A panel of academics took a cool look at the increasingly heated issue of evolution versus "intelligent design" on Thursday, variously holding up the latter as a cultural battle, a global phenomenon or even a brilliant marketing scheme.
The "Darwin's Legacy" discussion, convened in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History's exhibit on the naturalist who developed the theory of evolution, came as legal battles played out over the teaching of evolution and "intelligent design" in US schools.
Intelligent design holds that some aspects of nature are so complex they must be the work of an unnamed designer or higher power, as opposed to the result of random natural selection as argued by Darwin.
Policies that would promote teaching alternatives to evolution are being considered in at least 30 states, and the Kansas Board of Education earlier this month approved new public school science standards that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.