Year of Evolution in Philly

The Skeptick over at the Way of the Woo reminds us that this year is the 150th anniversary of the publication of “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin.  Philidelphia is celebrating the anniversary by having a “year of evolution.”  It looks like a wide variety of pro-science organizations and museums are participating, including the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Philly zoo, and many local museums.  Here is a list of the scheduled festivities.  I hope other cities around the nation and around the world will join in the fun.

Of course these events could not go on without the people at the Discovery Institute taking notice.  Anika Smith wrote a post entitled its Anno Darwini in Philadelphia.  In this post, Smith of course has to turn these celebrations into an anti-religious witch hunt:

It’s the final quote in the story that sounds an ominous note for dissenters from Darwin: “We will try to find ways of persuading people that it’s not in conflict with their faith,” Dr. Brown said.  Since the pro-evolution-only lobby ignores the scientific evidence that doesn’t support Darwin’s theory, they’ve decided to address what they can afford to acknowledge as a problem for many people: Darwinian evolution conflicts with their religious beliefs.

Just a couple things.  Darwinian evolution only conflicts with a small sect of religion: fundamentalists that take Genesis as literal fact and believe the earth is only 6,000 years old.  But modern geology, archeology, paleontology also all conflict with their religious beliefs.  Also, I have not seen any “scientific evidence that doesn’t support Darwin’s theory”?  All I see from the ID side is ignorance dressed up as complex explanations.