Wedge Document / Strategy

[Kitsune]

Having just learned of the Wedge Strategy and Document in some of my reading (I might have been dimly aware of it in the past) and realized its implication.

What I am curious is when other learned of it and what their thoughts on how it might be combated effectively?

http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf

[Alyrium Denryle]

Use it against them. It is literally a stated plan to use the first amendment to subvert it. As a result, whenever the DI tries something, you wave it in the judges face and let the judge know they are just following their stated plans. IE. institute theocracy.

The DI loses every time.

[Covenant]

The Discovery Institute is basically entirely discredited, and ID is quickly becoming well known as another pretty packaging on Creationism. The lurking horror of a slowly driven wedge isn't much of a real threat, the bigger issue is that a fair amount of people believe in Creationism anyway, even without it being taught in schools. The education of a nation does not rest solely in the public school system it provides, so even if we give them evidence to the contrary, children can be swayed by mislead parents. So you really don't need a wedge strategy or ID to teach Creationism, they do it in the privacy of their homes and in their houses of worship already.

But I think current methods are pretty successful. Intelligent Design has been clearly pointed out as a Christian invention promoting no actual set of ideas to explain anything, making it worthless as a science and unacceptable as a matter of public policy. Even an 'equal time' doctrine fails to favor ID or the other things the Discovery Institute wanted, since if we're giving equal time to all theories then we must also include many other discredited purely scientific theories that they also would be unhappy with. The evolution section of biology education doesn't really deal with the creation of the most primitive forms, since ambiogenesis is pretty complex for most people to grasp, so the only place that any non-evolution education comes into play is either by shoehorning in a discussion of the origin of life (not really the point of basic pre-college education at all) or by claiming that no form of natural selection took place to create the species we see around us from more primitive forms. That's Darwin right there, the Origin of Species, and I think it's pretty hard to argue against without bringing up blatantly religious overtones. And that would itself fail for basic reasons.

Judges aren't infalliable, but if we follow the law and make sure our leaders (regardless of nation) are working in the interest of all their people and ideally of the most reliable truths, then ID and Creationism and people like the DI with their wedge documents should eventually lose on thos basic principles of the seperation of religious fable teaching and researched scientific fact.

[Ender]

Out of curiosity, how many of those goals they outlined have they achieved?

[Kitsune]

Out of curiosity, how many of those goals they outlined have they achieved?

"Just a Theory" by Kenneth Miller discusses this in depth....
They seem to have made periodic headway, even relatively recently, in getting school boards to try and add changes into statements. They also have attracted a lot of Political attention.
As far as Scientific Papers which are accepted, basically Nada

[Kitsune]

Curious, has anyone actually read either "Of Pandas and People" or Bede's revised version of "Darwin's Black Box"

[Samuel]

Here is there site:
http://www.fteonline.com/pandas-people.html

If the excepts they give don't piss you off, you need to brush up on biology.

[Kitsune]

Well, Biology is not exactly current (I read much more in paleontology) but I can read quite clearly the stupidity.

The one item I was curious about with the Bacterial Flagellum is that it was basically completely sunk and just wonder if Behe continues using the exact same argument?

Here is there site:
http://www.fteonline.com/pandas-people.html

If the excepts they give don't piss you off, you need to brush up on biology.

[Kitsune]

I am currently reading a book about Holocaust Deniers.....the tactics used seem almost the same as the ID Crowd

[Kaiser Caesar]

I have heard about it before, but I've never actually read it. Although, now that there is an actual link to it, I might read it. If I do, I will post my reactions here in this thread.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I have heard about it before, but I've never actually read it. Although, now that there is an actual link to it, I might read it. If I do, I will post my reactions here in this thread.

Dont. You will hurt yourself... Seriously, for anyone trained in biology reading that shit is like throwing solid HCL in your eyes.