Intelligent Design the Future

On this classic ID the Future, hear another chapter from Nickell John Romjue’s fascinating book I, Charles Darwin. Follow along as Darwin, on his visit to the twenty-first century, learns about DNA and the other amazing discoveries of molecular biology that have occurred since he developed his theory, as well as discoveries in physics and cosmology, which have our time-traveling Darwin reconsidering some of his earlier conclusions. Part 1 of the audio series is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. To learn more and to purchase the book, visit www.icharlesdarwin.com.

In today’s ID the Future, scholar John West, managing director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, reveals how current debates over whether nature displays evidence of intelligent design echo debates in the first centuries of the Christian church. The early Christians debated the Greco-Roman materialists but also the religious Gnostics of their day; and the ideas the early Christians confronted then confront Christians and other theists still today. Moreover, in some cases, those ideas are being peddled not by outsiders to the faith but by prominent Christians. West’s talk was taped at the 2022 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith in the greater Philadelphia area, an event jointly sponsored by Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and Read More ›

On today’s ID the Future, Stairway to Life co-author Rob Stadler and host Eric Anderson delve deeper into Challenge to Origin of Life: Energy Harnessing, the latest video in the Long Story Short intelligent design video series. Could the first cell have been much simpler than any current cell, making it easier for it to emerge through blind natural forces on the early Earth? Stadler and Anderson surface one big problem with that idea: in experiments to make relatively simple cells even simpler, the cells inevitably become less robust and adaptable. These simpler cells must be coddled to survive. But the first cell on earth would have been anything but coddled. It would have had no source of glucose and Read More ›

Today’s ID the Future features another chapter from Nickell John Romjue’s fascinating short novel I, Charles Darwin, in which Darwin is shocked to learn about the impact his theory has had on areas outside of science. Part 1 of the audio series is here. Part 2 is here. To learn more and to purchase the book, visit www.icharlesdarwin.com.

Origin-of-life specialist Rob Stadler joins today’s ID the Future to discuss a new Long Story Short science video short. The video investigates a special problem that faces all naturalistic origin-of-life scenarios: To be viable, a cell must have sophisticated machinery, including ATP synthase, to turn raw energy into constructive energy. But how could prebiotic chemicals harness raw energy on the way to evolving into a viable self-reproducing cell without first having the sophisticated machinery to harness raw energy and convert it to useful work? Are the energy sources that have been proposed for chemical evolution realistic? In his conversation with host Eric Anderson, Stadler argues that, no, they aren’t. This isn’t the sort of thing that mindless natural processes can Read More ›

Today’s ID the Future from the vault continues the audio adaptation of Nickell John Romjue’s fascinating novella, I, Charles Darwin. In this episode, Romjue’s Darwin explores what we’ve learned about the fossil record since Darwin’s time on Earth — and it’s not what he expects. Part 1 of the audio series is here. To learn more and to purchase the book, visit www.icharlesdarwin.com.

Today’s ID the Future wraps up a debate over evolution and intelligent design between Lehigh University biologist Michael Behe and Benedictine College theologian Michael Ramage. Both Behe and Ramage are Catholic, and they carry on their conversation in the context of Catholic thinking about nature and creation, in particular the work of Thomas Aquinas and contemporary Thomist philosophers. Ramage seeks to integrate his Thomistic/personalist framework with modern evolutionary theory’s commitment to macroevolution and common descent. Behe doesn’t discount the possibility of common descent but lays out a case that any evolution beyond the level of genus (for instance, the separate families containing cats and dogs) cannot be achieved through mindless Darwinian mechanisms and, instead, would require the contributions of a Read More ›

Today’s ID the Future continues the conversation between Catholic intelligent design biologist Michael Behe and Catholic theologian Matthew Ramage. Both agree that nature points to a cosmic designer, but Ramage says he prefers, on aesthetic grounds, the idea that the biological realm has the capacity, gifted by God, to evolve on its own without the need for intervention by God. Behe notes that people have different aesthetic predilections, but it’s the scientist’s job not to figure out how he would have preferred things to have happened in nature, but to discover how they actually did come about. Behe also says that while the sun, moon, and stars do move according to fixed natural laws, it doesn’t follow from this that Read More ›

Today’s ID the Future from the vault presents the beginning of a novella simultaneously fantastical and cheeky, I, Charles Darwin. What would happen if Darwin were to come back today? What would the gentleman of Down House think about the science of the twenty-first century, and how might it confirm or change his views on evolution? In today’s introductory episode of a multi-part series, Darwin finds himself returned from the grave and begins to explore modern London, followed by a return trip to the Galapagos Islands, where he is surprised by what he learns. To learn more and to purchase the book, visit www.icharlesdarwin.com.

Today’s ID the Future brings the first part of a friendly debate/discussion between Lehigh University biologist and intelligent design proponent Michael Behe and Catholic theologian Matthew Ramage. Led by Philosophy for the People podcast host Pat Flynn, Behe starts by noting that he is a lifelong Catholic who accepted from childhood that, as he was taught in school, if God wanted to work through the secondary causes of Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms to generate the diversity of life, who were we to tell him he shouldn’t or couldn’t do it that way? Behe says that his skepticism toward Neo-Darwinism arose many years later and stemmed purely from his scientific research. Ramage, who specializes in the work of Pope Benedict XVI, sees Read More ›