Of course the Discovery Institute is one-sided! They don't pretend not to be! On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times presents itself as an unbiased forum; yet on this issue they are totally one-sided. If I take your comment at face value, you are agreeing with the Newsbusters article that the Times is only presenting one side of the issue.
2. "it's NOT a genuine scientific controversy ..."
Well, I guess you aren't aware of the numerous public debates that have been taking place on the issue. A couple of examples are linked in the Newsbusters piece. You might want to check those out.
That's not, ipso facto, illegitimate. It's a matter of argument whether it's illegitimate. For instance if ID is not, in fact, a real scientific controversy, there's nothing the slightest bit illegitimate about consistently taking that point of view. For the same reason it's not illegitimate to consistently present only "one side" of Holocaust Revisionism.
You need to argue convincingly that ID really is a presumptively or potentially viable scientific theory, or at least the basis for some theory. To take the approach as presumptive that it's "only fair" to present "both sides" (independently and prior to the FACTS of the situation) is nothing more than wishy-washy relativism and intellectual affirmative action.
2. "it's NOT a genuine scientific controversy ..."
Well, I guess you aren't aware of the numerous public debates that have been taking place on the issue. A couple of examples are linked in the Newsbusters piece. You might want to check those out.
But this SUPPORTS exactly the point I was making! That the ID controversy is a POPULAR one, not a scientific one.
Scientists may engage in popular debates about, say, the implications of science for public policy issues, and other such matters. But they don't debate the substance of scientific theories themselves in such venues. Debate within science invariable occurs before COMPETENT audiences who can meaningfully challenge the claims that may be forwarded.
Of course interested members of the general public can attend such debates in most cases (maybe at the cost of a conference fee) but such debates are not held FOR the general public. If you're targeting your debating primarily, indeed almost exclusively, at the general public, then that's a pretty sure sign that, whatever you're doing, it isn't science.
Well, I guess you aren't aware of the numerous public debates that have been taking place on the issue.
The debates and controversy are not between/among evolutionary scientists, but between religious believers and scientists, with the former seeking to overthrow the latter.
Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies.Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
Source: The Wedge Strategy
In other words, it's NOT a genuine scientific controversy.