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.

[cornelis]

OK, events that are not predictable are outside of science. Who decided this?

[js1138]

It's not the events being unpredictable. It hypotheses that don't make predictions.

[cornelis]

OK, and science being about predictability concerns itself with history?

[js1138]

Science can predict the kinds of forensic evidence that will be found and the kinds that will not be found. Same as a criminal prosecutor. It's a good enough kind of science that we trust it to decide who can be executed and who cannot.

If criminal cases had hundreds of years worth of evidence, millions of data points and tens of thousands of investigators, decisions in law would be more trustworthy.

[cornelis]

You sound like the voice of narby. : )

But clearly, certain evidence is not about predictability.

[betty boop]

The extracosmic beyond.! where God is, I assume you mean. Too much for me (tilt)... I’d consider myself fortunate if I could get a handle on the 4th dimension. If, as someone has said, there even IS a fourth dimension.

Actually, hosepipe, that should be extracosmic “Beyond” — with capital “B.” This is Plato’s word for the divine Being who is wholly outside of the physical universe, “extracosmic”: God. Plato said very little about this god directly. But he recognizes it as the divine source of all truth, beauty, goodness, and justice; and as the ultimate author of the natural world. (Do we need to differentiate the meanings for “cosmos” and “universe?” Here I just mean the natural world that we move through, observing and measuring, microscope to telescope as it were.)

I think people may be overcomplicating what the 4th dimension is. It is simply a time dimension, and is not mysterious.

I do like to try for the “least description” that best accounts for what I see. But then again, maybe I’m just simple-minded.

However, the least description would go something like this: There is an entity A that for whatever reason “desires” to effect a change of its current state, possibly in order to realize a purpose or goal, and has the energy to do it. The “completion” of the change-of-state transition would be A₁ (i.e., the achievement of the purpose). We might describe A as located at a particular set of spatial coordinates x, y, and z – the “3” of the 3+1 = 4D description of “ordinary” space/time reality. But if we do, we must do the very same thing for A₁. Then comparing the values for the two, it turns out that A₁’s space coordinates are not the same as A’s. The difference between them can be accounted for only if one notices that time has elapsed between original impulse (first cause) and the achievement of the ‘goal’ (final cause). And then one might say: What we are really describing here is events.

And everybody knows what an event is: It is something that has a beginning, winds its way through a further course of development (expected or unexpected), and then ends up at X. “Events” happen to everybody, and are initiated by everybody in mundane existence. This is not rocket science.

In short, there could be no event absent time for its evolution. And that is why time is not “merely” a coordinate of mathematical formalism, but is also — and more importantly — a field in which events can happen, in which things can evolve.

And this is just the “ordinary” time we humans experience every moment of our lives. We see time as moving linearly, from past, to present, to future. In this, observations of the second law of dynamics confirm the unidirectional, unilinear character of time as we normally experience it or think about it.

At the same time, we humans also seem to have a natural ability to experience time, not as a wave, or as the context of an event, but in terms of discrete units – seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, etc. Maybe this is instinctive for us, given we constantly hear (even if unconsciously) our own heartbeat.

But a heartbeat is an “event,” too! So this “ordinary” time is of enormous importance to human beings, to the way we think about our existence and the world in which we live.

Anyhoot, it seems the time in which physical or natural events unfold is the “time” of the 4D space/time block: x,y,z, t. That is, time constitutes a dimension in itself. It is a differentiated dimension in the same way that a line extended to a plane differentiates a new spatial dimension. Time, it turns out, differentiates all the 3D of space: It seems that for 3D-space constituents to do anything or be anything at all requires a fourth dimension — time.

But we have been speaking so far of “finite time.” There is a corresponding idea of infinite time, or Eternity. Infinite time transcends the t of the 4D block altogether. Indeed, it transcends all the dimensions of the 4D block taken collectively. Analogously to the relations obtaining among space and time in the 4D block, one conjectures that the fifth dimension — 5D_t — is the “field” in which the evolution of the 4D block takes place.

Well, enuf of this for now. If we need to improve the methodology by which this “piece” has been going forward so far, then please everybody, anybody, don’t hesitate to “yell” at me. But please bring concrete alternative suggestions to the table.

hosepipe, you have certainly started a whole lot of “trouble!” May God ever bless you!

[cornelis]

“Beyond” — with capital “B.” This is Plato’s word for the divine Being In the Republic the Beyond is beyond being, bb.

[hosepipe]

[ I do like to try for the “least description” that best accounts for what I see. But then again, maybe I’m just simple-minded. ]

Do to this post I'm simpler than you.. Nyah d;-)~',',

Gives me something to think about to be sure, this post.. Maybe I'll re-read a particular book I know of that approaches some of these things(subjects) in way children can understand.. Just my speed..

[ hosepipe, you have certainly started a whole lot of “trouble!” May God ever bless you! ]

< lie> Not my objective at all..< /lie>
darn.. ;-) I'm exposed..

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your replies!

Metaphor stymies mans abilty to box it into a private mental box.. You can see metaphor differently tomorrow than you do today.. Thats why I say metaphor could be a spiritiual way of communication.

I'm not knocking metaphors. They are frequently used throughout Scripture to convey Truth by parable, by "types" (such as the temple on earth and the Temple in Heaven) and by symbols in prophetic visions (e.g. Joseph, Daniel and John).

However, I aver that Christ is not a metaphor; I've known Him personally for 45 years. Nor is the Spirit a metaphor, He indwells me, informs me and guides me. Nor is the Father a metaphor, I know Him in Christ and the Spirit. They are One. God is Who He says He is: I am.

But to return to metaphors, it is sad that myths have gotten a bad rap. Most people these days consider a myth as having nothing to do with truth, just another piece of fiction. But it didn't used to be that way at all. Much of Plato's wisdom was conveyed in myths - and in more recent times, the myths of C.S. Lewis carry deeper messages which speak to the Christian spirit.

There is a difference though between the metaphorical language of philosophy and the metaphorical language of Christianity. The difference is Christ Himself because He is alive, the Living Word of God - Truth comes alive within us through the indwelling Spirit whereas truth of reason satisfies the mind but has no life of its own.

Therefore, whereas faith and reason are complementary - reason cannot substitute for faith.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your excellent post!!!

Your description of how we sense the dimension of time is very informative!!! It is also directly related to the sidebar cornelis is having.

To paraphrase St. Thomas Aquinas, a form of causality is "but not for A, C would not be". In other words, if one removes A, C does not exist - therefore a cause/effect relationship exists between A and C.

If one removes time, events cannot occur - if one removes space (the 3 spatial dimensions), corporeals cannot exist. Thus "in" space/time (all dimensions) there can be no uncaused events or objects - even quantum fluctuations and radioactive decay.

The "void" from which "all that there is" began has no space, no time, no energy, no matter, no physical laws, no constants and therefore no physical causality. Only the uncaused cause - God - can make a beginning in the absence of causality itself.

Analogously to the relations obtaining among space and time in the 4D block, one conjectures that the fifth dimension — 5Dt — is the “field” in which the evolution of the 4D block takes place.

IMHO, the extent of scientific endeavor is best expressed by the Wesson model you described earlier: (t₁, x, y, z, t₂). And that would indeed express the evolution of one, the whole of creation.

Anything beyond that - is in timelessness and therefore, is theology or metaphysics, the boldface part of the expression I proposed as follows:

((t₁, x, y, z, t₂) /(s₁*s₂))*S

Even so, much can be discovered by science by considering another time-like dimension! It may for instance hold the answer for matter in 4 dimensions, whether the particles are multiply imaged from the second time-like dimension, the apparent superluminal phenomenon of non-locality. It may host the information (successful communication) in the universe. And therefore it may have answers for us concerning autonomy, intelligence/consciousness, semiosis and complexity. All of this without putting a toe in metaphysics... LOL!

[hosepipe]

[ Therefore, whereas faith and reason are complementary - reason cannot substitute for faith. ]

Exactly.. it takes faith to get in your car and go from A to B fully expecting to get back to A again.. That takes a measure of faith.. Unless you can predict the future.. Many small things in life take a measure of faith.. Most of my life tried to do "it" "whatever" myself and resorted to faith as a last resort.. My attitude was at some point, heck, all you can do is pray, now.. instead as a first resort.. Still do sometimes being a silly human..

However doing nothing or expecting whatever happens->> God did it.. that is a version of Gnosticism.. and fatalism.. Arrogance really.. in my experience.. And sadly, I do have some experience with that.. Gnostics don't seem to know much..

[hosepipe]

[ Therefore, whereas faith and reason are complementary - reason cannot substitute for faith. ]

Exactly.. it takes faith to get in your car and go from A to B fully expecting to get back to A again.. That takes a measure of faith.. Unless you can predict the future.. Many small things in life take a measure of faith.. Most of my life tried to do "it" "whatever" myself and resorted to faith as a last resort.. My attitude was at some point, heck, all you can do is pray, now.. instead as a first resort.. Still do sometimes being a silly human..

However doing nothing or expecting whatever happens->> God did it.. that is a version of Gnosticism.. and fatalism.. Arrogance really.. in my experience.. And sadly, I do have some experience with that.. Gnostics don't seem to know much..

[hosepipe]

[ Even so, much can be discovered by science by considering another time-like dimension! It may for instance hold the answer for matter in 4 dimensions, whether the particles are multiply imaged from the second time-like dimension, the apparent superluminal phenomenon of non-locality. It may host the information (successful communication) in the universe. And therefore it may have answers for us concerning autonomy, intelligence/consciousness, semiosis and complexity. All of this without putting a toe in metaphysics... LOL! ]

Well, that was a mouthful.. intend to chew throughly like my hillbilly Mamma told me..

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your replies!

However doing nothing or expecting whatever happens->> God did it.. that is a version of Gnosticism.. and fatalism.. Arrogance really.. in my experience.. And sadly, I do have some experience with that.. Gnostics don't seem to know much..

Indeed, gnostics don’t seem to know much and, IMHO, a lot of people fall into fatalism because of a tunnel-visioned worldview.

For instance, they might see time as a rigid dimension of hyperspace (x,y,z,t) – or to put it another way, what will be already is – it can’t be changed, so why bother? Free will is an illusion.

Conversely, some might reason that the mind is what the brain does, there is no ghost in the machine and therefore the mind/soul is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain which cannot cause anything to happen: “our thinking that we moved a finger is an illusion, the physical brain did it.” Again, free will is an illusion in that worldview.

Moreover, one might view “all that there is” is “matter in all its motions” – three dimensional space evolving over time. (x,y,z)t. If one only knew the initial conditions and rules, everything could be predicted to the end of the universe. It is all strongly determined. Again, free will is an illusion.

The common thread of all such reasoning is a narrow worldview, one which denies the mind, soul or spirit as having any effectual existence. Indeed, I cannot see how any metaphysical naturalist could justify free will.

Or to use the math expressions again, I do not see how anyone with a worldview which only allows x,y,z,t could rationalize free will. IOW, to “get there” one must have some acceptance of soul/spirit – or at the very least, be able to explain as an effectual phenomenon, consciousness/mind including awareness, decision making, etc. All of which are non-corporeal per se

To sum it up, even if one is unwilling to admit the supernatural – he can nevertheless rationalize free will – but only if he accepts that “matter in all its motions” is not “all that there is”.

[StJacques]

"The coexistence of two orders or dimensions has some appeal, . . ."

I haven't had the time to trace all of this discussion, and I see that some of it is more philosophical than physical; but, since I saw the question raised of the possibility of the coexistence of a third and fourth dimension, I will point out that certain aspects of Einstein's approach to time as a fourth dimension have been tested and proven, specifically that time is not a constant but a dimension that can be compressed or stretched in a similar fashion to the other three.

I'll just put up one short quote from a NASA article on atomic clocks to make the point:

". . . The stretching of time by relativity has been felt and measured by other orbiting clocks . . . "

So if the "stretching" of time has been measured, then we must conclude that the fourth dimension is an observed fact.

I will also point out that there have been other tests using atomic clocks than the ones cited in the NASA article I just linked that provided more support for the "observed" phenomena of the the "stretching of time."

[Alamo-Girl]

Hi StJacques! Long time, no see. I've missed your insights.

I hope you don't mind - but I do want to point out something concerning your post to cornelis.

This sidebar began with a post by hosepipe at 521 which asserts a physical/metaphysical understanding. The terms used had different meanings than we were used to and thus we were trying to find some "common ground" to communicate better.

I personally found cornelis' post to be extremely helpful in sorting it out and comparing it with other views.

[hosepipe]

[ So if the "stretching" of time has been measured, then we must conclude that the fourth dimension is an observed fact. ]

If time is stretchable it can obviously collapse(E=MC2) i.e. slowing down.. Why does it not make time an element of the third dimension effectivly makeing the third the fouth.?. or better said the third IS the fourth.. and the fifth dimension is an another animal altogether.. i.e. my hypothesis "the fifth"(NOW) is the Spiritual dimension.. LOL..

This a carosel.. its fun.. WEeeeee. LoL.. No music though thats weird..

[hosepipe]

[ Conversely, some might reason that the mind is what the brain does, there is no ghost in the machine and therefore the mind/soul is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain which cannot cause anything to happen: “our thinking that we moved a finger is an illusion, the physical brain did it.” Again, free will is an illusion in that worldview. ]

True, on the otherhand some view some cosmic intelligence as an animistic entity.. i.e. my brother the buffalo, my sister the mental figment.. Or even view God as the great librarian there to help in the search for data, truth, and mental figments of all types..

If the human brain is all we are, then we are DNA'osaurs.. like the "EVOs" tell us we are.. If not.. then the "EVOs" are in for one HUGE surprise.. and maybe disappointment..

If people that believe in a human spirit are deluded.. They are deluded into concocting a much more sublime story.. than that bunch of other monkeys have(Evos).. Basically the Evo story is one of snarling beasts, and the believer story is one of a monkey with a crown on its head trying to act regal..

Much more humor in the monkey king story.. The snarling beast one is a downer.. No heros only dinner.. Must be why people prefer kittens and puppys to baby hyenas as pets.. generally.. Maybe Evos identify with the hyena, I dunno.. Ya think?..

(shining fingernails)..(with a wry smile)..(and faux regal demeanor)

[Alamo-Girl]

If time is stretchable it can obviously collapse(E=MC2) i.e. slowing down..

I don't have a clue how you arrived at that conclusion with Einstein's famous formula, i.e. energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.

The speed of light is constant. It is a null path, no time passes for the observer travelling at the speed of light. Time is sensed by the observers in space/time (construction of a Lorentz Transformation)

Time dilation or stretching is a phenomenon of velocity and therefore gravity or the space/time structure based on the equivalence principle. (post 524)

Also, Steinhardt's latest physical cosmology - the cyclic universe model - allows for the universe to expand, crunch, expand again and so on but time keeps marching on. That is considered a "weakness" in the theory.

[hosepipe]

[ I don't have a clue how you arrived at that conclusion with Einstein's famous formula, i.e. energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. ]

O.K. If I'm correct and may not be.. Einstien said when approaching the speed of light time slows down.. i.e. stetching.. colapseing.. That would be in 3rd dimensional time and in a 3rd dimensional universe.. If so, then time is adjustable and "a commodity, in my words" like energy or matter.. The speed of light is referencing "light" as a thing.. like the speed of a train references the train.. only light can go at the speed of light so it must reference light itself.. E=MC2, the constant IS light not just the speed of it, no matter its speed.. C2 is not like a logarythm is it.?. The speed of light may be not able to slow down but time can.. maybe the constant is in fact a variable.. since time surely is a varible..

That is where I'm going with this.. right or wrong.. LoL..
Seems that if time is adjustable then its a 3rd dimensional "commidity" like mass or energy.. in 3D terms.. since as I understand it all three can be converted into one another energy, mass, light.. i.e. electro-mechanical universe.. Which is the point of the formula in my understanding..

You would know more about that than me.. scientifically, but thats the way I see it.. If I'm wrong SHOOT ME PLEASE.. I'm over my head and suffering.. pretty please. come on you can do it.. send me to Jesus I'm a very bad man.. I'm suffering for crying out loud.. Just SHOOT..