Discovery Institute loses one

Davidson says he was seeking a place where people "believe in a Creator and also believe in science."I thought it was refreshing," he says.Not anymore. He's concluded the institute is an affront to both science and religion.

But I bring you Davidson's views because I suspect he is a bellwether for the Discovery Institute and intelligent design, as more scientists learn about them. He was attracted to an institute that embraced both science and religion, yet he found its critique of existing science wrong and its new theory empty."I'm kind of embarrassed that I ever got involved with this," Davidson says.

"It's laughable: There have been millions of experiments over more than
a century that support evolution," he says. "There's always questions being asked about parts of the theory, as there are with any theory, but there's no real scientific controversy about it."Davidson began to believe the institute is an "elaborate, clever marketing program" to tear down evolution for religious reasons. He read its writings on intelligent design the notion that some of life is so complex it must have been designed and found them lacking in scientific merit.