Seattle — According to a report issued by a liberal media resource, FAIR, the Discovery Institute has become one of the most sought after think-tanks in the country, with greater percentage growth in news notice than any other think tank. Discovery, founded in 1990, is a non-partisan public policy center specializing in issues surrounding transportation, technology, and the scientific theory of intelligent design.
The FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting ) study found that among the nation’s top think tanks, Discovery attracted the “greatest increase in [media] exposure” in 2005, making it the 20th most cited think tank in news stories. By FAIR’s count, the Institute was cited over 400 times in the national news media throughout 2005, and the Institute’s scientists and scholars participated in153 print interviews, 81 nationally syndicated radio programs, 226 market radio programs and penned 68 OP-ED articles.
Overall the exposure of the top national think tanks fell by 10 percent in the news media from 2004 to 2005, yet exposure for Discovery Institute skyrocketed by nearly 300 percent over the same period.

Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman pointed out that the liberal FAIR classified some think tanks –including Discovery Institute–as conservative, but did not classify any as liberal, but rather described them as either centrist, progressive or center-left.

“There’s a whole group of hard left think tanks FAIR left out of its study,” said Chapman. “They’re called universities. This is more than a joke since conservative think tanks were started, in many cases, as a response to the increasing stranglehold of the left on our universities.”

Many attribute the newfound acclaim of the Discovery Institute to its Center for Science and Culture and its scientists’ work on the scientific theory of intelligent design. The New York Times reported in a 2005 front page story that “The Center is pushing a “teach the controversy” approach to evolution, transforming the argument from one between religion and science to one of academic freedom and discussion.”

According to Nature magazine, an international weekly journal of science, “Discovery Institute is the nation’s leading intelligent design think tank” And, Newsweek magazine said, “[Discovery Institute] has almost single-handedly put intelligent design on the map.”

ABC Nightline anchor, Ted Koppel, said in 2005 that Discovery, “has done an absolutely brilliant job of taking a difficult position and in effect infusing the mass culture with it about as effectively as anything I’ve seen in recent years.”

Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture has more than 40 affiliated biologists, biochemists, physicists, philosophers and historians of science, and public policy and legal experts, most of whom also have positions with colleges and universities. Over 500 scientists have signed the Institute’s Scientific Dissent From Darwinism statement (www.dissentfromdarwin.com).