The design debate down under.

 Report from Australia: Sharing Design Evidence Down Under 

Thomas E. Woodward 

Timing is everything! In late June, while I packed for my July/August speaking tour of Queensland, Australia, science writer Stephen Buranyi dropped an 11-page bombshell in London on the failures of Darwinism. Buranyi’s article appeared in The Guardian under the title, “Do We Need a New Theory of Evolution?” 

Bingo! This brilliantly written exposé on dissent in biology, which Evolution News covered here, became the perfect lead-in for my twenty Aussie lectures, as I teamed up with my Trinity College colleague John Lingelbach. 

Following the Evidence 

Our theme was “A Designed Cosmos? Follow the Evidence,” and the tour included two days of talks at Griffith University and a day speaking at Emmanuel College in the Gold Coast area, with five hundred in attendance. We summarized the evidence for design from cosmic fine-tuning, DNA’s sophisticated codes, and exquisitely integrated molecular machines. We discussed new fossil findings that have expanded the Cambrian Explosion, and we detailed how the origin of the first life through a “mindless Darwinian process” is an idea pummeled today even by many secular academicians. 

One student at Griffith University was amazed at “how atheists are beginning to reject natural selection as an insufficient explanation for the diversity of life.” He found the lecture series “an exciting experience to share at our overly secularized university.” 

Science, C. S. Lewis, and Pizza 

Twice, we combined the evidence of science with insights from C. S. Lewis, who in his writings articulated a substantial series of clues about God. This lively group, seen here in Southport, “ate up the clues” and then feasted on pizza! 

Finally, we partnered with the website DNA and Beyond to equip 25 high schools across Queensland with sets of DNA models that display the high-tech worlds of genetics and epigenetics, including genes’ elegant on/off switches.