Discovery Institute's “Wedge Document” How Darwinist Paranoia Fueled an Urban Legend

Evolution News ^ | 10/07/05 | Staff

[Heartlander]

Discovery Institute's “Wedge Document”: How Darwinist Paranoia Fueled an Urban Legend

In 1999 someone posted on the internet an early fundraising proposal for Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. Dubbed the “Wedge Document,” this proposal soon took on a life of its own, popping up in all sorts of places and eventually spawning what can only be called a giant urban legend. Among true-believers on the Darwinist fringe the document came to be viewed as evidence for a secret conspiracy to fuse religion with science and impose a theocracy. These claims were so outlandish that for a long time we simply ignored them. But because some credulous Darwinists seem willing to believe almost anything, we decided we should set the record straight.

1. The Background

• In 1996 Discovery Institute established the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. Its main purposes were (1) to support research by scientists and other scholars who were critical of neo-Darwinism and by those who were developing the emerging scientific theory of intelligent design; and (2) to explore, in various ways, the multiple connections between science and culture.
• To raise financial support for the Center, Discovery Institute prepared a fundraising proposal that explained the overall rationale for the Center and why a think tank like Discovery would want to start such an entity in the first place. Like most fundraising proposals, this one included a multi-year budget and a list of goals to be achieved.

2. The Rise of an Urban Legend

• In 1999 a copy of this fundraising proposal was posted by someone on the internet. The document soon spread across the world wide web, gaining almost mythic status among some Darwinists.
• That’s when members of the Darwinist fringe began saying rather loopy things. For example, one group claimed that the document supplied evidence of a frightening twenty-year master plan “to have religion control not only science, but also everyday life, laws, and education”!
• Barbara Forrest, a Louisiana professor on the board of a group called the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association, similarly championed the document as proof positive of a sinister conspiracy to abolish civil liberties and unify church and state. Forrest insisted that the document was “crucially important,” and she played up its supposed secrecy, claiming at one point that its “authenticity…has been neither affirmed nor denied by the Discovery Institute.” Poor Prof. Forrest—if she really wanted to know whether the document was authentic, all she had to do was ask. (She didn’t.)
• There were lots of ironies as this urban legend began to grow, but Darwinist true-believers didn’t seem capable of appreciating them:
  --Discovery Institute, the supposed mastermind of this “religious” conspiracy, is in fact a secular organization that sponsored programs on a wide array of issues, including mass transit, technology policy, the environment, and national defense.
  --At the time the “Wedge Document” was being used by Darwinists to stoke fears about Christian theocracy, the Chairman of Discovery’s Board was Jewish, its President was an Episcopalian, and its various Fellows represented an eclectic range of religious views ranging from Roman Catholic to agnostic. It would have been news to them that they were all part of a fundamentalist cabal.
  --Far from promoting a union between church and state, Discovery Institute sponsored for several years a seminar for college students that advocated religious liberty and the separation between church and state.

3. What the Document Actually Says

• The best way to dispel the paranoia of the conspiracy-mongers is to actually look at the document in question. It simply doesn’t advocate the views they attribute to it.
  First and foremost, and contrary to the hysterical claims of some Darwinists, this document does not attack “science” or the “scientific method.” In fact, it is pro-science.
• What the document critiques is “scientific materialism,” which is the abuse of genuine science by those who claim that science supports the unscientific philosophy of materialism.
• Second, the document does not propose replacing “science” or the “scientific method” with “God” or “religion.” Instead, it supports a science that is “consonant” (i.e., harmonious) with theism, rather than hostile to it. To support a science that is “consonant” with religion is not to claim that religion and science are the same thing. They clearly aren’t. But it is to deny the claim of scientific materialists that science is somehow anti-religious.

Following are the document’s major points, which we still are happy to affirm:

1. “The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization is built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West’s greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.” As a historical matter, this statement happens to be true. The idea that humans are created in the image of God has had powerful positive cultural consequences. Only a member of a group with a name like the “New Orleans Secular Humanist Association” could find anything objectionable here. (By the way, isn’t it strange that a group supposedly promoting “theocracy” would praise “representative democracy” and “human rights”?)
2. “Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very throughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment.” This statement highlights one of the animating concerns of Discovery Institute as a public policy think tank. Leading nineteenth century intellectuals tried to hijack science to promote their own anti-religious agenda. This attempt to enlist science to support an anti-religious agenda continues to this day with Darwinists like Oxford’s Richard Dawkins, who boldly insists that Darwinism supports atheism. We continue to think that such claims are an abuse of genuine science, and that this abuse of real science has led to pernicious social consequences (such as the eugenics crusade pushed by Darwinist biologists early in the twentieth century).
3. "Discovery Institute’s Center... seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies.” It wants to “reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." We admit it: We want to end the abuse of science by Darwinists like Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson who try to use science to debunk religion, and we want to provide support for scientists and philosophers who think that real science is actually “consonant with… theistic convictions.” Please note, however: “Consonant with” means “in harmony with.” It does not mean “same as.” Recent developments in physics, cosmology, biochemistry, and related sciences may lead to a new harmony between science and religion. But that doesn’t mean we think religion and science are the same thing. We don’t.
4. “Without solid scholarship, research and argument, the project would be just another attempt to indoctrinate instead of persuade.” It is precisely because we are interested in encouraging intellectual exploration that the “Wedge Document” identified the “essential” component of its program as the support of scholarly “research, writing and publication.” The document makes clear that the primary goal of Discovery Institute’s program in this area is to support scholars so they can engage in research and publication Scholarship comes first. Accordingly, by far the largest program in the Center’s budget has been the awarding of research fellowships to biologists, philosophers of science, and other scholars to engage in research and writing.
5. “The best and truest research can languish unread and unused unless it is properly publicized.” It’s shocking but true—Discovery Institute actually promised to publicize the work of its scholars in the broader culture! What’s more, it wanted to engage Darwinists in academic debates at colleges and universities! We are happy to say that we still believe in vigorous and open discussion of our ideas, and we still do whatever we can to publicize the work of those we support. So much for the “secret” part of our supposed “conspiracy.”

A final thought: Don’t Darwinists have better ways to spend their time than inventing absurd conspiracy theories about their opponents? The longer Darwinists persist in spinning such urban legends, the more likely it is that fair-minded people will begin to question whether Darwinists know what they are talking about.

Read the Wedge document for yourself, along with a more detailed point by point response and clarification of falacious allegations.

[xzins]

Supernatural causes are the realm of philosophy or theology, not science

You know the limitations of such a broad generalizations as well as I do, so I won't get into it.

ANYTHING that is true and real is a viable subject for science.

[js1138]

And as long as the pupils understand that the Theory of Evolution is a theory, not a fact, not a law...

Just curious: do you personally agree with Behe and Denton that common descent is well established as a historical fact? Behe says he takes it for granted.

[js1138]

ANYTHING that is true and real is a viable subject for science.

Anything that is an observable phenomenon can be a subject for science. Nothing that can be observed directly or indirectly is supernatural.

[Doctor Stochastic]

There's no claim of magic, merely randomness.

Plus we tend to find under experimental conditions what we expect to find.

No, we don't. If we did, we wouldn't have to run the experiments.

[xzins]

You don't know whether the supernatural can be observed or not. All you know is that you and most people haven't observed it.

"Observable." Based on what era?

I don't suppose we've learned anything from microscopes and telescopes. Therefore, prior to their advent, there was nothing to know in the worlds they opened up. Or can we assume that those worlds didn't exist until those devices were created?

Right???

[js1138]

My use of the present tense was not an accident.

[Liberal Classic]

malakhi wrote:
Supernatural causes are the realm of philosophy or theology, not science.

To which you replied:
ANYTHING that is true and real is a viable subject for science.

Back off, man! I'm a scientist!

[xzins]

Tense makes no sense. (And certainly no difference.)

Why try to find a way to observe if "science" says the unobservable doesn't exist?

[Tribune7]

Since when has he been Greek Orthodox?

It's something I had read. If wrong, I'll stand corrected.

[xzins]

Nice ghost.

And just in time for Halloween :>)

[Tribune7]

It's really odd, considering how important Behe is to the ID movement, that so few people on these threads realize that the takes common descent for granted. You'd think that would be important.

You would think :-)

[malakhi]

ANYTHING that is true and real is a viable subject for science.

Please feel free to explain how science can proceed to investigate supernatural causes.

[malakhi]

that the Theory of Evolution is a theory, not a fact, not a law

I'm surprised, bb. I thought you'd been on these threads long enough to know what "theory", "fact" and "law" mean in the context of science. Between this, and your backhanded swipe at the fossil record in your #109, I'm beginning to wonder.

[js1138]

Science makes no such claim. Science would say that science cannot study anything that cannot be directly or indirectly observed.

[betty boop]

There's no claim of magic, merely randomness.

Doc, as Alamo-Girl has pointed out on numerous occasions (and I do agree with her observation), randomness may be apparent rather than actual. Knowledge of the system in which it occurs would be necessary in order to tell which.

[betty boop]

No, we don't. If we did, we wouldn't have to run the experiments.

This seems to me not to be true. We run the experiment to validate (falsify) our expectation (hypothesis).

[betty boop]

I'm surprised, bb. I thought you'd been on these threads long enough to know what "theory", "fact" and "law" mean in the context of science. Between this, and your backhanded swipe at the fossil record in your #109, I'm beginning to wonder.

Two points, malakhi:

(1) I know the difference between theory, fact, and law. A middle school pupil, however, can ordinarily be expected to be in need of being taught how to discriminate each of these terms.

(2) My "back-handed swipe" at the fossil record goes to the people who have thought to "augment it" by illegitimate means. It is a fact that there have been some people like this. It is also a fact that hoaxes have been exposed. It is a "swipe" to simply mention such things, when they are true?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you both, betty boop and xzins, for all of your pings to this very engaging discussion!!!

I'm coming in late and don't yet have any sweeping replies but I would like very much to address the sidebar with RogueIsland.

I certainly agree that students must be taught evolution. It is the most comprehensive biological theory we have at this point. It is not however complete and that fact ought to be made clearly because students have a tendency to believe that what they are hearing is a "done deal".

Neither Darwin nor the biologists since have effectively answered a number of crucial questions such as:

What is life v non-life/death in nature?

We know that rocks and rabbits are made of the same particles and fields, but when breaking down rocks and rabbits into their components, what is it that is removed such that a rabbit becomes non-life?

What is the origin of information (successful communication) in biological systems?

When we put 100 army ants on a flat surface they walk in a circle until they die of exhaustion, but if we collect a million of them they will form colonies, conduct raids, keep a geometry and calendar and constant temperature in the nest. What is the mechanism of such swarm intelligence?

We can teach a flatworm to respond to a light/punishment stimulus and then chop it into two parts, but the part which had no brain will regenerate into a flatworm that remembers the exercise. What is the mechanism of regenerated intelligence?

In experiments it has been shown that motile cells individually make choices of direction and that amoebas remember lessons of indigestible ink. What is the mechanism of cellular intelligence?

Why do the component cells of an organism organize around function and further, why does the component molecular machinery of an organism cooperate to the survival of the “whole”?

What determines autonomy in biological systems (swarms, flatworms, organisms, etc.)? Are we looking at an evolution of one, a fecundity principle, a life principle?

Is intelligence in biological life the result of successful communication by external agent or is a phenomenon?

And if it is a phenomenon is it an emergent property of self-organizing complexity or is it fractal?

Can intelligence cause anything to happen or is it merely an epiphenomenon?

What is the guide to the system whereby order in biological systems arises out of the physical chaos of the universe as we see in quantum fields and the CMB?

The answers to such questions (information, autonomy, semiosis, complexity, intelligence) are beyond the reach of biology as an autonomous science as betty boop has observed.

“Matter in all its motions” cannot address questions which are more intrinsically mathematical – whether information theoretics, dimensionality or other geometric physics, or the “unreasonable effectiveness of math” vis-à-vis physics. Indeed, physics does not yet have an explanation for matter itself: ordinary matter (potentially Higgs field/boson or supersymmetry), dark matter (high gravity regions such as black holes) or dark energy (potentially negative, interdimensional gravity causing acceleration of the universe).

The golden key is that the void in which "all that there is" began (regardless of physical cosmology) - has no space, no time, no energy, no matter, no mathematical structures, no logic, no physical laws, no physical constants.

Again, there is no physical causuality in the void.

Physico-chemical investigations cannot begin to approach such issues.

Thus the students should understand there is exciting work to be done in science and math - and that doesn’t even consider the overarching theological and philosophical questions as to why the universe exists at all or why it exists this way rather than some other way.

[xzins]

That is the issue, isn't it? "Because we cannot study it, that means it doesn't exist" is not a logical statement.

There are study tools all the way from hard to soft.

In the area of soft research, I remember a few years back I ran across some British research. One of the questions was something like, "Have you ever experienced or been influenced by what many would refer to as divine or supernatural intervention."

There was a very large positive response to the question that cut across religious/non-religious lines.

I used it in a paper, so I've probably got it out in a file cabinet someplace.

The effort is finding a way to study such a phenomenon...not simply throwing up our hands and declaring it impossible.

[betty boop]

Just curious: do you personally agree with Behe and Denton that common descent is well established as a historical fact? Behe says he takes it for granted.

I hardly think it can have been established as a "historical fact," js1138. Historiography is a production of contemporaneous observers. Common descent might be true, or it might be false. I really don't know, and don't sweat it either way in any case.