Related Post

Recently in Current Events

Recent Comments

• PaidContent.org has a new Parent
• Pigs & Corn
• Vertical Farm Project w/ Dr. Dickson Despommier
• Shawn Frayne’s Windbelt Wins Popular Mechanics 2007 Breakthrough Award
• Teased By The Promise Of An Electronic Device
• Social Minded Product Design: Emily Pilloton
• Twitter in the Street
• POSTPONED: Patrick Spain, Michael Wolff

Intelligent Design

In October the inter-faith Center for Religious Inquiry sponsored a debate and discussion on Intelligent Design. The controversial concept opposes conventional biological explanations as it states that life on Earth must have been “designed” by an “intelligent agent.”

Part of a series entitled “The Moral Nation?” the event took place at St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral in New York.

The last program in as series of large public lectures, small classes, musical events and seminars dating back to Fall 2005, the evening’s discussion centers on a topic that moderator Rev. William McD. Tully of St. Bart’s describes as “a volatile social and political question.”

“The actual term Intelligent Design refers to a particular set of beliefs that a certain group of people assert, and make a connection between their beliefs and religious beliefs in general,” Rev. Tully tells the audience at the outset, “I’m confident in saying that you have entered the precincts of a religious community that doesn’t make that easy assumption.”

The panel also includes Marc Kirschner, Ph.D., founding chair of the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the recent book, The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwinist Dilemma; Robert Pollack, Ph.D., Professor of Biological Sciences, Adjunct Professor of Religion, Lecturer in Psychiatry and Director of the Earth Institute’s Center for the Study of Science and Religion at Columbia University; and John F. Haught, Ph. D., Distinguished Research Professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Theology and author of 14 books including the recently published Is Nature Enough?: Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science.

According to Dr. Kirschner, “It is very important to explore the interactions between science and religion and issues of evolution. It is time for a scientific check-up for evolution and it should be done for the benefit of the public and for scientists.”

Dr. Pollack, who opens his remarks by telling the audience that he has recently celebrated his 65th birthday, an event which has prompted an awareness of his own mortality, speaks of “the task of finding meaning despite the central fact of the mortality of others and also, irreducibly and inescapably, our own mortality.”

“In that task,” he asks, “has the science anything to contribute? These are the questions that must be addressed before we can take a clear look at what is meant by the notion of Intelligent Design”

Providing a theological perspective to the discussion is Dr. Haught, who says that “the religious world in general and the Christian world in particular have had a very difficult time coming to grips with the rather ragged looking Darwinian story about life on our planet.”

In the lively and entertaining discussion and debate above, the panelists deal with these complex issues and put them into modern-day perspective for any audience interested in the inter-relationship between science, religion and the question of evolution and life on Earth.

Panelists

The Rev. William McD. Tully, St. Bartholomew’s Church

Robert Pollack, Ph.D., Columbia University

Marc Kirschner, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School

John Haugt, Ph. D., Georgetown University

This article was created by the editors and producers at ScribeMedia.Org.