This is an academic conference (i.e researchers present and discuss their work) . There are three fields from which the lectures have been chosen; science, theology and philosophy. Intelligent Design isn’t part of any of these fields and to my knowledge there is no actual ID research.
ID will get some attention though but it will not be the kind ID advocates want.
abstracts fourth day of the conference-
Antievolution in America: From Creation Science to Intelligent Design
Ronald Numbers, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Despite Charles Darwin’s announced effort to overthrow “the dogma of separate creations,” organized opposition to his revolution did not appear until the early 1920s. Even then, the Christian fundamentalists associated with William Jennings Bryan’s crusade to eradicate Darwinism from the schools and churches of America readily accepted the paleontological evidence for the antiquity of life on earth. It was not the coming of “scientific creationism” in the 1960s and 1970s that large numbers of antievolutionists began insisting on the recent appearance of life and assigning most of the geological column to the year of Noah’s flood. During the past fifteen years or so a new, nonbiblical, form of opposition to evolution has arisen under the banner of “intelligent design,” which seeks to “reclaim science in the name of God” and to change the very rules governing the practice of science.
“There are three fields from which the lectures have been chosen; science, theology and philosophy. Intelligent Design isn’t part of any of these fields and to my knowledge there is no actual ID research.”
Who sez? ID crosses the boundaries of all three fields. Since the latter two are willing to accept just about anything within their purview (philosophy of garbage disposal, theology of womanist Filipina domestic workers and so forth) and, for that matter, even in science today the most bizarre stuff gets a place at the table, I’d say that excluding ID merely indicates that the scientists, philosophers and theologians running the conference just don’t want to have to be bothered with an intelligent engagement with ID. If ID is wrong, scientifically, theologically, philosophically, well then bring it’s adherents to the table and show them their error.
I get just a tad tired of this smarmy “you ID guys are a bunch of trailer trash intellectuals” dismissal.
I do not defend ID as an explanatory model. I noted in a previous post that some theologians I highly respect have serious theological reservations about some of its reasoning. I don’t know whose right. But for God’s sake, ID deserves a place at the table and so far all I’ve seen from the scientific mainstream is a refusal to engage it intellectually and a massive stonewalling.
When I see that stonewalling and mocking dismissal coming from politicians or lawyers or doctors or historians (I am a hstorian), I smell a rat. The lady protests too much.
I think you meant to say, "there is no actual ID scientific research?
Does this betray your unspoken assumption that only scienctific research is "research"? If so, would you agree that the philosophers and theologians at this conference will be presenting research results? I would say, of course they will be.
I assume your dimissive tone about ID "research" refers to the fact that ID advocates largely draw on the results of others' scientific research and then offer an explanatory model for the results and data that includes a combination of philosophy and science. That's exactly what the philosophers and theologians at this conference will be doing. They themselves, for the most part, are not scientific researchers engaged in laboratory research. As theologians and philosophers they take the results of scientific research and offer theological and philosophical reflections on its significance. Many of them may also have degrees in science or history or philosophy of science; at the very least they will be well acquainted with scientific research. They have to be if they are to intelligently comment on the theological and philosophical meaning of scientific research results.
That's a legitimate academic endeavor. And it's just about exactly what ID does. I salute the conference for recognizing that science does not exist in a vacuum. Far too many scientists do their own interpreting of the philosophical or theological meaning of their scientific research. Many stay narrowly within the bounds of science but all too often they make philosophical claims (e.g., the soul does not exist or man evolved totallly from lower primates) that a scientist cannot, in scientific terms, make, but they don't realize they've crossed over into philosophy or theology.
I'm glad this conference brings all these fields together. But I don't see how ID can be excluded on grounds that it doesn't fit the disciplinary boundaries involved.