A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism

A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism (or Dissent from Darwinism) is a statement issued in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank based in Seattle, Washington, U.S., best known for its promotion of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design. As part of the Discovery Institute"s Teach the Controversy campaign, the statement expresses skepticism about the ability of random mutations and natural selection to account for the complexity of life, and encourages careful examination of the evidence for "Darwinism", a term intelligent design proponents use to refer to evolution.

The statement was published in advertisements under an introduction which stated that its signatories dispute the assertion that Darwin's theory of evolution fully explains the complexity of living things, and dispute that "all known scientific evidence supports [Darwinian] evolution". Further names of signatories have been added at intervals, and as of the August 2008 update, it contains 761 names. The list continues to be used in Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns in an attempt to discredit evolution and bolster claims that intelligent design is scientifically valid by claiming that evolution lacks broad scientific support.

The claims made in the document have been rejected by the scientific community. Matthew J. Brauer and Daniel R. Brumbaugh say that intelligent design proponents are "manufacturing dissent" in order to explain the absence of scientific debate of their claims: "The "scientific" claims of such neo-creationists as Johnson, Denton, and Behe rely, in part, on the notion that these issues [surrounding evolution] are the subject of suppressed debate among biologists. " ... "according to neo-creationists, the apparent absence of this discussion and the nearly universal rejection of neo-creationist claims must be due to the conspiracy among professional biologists instead of a lack of scientific merit." The statement in the document is described as artfully phrased to represent a diverse range of opinions, set in a context which gives it a misleading spin to confuse the public. The listed affiliations and areas of expertise of the signatories have also been criticized.

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