History of Bruce Chapman and the Discovery Institute

(image via The Daily Iowan)

In case anyone wanted to know such things, Ross Anderson has written an interesting article on the history of Bruce Chapman and the Seattle based Discovery Institute. What I had never realized was that there was so much backstory to the Discovery Institute ... before they decided to go off the deep end.

Still, it was an authentic think tank. Discovery hosted lunchtime debates over topics such as charter schools, freeway tolls and international trade. Chapman, however, was looking for that breakout issue. In 1993, he read an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal written by a young Whitworth College professor named Stephen Meyer. Meyer was defending a California biology professor whose job was threatened because he had questioned evolution theory. "I saw the issue at first as an example of political correctness run amok," Chapman recalled later. "Only later did I see it as an issue in science, and sense the implications."

Once again, Chapman teamed up with his Harvard soulmate, George Gilder, who had become a neo-conservative superstar. They sat down with Meyer and decided that "Discovery should become the home to the scientific critique of Darwinism, and home as well to intelligent design as an alternative theory."

Thus was born what they now call the Center for Science and Culture.