UPDATED Announcement: American Enterprise Institute offers free public forum on teaching intelligent design in schools

The American Enterprise Institute is holding a daylong event in Washington, on Friday, October 21, featuring both sides:

What should public schools teach about life's origins? This debate erupted anew over the summer after President George W. Bush and Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) endorsed the teaching of intelligent design (ID)—the theory that intelligent causes are responsible for the origin of the universe and of life in all its diversity. Proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution are now lobbying state legislatures and pressing school districts to incorporate ID into science curricula. Alarmed scientists and educators see ID as a disguised form of creationism and a direct attack on the scientific method and critical thinking. Is intelligent design religion or science? What should we teach in schools? Would the teaching of intelligent design violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause? Panelists at this day-long AEI conference will discuss these and other questions.

Many faves I recognize will speak, including Paul Nelson, Ken Miller, Barbara Forrest, Lawrence Krauss, John Calvert, and Mark Ryland.

I have e-mailed AEI to ask what the event costs (not clear from their online publicity), and will update when I get a reply. It would be well worth attending if you live in the area.

UPDATE!: The event is FREE! AEI's Joe Manzari wrote back to say: "ID event at AEI is for free and open to the public. We encourage people to register online before so we can get a rough estimate of how many to expect (for seating purposes--plus you get a name tag when you come if you register J."

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Blog policy note: This blog does not intentionally accept fully anonymous Comments, Comments with language unsuited to an intellectual discussion, URLs posted without comment, or defamatory statements. Defamatory statement: A statement that would be actionable if anyone took the author seriously. For example, someone may say "O’Leary is a crummy journalist"; that’s a matter of opinion and I don’t know who would care. But if they say, "O’Leary was convicted of grand theft auto in 1983," well that’s just plain false, and probably actionable, if the author were taken seriously. Also, due to time constraints, the moderator rarely responds to comments, and usually only about blog service issues.