While there have been many events to discuss intelligent design sponsored by the scientific establishment this year, few have dared to invite an actual design proponent.
But on the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, Biologic Institute Director Douglas Axe was invited to the National Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany, for a panel discussion titled Design without a Designer? where “the ‘bold generation’ of young thinkers turned up in droves, listening intently as the discussion went well beyond its advertised ninety minutes.”:

To my knowledge the event wasn’t recorded, so a transcript may never appear. I’ll include my statements below (which I had to prepare in advance for translation). I have to confess, though, that the mere fact that this took place at all impressed me beyond anything that was said. You have to wonder what Darwin would have thought had he known that his theory would still be the subject of scientific debate a century and a half later. Does anything become healthy after so many years of limping along?
The official description of the event is remarkable in itself, in that it sheds the usual religious caricature of ID in favor of the real scientific issue– whether there is objective evidence of creative intelligence behind the design of life. We’ve translated the short version as follows:

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Darwin’s theory, this high-caliber panel discussion between evolutionists and Darwin critics will consider the question of whether the evolution of life on Earth is based solely on blind and unguided natural processes, or whether there is non-religiously based, verifiable evidence of meaningful and purposeful acts of creative intelligence in the natural world. This meeting at the Stuttgart Museum of Natural History aims to contribute constructively and with clarity and objectivity to this important debate. A public debate between evolutionary biologists and evolutionary critics at this high level is very rare in Germany, and therefore can be expected to be a very exciting evening.

Read more, including Dr. Axe’s opening statement, at the Biologic website.