IntelIigent design think tank's "institute" is a Shutterstock image

Hey, do the one where it looks like you're on the moon next.

Discovery Institute

As a think tank focused on intelligent design, the Discovery Institute presumably has no need for physical laboratories—its research is mostly imagination-based. So it seemed odd to Richard Hoppe of Panda’s Thumb when he saw a video of one of the Institute’s researchers spouting all sorts of bad science from a lab setting. Although the video was datelined from the “Biologic Institute” of the Discovery Institute, it turns out that the nonsensical rant was green-screened in front of a stock image.

The Discovery Institute is a nonprofit think tank for the advancement of intelligent design theories, but it seems to spend much of its time attacking evolution via videos in which its resident scientists question all matters of, well, science. In the video, senior research scientist Ann Gauger puts the entire model of population genetics on trial.

“The biggest problem with population genetics estimates is the implicit assumption is common descent, and that similarity of [genetic] sequence implies similarity of descent, that they come from a common ancestor," she says. Later, she notes that “it’s premature to say that just because two things look alike, say chimps and humans, that they’re descended from a common ancestor."