We’re constantly telling our kids that while deadlines are by definition somewhat arbitrary, they need to be respected all the same. So call us hypocritical but — we’ve decided to extend the deadline for applying for our Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design.

In fact, we’re extending the deadline through next Friday, April 14, nearly a week and a half.

Why? Because there was a big rush of applications at the very end of the process. That’s of course great. However, it also convinced us that in being sticklers about the deadline, which is our nature, we would likely be excluding a good number of students who heard about the program too late to apply.

Offered by Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, the Summer Seminars introduce upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and a few professors and other professionals each year to the science of intelligence design. It’s a rigorous, intensive treatment of the subject that you simply cannot get on your own campus.

Our intention is to seed the future with scientists and scholars with minds open to objectively examining the evidence for design in nature. In the debate about life’s origins, we don’t expect ID to triumph overnight. It’s going to be a long and protracted controversy. That is where graduates of our Summer Seminars will emerge as key players. In fact, some of them already are playing such a role.

This year, the Seminars will run from July 7 to 15, here in Seattle at the height of what we expect will be another gorgeous Pacific Northwest summer. We pay for housing, course materials, and meals. For accepted students in need, we can also cover the cost of travel. These are big commitments for us, not least because our students come from around the world. But taking hold of the future debate about evolution makes it all worthwhile, for us, our graduates, and the culture.

Obviously, the application process is selective, but we seek to make room for qualified applicants. And filling out the online application is not difficult to do.

More information, including the Summer Seminars application, is here.

You choose between two tracks, one focused on science, the other on culture. They are respectively the CSC Seminar on Intelligent Design in the Natural Sciences and the C.S. Lewis Fellows Program on Science and Society.

Past teachers, drawn from the top ranks of scientists and scholars in the ID movement, have included Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, Paul Nelson, Jay Richards, Douglas Axe, Ann Gauger, Richard Sternberg, Robert Marks, Scott Minnich, John West, Bruce Gordon, and David Klinghoffer. Apart from the course instructors, we hear back from graduates each year that interacting with our diverse and fascinating student cohort, in class and out, is a profoundly illuminating part of the experience.

So there you have it. You’ve now got nine days left to apply. Go to it! And if you’re not a student, please help us in getting out the word by sharing this widely.

Photo: Stephen C. Meyer, by Janine Solfelt.