In recent years, the development of Intelligent Design has been associated largely with the USA. This week marks the launch of the Centre for Intelligent Design UK (website here). The Centre brings ID back to its roots, which can be traced right to the early developments of science in the UK and wider Europe. Many of the early pioneers of modern science held the view that the natural world was intelligible because it was itself the product of a rational mind.
The new Centre is set up by a network of volunteers across the UK, with a variety of areas of expertise and professional interests – as diverse as medicine, science, education, business, and law. It exists as a non-profit organisation and is funded by private individuals.
Its stated objectives are to:
- Promote the professional investigation and public debate of ID within the UK.
- Challenge, on the basis of scientific evidence, the neo-Darwinian proposition that the development of life is purely explicable as the result of undirected material processes.
- Encourage consideration of the wider implications of ID.
The Centre’s director, Dr. Alistair Noble, has stated:
Recent surveys of public opinion by the BBC and Theos, the public policy think tank, have indicated a high level of interest in and sympathy for the ID position on origins. The UK needs a centre committed to promoting this debate, both professionally and in the public square. That’s what we intend to do.