Interesting. Wayback is sometimes flaky, so it's most likely a temporary glitch. If it was intentional, it was a sloppy job of putting things in the memory hole - here's the same page (unchanged, at a glance) from a few months later:
http://web.archive.org/web/19971008110453/www.discovery.org/crsc/aboutcrsc.html
Just so we don't lose it again, here's the text of the October, 1997 version of the "About" page for CSRC:
What is The Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture All About?
The Mission of the Center
THE proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West's greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.
Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed human beings not as eternal and accountable beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by chance and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment. This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and music.
The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. Materialists denied the existence of objective standards binding on all cultures, claiming that environment dictates our moral beliefs. Such moral relativism was uncritically adopted by much of the social sciences, and it still undergirds much of modern economics, political science, psychology and sociology.
Materialists also undermined personal responsibility by asserting that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment. The results can be seen in modern approaches to criminal justice, product liability, and welfare. In the materialist scheme of things, everyone is a victim and no one can be held accountable for his or her actions.
Finally, materialism spawned a virulent strain of utopianism. Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth.
Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for the supernatural. The Center awards fellowships for original research, holds conferences, and briefs policymakers about the opportunities for life after materialism.
The Center is directed by Discovery Senior Fellow Dr. Stephen Meyer. An Associate Professor of Philosophy at Whitworth College, Dr. Meyer holds a Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University. He formerly worked as a geophysicist for the Atlantic Richfield Company.
This time I won't hot-link that graphic at the top of the page. Maybe someone didn't like that.
The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. ( Senator Bedfellow)
By law, school science classes must serve a secular purpose. WildHorseCrash
To Senator Bedfellow and WildHorseCrash,
It is impossible for the curriculum and policies of any government school to be neutral politically, culturally, or religiously either in content or in consequences. So....why is government in the business of promoting and establishing the worldview ( with religious consequences) of some citizens and trashing and undermining the traditions of other citizens?
Having a curriculum that is secular in purpose is NOT religiously neutral in content or consequences. As Senator Bedfellow points out materialism ( secularism) does have consequences.
Government schools are a price-fixed monopoly that is giving a service away for free. Given the hostile business climate, private schools become scarce and exclusive. Parents are then under the threat of armed police, court, and social worker action if they do not send their child to government school.
Once in the government school the child can NOT speak freely, publish freely, or freely assemble with those of his choosing. He is herded about like sheep. If the child is resistant armed police stand ready to force the will of the government school officials. Children as young as five have been hauled off in handcuffs.
So....the child is at the mercy of teachers teaching a curriculum and enforcing school policies that WILL greatly influence the child's political, cultural, and religious worldview. Those NON-neutral influences have consequences and some of those consequences ARE religious!
Then to fund this tyrannical monstrosity of the government-educational-industrial complex, the government can and WILL auction at sheriff's sale the home or business of any citizen who objects to the government school political, cultural, and religious agenda.
Solution: Get government OUT of the education business. Begin the process of completely privatizing universal K-12 education.
Oh,,,,and before anyone paints me with the Neanderthal brush, I support the Theory of Evolution. However, I would never threaten my fellow citizens with armed police to force my educational belief on other people's children. I would NEVER threaten a fellow citizen with the sheriff's auction of their home or business to fund it. (real bullets in those guns)