aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Friday, August 26, 2005

Gates and Discovery

I read in the Times, and was surprised, that the Gates Foundation gave millions of dollars to the Cascadia Project at the Discovery Institute. At the time, and subsequently, I withheld judgment. Maybe there was a good explanation.

Today Salon puts it forward and I’m unconvinced. Instead there are even more connections than I imagined:

The Gates Foundation’s grants to Discovery are not the only connection Microsoft has to the institute. Mark Ryland, who heads the institute’s Washington office, is a former Microsoft executive, and a Microsoft employee named Michael Martin is a current member of Discovery’s board. A spokeswoman for Microsoft says that Martin served on the board in his personal capacity, not as a representative of the company. In an e-mail, Keith Pennock, the program administrator of Discovery’s Center for Science and Culture (which runs its intelligent design work), concurs. “Mr. Martin is a member of the Discovery Board in his individual capacity and does not represent the Microsoft Corporation. Does Microsoft support Discovery’s work on intelligent design? No.”

Kennock ends his e-mail to Salon with criticism over the inquiry into the groups that finance Discovery’s work. “Finally, I have been asked to advise you that it is unseemly for people who dislike one program at a think tank (or a university—or an on-line magazine, for that matter) to try to pressure funders of other programs there,” he writes. “It is illiberal and contrary to the spirit of free speech.”

As I understand free speech it is precisely about a society informed through a multiplicity of viewpoints. They have theirs, you have yours, I have mine. Mine is that it is a mistake to fund a project of an organization that is so clearly anti-science.

They can have and express their views, but I don’t think it is illiberal to call on a funder to look at the totality of an organization’s mission and work when considering grants. I hope the Gates Institute reconsiders.