Intelligent Design the Future

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, CSC Research Coordinator Dr. Brian Miller discusses micro and macro evolution in terms of fitness terrains.  Can we compare design principles in human engineering to life? Listen in as Miller shares how the process of optimization unravels the explanatory power of neo-Darwinism.

On this episode of ID the Future, Nancy Pearcey, author of numerous books including Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, challenges the common belief that Darwin persuaded everyone of his theory’s scientific validity right from the start. The 19th century was ready to accept a theory of evolution, but not necessarily by natural selection. Some of his chief supporters believed in God or a “vital force” guiding evolution. But Darwin would have none of it. And what do evolutionary scientists say today? In private, among themselves? The controversies still aren’t over.

On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid reads from Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose by distinguished Brazilian scientist Marcos Eberlin. In this excerpt, Eberlin introduces the necessity of foresight and planning in nature by showing how every cell needs a sophisticated barrier around it that knows how to keep harmful substances out and let helpful ones in. That membrane’s job is complicated by the fact that oxygen, like many other substances, can be harmful or helpful depending on when, where, and how much. So even the very first cells’ success could only be explained by a designer’s foresight. Foresight, it’s worth noting, has been endorsed by three Nobel Laureate scientists. It’s available for purchase at Amazon and other stores.

On today’s episode of ID the Future we hear the second half of a talk by bestselling author Eric Metaxas at the January 2019 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith. He’s continuing his discussion on the wonder of our fine-tuned universe, as he explained in a Wall Street Journal article that is “unofficially, the most popular article in Wall Street Journal history,” and in his book Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life. He also tells what he learned through the response to his WSJ article: People are hungry for this kind of information.

Today’s episode of ID the Future features Part 1 of a talk bestselling author Eric Metaxas gave at the 2019 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith in Dallas. His topic was the miracle of our fine-tuned universe, taken in part from his book Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life. Metaxas also discusses another thing he finds amazing: that so many people think the progress of science means the retreat of religion.

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, hear an episode of our segment ID Inquiry, in which scientists and scholars answer your questions about intelligent design and evolution. Tune in to this episode as Dr. Ann Gauger discusses evolution and antibiotic resistance.

On this episode of ID the Future, intelligent design proponent and philosopher of biology Paul Nelson reports on a recent conference he attended at the University of Cambridge, “Evolution Evolving: An International Conference on the Evolving Mechanisms and Theoretical Framework of Evolutionary Biology.” Scientists from around the globe gathered under the operating assumption that the modern evolutionary synthesis is sorely lacking. As with many of the biologists who attended the 2016 Royal Society meeting “New Trends in Evolutionary Biology,” many of the attendees of the Cambridge event find themselves disenchanted with Neo-Darwinism and weighing their options. They’re still not looking outside the walls of the “City of Naturalism,” Nelson says, but it’s fascinating and encouraging to witness the increased openness to ideas that reach beyond modern Darwinian dogma.

On this episode of ID the Future, Jay Richards and astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez discuss several discoveries made in the past 15 years supporting their conclusions in The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery. Gonzalez shows how the book’s thesis — that conditions for life and scientific discovery meet on earth to a fine-tuned degree that strongly points toward design — has been confirmed multiple times.

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, CSC Senior Fellow Dr. Ann Gauger talks about a recent paper in the journal Cell, and how it seems that the more we look, the greater order we find. She discusses a critical transition in embryo development, a compound which aids this transition, and the origins of this compound. According to Gauger, this order may point beyond neo-Darwinian processes.

On this episode of ID the Future, biologist Jonathan Wells speaks again with distinguished Brazilian scientist Marcos Eberlin about Eberlin’s new book Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose. A world leader in the field of mass spectrometry, Eberlin explains how chemistry reveals foresight in the design of molecules and chemical systems. To the untrained eye water looks like a simple clear liquid. To the chemist it has 74 unique, even “weird” properties essential for life. And lightning seems purely destructive, but it, too, is essential for life. As Eberlin argues, both of these suggest foresight in the design of life--foresight to solve problems necessary to make life on earth possible.