Intelligent Design the Future

As a nod to Darwin Day and Black History Month, today’s ID the Future spotlights the racist thinking of Charles Darwin and the scientific racism fueled by Darwinism and Darwinists. As guest and historian Michael Flannery notes, Darwin’s followers, including Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, took ideas found in Darwin’s work and used them to vigorously press the case for eugenics, a movement that came to have a horrifying impact for American blacks in the twentieth century, including for thousands who were subjected to forced sterilizations.  Was Darwin’s racism purely a function of his time and place, Victorian England? Flannery says no, and on two counts. First, he says that the co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection, Alfred Read More ›

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On this ID The Future from the vault, Casey Luskin interviews biologist Jonathan Wells about evolution, intelligent design, scientific revolutions and historian of science Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn argued from the history of science that reigning scientific paradigms do not give way gently and rationally before new and conflicting evidence; instead, the proponents of the old paradigm tend to dig in their heels and resist till the bitter end. Wells sees this dynamic at work with the reigning paradigm in origins biology, the modern theory of evolution, now challenged by the theory of intelligent design. Wells describes examples of how the current conversation among scientists about evolution and intelligent design matches many of the key characteristics of earlier paradigm shifts outlined in Kuhn’s Read More ›

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On this ID the Future, biophysicist Cornelius Hunter and host Eric Anderson discuss the RNA World hypothesis, an explanation for how the first self-reproducing organism might have arisen via mindless chemical processes. Hunter and Anderson have each written on the topic, and together they unpack some of the many and growing problems with this RNA-first explanation for the origin of life. They also spotlight some recent admissions in mainstream scientific publications that it’s time to move on from the cherished but embattled RNA World. The conversation pivots off of a recent essay by Hunter at Evolution News, “RNA World: Repeated Downfalls, Repeated Resurrections.” For more on the challenges of creating the first self-reproducing biological entity, see Eric Anderson’s Chapter 3 Read More ›

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On this ID the Future, we pull a classic from the vault to celebrate the return of Casey Luskin and William Dembski to the intelligent design sphere. Both will be speaking at the upcoming Dallas Conference on Science and Faith, open this year to in-person and online participation. In today’s conversation Dembski offers advice to those who want to get involved in the intelligent design movement. One piece of advice he offers the academically inclined: go get your PhD. Interestingly, that’s exactly what Luskin did, and is just back from the University of Johannesburg to resume work with the Center for Science and Culture, now with a PhD in geology. Dembski and Luskin also discuss three books that at the time Read More ›

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Can artificial intelligence algorithms prove Darwinian evolution? Why won’t some scientists admit the information and intelligent design inherent in evolutionary computing? Do random processes disprove intelligent design? Professor of neurosurgery Michael Egnor hosts Robert J. Marks, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University, and Director of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence. The two discuss evolutionary computing, the no free lunch theorem, Aristotle, and the contextual role of purpose in recognizing chance events.

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Today’s ID the Future concludes our series on A Mousetrap for Darwin, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe’s new book on evolution and intelligent design. Here Behe and host Eric Anderson tackle an objection to Behe’s work from evolutionary biologist Larry Moran. Moran says that while the Darwinian process may find it difficult to find any particular solution requiring evolutionary innovation, there are countless possible solutions to a given problem, not just the one solution that evolution did hit upon and that is under investigation. According to Moran, Behe failed to take this into account, a factor that greatly enhances the chances of blind evolution to engineer novel solutions to ecological challenges. Behe counters that Moran’s objection misses the force of Read More ›

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This ID the Future from the vault spotlights A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature. The late Phillip Johnson called the book from Intervarsity Press “a wise and witty romp through the fallacies of reductionism.” The work challenges the philosophy of materialism by exploring the fine tuning of the laws of physics, the artistry of ordinary substances like carbon and water, the intricacy of biological organisms, and the drama of scientific enterprise itself. In contrast to contemporary claims that the world is ultimately meaningless, author Jonathan Witt and co-author Benjamin Wiker reveal a cosmos charged with meaning, purpose, and even genius. Get your copy here.

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On today’s ID the Future, Rob Crowther continues his conversation with Casey Luskin, the intelligent design proponent who previously worked for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and has now returned. As Luskin explains, he left to pursue a PhD in geology at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. The two discuss the wild conspiracy theories circulated by opponents of intelligent design when Luskin stepped away from Discovery Institute five years ago. Luskin also tells about an upcoming book he’s been working on with William Dembski, another intelligent design proponent who stepped away from day-to-day ID work and is now putting a foot back in the ID waters. Also on tap in today’s conversation, Luskin and Dembski’s upcoming appearance Read More ›

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On this ID the Future, Rob Crowther interviews geologist Casey Luskin, recently back from getting his PhD in geology at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Luskin, who formerly worked for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, and has just now rejoined the CSC, tells about his adventures doing field research in Africa, his side interest in human origins, his cross-cultural experiences, the amazing game parks, museums, and fossil sites he visited, and a little bit about his PhD, including some evidence suggesting that parts of Africa and Western Australia used to be connected.

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On this new episode of ID the Future, The Price of Panic co-author and philosopher Jay Richards hosts bioethicist Wesley J. Smith to discuss a Tweet from Physics-Astronomy.org. The Tweet read, “Imagine a world ruled by scientists, not politicians.” The drift of the Tweet was, wouldn’t rule by scientists be wonderful! Smith immediately threw up a great big “Don’t go there” sign at the Epoch Times. As  Smith and Richards emphasize, such an approach to governance would be disastrous, and would actually be anti-science. It would tend to corrupt the practice of science, thrust scientific specialists into positions calling for generalist skills, and further the arrogant mistake that is scientism—the view not only that nature is all there is, but Read More ›

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