Centre for Intelligent Design

A new Centre for Intelligent Design has opened in Glasgow and its president is Professor Norman Nevin OBE, emeritus professor of medical genetics at Queen's University Belfast, and the vice-president is Dr David Galloway, vice president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow. 

The director of the centre is Dr Alastair Noble and Its specific objectives are to:

• promote the professional investigation and public debate of Intelligent Design
• challenge, on the scientific evidence, the neo-Darwinian claim that the development of life is purely the result of undirected forces
• encourage consideration of the wider implications of Intelligent Design.

Further information about the new centre and about Intelligent Design is available at http://www.c4id.org.uk/or http://www.darwinordesign.org.uk/.

Professor Michael Behe, who is the professor of chemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and one of the leading advocates of Intelligent Design, will be in the United Kingdom from 20 to 27 November and will be speaking at venues in Leamington Spa, London, Glasgow, Belfast, Cambridge, Bournemouth and Oxford.  His lecture in Belfast will be in the Crescent Church on Wednesday 24 November.  Professor Behe is the author of Darwin's Black Box and The Edge of Evolution.

The opening of the centre and the visit by Professor Behe provide an opportunity for a calm and reasoned consideration of Intelligent Design.  However the initial and irrational reaction from some sections of the media suggest that in some circles there is no appetite for reasoned consideration.