The Center for Science and Culture (CSC), formerly known as the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative thinktank in the United States. The CSC lobbies for wider acceptance of intelligent design (ID) as an explanation for the origins of life and the universe, and is opposed to the theory of evolution. However, the wider scientific community considers ID to be pseudoscientific and akin to creationism.

History

The Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture was founded in 1996. The "renewal" in its name is believed to refer to the "science" of the Renaissance Era. Science as it is know today started during that time as protoscience and was conducted with the aim of studying God's Universe. Critics have pointed out that this does not fit in with established scientific philosophy and thus label it pseudoscience. The CSC wants a redefinition of science, and the philosophy on which it is based, particularly the exclusion of what it calls the "unscientific principle of materialism", and in particular the acceptance of what it calls "the scientific theory of intelligent design". Critics argue that the principle of naturalism (i.e. materialism) allows falsifiability and that supernaturalism is unfalsifiable.

The Wedge strategy

In 1999 an internal CSC report dating from 1998 was leaked to the public, which outlined a five-year plan for fostering broader acceptance of ID. This plan become known as the Wedge strategy. The 'wedge document' explained the key aims of CSC as follows.

Governing Goals

• 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.

Five-Year Goals

• To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory.
• To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science.
• To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda.

Twenty Year Goals

• To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
• To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its influence in the fine arts.
• To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.

The paper also stated in part that:

The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.

The Discovery Institute would later issue a statement denying that it sought to establish a theocracy.

Critics have alleged that the Center has a hidden agenda: that of giving the teaching of creationism immunity from First Amendment challenges by adopting the putatively theologically neutral stance of intelligent design. They note that in press releases intended for the general public, the CSC describes itself as "the nation's leading think-tank researching scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution." But in press releases for members only, the CSC assures them that it "seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies."

Fellows

The CSC has a number of fellows. The program director is Stephen C Meyer , Associated Director is John G West . The father of the movement however and perhaps the most important is Phillip E. Johnson. Most of these fellows are theists, and Christians of various denominations.

Senior fellows

• Michael J. Behe
• David Berlinski
• Paul Chien
• William A. Dembski
• David DeWolf
• Guillermo Gonzalez
• Michael Newton Keas
• Nancy Pearcey
• Jay W. Richards
• Mark Ryland
• Wesley J. Smith
• Jonathan Wells
• Benjamin Wiker
• Jonathan Witt

Fellows

• Francis J. Beckwith
• Raymond Bohlin
• Walter Bradley
• J. Budziszewski
• John Angus Campbell
• Robert Lowry Clinton
• Jack Collins
• Robin Collins
• William Lane Craig
• Brian Frederick
• Mark Hartwig
• Kenneth Hermann
• Robert Kaita
• Dean Kenyon
• Robert C. Koons
• Forrest M. Mims
• Scott Minnich
• J.P. Moreland
• Paul Nelson
• Joseph Poulshock
• Pattle Pak-Toe Pun
• John Mark Reynolds
• Marcus Ross
• Henry Schaefer
• Wolfgang Smith
• Charles Thaxton
• Richard Weikart

External links

• Discovery Institute's CSC

• The Wedge Strategy
• The Wedge Document -- So what? from the Discovery Institute

• Evolving Banners at the Discovery Institute - the NCSE shows the changing banners on the CRSC/CSC's website.