Thursday, August 17, 2006
The reDiscovery Institute Put On Notice
Discovery Institute, never noted for its sense of humor, has its tighty whiteys in a bind over the dead-on parody site, the reDiscovery Institute.
Discovery's Director of Information Services -- no, that title is not a 1984 parody -- has written reDiscovery to hint darkly that it should "take care to limit your content to parody and not slander. Please refrain from saying false or slanderous things about our fellows and staff."
RSR has always thought the great thing about Discovery is that you don't need to say false or slanderous things about them. They helpfully supply enough raw material that simply quoting Discovery's fellows -- for whom self-parody seems to have evolved into a high art -- is enough to hold them up to richly deserved public ridicule. In that sense, a Discovery Institute parody site is simply redundant.
The reDiscovery website has a Mission Statement that "promotes better education of children, and re-education of certain adults; those on our current Enemies List. The reDiscovery Institute supports Fellows, who write letters to editors, testify at trials, post 'articles' on the web, but never publish peer-reviewed papers."
ReDiscovery has also published a Periodic Table of the Elements complete with a warning that "chemical periodicity is a theory. The theory keeps changing. The theory is under dispute. Teach alternative theories to children."
There's lots more there. You can happily spend an hour or more perusing the site. It's long been one of RSR's favorite destinations when we need a good laugh.
Why not give reDiscovery a visit and offer your support just to let the thin-lipped Minister of Information Services over at Discovery know that they can't push everything they don't like down the memory hole.
Discovery's Director of Information Services -- no, that title is not a 1984 parody -- has written reDiscovery to hint darkly that it should "take care to limit your content to parody and not slander. Please refrain from saying false or slanderous things about our fellows and staff."
RSR has always thought the great thing about Discovery is that you don't need to say false or slanderous things about them. They helpfully supply enough raw material that simply quoting Discovery's fellows -- for whom self-parody seems to have evolved into a high art -- is enough to hold them up to richly deserved public ridicule. In that sense, a Discovery Institute parody site is simply redundant.
The reDiscovery website has a Mission Statement that "promotes better education of children, and re-education of certain adults; those on our current Enemies List. The reDiscovery Institute supports Fellows, who write letters to editors, testify at trials, post 'articles' on the web, but never publish peer-reviewed papers."
ReDiscovery has also published a Periodic Table of the Elements complete with a warning that "chemical periodicity is a theory. The theory keeps changing. The theory is under dispute. Teach alternative theories to children."
There's lots more there. You can happily spend an hour or more perusing the site. It's long been one of RSR's favorite destinations when we need a good laugh.
Why not give reDiscovery a visit and offer your support just to let the thin-lipped Minister of Information Services over at Discovery know that they can't push everything they don't like down the memory hole.
