toward intellectual freedom, which the Constitution is designed to safeguard.”

He’s reading from a familiar script.

Tomorrow I’ll wrap things up with a final post on the legal disputes being played out in Los Angeles Superior Court: American Freedom Alliance v. California Science Center Foundation, and Discovery Institute v. California Science Center.

(Image courtesy of Jeremy’s Teach the Controversy website offering T-shirts and other apparel.)

Next post: Last Post: Nonprofits Clash Over Evolution and Science

Previous posts in this series:

• Fifth post: Discovery Institute on Intelligent Design, Intelligent Agency, and Science
• Fourth post: Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design, and Neo-Darwinism
• Third post: American Freedom Alliance and the Scientific Establishment
• Second post: California Science Center: A Public-Private Partnership
• First post: California Science Center Sued by American Freedom Alliance

Post #5 – Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture regards its opposition to evolution and its promotion of intelligent design as scientific; the scientific community disagrees.

Intelligent design (which has replaced creationism as American religious conservatives’ alternative to the theory of evolution) suggests that only appeal to an intelligent agent can possibly explain the universe and life on earth.  The “irreducible complexity” we find in nature, and the narrowly circumscribed, “finely-tuned” conditions required for life on earth to thrive, simply can’t be explained by “natural selection acting on random mutations, an unpredictable and purposeless process.”

“The theory of intelligent design holds 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.”

In essence: there are gaps in the theory of evolution as embraced by contemporary scientists that can only be explained if an intelligent agent – in other words, God – exists.  This reasoning is a contemporary version of a teleological argument for the existence of God.  God must exist, because no explanation other than God’s handiwork can explain the natural world.

Advocates of intelligent design go further, however, and insist that their reasoning, observations, and conclusions about an intelligent agent are scientific – not founded on religious belief, or philosophical reflections, or matters of faith.  Discovery Institute’s website is replete with references to individual scientists and scientific papers, journals, and books, as well as writings by advocates of intelligent design on “gaps” in science, the failures of scientific theory and practice, and of the myopia of the scientific establishment.  (The website has an excellent search function: plug in ‘California Science Center,’ or ‘intelligent design,’ or ‘irreducible complexity,’ for instance, for a comprehensive list of articles and blog posts on the subject of your search.)

The conclusion that intelligent design is science is not accepted by the scientific establishment.  While working scientists may or may not believe in God (and there are many theists, including Christians, conducting research in the life sciences), there is a broad consensus in the scientific community that appeals to divine intervention are not part of the scientific method.

A statement of the National Academy of Sciences, “Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences,” suggests that the supernatural realm is beyond the bounds of scientific inquiry:

“Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science.”

In a statement, “Intelligent Design and Peer Review,” the American Association for the Advancement of Science dismisses “the so-called ‘intelligent design movement’” and notes that “in the light of broad scientific criticism of the ID position, advocates have consistently published outside the normal scientific literature.”  The AAAS statement addresses the exception to this rule, a 2004 paper by Steven C. Meyer (Director of the Center for Science and Culture), and references a scientific critique of the paper (which appears at Panda’s Thumb):

“There is nothing wrong with challenging conventional wisdom – continuing challenge is a core feature of science. But challengers should at least be aware of, read, cite, and specifically rebut the actual data that supports conventional wisdom, not merely construct a rhetorical edifice out of omission of relevant facts, selective quoting, bad analogies, knocking down strawmen, and tendentious interpretations. Unless and until the ‘intelligent design’ movement does this, they are not seriously in the game. They’re not even playing the same sport.”

The National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine highlight a 2005 United States District Court decision after a trial in which parents in Dover, PA objected to a local school board policy requiring presentation of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution.  The judge’s 139-page findings of fact included this conclusion:

District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 2005
“[W]e find that ID [intelligent design] is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory, as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community. ID, as noted, is grounded in theology, not science…. Moreover, ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM [intelligent design movement] is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID.”

The scientific community – consisting of people who teach life sciences at universities and medical schools, conduct bench research, attend scientific meetings, and publish in peer-review journals – does not accept intelligent design as science.  Whatever one thinks of the enterprise that Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture is engaged in, it is political or cultural; it is not science.

Discovery Institute has responded to this dismissal by the scientific community with a well-recognized strategy: a manufactured controversy.  This manufactured controversy is – at root – the basis for the dispute between the California Science Center, on one side, and the American Freedom Alliance (and Discovery Institute), on the other.  In my next post, we will look at the strategy of manufacturing a controversy.

(Detail of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel fresco via Wikimedia Commons.)

Next post: Discovery Institute and the Strategy of Manufactured Controversy

Previous posts in this series:

• Fourth post: Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design, and Neo-Darwinism
• Third post: American Freedom Alliance and the Scientific Establishment
• Second post: California Science Center: A Public-Private Partnership
• First post: California Science Center Sued by American Freedom Alliance

Post #4 – A profile of Discovery Institute, which is involved in the legal skirmish over the screening of “Darwin’s Dilemma.”

On October 9, 2009 Discovery Institute joined the dispute between the California Science Center and the American Freedom Alliance by filing a public document request with the Science Center; on December 2, the Institute announced that it had filed suit against the Science Center because it had failed to disclose all relevant documents as required by California’s Public Records Act.

Discovery Institute – through its Center for Science and Culture – is the most prominent opponent of the theory (and teaching) of evolution in the country.  Based in Seattle (with an office in Washington, DC), Discovery Institute engages in public policy research and advocacy in many areas, including regional transportation, defense policy, legal reform, the environment and the economy, entitlement spending, and religion and public life.

“Discovery Institute’s mission is to make a positive vision of the future practical. The Institute discovers and promotes ideas in the common sense tradition of representative government, the free market and individual liberty.”

A distinct perspective shapes the Discovery Institute’s research program:

“The point of view Discovery brings to its work includes a belief in God-given reason and the permanency of human nature; the principles of representative democracy and public service expounded by the American Founders; free market economics domestically and internationally; the social requirement to balance personal liberty with responsibility; the spirit of voluntarism crucial to civil society; the continuing validity of American international leadership; and the potential of science and technology to promote an improved future for individuals, families and communities.”

Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (CSC) opposes the theory of evolution (“neo-Darwinian theory”), while promoting the theory of intelligent design.  This attention on evolutionary biology stems from CSC’s focus on “scientific discoveries and theories that raise larger philosophical, world-view or cultural issues.”  Discovery Institute’s concern is not with all scientific discoveries and theories, but only those that lend support for “scientific materialism – the simplistic philosophy or world-view that claims that all of reality can be reduced to, or derived from, matter and energy alone.” [The link is to a pdf of Discovery Institute's: The "Wedge Document": "So What?"]

The Center for Science and Culture’s opposition to scientific materialism is at the heart of Discovery Institute’s interest in presentation of “Darwin’s Dilemma.”  It is a religious objection.  In this view, the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition created the world and human beings within this world, and thus the theory of evolution and natural selection – which leaves an intelligent agent / creator out of the picture – cannot be true.

Discovery Institute takes pains to distinguish between creationism, which begins with reference to religious belief, and intelligent design, which presents itself as scientific.  “Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence.”

In my next post, we will look more closely at the Center for Science and Culture’s strategy and approach in opposing evolution and advancing intelligent design.

(Photograph of Charles Darwin, age 51, via Wikimedia Commons.)

Next post: Discovery Institute on Intelligent Design, Intelligent Agency, and Science

Previous posts:

• Third post: American Freedom Alliance and the Scientific Establishment
• Second post: California Science Center: A Public-Private Partnership
• First post: California Science Center Sued by American Freedom Alliance

Post #3 – A profile of the American Freedom Alliance, which is involved in the legal skirmish over the screening of “Darwin’s Dilemma.”

Avi Davis, executive director and senior fellow at the American Freedom Alliance, a small nonprofit founded in 2008, described his organization for the LA Times as a “think tank and activist network promoting Western values and ideals.”

AFI presents its mission in these words: “The American Freedom Aliance [sic] is a non-political, non-partisan movement which promotes, defends and upholds Western values and ideals. The AFA sponsors conferences, publishes opinions, distributes information and creates networking groups to identify threats to Western civilization and to motivate, educate and unite citizens in support of that cause.”  [A number of typos appear on the Alliance’s website, including the spelling of the organization’s name in this quotation.  I assume that as a small start-up organization, AFA has few resources to spare for website design and maintenance.] 

While the organization may well be non-partisan, the reference to “non-political” is puzzling (perhaps evincing its founders’ uncertainty about which activities might threaten its 501(c)(3) status).  The AFA, as a brief review of its website confirms, is a conservative (if not neoconservative) advocacy group immersed in highly charged political disputes; this is a feature, not a bug.  The organization is allied with other (prototypically political) conservative organizations – such as another local nonprofit, the David Horowitz Freedom Center – and with Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based nonprofit, which filed a separate suit against the California Science Center on December 1.

Avi Davis has written widely on Israel and the Middle East, including a number of op-eds in the Los Angeles Times (from 1998 to 2002).  Issues emphasized on AFA’s website include academic freedom, media bias, missile defense, and threats posed by “radical Islam, moral and cultural relativism, appeasement and excessive emphasis on multiculturalism.”

There is no reason to deny the inherently political nature of the American Freedom Alliance.  Organizations focused on discourse and advocacy are part of a rich tradition in America – celebrated by Tocqueville more than a century and half ago.  Furthermore, AFA’s mission and activities are consistent with the requirements established by the IRS for a 501(c)(3) organization.  The American Freedom Alliance joins a thriving conservative infrastructure (including, though hardly limited to, many nonprofit institutions), which has enjoyed a commanding presence in American political and cultural discourse during the past three decades.

Why would AFA be interested in “Darwin’s Dilemma”?  Does it wish to promote the theory of intelligent design or criticize the theory of evolution?  No.  Quite the contrary, as Mike Boehm notes in his LA Times article, “The AFA’s Davis said his group has no position on Darwinism and intelligent design but is concerned that debate is being stifled by the scientific establishment.”

To put this debate into context, my next post will focus on Discovery Institute, which has an avid interest in what it refers to as “neo-Darwinian theory.”

Next post – Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design, and Neo-Darwinism

Previous posts in this series:

• Second post: California Science Center: A Public-Private Partnership
• First post:  California Science Center Sued by American Freedom Alliance

Post #1 (in a brief series) – Why is one local nonprofit institution suing another?

In the December 29, 2009 Los Angeles Times Mike Boehm reported on a lawsuit brought against the California Science Center by the American Freedom Alliance (“California Science Center is sued for canceling a film promoting intelligent design”).  This is a tale of one local nonprofit organization suing another.  While not unprecedented, this is rare enough (and the California Science Center is prominent enough) to warrant news coverage in the Los Angeles Times.

I intend, in a brief series of posts over the next several days, to take a closer look at this dispute, which illustrates something of the breadth and diversity of the nonprofit sector.  We often see the words ‘charity’ and ‘charities’ used in reference to nonprofit, voluntary and philanthropic activities, but to refer to a nonprofit institution as a charity can be misleading.  Our traditional conception of a charity is an organization that provides help to the needy.  While neither the California Science Center (or its 501(c)(3) affiliated foundation), nor the American Freedom Alliance is a charity in this sense, both are part of the nonprofit and voluntary sector.  These organizations – while appearing to share broadly educational missions – are dedicated to disparate conceptions of the public good and dissimilar approaches to pursuing their missions; these differences have put them on a collision course.

This conflict also provides insight into the nature of our public discourse of contentious political and cultural issues, including the deliberate use of controversy to advance an organization’s goals.  If the collision of these two organizations was not inevitable, it was – from the perspective on one side of the divide – a favorable outcome.

Finally, the broader philosophical (and cultural) issues in contention – representing a clash of science and theism – may seem to take us a bit far afield from the nonprofit sector: except that nonprofit institutions are at the heart of this public discourse.  Nonprofits (and voluntary associations more generally) are essential institutions in sustaining democracy and the free exchange of ideas.  [See Peter Frumkin, On Being Nonprofit: A Conceptual and Policy Primer (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002), Chapter 2, “Civic and Political Engagement” for discussion of nonprofits in democratic society.] Nonprofits on both sides of this debate are serving crucial roles.

I will begin (with this first post) with a description of the events that led to this legal dispute.

What happened

The American Freedom Alliance rented an auditorium at the California Science Center for an October 6, 2009 screening of a film, “Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record,” which challenges the theory of evolution and promotes intelligent design.  The Smithsonian Institution complained that a news release touting the film falsely implied that the California Science Center is “a West Coast branch of the Smithsonian, and that the film showing is a Smithsonian event.”  The Science Center also received email complaints about its perceived role as host of the presentation of “Darwin’s Dilemma,” which was characterized as “religious propaganda.”

The California Science Center canceled the screening, asserting that the news release violated terms of the rental agreement.  The American Freedom Alliance alleges in its lawsuit that the cancellation violated its First Amendment rights as well as its contract to rent the auditorium.  The Discovery Institute, which had issued the news release, followed up with a second lawsuit against the Science Center.

On the surface, we might think that the activities of the California Science Center, dedicated to educating children and adults about science, would be altogether compatible with the pursuits of the American Freedom Alliance, which promotes “Western values and ideals.”  But just beneath the surface, we discover diametrically different agendas in play (and clashing values and ideals).

(Image of U.S. Supreme Court from Wikimedia Commons.)

Next post: California Science Center: A Public-Private Partnership