DALLAS?Science, when done right, points powerfully to a designer whose characteristics “just happen to match the descriptions of the God of the Bible,” author and Christian apologist Lee Strobel said April 13-14 during a conference on the theory of intelligent design at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Once an avowed atheist and journalist who investigated the evidence for Christianity and creation prior to his conversion, Strobel said that all materialistic theories have failed to explain the origin of life or how any part of the universe became habitable.

“The universe is fine-tuned on a razor’s edge in a way that defies chance. It is better explained by the existence of a Creator,” Strobel said. “It seems logical and rational that, if there is a God, that he would leave evidence behind for us to find him.”

Strobel was joined by noted scientists Stephen Meyer, Jay Richards and Michael Behe for the conference “Darwin vs. Design,” a presentation of the Center for Science & Culture at The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based group of researchers exploring the worldview implications of science. The Christian Legal Society at SMU’s Dedman Law School sponsored the presentation.

All, however, did not welcome the scientists proposing intelligent design. At least three SMU professors lodged protests against the conference, which they claimed would promote a “mystical world view” lacking scientific credibility.

Seven students also protested inside the conference, holding up signs with questions related to Darwinian evolution. SMU police escorted two students out of the conference after the students attempted to move closer to the stage where Strobel, Meyer, Richards and Behe were speaking to an audience of more than 1,500.

An editorial in the daily campus newspaper also lambasted the proponents of intelligent design for “preaching a religious message masked in a capsule of pseudoscience.”

The editorial, written by SMU anthropology student Ben Wells, said The Discovery Institute is a political action group that “fights to create a theistic worldview that corrupts science to fit the doctrines of evangelical and literal Christians who are unable to reconcile their religious beliefs with the material world.”

But Meyer, director of the Center for Science & Culture and editor of “Darwinism, Design and Public Education,” said neither he nor his colleagues are part of any political group. He also said the theory of intelligent design is not faith-based.

“The theory of intelligent design is an evidence-based theory. It is not faith-based, as TIME magazine said, but it does have larger implications and I think that’s where most people get confused. The key is a distinction between the evidence and the implications,” Meyer said.

Behe, known for his groundbreaking work, “t1:City w:st=”on”>Darwin’s Black Box,” said he and the other scientists are doing what they were trained to do; that is, ruling nothing out of bounds in the quest for the truth. But much of the scientific establishment, he said, has nonetheless ruled the ideas of intelligent design deficient “as a matter of principle” because they work against the status quo. Many in the scientific community remain loyal to the teachings of Charles Darwin.

“I was told that we were supposed to follow the evidence wherever it leads,” said Behe, a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. “Intelligent design seems to point strongly beyond nature and seems to have philosophical, maybe even theological implications. That makes a lot of people nervous, and they think that science should avoid any theory that seems to have such strong extra-scientific implications.”

“Darwin’s Black Box,” regarded by WORLD magazine as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century, dealt a heavy blow to neo-Darwinism when Behe argued for the idea of “irreducible complexity.” According to Behe, life is run by thousands of complex “machines” in cells. These machines are designed in such a way that the cell cannot function without any one of its multiple parts.