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About IDEA Center

About IDEA Center

Welcome to the IDEA CenterThe Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting awareness of the scientific evidence that supports intelligent design and fostering good - spirited discussion and a better understanding of intelligent design theory and the creation - evolution issue among students, educators, churches, and other interested parties.

 

The IDEA Center began in 2001, as student-founders of the "IDEA Club at UC San Diego" joined community members to found the "IDEA Center," a non-profit organization. The vision of the IDEA Center is to take the mission and spirit of the original IDEA Club to other campuses around the U.S. and world. Although we are happy to educate anyone interested in origins issues, our main focus is students.

Intelligent design (ID) is a scientific theory which states that certain feature of nature are the result of an intelligent cause. ID is thus heavily dependent upon information theory because one of its fundamental premises is that information that is complex (highly ordered) and specified (fits a pre-existing pattern) is not produced by naturally occurring events (chance or law-governed processes). Rather, this sort of observable information and complexity is best explained as the result of purposeful action by an intelligent designer.

Intelligent design makes all its claims based on purely empirically-based scientific arguments. It makes no appeal to the supernatural and does not derive its claims from religious texts or theological doctrines. Of course, all theories about the origins and diversification of life may have religious implications, but ID itself is a scientific theory with a secular and purely empirical basis.

The IDEA Center is dedicated to helping students establish "IDEA Club Student Chapters," similar to the original IDEA Club at UCSD, where students inform students about the scientific data that suggests ID. Sadly, this evidence is commonly censored from classroom discussions. The philosophy of the IDEA Center emphasizes the critical need for intellectual honesty and tolerance during civil discussion. As such, we aim to promote ID theory in a non-threatening and non-dogmatic manner. We hope to serve schools, churches, and other community institutions by providing them with helpful information, resources, tools, classes, seminars, and conferences about ID and evolution.

The IDEA Center has three tiers of leadership:

  • An Administration Team (i.e. staff) which runs the day-to-day operations of the Center.
  • Board of Directors who decide the mission, goals, and direction of the Center.
  • An Advisory Board consisting of scholars who advise the Center from their pro-intelligent design intellectual perspectives.

Through kind donations from private individuals who support our group, the IDEA Center sustains a small budget as a non-profit organization. The Center also offers the opportunity to support IDEA in name by becoming an "IDEA Center Member." IDEA Center members receive e-mail updates and notice of our newsletters.  

 

We hope you will enjoy exploring our website and the links at the left to learn more about the IDEA Center, ID, and evolutionary theory.