Jim Lippard continues to present his reports on creationist finances, and this time he shows the Discovery Institute’s balance sheet. They brought in $3.5 million in 2004, almost all of it in the form of donations.
That sounds like a lot of money, but to put it in perspective, you could take a look at a representative university’s operating budget. The small liberal arts university I’m at, with about 2000 students, brings in about $11 million per year in tuition, and I believe that charitable donations were on the order of $1 million per year. In that absolute sense, the Discovery Institute is small potatoes. The difference is, though, that a university actually provides services by highly trained staff, and most of its income is plowed right back into doing real work. The DI uses its income almost entirely for PR.
Keep that in mind when you hear them talking about gearing up to do actual research: they don’t have the infrastructure or the people in place to do that much science, and they certainly don’t have the income to make much real progress. Maybe if they fired a bunch of flacks and philosophers, they’d have enough to fund one solid lab, if they could piggy-back on existing facilities somewhere.
Of course, they do have more than enough money to make a bigger public relations splash than a small university.
As I understand it, the DI is only/merely (!?) a religious PR organisation.
So that is quite a lot of moolah, but stil small potatoes compared to a large, professional PR agancy.
BUT … but: because they are a religious front, they get a lot of bang for their buck, because of the unofficial, yet highly priveliged postion of religion(s).
No, it’s not a huge budget, but it’s still a lot to throw away. Imagine what they could do if they made that into seed money for something worthwhile.
To expect them to do science would be like expecting psychics like John Edward or James Van Praagh to sign up to win the JREF prize. They KNOW that the science would prove them wrong.
I like the Upton Sinclair quote Al Gore used in “An Inconvenient Truth:”
The Discovery Institute is very effective in delivering their message on a small budget. I’ve been a sales guy for a long time, it’s obvious to me that we’re dealing with a fairly ordinary marketing problem here and the Creationist side is considerably better at it. Creationists speak with a more-or-less common voice and present a simple message that anyone can readily grasp while our side can’t articulate our story neatly and doesn’t even have a snappy brand name. Just yesterday my daughter and I were talking about how her chemistry textbook quite accurately calls scientific methods “ill defined”, hardly a recipe for a successful PR campaign.
If we want to effectively compete with the likes of the DI we need to present a clear and consistent message that explains why our system is superior, just as if we were selling cars or laundry detergent. This is Marketing 101, but unfortunately I don’t think many scientists have taken the class – maybe “Marketing for Science Majors” should be added to all science degree requirements.
Sure, but think of how much money they’d bring in if they were doing science. Better watch out, if they do some serious ID research they’ll be producing results, new medicines, new disease models, new incantations, new exorcisms, and a host of other things that we are not able to do because of our adherence to our religion of Darwinism.
Aside from the sarcasm, obviously what I’m saying is that if the $3.5 million were good money making valuable contributions, it would attract much more good money. But even as PR money $3.5 million would be paltry if they weren’t appealing to previously-existing prejudices. ID is persuasive to nobody except Abrahamic religionists, for not only has it no practical results (evolution had few practical results for probably a century or more), it is “intellectually satisfying” only for religionists looking for something to back up their childish Sunday School beliefs.
No, $3.5 million isn’t even a very good advertising budget for a major corporation. Yet no religion really receives all that much cash via free-will offerings, still they manage to leverage it well to keep believers from questioning.
Of course the DI (more importantly for us, the CSC) spends almost their entire budget on PR, however it is effective as a faux scientific “think tank” that just happened to find “design” to be the best explanation for “CSI”. After all, they don’t even have to give away their IDiot books, they get to sell them. Never mind that the number of IDiot books sold aren’t huge either, all it takes is a few pastors buying the books and relating to their congregationss that “Dr. Behe” (shouldn’t “Dr.” be in quotes when relating to such a fraud?) proved that the religion of Darwinism has no basis in fact.
$3.5 million wouldn’t count for much anywhere in the US public except among those who love and believe a lie. Since they don’t care about science, they get to concentrate on bolstering the lies.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
$3.5 million is, as you point out, a lot when it’s used only for PR. Every university has a PR department; maybe you could find out how much money your PR dept. gets.
I am of the opinion that most marketing is spin or emotional blackmail, lies told to fragile egos just to squeeze out one more buck.
It’s effective, sure, but the mere thought of manipulating people like that, convincing them not on the evidence but on ego-stroking lies; it makes me feel dirty. Like back when I was a christian.
I can’t help thinking that a considerable chunk of the 3.5M is used up in keeping up the decibel level among DI adherents– that is, hanging on to and feeding the delusions being nurtured there rather than actively trying, if that’s the word I want, to convert rational people. It takes a lot of energy to maintain the epicycle mindset when clear, useful understanding exists practically everywhere else.
Sorry, but these comments are playing just as fast and loose with the facts as we like to accuse our opponents.
Lippard has a link to the 2004 Form 990 of the DI, and you can see that they use the bulk of their funds for salaries, benefits and taxes. In the program service category, the bulk of the expenses go to consultants, fellowships/research, and program development (raising money).
The CSC part of DI (not itself a religious organization, as Lippard’s blog entry makes clear) uses only a part of these funds. Its total is about 1.5 million, but a detailed breakdown is not available.
Please rant, whine, kibitz and diss in a responsible, fact based manner.
3.4 million….
I could have been so much more productive with that when I was the science director of an NGO devoted to shark research.
*sigh*
Sorry, but these comments are playing just as fast and
Really? Where? I know that the whole $3.5 million isn’t used entirely for IDist PR, and I suspect that most other posters might know that as well, but mostly the issue was even $3.5 million isn’t much. My point was that it isn’t much even for PR, regardless of the portion spent by the CSC (and no, I didn’t bother reading the breakdown–hardly matters except to accountants).
Lippard has a link to the 2004 Form 990 of the DI, and you can see that they use the bulk of their funds for salaries, benefits and taxes.
Yeah, so what? What do you think that advertising agencies spend their money on? A lot of it is for salaries, benefits, and taxes. You think that PR doesn’t need writers, managers, strategists, etc.?
In the program service category, the bulk of the expenses go to consultants, fellowships/research, and program development (raising money).
Again your “amazing facts” fail to amaze. Of course Dembski’s paid for his twaddle, as are the rest. Christ, that’s the point, just a bunch of uneducated buffoons coming up with tripe, PR, and re-visionings of YEC “arguments” (minus the young-earth nonsense).
The CSC part of DI (not itself a religious organization, as Lippard’s blog entry makes clear)
For someone who thinks he’s a corrective to loose facts, you sure don’t use facts very well. We all know that the CSC feigns non-religiosity whenever it is convenient, or necessary, to do so, but anyone who thinks it’s really not a religious organization in the de facto sense is either fact-challenged or less than fully honest.
uses only a part of these funds. Its total is about 1.5 million, but a detailed breakdown is not available.
Yes, I mentioned the CSC as being what matters to us. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of the DI is worth much either. I actually do glance at some of their public presentations on TV occasionally, so I know that it isn’t all worthless (some history, especially of Seattle, a bit of study of the US military, little new insight that I can see), but none of it is especially useful. They seem to do PR for parts of the right other than the IDists, which is actually true of most creationist “missions” as well.
Please rant, whine, kibitz and diss in a responsible, fact based manner.
Physician, heal thyself. Compare the expenditures of any run-of-the-mill flak producer, especially those with an overall rightist agenda, with what the DI is expensing. I suspect that they’d be quite similar.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
to do so, but anyone who thinks it’s really not a religious organization in the de facto sense is either fact-challenged or less than fully honest.
I’d quibble with that and suggest that DI is mostly a political organization, using religion (or really, the religious as a group) to promote a specific agenda, and using their “research” from the CSC just to maintain their non-prof status.
I’d wager that most of them are more devoted to Leo Strauss than to “god”.
of course, this is all a bit tangential to your main point, that being the budget for DI being paid out as salaries of PR men, which is dead on.
Glen, I think the breakdown does matter, and I’m a bit surprised to here a contrary opinion on a science blog. Commenting on numbers without bothering to understand them… what can I say?
As you say from your own experience, DI does minor good with its money outside of CSC. This is what I said, referring to Lippard. You seem to to have misunderstood where the parenthetical referred back to. My apologies for being unclear. DI as a whole is not religious, just right wing. CSC addresses specifically religious issues. I think we agree on this.
If we do agree, then the breakdown does matter. What exercises us is not their lobbying over the transport system of the Pacific Northwest. It is the 1.5 million that the CSC gets. Pro-rate the 1.4 million of program service, and Dembski and Co. appear to be living off of about $600K.
I think that any of the comments I’ve seen so far on this blog entry are as valid about 600K as they are about 3.5M. In fact they are more valid, because they are more accurate.
Wow! It is possible to make a good living by convincing unintelligent people, who want to believe Darwin was a fraud, to empty their wallets!
Just wow!
to do so, but anyone who thinks it’s really not a religious organization in the de facto sense is either fact-challenged or less than fully honest.
I’d quibble with that and suggest that DI is mostly a political organization, using religion (or really, the religious as a group) to promote a specific agenda, and using their “research” from the CSC just to maintain their non-prof status.
Well, I myself was calling the CSC a religious organization (more properly a religious division of the larger organization), though I realize that the earlier posts at issue had not made that distinction. But I don’t suppose I’d bother to disagree much, if at all, mainly because I doubt that there’s much separation between politics and religion in their minds. Gotta sanctify Strauss and his holy economics, after all.
I’d wager that most of them are more devoted to Leo Strauss than to “god”.
Probably, yet Straussians have often lent powerful support to ID and creationism due to their belief in the importance of “God” to society (there are important (to most Straussians anyway) Jewish issues involved in particular). Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb come to mind. For we may need a godly society in order to have the right people become ungodly rich.
of course, this is all a bit tangential to your main point, that being the budget for DI being paid out as salaries of PR men, which is dead on.
Yes, but it was a bit fun.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
If we do agree, then the breakdown does matter. What exercises us is not their lobbying over the transport system of the Pacific Northwest. It is the 1.5 million that the CSC gets. Pro-rate the 1.4 million of program service, and Dembski and Co. appear to be living off of about $600K.
I think that any of the comments I’ve seen so far on this blog entry are as valid about 600K as they are about 3.5M. In fact they are more valid, because they are more accurate.
For anyone who thinks that $3.5 million is a lot, even for PR, it may be quite important if it’s closer to $600,000. For me, who thinks that any amount of money leveraged by the CSC has an outsized effect primarily through its prop of appearing to be science to so many preachers and their congregations, the difference matters little. But as you seem to have been aiming mostly at the former, I see your point.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
For we may need a godly society in order to have the right people become ungodly rich.
A slight pang of guilt makes me write that the above doesn’t do justice to the complexity of the Straussian’s positions and arguments. However, I suspect that it deals reasonably well with the motivations of most neo-cons in the economic arena (of course they do have other motivations, however I know of no justification for a kind of Keynesian strangling of the economy as stratification proceeds apace (stratification with good economic growth is sustainable so far, but it can’t go on forever), or the more crucial issue of actually allowing decent wages to people).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
Hey, don’t knock small-scale research! I am this close to perfecting my Illudium-236 powered Q-Ray perpetual motion power source and I have spent only a few hundred dollars for quartz crystals and a platinum-plated copper wire pyramid.
When it wins the JREF prize, it’s Penta-water cocktails all around!
I live and work in Seattle and have been aware of Mr. Chapman and his buddies at the DI for some time. As a working scientist, I am particularly appalled by the ID movement promulgated by the Discovery Institute that he founded- and of course that is how most of us probably know of the DI. But Mr Chapman started out as a liberal Republican decrying the Goldwaterites, before he drank the KoolAid of the Reagan administration. His rightward drift, and his work in the think tank arena has over the last 25 years been primarily directed at the “traditional” Republican goals of crippling social programs (ie.”small government”) and tax breaks for the wealthy (aka “tax relief for business”) and other such core “Conservative” goals. When he started the DI (1990?), despite all his connected pals, such as Ed Meese and Slade Gorton, the DI was very small potatoes as right-wing think tanks go, and I only had to read the rare column in the op-ed section of the more conservative rag in town. In 1996, he was approached (or solicited money from?) a couple of big-time rich fundies– who provided an enormous monetary boost to his hick-town “institute”. I have been convinced ever since that, for him, the whole ID movement push was just a ruse to grow and gain visiblity for his little institute. I can’t believe that he is really committed to the creationist goals of his institute. Although clearly misguided, even he’s not that stupid. So I have to agree with commentators that argue that the DI is primarily a flack unit. It’s not, and never has been, a scientific institute, and any work ever done under the aegis of it’s “scientific” arm (the religiously funded CSC), will be done at the more traditional institutions that harbor their affiliate fellows, such as Dr. Minnich, at the Univ. of Idaho, and Dr Behe, at Lehigh. As if that will ever happen.
Actually, I would say even those of us who work in marketing are more honest about things than the spinmeisters at DI, and for good reason. Sure, you can trick someone into buying your product once, but if its performance doesn’t live up to their expectations (that your marketing may have created or at least reinforced), all you have done is create a dissatisfied customer who will bad-mouth you to others and make any lasting success all the more difficult to acheive.
Unfortunately, DI directs its message at gullible believers who don’t call them on their lies, so you could actually say they are being very effective in their marketing…