Wedge strategy
The Wedge strategy is a social policy that promotes creationism and seeks to undermine naturalism, materialism, government based programmes and evolutionary theory, written by the Discovery Institute.
Agenda[edit]
The harms of materialism are claimed to be:
- Loss of absolute moral standards: "everyone is a victim and no one can be held accountable for his or her actions"
- Belief in utopianism
The plan is to support "research" into intelligent design, influence public opinion and confronting their opponents in debates.
- "[Our aim is to] replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God. [... within 20 years] To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life."
- "Without solid scholarship, research and argument, the project would be just another attempt to indoctrinate instead of persuade."
Writers that work towards this goal include William Dembski, Paul Nelson, Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer.
Even if evolution was disproven, it probably would not bring about the religious revival expected by the discovery institute. Many writers and philosophers have detailed the ways Christianity and other religious are bankrupted intellectually and morally.
Impact[edit]
Since intelligent design is inherently unscientific due to its lack of predictive power (among other problems), it unsurprisingly failed to produce any new research. Their advocates attempt to redefine science to allow supernatural causes and non-predictive theories to be considered. However, a fundamental property of science is the possibility of falsification, which intelligent design does not have.
Apologists have attempted to introduce intelligent design into science classes without first getting consensus of scientists or publications in reputable journals. This is sometimes done under a slogan "teach the controversy" despite the fact that there is no controversy in the scientific community over the general truth of evolution. [1] This has lead to court battles such as Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
References[edit]
External links[edit]
- The Wedge Strategy document
