Bill Gates Funding Intelligent Design Center

The NY Times has a solid piece on the Discovery Institute, the far right religious group posing as a scientific think tank. It shows how they've pushed more and more into public policy and influencing school curriculum by repackaging creationism in a clever manner and changing the debate from science vs. religion (ie evolution versus ID) to "teach the controversy," which sounds reasonable because most parents don't realize what they're really saying is "teach our narrow religious beliefs in science class."

The big surprise for me was finding out the Gates Foundation has provided targeted funding to a branch of the Discovery Institute called Cascadia, which focuses on regional transportation. (They're giving $10 million over ten years.) Cascadia even set up its own separate web site so people wouldn't keep linking it with the creationists. But how can any part of a think tank devoted to attacking science, dumbing down our kids' education and shoving their own fundamentalist beliefs into public schools be trustworthy? The Discovery Institute is the enemy of science and a good education. Why would Bill Gates want to be linked to it in any way?