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The Religion & Culture Web Forum

September 2005

Intelligent Design and Evolution in Conflict

This month, the Web Forum presents a conversation on the issues raised by proponents of "intelligent design," a theory of the origins and development of the universe which holds that the intricacies of the natural world are better explained by the existence of a designer than by the random processes postulated by Darwinism. Opponents of intelligent design see it as an attempt to bring religious modes of thinking into scientific discourse under the guise of rational argument. Both sides, from a variety of perspectives, have been developed in a series of recent Sightings essays. These essays are reproduced here as part of this month's Religion and Culture Web Forum and will be supplemented by further comment from the authors, invited respondents, and the readership during the month.

The essays are:

Evolving Debates by Darren M. Henson

Designs of the Times by Richard A. Rosengarten

Debating Darwin by Walter H. Mees, Jr.

Beginning next week, the authors will comment further on this debate in dialogue with invited respondants on the forum's discussion board . Readers are invited to participate in the discussion as it develops on the discussion board. Please note that, to eliminate automated spam, the discussion board now requires a login and password. When prompted, please enter the username "rcwf" and the password "discussionboard" to proceed to the forum.

The Martin Marty Center's Religion and Culture Web Forum is an online forum for thought-provoking discussion on the relationship of scholarship in religion to culture and public life. Each month the Marty Center, the research arm of the University of Chicago Divinity School, invites a scholar of religion to comment on his or her own research in a way that "opens out" to themes, problems, and events in world cultures and contemporary life. Scholars from diverse fields of study are invited to offer responses to these commentaries on the forum's discussion board, where the public is also encouraged to post thoughts and reactions to commentaries and invited responses.

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