This actually happened. At Discovery Institute’s Christmas lunch, colleagues shared highlights of 2023. After this uplifting event at Ivar’s by the waterfront in Seattle, I walked out onto the sidewalk, enjoying the salty mist and the majestic Olympic Mountains. Then I looked down — and saw I’d stepped into something that really, really, REALLY doesn’t belong on a sidewalk. Residents of Seattle, San Francisco, and similar cities will know too well what I’m talking about.

We’re overdue for that power wash which comes only with a visit from President Xi. Beyond this, it struck me that providence had delivered a reminder of the choice Americans face. There it was: the dichotomy between majesty and inspiration, and downfall and degradation. Are humans imperfect reflections of a sublime purpose behind the cosmos, or are we the mere outcomes of chance happenings long ago, fated to do nothing more than decay?

Life and Blessing

The cosmos sets before us “life and death, blessing and curse.” In 2024, Discovery Institute will expand our work making the case for life and blessing over death and curse. You can think of us as the educational alternative to America’s rapidly declining universities. Spectacular evidence of that decline has been a lowlight of 2023. Could you have predicted last year that top college presidents, testifying before Congress, would not even be able to tell whether advocating genocide violates the student conduct code? 

Once you give up truth, that’s what you get. Charles Darwin saw it when he wrote in a private letter about a “horrid doubt” he felt, “whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.” That is why I’m writing now to ask you: Please join us in providing an alternative to the madness of contemporary academia.

My Year in Review

This is the year as I’ve experienced it. Some amazing high notes of 2023 have been open for all to see. Stephen Meyer talking about ID on The Joe Rogan Experience comes to mind. So does James Tour debating Lee Cronin at Harvard on the origin of life. 

Other highlights, of a sort, combine blessing with curse — like the jihad against intelligent design proponents by online personality “Professor Dave” Farina, with his 2.78 million YouTube subscribers. It was an oddly welcome confirmation for me of this thug’s quality of mind when, after October 7, he began pumping out thinly veiled anti-Semitic tropes.

Finally, I can share with you a little about another side of things that I know as the editor of Evolution News. I am profoundly grateful for the writing of our ID scientists and scholars, who teach us by contributing news and analysis here every day. Our weekly “Fossil Friday,” with paleontologist Günter Bechly, is just one monumental example.

ID in the Context of Science History

I learn so much from these scientists, and I know you do, too. So do people around the world that we may never hear from. At our staff lunch, Steve Meyer mentioned an important French scholar who got into intelligent design by reading Evolution News and now is working on a book that sets ID into the context of the history of Western science. That was news to me. In his remarks at lunch, John West read an email from a supporter:

I read your online intelligent design articles almost daily (Evolution News), and their reports on the intricacies of life and on new scientific discoveries have been a huge encouragement to me. I really appreciate your work to proclaim that it’s both logical and scientific to conclude that the universe and life on Earth have been intelligently designed. Thanks so much for continually posting articles. I also have a son with a PhD in biology, and your Fellows have encouraged him as well. Thanks!

And thank you! Again, I wouldn’t know about this instance of the impact of our work unless the reader had told us about it.

A Crisis of Faith

Emily Sandico, who works with Steve Meyer, receives emails to Dr. Meyer from people around the world seeking truth. Some of those are in pain. The other day she passed along one from a man describing his “crisis of faith,” which, as he said, “I find incredibly depressing.” He explained, “The scientific community states that the validity of undirected evolutionary theory is unquestionable and they have torn to shreds anyone who dares to state otherwise.” In particular, he wondered about the Cambrian Explosion. Dr. Sandico was able to direct him to resources including Evolution News.

Together, let’s bless our brilliant scientists and science writers who share their learning with us. Will you please join me in expressing thanks by offering a gift, of any size, to continue the work of the Center for Science and Culture in 2024? We, and our more than a million readers whom we may never know about, need you! Thank you. I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.