INTELLIGENT DESIGN CONFERENCE CAUSING CONTROVERSY

From a Dallas Morning News editorial: In April, an official campus Christian group at SMU is bringing in scientists from the Discovery Institute to make an extracurricular presentation arguing in favor of Intelligent Design – the idea that life is so complex that it must have been the product not of random chance, but an intelligent designer. God, if you like. It's a theory rejected by the overwhelming majority of scientists. But if there's any place where an idea like this can be examined and debated, you'd think that a university – especially one affiliated with a Christian denomination – would be it. But a group of SMU professors got the vapors and demanded that the university bar the Discovery Institute from campus. SMU's administration correctly told the prissy profs that the group had every right to be on campus. Meanwhile, The Discovery Institute delivered to the chairs of the departments complaining about the conference a letter inviting them to debate at the conference. No word yet from SMU.