It was a pleasure to see our colleagues in São Paulo, Brazil, streaming online on Friday for the launch of Discovery Institute-Mackenzie at Mackenzie Presbyterian University. There was simultaneous translation of their presentations into Portuguese, and vice versa for remarks by welcoming officials of the university, all through headphones for those present in the hall.

Sadly, since I was watching remotely and thus without headphones, the Portuguese was lost on me. But as DI’s President Steve Buri spoke about the mission of Discovery Institute, biochemist Mike Behe detailed the concept of irreducible complexity, and protein chemist Doug Axe described the scientific foundations of the universal design intuition, there was no mistaking the enthusiasm, sincerity, intelligence, respect, and warmth of our Brazilian friends.

My apologies for the mediocre quality of these screenshots of the event; double apologies to President Buri, as somehow the only non-blurred shot I obtained has him looking down!

Discovery Institute President Steve Buri.

Michael Behe, Lehigh University, author of Darwin’s Black Box.

Douglas Axe, Biologic Institute, author of Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed.

Audience members, listening with or without headphones for simultaneous translation.

No doubt we’ll be hearing more soon from Discovery Institute-Mackenzie and the Brazilian Society of Intelligent Design, headed by the distinguished Campinas University chemist Marcos Eberlin (seen with Mike Behe at the top of this post). The Brazilian ID scene has come a long way very quickly. It’s quite amazing.

For background, see Paul Nelson’s report from 2014, “‘A Few Years Ago, We Couldn’t Have Filled a Kombi’: The Brazilian Intelligent Design Adventure.” Dr. Nelson was on hand that year for the inaugural congress of the Sociedade Brasileira do Design Inteligente.