A Gift from the Culture
"A Gift from the Culture", published in 1987, is a short work of space opera, by the Scottish science fiction author Iain M. Banks. The story is an early venture into the "complex and unusual and very distant" setting of the Culture, which Banks would further develop through various of full length novels, stories, and his essay "A Few Notes on the Culture".
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, as it was originally named, grew out of a conference called "The Death of Materialism and the Renewal of Culture" that the Discovery Institute organised in the summer of 1995. It was founded in 1996 by the Discovery Institute with funding provided by Fieldstead & Company, the Stewardship Foundation, Howard Ahmanson, Jr. and the Maclellan Foundation. The evolution of the Center's name in 2002 reflects its attempt to present itself as less religiously motivated in the public's eye. The evolving banners on the CRSC/CSC's website pictorially parallel these verbal efforts to disassociate the site from its overtly religious origins. The "renewal" in its name referred to its stated goal of "renewing" American culture by grounding society's major institutions, especially education, in religion as outlined in the Wedge Document.
An internal CSC report dating from 1998 which outlined a five-year plan for fostering broader acceptance of ID was leaked to the public in 1999. This plan became known as the Wedge strategy. The Wedge Document explained the CSC's key aims are "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies" and to "replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."