Wedge strategy
Encyclopedia
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute
, the hub of the intelligent design movement
. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto
known as the Wedge Document, which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose ultimate goal is to "defeat scientific materialism" represented by evolution
, "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." The strategy also aims to "affirm the reality of God." Its goal is to "renew" American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian, namely evangelical
Protestant, values. The wedge metaphor is attributed to Phillip E. Johnson
and depicts a metal wedge splitting a log to represent an aggressive public relations program to create an opening for the supernatural in the public’s understanding of science.
Intelligent design
is the religious belief that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not a naturalistic process such as natural selection
. Implicit in the intelligent design doctrine is a redefining of science
and how it is conducted. Wedge strategy proponents are opposed to materialism
, naturalism
, and evolution
, and have made the removal of each from how science is conducted and taught an explicit goal. The strategy was originally brought to the public's attention when the Wedge Document was leaked on the Web. The Wedge strategy forms the governing basis of a wide range of Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns
.
campaign meant to sway the opinion of the public, popular media
, charitable funding agencies
, and public policy makers. According to critics, the wedge document, more than any other Discovery Institute project, demonstrates the Institute's and intelligent design's political rather than scientific purpose.
The document sets forth the short-term and long-term goals with milestones for the intelligent design movement, with its governing goals stated in the opening paragraph:
There are three "wedge projects," referred to in the strategy as three phases designed to reach a governing goal:
Recognizing the need for support, the institute affirms the strategy's Christian, evangelistic
orientation:
The wedge strategy was designed with both five-year and twenty-year goals in mind in order to achieve the conversion of the mainstream. One notable component of the work was its desire to address perceived "social consequences" and to promote a social conservative agenda on a wide range of issues including abortion
, euthanasia
, sexuality
, and other social reform movements. It criticized "materialist reformers [who] advocated coercive government programs" which it referred to as "a virulent strain of utopianism".
Beyond promotion of the Phase I goals of proposing Intelligent-Design-related research, publications, and attempted integration into academia
, the wedge strategy places an emphasis on Phases II and III advocacy aimed at increasing popular support of the Discovery Institute's ideas. Support for the creation of popular-level books, newspaper and magazine articles, op-ed
pieces, video productions, and apologetics
seminars is hoped to embolden believers and sway the broader culture towards acceptance of intelligent design, which in turn leads to the ultimate goal of the wedge strategy's authors: the social and political "reformation" of American culture.
In twenty years, it is hoped by the group that they will have achieved their goal of making intelligent design "the dominant perspective in science" as well as to branch out to "ethics, politics, theology, and philosophy in the humanities, and to see its influence in the fine arts". A goal of the wedge strategy is to see intelligent design "permeate religious, cultural, moral and political life." By accomplishing this goal the ultimate goal as stated by the CSC the "overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies" and reinstating "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God", and thereby "renew" American culture to reflect conservative Christian values will be achieved.
The preamble of the Wedge Document is mirrored largely word-for-word in the early mission statement of the Center for Science and Culture
, then called the "Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.". The theme is again picked up in the controversial book From Darwin to Hitler authored by Center for Science and Culture Fellow Richard Weikart and published with the center's assistance.
The wedge strategy was largely authored by Phillip E. Johnson
, and features prominently in his book The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism.
Discovery Institute co-founder and CSC Vice President Stephen C. Meyer
eventually acknowledged the Institute is the source of the document. The Institute still seeks to downplay its significance, saying "Conspiracy theorists in the media continue to recycle the urban legend
of the 'Wedge' document". The Institute also protrays the scientific community's reaction to the Wedge document as driven by "Darwinist Paranoia." Despite insisting that intelligent design is not a form of creationism, the Discovery Institute chose to use an image of Michelangelo
's The Creation of Adam
, depicting God reaching out to impart life from his finger into Adam. Meyer once also claimed the Wedge Document was stolen from the Discovery Institute's offices.
In 1993, a year after the SMU conference, "the Johnson-Behe cadre of scholars met at Pajaro Dunes. Here, Behe presented for the first time the seed thoughts that had been brewing in his mind for a year--the idea of 'irreducibly complex' molecular machinery."
Nancy Pearcey, a CSC fellow and Johnson associate, acknowledges Johnson's leadership of the intelligent design movement in two of her most recent publications. In an interview with Johnson for World magazine, Pearcey says, "It is not only in politics that leaders forge movements. Phillip Johnson has developed what is called the 'Intelligent Design' movement." In Christianity Today, she reveals Johnson's religious beliefs and his animosity toward evolution and affirms Johnson as "The unofficial spokesman for ID."
In his 1997 book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds Johnson
summed up the underlying philosophy of the strategy:
At the 1999 "Reclaiming America for Christ Conference" called by Reverend D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, Johnson gave a speech called How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won. In it he summed up the theological and epistemological underpinnings of intelligent design and its strategy for winning the battle:
Johnson cites the foundation of intelligent design as The Gospel According to Saint John, in the New Testament
, specifically, Chapter 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (King James Version).
Elaborating on the goals and methods of wedge strategy, Johnson stated in an interview conducted in 2002 for Touchstone Magazine that "The mechanism of the wedge strategy is to make it attractive to Catholics, Orthodox, non-fundamentalist Protestants, observant Jews, and so on." He went on to elaborate:
Other statements of Johnson's acknowledge that the goal of the intelligent design movement is to promote a theistic and creationist agenda cast as a scientific concept.
Critics claim that Johnson's statements validate claims leveled by those who allege that the Discovery Institute and its allied organizations are merely stripping religious content from their anti-evolution, creationist assertions as a means of avoiding the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment
. The statements, when viewed in the light of the Wedge document and the US District Court's Kitzmiller decision, show ID and the ID movement is an attempt to put a gloss of secularity on top of what is a fundamentally religious belief.
The wedge strategy details a simultaneous assault on state boards of education, state and federal legislatures and on the print and broadcast media. The Discovery Institute is currently carrying out the strategy through its role in the intelligent design movement, where it aggressively promotes ID and its Teach the Controversy
campaign to the public, education officials and public policymakers. Intelligent design proponents, through the Discovery Institute, have employed a number of specific political strategies and tactics in their furtherance of their goals. These range from attempts at the state level to undermine or remove altogether the presence of evolutionary theory from the public school classroom, to having the federal government mandate the teaching of intelligent design, to 'stacking' municipal, county and state school boards with ID proponents.
The Discovery Institute has been a significant player in many of these cases, providing a range of support from material assistance to federal, state and regional elected representatives in the drafting of bills to supporting and advising individual parents confronting their school boards. In some state battles, the ties of intelligent design proponents to the Discovery Institute's political and social agenda and its strategy and the Institute's role in the debate have been laid bare to the public and lawmakers, resulting in their efforts being temporarily thwarted. The Discovery Institute takes the simplistic view that all publicity is good and that no defeat is real. It has relaxed its campaign of promoting ID science curriculum, and in some cases asked it be withdrawn from consideration, in favor of science teachers being required to present evolution as a "theory in crisis"; in other words, teaching the controversy. The strategy is to move, relentlessly, from standards battles, to curriculum writing, to textbook adoption, and back again doing whatever it takes to undermine the central position of evolution in biology.
The Discovery Institute fellows have significant advantages in money, political sophistication, and experience over their opponents in the scientific and educational communities, who do not have the benefit of funding from wealthy benefactors, clerical and technical support staff, and expensive advertising campaigns and extensive political networking.
The Discovery Institute's "Teach the Controversy" campaign is designed to leave the scientific establishment looking close-minded, appearing as if it is attempting to stifle and suppress new scientific discoveries that challenge the status quo. This is made with the knowledge that it's unlikely many in the public understand advanced biology, or can consult the current scientific literature or contact major scientific organizations to verify Discovery Institute claims. This part of the strategy also plays on undercurrents of anti-intellectualism and distrust of science and scientists that can be found in particular segments of American society.
There is a noticeable conflict between what intelligent design backers tell the public through the media and what they say before conservative Christian audiences. This is studied and deliberate as advocated by wedge strategy author Phillip E. Johnson. When speaking to a mainstream audience and to the media, ID proponents cast ID as a secular, scientific theory. But when speaking to what the Wedge Document calls their "natural constituency, namely (conservative) Christians," ID proponents express themselves in unambiguously religious language. This in the belief that they cannot afford to alienate their constituency and major funding sources, virtually all of which are conservative religious organizations and individuals such as Howard Ahmanson.
Having written extensively about ID, philosopher of science Robert Pennock
says "When lobbying for ID in the public schools, wedge members sometimes deny that ID makes any claims about the identity of the designer. It is ironic that their political strategy leads them to deny God in the public square more often than Peter did."
Moreover, wedge advocates are now disavowing their own terminology because the term "intelligent design" has become a liability for them since the ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
. Because of the success of the Discovery Institute's public relations campaign to make "intelligent design" a household phrase, and the ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that ID is essentially religious in nature more people recognize it as the religious concept of creationism. Having come closest to accomplishing getting ID into public school science classes in Kansas and Ohio where they succeeded in getting the State Board of Education to adopt ID lesson plans, intelligent design proponents advocated "teach the controversy" as a legally defensible alternative to teaching intelligent design. The Kitzmiller ruling also characterized "teaching the controversy" as part of the same religious ploy as presenting intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. This prompted a move to a fallback position, teaching "critical analysis" of evolutionary theory. Teaching "critical analysis" is viewed as a means of teaching all the ID arguments without using that label. It also picks up the themes of the teach the controversy strategy, emphasizing what they say are the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory and "arguments against evolution," which they portray as "a theory in crisis."
It states that the original document was only a fundraising proposal, and criticizes its opponents for what it believes are baseless accusations. The wedge strategy is claimed to be an opposition to the dominant a priori philosophy and a support of the interpretive freedom of scientists. The goal of the strategy is described as "influencing science and culture with our ideas through research, reasoned argument and open debate. As our not-so-secret document put it, "without solid scholarship, research and argument, the project would be just another attempt to indoctrinate instead of persuade."
Their response in "Wedge Document: So What?" describes their attitude to materialism:
Critics have commented that
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
, the hub of the intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto
Manifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
known as the Wedge Document, which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose ultimate goal is to "defeat scientific materialism" represented by evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." The strategy also aims to "affirm the reality of God." Its goal is to "renew" American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian, namely evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Protestant, values. The wedge metaphor is attributed to Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
and depicts a metal wedge splitting a log to represent an aggressive public relations program to create an opening for the supernatural in the public’s understanding of science.
Intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
is the religious belief that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not a naturalistic process such as natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
. Implicit in the intelligent design doctrine is a redefining of science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and how it is conducted. Wedge strategy proponents are opposed to materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, naturalism
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
, and evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, and have made the removal of each from how science is conducted and taught an explicit goal. The strategy was originally brought to the public's attention when the Wedge Document was leaked on the Web. The Wedge strategy forms the governing basis of a wide range of Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns
Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns
Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns are a series of related public relations campaigns conducted by the Discovery Institute which seek to promote intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolutionary biology, which the Institute terms "Darwinism." The Discovery Institute is the...
.
Overview
The Wedge Document outlines a public relationsPublic relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
campaign meant to sway the opinion of the public, popular media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, charitable funding agencies
Foundation (charity)
A foundation is a legal categorization of nonprofit organizations that will typically either donate funds and support to other organizations, or provide the source of funding for its own charitable purposes....
, and public policy makers. According to critics, the wedge document, more than any other Discovery Institute project, demonstrates the Institute's and intelligent design's political rather than scientific purpose.
The document sets forth the short-term and long-term goals with milestones for the intelligent design movement, with its governing goals stated in the opening paragraph:
- "To defeat scientificScienceScience is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies" - "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that natureNatureNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
and human beings are created by GodGodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
"
There are three "wedge projects," referred to in the strategy as three phases designed to reach a governing goal:
- Scientific Research, Writing & Publicity,
- Publicity & Opinion-making, and
- Cultural Confrontation & Renewal.
Recognizing the need for support, the institute affirms the strategy's Christian, evangelistic
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
orientation:
The wedge strategy was designed with both five-year and twenty-year goals in mind in order to achieve the conversion of the mainstream. One notable component of the work was its desire to address perceived "social consequences" and to promote a social conservative agenda on a wide range of issues including abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
, sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
, and other social reform movements. It criticized "materialist reformers [who] advocated coercive government programs" which it referred to as "a virulent strain of utopianism".
Beyond promotion of the Phase I goals of proposing Intelligent-Design-related research, publications, and attempted integration into academia
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
, the wedge strategy places an emphasis on Phases II and III advocacy aimed at increasing popular support of the Discovery Institute's ideas. Support for the creation of popular-level books, newspaper and magazine articles, op-ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
pieces, video productions, and apologetics
Apologetics
Apologetics is the discipline of defending a position through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers...
seminars is hoped to embolden believers and sway the broader culture towards acceptance of intelligent design, which in turn leads to the ultimate goal of the wedge strategy's authors: the social and political "reformation" of American culture.
In twenty years, it is hoped by the group that they will have achieved their goal of making intelligent design "the dominant perspective in science" as well as to branch out to "ethics, politics, theology, and philosophy in the humanities, and to see its influence in the fine arts". A goal of the wedge strategy is to see intelligent design "permeate religious, cultural, moral and political life." By accomplishing this goal the ultimate goal as stated by the CSC the "overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies" and reinstating "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God", and thereby "renew" American culture to reflect conservative Christian values will be achieved.
The preamble of the Wedge Document is mirrored largely word-for-word in the early mission statement of the Center for Science and Culture
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
, then called the "Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.". The theme is again picked up in the controversial book From Darwin to Hitler authored by Center for Science and Culture Fellow Richard Weikart and published with the center's assistance.
The wedge strategy was largely authored by Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
, and features prominently in his book The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism.
Wedge Document
Drafted in 1998 by Discovery Institute staff, the Wedge Document first appeared publicly after it was posted to the World Wide Web on February 5, 1999 by Tim Rhodes, having been shared with him in late January 1999 by Matt Duss, a part-time employee of a Seattle-based international human-resources firm. There Duss had been given a document to copy titled The Wedge and marked "Top Secret" and "Not For Distribution."Discovery Institute co-founder and CSC Vice President Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer is an American scholar, philosopher and advocate for intelligent design. He helped found the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute , which is the main organisation behind the intelligent design movement. Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at...
eventually acknowledged the Institute is the source of the document. The Institute still seeks to downplay its significance, saying "Conspiracy theorists in the media continue to recycle the urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
of the 'Wedge' document". The Institute also protrays the scientific community's reaction to the Wedge document as driven by "Darwinist Paranoia." Despite insisting that intelligent design is not a form of creationism, the Discovery Institute chose to use an image of Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
's The Creation of Adam
The Creation of Adam
The Creation of Adam is a section of Michelangelo's fresco Sistine Chapel ceiling painted circa 1511. It illustrates the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the Father breathes life into Adam, the first man...
, depicting God reaching out to impart life from his finger into Adam. Meyer once also claimed the Wedge Document was stolen from the Discovery Institute's offices.
Movement and strategy
According to Phillip E. Johnson, the wedge movement, if not the term, began in 1992:In 1993, a year after the SMU conference, "the Johnson-Behe cadre of scholars met at Pajaro Dunes. Here, Behe presented for the first time the seed thoughts that had been brewing in his mind for a year--the idea of 'irreducibly complex' molecular machinery."
Nancy Pearcey, a CSC fellow and Johnson associate, acknowledges Johnson's leadership of the intelligent design movement in two of her most recent publications. In an interview with Johnson for World magazine, Pearcey says, "It is not only in politics that leaders forge movements. Phillip Johnson has developed what is called the 'Intelligent Design' movement." In Christianity Today, she reveals Johnson's religious beliefs and his animosity toward evolution and affirms Johnson as "The unofficial spokesman for ID."
In his 1997 book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
summed up the underlying philosophy of the strategy:
At the 1999 "Reclaiming America for Christ Conference" called by Reverend D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, Johnson gave a speech called How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won. In it he summed up the theological and epistemological underpinnings of intelligent design and its strategy for winning the battle:
Johnson cites the foundation of intelligent design as The Gospel According to Saint John, in the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
, specifically, Chapter 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (King James Version).
Elaborating on the goals and methods of wedge strategy, Johnson stated in an interview conducted in 2002 for Touchstone Magazine that "The mechanism of the wedge strategy is to make it attractive to Catholics, Orthodox, non-fundamentalist Protestants, observant Jews, and so on." He went on to elaborate:
Other statements of Johnson's acknowledge that the goal of the intelligent design movement is to promote a theistic and creationist agenda cast as a scientific concept.
Critics claim that Johnson's statements validate claims leveled by those who allege that the Discovery Institute and its allied organizations are merely stripping religious content from their anti-evolution, creationist assertions as a means of avoiding the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
. The statements, when viewed in the light of the Wedge document and the US District Court's Kitzmiller decision, show ID and the ID movement is an attempt to put a gloss of secularity on top of what is a fundamentally religious belief.
The wedge strategy details a simultaneous assault on state boards of education, state and federal legislatures and on the print and broadcast media. The Discovery Institute is currently carrying out the strategy through its role in the intelligent design movement, where it aggressively promotes ID and its Teach the Controversy
Teach the Controversy
Teach the Controversy is the name of a Discovery Institute campaign to promote intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while attempting to discredit evolution in United States public high school science courses...
campaign to the public, education officials and public policymakers. Intelligent design proponents, through the Discovery Institute, have employed a number of specific political strategies and tactics in their furtherance of their goals. These range from attempts at the state level to undermine or remove altogether the presence of evolutionary theory from the public school classroom, to having the federal government mandate the teaching of intelligent design, to 'stacking' municipal, county and state school boards with ID proponents.
The Discovery Institute has been a significant player in many of these cases, providing a range of support from material assistance to federal, state and regional elected representatives in the drafting of bills to supporting and advising individual parents confronting their school boards. In some state battles, the ties of intelligent design proponents to the Discovery Institute's political and social agenda and its strategy and the Institute's role in the debate have been laid bare to the public and lawmakers, resulting in their efforts being temporarily thwarted. The Discovery Institute takes the simplistic view that all publicity is good and that no defeat is real. It has relaxed its campaign of promoting ID science curriculum, and in some cases asked it be withdrawn from consideration, in favor of science teachers being required to present evolution as a "theory in crisis"; in other words, teaching the controversy. The strategy is to move, relentlessly, from standards battles, to curriculum writing, to textbook adoption, and back again doing whatever it takes to undermine the central position of evolution in biology.
The Discovery Institute fellows have significant advantages in money, political sophistication, and experience over their opponents in the scientific and educational communities, who do not have the benefit of funding from wealthy benefactors, clerical and technical support staff, and expensive advertising campaigns and extensive political networking.
The Discovery Institute's "Teach the Controversy" campaign is designed to leave the scientific establishment looking close-minded, appearing as if it is attempting to stifle and suppress new scientific discoveries that challenge the status quo. This is made with the knowledge that it's unlikely many in the public understand advanced biology, or can consult the current scientific literature or contact major scientific organizations to verify Discovery Institute claims. This part of the strategy also plays on undercurrents of anti-intellectualism and distrust of science and scientists that can be found in particular segments of American society.
There is a noticeable conflict between what intelligent design backers tell the public through the media and what they say before conservative Christian audiences. This is studied and deliberate as advocated by wedge strategy author Phillip E. Johnson. When speaking to a mainstream audience and to the media, ID proponents cast ID as a secular, scientific theory. But when speaking to what the Wedge Document calls their "natural constituency, namely (conservative) Christians," ID proponents express themselves in unambiguously religious language. This in the belief that they cannot afford to alienate their constituency and major funding sources, virtually all of which are conservative religious organizations and individuals such as Howard Ahmanson.
Having written extensively about ID, philosopher of science Robert Pennock
Robert T. Pennock
Robert T. Pennock is a philosopher working on the Avida digital organism project at Michigan State University where he has been full professor since 2000. Pennock was a witness in the Kitzmiller v...
says "When lobbying for ID in the public schools, wedge members sometimes deny that ID makes any claims about the identity of the designer. It is ironic that their political strategy leads them to deny God in the public square more often than Peter did."
Moreover, wedge advocates are now disavowing their own terminology because the term "intelligent design" has become a liability for them since the ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
. Because of the success of the Discovery Institute's public relations campaign to make "intelligent design" a household phrase, and the ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that ID is essentially religious in nature more people recognize it as the religious concept of creationism. Having come closest to accomplishing getting ID into public school science classes in Kansas and Ohio where they succeeded in getting the State Board of Education to adopt ID lesson plans, intelligent design proponents advocated "teach the controversy" as a legally defensible alternative to teaching intelligent design. The Kitzmiller ruling also characterized "teaching the controversy" as part of the same religious ploy as presenting intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. This prompted a move to a fallback position, teaching "critical analysis" of evolutionary theory. Teaching "critical analysis" is viewed as a means of teaching all the ID arguments without using that label. It also picks up the themes of the teach the controversy strategy, emphasizing what they say are the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory and "arguments against evolution," which they portray as "a theory in crisis."
Defense
The wedge strategy received attention from groups opposed to the intelligent design movement, as the document advocates a wide-ranging strategy for promoting politically conservative ideas not directly pertaining to intelligent design. In response, the Discovery Institute published a document entitled The "Wedge Document: So What?" to defuse many of the claims stating:It states that the original document was only a fundraising proposal, and criticizes its opponents for what it believes are baseless accusations. The wedge strategy is claimed to be an opposition to the dominant a priori philosophy and a support of the interpretive freedom of scientists. The goal of the strategy is described as "influencing science and culture with our ideas through research, reasoned argument and open debate. As our not-so-secret document put it, "without solid scholarship, research and argument, the project would be just another attempt to indoctrinate instead of persuade."
Their response in "Wedge Document: So What?" describes their attitude to materialism:
Future
Speaking in October 2002 the Discovery Institute's William Dembski said,Critics have commented that
See also
- Center for Science and CultureCenter for Science and CultureThe Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
- Discovery InstituteDiscovery InstituteThe Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
- Intelligent design movementIntelligent design movementThe intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
- Phillip E. JohnsonPhillip E. JohnsonPhillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
- Santorum AmendmentSantorum AmendmentThe Santorum Amendment was an amendment to the 2001 education funding bill which became known as the No Child Left Behind Act, proposed by former Republican United States Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania, which promotes the teaching of intelligent design while questioning the academic...
- Kansas evolution hearingsKansas evolution hearingsThe Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas, United States May 5 to May 12, 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school...
External links
- A scan of the original wedge document (pdf format)
- Tim Rhodes puts a text copy of the wedge on the Internet
- The Wedge Document
- The "Wedge" Archives at the Access Research Network website.
- The Wedge Strategy: So What?
- The Wedge at Work: How Intelligent Design Creationism Is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic Mainstream Chapter 1 of the book Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics by Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. MIT Press, 2001
- The Wedge: Breaking the Modernist Monopoly on Science by Phillip E. JohnsonPhillip E. JohnsonPhillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
. Originally published in Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. July/August 1999. - Wedging Creationism into the Academy. Proponents of a controversial theory struggle to gain purchase within academia. A case study of the quest for academic legitimacy. By Barbara ForrestBarbara ForrestBarbara Carroll Forrest is a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. She is a critic of intelligent design and the Discovery Institute.- Biography :...
and Glenn BranchGlenn BranchGlenn Branch is the Deputy Director of the National Center for Science Education and a prominent critic of creationism and its offshoot, intelligent design...
. 2005. Published in Academe.