science

Wedge strategy

Wedge strategy is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wedge strategy rather than just read about it. In short: The wedge strategy is a creationist political and social agenda authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement. The strategy was presented in a Discovery Institute internal memorandum known as the Wedge Document.

Key takeaways

Wedge strategy belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wedge strategy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wedge strategy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The wedge strategy is a creationist political and social agenda authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement. The strategy was presented in a Discovery Institute internal memorandum known as the Wedge Document. Its goal is to change American culture by shaping public policy to reflect politically conservative fundamentalist, evangelical, Protestant values. The wedge metaphor is attributed to Phillip E. Johnson and depicts a metal wedge splitting a log. Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific presentation of religious belief, asserting that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not a naturalistic process such as evolution by natural selection. Implicit in the intelligent design doctrine is a redefining of science and how it is conducted (see theistic science). 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.

Overview The Wedge Document outlines a public relations campaign meant to sway the opinion of the public, popular media, charitable funding agencies, and public policy makers. 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 scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies" "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God" There are three Wedge Projects, referred to in the strategy as three phases designed to reach a governing goal:

Scientific Research, Writing, and Publicity Publicity and Opinion-making Cultural Confrontation & Renewal Recognizing the need for support, the institute affirms the strategy's Christian, evangelistic orientation:

Alongside a focus on the influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that support the faith, as well as to popularize our ideas in the broader culture. 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 was hoped to embolden believers and sway the broader culture towards acceptance of intelligent design. This, in turn, would lead the ultimate goal of the wedge strategy; a social and political reformation of American culture. In 20 years, the group hopes that they will have achieved their goal of making intelligent design the main perspective in science as well as to branch out to ethics, politics, philosophy, theology, and 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 Center for Science and Culture (CSC) of the "overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies" and reinstating the idea that humans are made in the image of God, thereby reforming 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 CSC, 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 in his book The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism.

Origins

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, then a part-time employee of a Seattle-based international human-resources firm and now executive vice president at the Center for International Policy. 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 eventually acknowledged the Institute as 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 portrays 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.

Movement and strategy According to Phillip E. Johnson, the wedge movement, if not the term, began in 1992:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Wedge strategy: Cover of the Wedge Document. — Cover of the Wedge Document.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wedge strategy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wedge strategy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wedge strategy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wedge strategy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wedge strategy

In research: Wedge strategy appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wedge strategy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wedge strategy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Conservatism in the United States, Creationism, Discovery Institute campaigns, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wedge strategy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wedge strategy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wedge strategy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wedge strategy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wedge strategy in simple terms?

Why does Wedge strategy matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wedge strategy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wedge strategy.