Pay a visit to the Biologic Institute and you are liable to get a chilly reception. “We only see people with appointments,” states the man who finally responds to my persistent knocks. Then he slams the door on me.

I am standing on the ground floor of an office building in Redmond, Washington, the Seattle suburb best known as home town to Microsoft. What I’m trying to find out is whether the 1-year-old institute is the new face of another industry that has sprung up in the area – the one that has set out to try to prove evolution …