The Scientific Establishment Is Finally Starting To Take Intelligent Design Seriously

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At first glance, the Potential and Limitations of Evolutionary Processes conference in Israel last week, which I attended, looked like any other scientific meeting on evolution, with talks by highly-credentialed scientists from institutions such as the Technical University of Munich, Cambridge, and the Weizmann Institute. But a closer look at the list of speakers shows that this one was different; it gave a platform to several proponents of intelligent design.

The conference included chemistry Nobel prize winners Ada Yonath and Sir John Walker, and numerous well-known evolutionary theorists such as University of Chicago molecular biologist James Shapiro and Georgia Tech biophysicist Jeremy England. But this time four or five intelligent design scientists were also invited, including Michael Behe of Lehigh University.


Most, but not all, avoided mentioning design explicitly, but still emphasized the “limitations” of evolutionary processes. Even Rice University chemist James Tour (who considers himself “agnostic” toward intelligent design) argued that origin-of-life researchers have deceived the public into believing that we are close to understanding how life formed, when we are not.

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