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The following is a press release from the Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell concerning Cornell president Rawlings' state of the University address blasting Intelligent Design.

Contact: Hannah Maxson
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tel. 607-253-2803
Email: idea@cornell.edu

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, October 22, The Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell is deeply concerned with President Hunter Rawlings' blatant disregard for the facts concerning Intelligent Design in Friday's State of the University Address. In a speech usually reserved for current university business, he spent over two thirds of his time blasting the emerging Intelligent Design theory as anti scientific and religious in an unscrupulous, unknowledgeable manner.

Intelligent Design (ID) is a scientific theory which holds that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and are not the result of an undirected, chance based process such as Darwinian evolution. It follows the principles of the scientific method, scorns the biases of either religion or naturalism, and attempts to follow all the available evidence to a valid conclusion. ID is testable and falsifiable, and so far its predictions have repeatedly been shown accurate.

The IDEA Club at Cornell holds that the problems with Neo Darwinian evolution can no longer be ignored, and it is time for true research and debate about the issues surrounding the beginnings of life to take place at universities across the country.

Attacking ID as a non scientist and without addressing its scientific claims, Rawlings states that it is religion masquerading as science and is a religious belief at its core. This gross misstatement is a disservice to unbiased discourse, besides being an insult to people of faith throughout America. Ad hominem attacks and confusing people's religious beliefs with their scientific research is not befitting a university president. We would hope Rawlings will instead follow Cornell's often lauded commitment to a free and open exchange of ideas.

Below is a collection of articles on the Dover trial.

For an editorial from the York Dispatch, click HERE.

For an article from MSNBC by AP, click HERE.

For an editorial in the Morning Call by a proponent of ID, Donald Hoffman, click HERE.

For an article from the Patriot-News by Bill Sulon, click HERE.

This article on the website Top Tech News delves into Michael Behe's academic sojourn at Lehigh University.

John Bright, a postgraduate humanities fellow at Lehigh, said, "frankly, just from a humanities point of view, it's considered good to challenge the conventional wisdom. It's inherently respectable." Bravo to Mr. Bright!

Alan Leshner, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, characterizes ID proponents as "mostly fringe players." We wonder if Leshner lived in the time of Galileo, would he have called Galileo a "fringe player". Too bad ad hominem remarks like Dr. Leshner's still seem to work.