Biologic Institute = Tobacco Institute

It turns out that Big Intelligent Design may be following the path blazed by Big Tobacco. For decades Big Tobacco underwrote "science" that seeded obscure scientific journals with articles that purported to show that smoking tobacco doesn't contribute to cancer risk. That "science" was used to defend itself in subsequent liability lawsuits. As a former 3-to-4-pack-a-day smoker, I have no sympathy for people who smoke who say that they didn't know that cigarettes could damage their health and then file bogus lawsuits. But industry (in fact, nobody) is not allowed to lie about scientific results.

The New Scientist reports that Big Intelligent Design (another name for the Discovery Institute ) has established a research lab that, according to the lab's senior researcher Douglas Axe will "contribute substantially to the scientific case for intelligent design." The strategy will be to smuggle a few ambiguous papers into minor peer-reviewed journals, then turn around and use those results to claim that there are "doubts" about Darwinian evolutionary biology. Since there are "doubts" in the scientific literature, some befuddled judges may eventually rule that intelligent design can be taught as a "scientific" alternative in public schools. The scientific community had better keep a close eye on results reported by the Biologic Institute.

Whole fascinating New Scientist article here . Some of my previous reporting on Discovery Institute shenanigans here .