Intelligent Design the Future

In this episode of ID the Future from the vault, hear about electricity and bioluminescence, as highlighted in Dr. Geoffrey Simmons’ book, Billions of Missing Links. Listen in to learn about how a knee jerk reaction, eels, and the knife fish all use electrical impulses.

On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid interviews Eric Anderson, one of the co-authors of the new book Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell. The two discuss Eric’s chapters on the origin-of-life problem. There’s the problem of generating the information required of the first life form. And there’s another problem, one Anderson uses his engineering background to explore--the insuperable challenges to generating a self-replicating molecule, a hypothetical entity at the heart of some recent attempts to render plausible the evolution of non-life into cellular life.

On this episode of ID the Future, we hear the third and final portion of a talk given at the 2020 Dallas Science and Faith conference. Daniel Reeves, education outreach coordinator at Discovery Institute, rounds out his extended explanation of intelligent design theory. Far from being “Gee whiz that’s complicated; it must be designed!,” the theory relies on well-defined concepts such as specified complexity and an explanatory filter that allows one to distinguish designed events from either chance, necessity, or a combination of the two. The key in the molecular biological realm: detecting functional information.

On this episode of ID The Future from the vault, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer discusses the move by National Review editor Rich Lowry in 2012 to sever ties with two regular contributors, John Derbyshire and Robert Weissberg, after discovering their connections to racialist groups promoting race superiority, eugenics, and other morally repugnant ideas. Klinghoffer explains how Darwinian evolution has informed proponents of these ideas, and how important it is to identify and root out this kind of thinking before it has a chance to pollute respectable institutions and publications. As Klinghoffer makes clear, Darwinian ideas are hardly the only possible source of racist thinking, and of course racism long predates Charles Darwin. But Darwinism has proved fertile soil for scientific racism in the modern period, one more reason among many to take a hard, honest look at the growing scientific evidence against modern Darwinism.

For more on how Darwinism has contributed to the tragedy of scientific racism in America, watch the award-winning Discovery Institute documentary Human Zoos: America’s Forgotten History of Scientific Racism, now with more than a million views.

On this episode of ID the Future, Discovery Institute education outreach specialist Daniel Reeves illustrates how ID opponents commonly erect mindless straw men versions of the theory of intelligent design, as if by refuting a false version they’ve done any damage to the real thing. Then, in this middle portion of a talk he gave to students at the 2020 Dallas Science and Faith Conference, he explains what ID really is, and the central question ID seeks to answer.

On this episode of ID the Future we hear the first part of Discovery Institute education outreach associate Daniel Reeves’ talk at the 2020 Dallas Science and Faith Conference. Reeves outlines the meaning of natural selection, and traces its history, starting from Darwin’s early understanding, in the days when cells were viewed as just blobs of protoplasm. Reeves carries the story from there through the neo-Darwinian modern synthesis and into the extended evolutionary synthesis, culminating in a 2016 meeting of the Royal Society on the theory’s continuing — and still unresolved — explanatory deficits.

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, Ira Berkowitz interviews M.I.T. Ph.D. Lee Spetner in Jerusalem. Spetner challenges the idea of convergent evolution and explains his non-random evolutionary hypothesis.

On this episode of ID the Future, Eric H. Anderson reads from his newly co-authored book Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell, written to provide a clear and simple introduction to the evolution/ID controversy, and broad overview of the evidence for design in nature--including fine tuning and the Big Bang, the origin of life, irreducibly complex machines, and the Cambrian Explosion. In this chapter excerpt, Anderson tells of Richard Dawkins' glib assurances that the mystery of the origin of life is one not far from being solved. Not so, Anderson says. Origin-of-life researchers haven't found a pathway to a self-replicating biological entity, the beginning point for any sort of Darwinian evolution. And it's not for lack of time, effort, or funding. The single cell that Darwin saw as a relatively simple blob has proven to be far more complex than anything imagined. What about a self-reproducing molecule, thought to be easier to evolve than a full-blown cell? As Anderson explains in Chapter 3 of the book, the idea remains a purple unicorn, and for reasons that are perhaps most easily appreciated by looking at the ongoing attempts to build a self-reproducing 3D printer.

On this episode of ID the Future, Ira Berkowitz interviews M.I.T. Ph.D. Lee Spetner in Jerusalem. Togethe they explore key arguments from Spetner’s books Not by Chance and The Evolution Revolution. Spetner takes on natural selection, discussing what it can and cannot do. He also explores aspects of population genetics and the constraints the Earth’s history imposes on evolving new species.

On this episode of ID the Future, host Rob Crowther interviews Dr. Thomas Y. Lo, one of the co-authors of the brand new Discovery Institute Press book Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell. The genesis of the book was at a Discovery Institute summer seminar. Lo began discussing with professors and students the idea of a new concise, accessible guide to evolution and design. Before long he was joined by four others, including two PhD biologists. The new book covers everything from cosmology and the origin of life to irreducibly complex biological marvels. The final chapter focuses on the mystery of the Cambrian explosion and the extraordinary Cambrian fossils of Chengjiang, China, including a firsthand account of one of the early trips there by Western scientists. That firsthand account is provided by one of Lo’s co-authors, University of San Francisco professor emeritus Paul Chien, a marine biologist made famous in ID circles in the Illustra Media film Darwin’s Dilemma and in Stephen Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt.