The initiative begins amid increasing controversy over the teaching of evolution, prompted by proponents of ''intelligent design," who argue that even the most modest cell is too complex, too finely tuned, to have come about without unseen intelligence.
President Bush recently said intelligent design should be discussed in schools, along with evolution. Like intelligent design, the Harvard project begins with awe at the nature of life, and with an admission that, almost 150 years after Charles Darwin outlined his theory of evolution in the Origin of Species, scientists cannot explain how the process began.
Now, encouraged by a confluence of scientific advances -- such as the discovery of water on Mars and an increased understanding of the chemistry of early Earth -- the Harvard scientists hope to help change that.
''We start with a mutual acknowledgment of the profound complexity of living systems," said David R. Liu, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard. But ''my expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention."
Now see, I tried to warn the Creationist/Intelligent Design crowd! If you keep just making shit up then eventually some real scientists with "book learning" were going to start to look and see if there really is a sign of divine intervention. Guess which side I am betting on?
This is actually pretty exciting! I am hoping that there are some major discoveries that come from this.
You know they are looking for funding, do you think that some of our evangelical brethren would be willing to give for the opportunity of finding the truth? No? Well that seems odd. Why would they not want to have these questions answered once and for all?
