No place for creationism/intelligent design at Vatican conference on evolution

Organizers said they want an intellectually rigorous conference on science, theology and philosophy to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

As a result, there is no place for intelligent design in the five-day conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University. The Rev. Marc Leclerc, the conference director and a professor of philosophy of nature at the Gregorian explained:

We think that it's not a scientific perspective, nor a theological or philosophical one. This makes a dialogue very difficult, maybe impossible.

The Discovery Institute complains mightily that it was shut out because the gathering is funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Although it was by all accounts a no-strings-attached grant.

But protest, contention and litigation are commonplaces of intelligent design advocacy in this country. Not, one might infer, the ingredients of constructive, multi-way dialog (even putting aside the philosophy/theology of the notion).