Intelligent Design the Future

On this ID the Future from the archive, intelligent design pioneer William Dembski unpacks one of his chapters in The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions about Life and the Cosmos, which Dembski co-edited with Joseph Holden and episode host Casey Luskin. Dembski discusses why intelligent design better explains the latest scientific evidence better than blind material processes can. He also talks about ID's cultural implications.

Five years ago, Yale University professor of computer science David Gelernter wrote that he was bidding farewell to neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Why would he take such a bold step? What convinced him that the neo-Darwinian paradigm no longer satisfied the scientific evidence? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid marks the fifth anniversary of Gelernter's important essay by reading it aloud in full. If you’ve read the essay, this will likely be a good refresher on Gelernter’s arguments. If you haven’t read it yet, by all means enjoy!

The biochemical revolution of the last century has revealed powerful evidence of design in living things. Now, scientists are beginning to realize the benefits of studying designed systems through an engineering lens. On today's episode, Dr. Emily Reeves discusses the intersection of biology and engineering with Fred Williams and Doug McBurney, hosts of the Real Science Radio podcast. In this 45-minute chat, Dr. Reeves explains the importance of using engineering principles to understand biological systems. This interview originally aired on Real Science Radio.

On today’s ID the Future out of the vault, radio host Michael Medved sits down with bestselling science author Stephen Meyer to discuss the Marvel movie Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Medved isn’t wild about the film, but he uses it as a springboard to dive into what he calls “the madness of the multiverse”—namely, the proposals in physics and cosmology for the idea that our universe is just one of many universes. Meyer explains some of the early motivations among twentieth-century physicists and cosmologists for proposing such an exotic theory. Then he turns to what he says is the main driver for interest in the multiverse in our day—a desire to explain away something that is deeply puzzling on the grounds of atheism: that the laws and constants of physics and chemistry are exquisitely fine tuned for life.

Ready to dip a toe in the ocean of biological ingenuity? Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is back, this time to discuss with host Andrew McDiarmid the engineering elegance and irreducible complexity of the process of bacterial cell division. You may wonder why we should care about something so minuscule as bacterial cells. After all, something so insignificant and unseen has little bearing on our daily lives. But if we've learned anything in the biological revolution of the 20th century, it's that consequential things often come in very small packages. And if even the simplest forms of life exhibit stunning complexity and engineering prowess, all the more do we! And that complexity and design demands an adequate explanation. Here, McLatchie describes the remarkable process of cell wall breakage and re-synthesis that allows cell division to take place and explains why it's a big problem for Darwinian evolution.

Vitalism is the age-old idea that living things possess a vital force – some fundamental element that generally does not exist in non-life. As a Darwinian paradigm took hold of the natural sciences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, vitalism fell out of favor. But as writer and teacher Daniel Witt reports, a willingness to flirt with vitalism seems to be growing in certain scientific circles.

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, biochemist and author Michael Denton and host Eric Anderson conclude their conversation about Denton's book The Miracle of the Cell, and about his epiphany of the many remarkable ways that nature’s chemistry is fine-tuned for life. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation.

Do living things evolve right before our eyes? Perhaps the most common evidence put forward to support evolutionary theory is the observation that organisms can adapt. But is this adaptability really a hallmark of a gradual Darwinian process? Or is it evidence of intelligent design? On this ID The Future, host Eric Anderson speaks with Dr. Emily Reeves about the adaptability of the humble guppy fish, a new icon of evolution heralded by biologists as proof positive of Darwinian evolutionary processes at work. In this episode, Dr. Reeves uses guppies to discuss why the adaptability of organisms is actually powerful evidence of design. She also explains how biologists can improve their abilities as scientists by learning more about engineering.

If you enjoy the work of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, including our books, videos, articles, and research, you may wonder how you can get involved. Options include signing up for our weekly newsletter Nota Bene, joining the Discovery Society, and attending our events. But in the last few years, a new way to promote intelligent design at the local level has been, well, growing. It’s called Roots. On this ID The Future, Daniel Reeves, our Director of Education and Outreach, introduces us to this network of grassroots supporters promoting intelligent design in their local communities.

On this episode of ID the Future from the archive, host Eric Anderson begins a conversation with biochemist Michael Denton about Denton’s 2020 book The Miracle of the Cell, part of his continuing Privileged Species series exploring nature’s fine tuning for life. New research keeps unveiling ever more ways in which this fine tuning exists, from the cosmos to the atoms of the periodic table, and even to the subatomic level of quantum tunneling. Says Denton: "The miracle of the cell completes the overall fitness paradigm that unites galaxies with atoms in a vast web of fitness for life."

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation.