ONCE again, dear reader, we have received data from our recently perfected, top secret InterStall™ bathroom listening device, which one of our operatives placed between two stalls in the men’s room of the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute‘s creationist public relations and lobbying operation, the Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids, a/k/a the cdesign proponentsists).
The last time we reported on an intercepted communication was here: Discovery Institute: A Secret Conversation. That was more than a month ago, after which we feared that the device had either died or had been found and deactivated. But we’re in luck. A voice-activated transmission is coming in now.
As before, the transmission is fuzzy, so we can’t be certain who’s talking or whether our transcription is accurate. From the context, we’ve labeled one voice as “Boss” and the other as “Westie” — whoever they may be. We’ve added some links where we think it’s appropriate, but you’ll have to make of this what you will:
Boss: Westie, I have a meeting coming up with Mr. Moneybags, and our livelihoods depend on his generosity. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?
Westie: Oh yes, absolutely! The plan can’t fail.
Boss: I hope you’re right this time. We’ve disappointed our patron before, and to keep the funding flowing I’ll have to make some very specific promises about your new strategy.
Westie: I’ve made a study of our past failures, Boss. Our efforts to penetrate secular universities have all failed. Everyone has been Expelled — well, except for Behe. Even Baylor kicked us out, which was a major disappointment. [See Intelligent Design’s Brief Shining Moment.]
Boss: Thanks for reminding me about that.
Westie: And our efforts to persuade local school boards to teach creationism have also failed. [See Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.] We haven’t done much better at state-level school boards. [See Kansas evolution hearings.] We can’t even count on Texas, because as in Kansas, the school board elections are going against us. [See, e.g., Marsha Farney’s Victory: What Does It Mean?]
Boss: I know, I know. It’s the same with our legislative program. Those Academic Freedom bills aren’t going anywhere.
Westie: That’s why I’m so confident about our latest program.
Boss: What?
Westie: Look — we’ve failed in academia, we’ve failed in the school boards, we’ve failed in legislation, we’re a joke on the internet. We’ve failed everywhere but the one place where we should have focused all along — the courts!
Boss: Things haven’t gone very well there either. Creationists lost their attempt to get the University of California to give credit for applicants’ private high school creationism courses [ACSI v. Stearns], and the Institute for Creation Research got their head handed to them in Texas [See Dragon Wins ICR’s Texas Accreditation Case].
Westie: Yes, but we weren’t involved in those cases. There have been some courtroom successes too. Christina Comer got fired and lost her appeal. James Corbett lost — at least the trial court level.
Boss: Corbett is appealing to the 9th Circuit. You know what’s been happening to us there. That’s the same court that ruled against creationism in ACSI v. Stearns. And that’s where we lost the Caldwell case against UC Berkeley [See The Caldwell Case — It’s Over!]
Westie: But we have other cases cooking that won’t end up in the 9th Circuit. There’s David Coppedge’s suit against. JPL and Caltech, and our case against the California Science Center because of their refusal to show the Darwin’s Dilemma creationism film. We’re still very much in the game!
Boss: You really think we have a chance with those?
Westie: Yes! We’re going to use the Bill of Rights to implement the wedge strategy. We never got anywhere with that Teach the Controversy slogan, but this is different. We have civil rights! This is what we should have been doing all along!
Boss: Maybe, but everything we’re doing in court seems to depend on that far-fetched argument that if creationism is religion, then so too is science, and therefore the government can’t ban or promote one without doing the same for the other. [See Casey, Corbett, Creationism, & the Constitution.]
Westie: That argument has some academic standing. It’s been published. [See Zeal for Darwin’s House Consumes Them: How Supporters of Evolution Encourage Violations of the Establishment Clause, by Casey Luskin.]
Boss: Yeah, in the Liberty University Law Review. Is that the best we can do?
Westie: For the moment, yes. These things take time.
Boss: We don’t have much time before I meet with Mr. Moneybags. If your latest plan fails and he decides to shut us down, I’m afraid we’ll all end up teaching at bible colleges.
That’s all there is, dear reader. We can’t vouch for any of it, but we think that’s what we heard. InterStall™ strikes again!
Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Whenever I see the DI going on breathlessly about their latest cause celebre, I get the same vibe of that guy who just woke up and realized that his end-of-year performance review is next week and he hasn’t done a damn thing all year.
SC, I really don’t want to have to back there and reinstall that thing. Lot of guys in there have “wide stances”.
Gabriel Hanna says:
We’ve had a few unusual transmissions that we won’t publish. We’re only interested in The Controversy.