Previous Event: 'Design in Nature?'
Conference Proceedings
This event has now taken place. However, you can watch the conference presentations online via YouTube. To view these presentations please Click Here.
Along with the information below, you can also find out more about this event in our previous News Item.
The natural world appears to be full of order from the macro-scale of the apparent 'fine-tuning' of the universe to the inside of the cell. Is this apparent order real and, if so, how did it get there?
This one-day Cambridge Conference featured four perspectives on different aspects of the question as to whether this apparent order should lead us to think there is intelligent design, or if it can be explained in purely naturalistic terms (e.g., in the case of biology, Darwinism). Feel free to download the original conference flyer in A4 or A5.
The Speakers
Intelligent Design
The Most Credible Idea?
Dr Stephen C Meyer (Director, Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture), will present a paper arguing that the most scientifically credible hypothesis is that the intricacies of cell biology are signs of intelligent design.
'Why some people like the idea of design in nature – and others don't'
Prof. Steve Fuller (Professor of Sociology, Warwick) will discuss why the hypothesis of intelligent design is not more popular among scientists and others.
How Darwin Destroyed Reason: Formal and final causes
Prof. Stephen Clark (Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Liverpool) will argue that Darwinian theory abandons the idea of purpose, and makes mathematics, morality, and the whole scientific enterprise dubious.
Design in Biology and Physics Strengths and weaknesses
Dr David Glass (Lecturer, School of Computing and Mathematics, University of Ulster) will discuss the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the cases for design in biology and in physics.