Intelligent Design the Future

On this ID The Future from the vault, Robert J. Marks and Winston Ewert, both of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, continue their conversation about three of their recently published papers dealing with evolution, biological information, and what is known as algorithmic specified complexity. In this final podcast of the series, Dr. Ewert explains the role of context in measuring meaning in images. A non-humanoid gelatinous alien might assign no meaning to the faces on Mount Rushmore if the alien had never seen a humanoid. But humans, and especially humans familiar with major figures in American history, have the context to recognize that the carved shapes tightly match pre-existing patterns and therefore contain considerable algorithmic specified complexity. Ewert then applies all Read More ›

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Today’s ID the Future extends the discussion of A Mousetrap for Darwin: Michael Behe Answers His Critics, the newest book from Discovery Institute Press. Here the focus is on Parts 4 and 7 of the new book, and in particular Richard Lenski’s Long Term Evolution Experiment at Michigan State. What has this long-running project demonstrated? As Behe explains in the book (and elaborates on in today’s podcast), “The study has addressed some narrow points of peculiar interest to evolutionary population geneticists, but for proponents of intelligent design the bottom line is that the great majority of even beneficial mutations have turned out to be due to the breaking, degrading, or minor tweaking of pre-existing genes or regulatory regions. There have Read More ›

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On this ID The Future from the vault, Robert J. Marks and Winston Ewert, both of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, discuss John Conway’s Game of Life, played on a rectangular grid. In the game, cells live or die depending on the cells that surround them. Hobbyists have designed highly complex patterns using Conway’s four simple rules of birth, death and survival. Patterns include oscillators, spaceships and glider guns. Ewert explains how the theory of algorithmic specified complexity can be applied to the game and to exploring design questions. The discussion centers around a peer-reviewed journal article by Ewert, Marks, and William Dembski: “Algorithmic Specified Complexity in the Game of Life.”

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On today’s ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid presents an Evolution News essay, “How to Destroy Love with Darwinism.” Altruism as defined by evolutionists means “behavior by an animal that may be to its disadvantage but that benefits others of its kind.” It’s not an easy fit with Darwinism, since Darwinian evolution is all about passing your favored genes onto your offspring. How can a creature do that if she gives her life for another, particularly when it’s not even her own children, and before she has produced any offspring? Such individuals fail to pass on their own genes — a seeming conundrum for Darwinism. Evolutionists have made some progress (they think) explaining such things with theories of group selection Read More ›

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Today’s ID the Future features an excerpt from the Michael Medved Show spotlighting intelligent design proponent Michael Behe. The two Michaels do a quick flyover of Behe’s hard-hitting new book, A Mousetrap for Darwin: Michael Behe Answers His Critics. Along the way they discuss some random mutations often touted as proof of evolution’s power, including some found in dogs. On closer inspection, this dog of an argument for evolution won’t hunt. Tune in to hear Behe’s lucid explanation.

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On this ID The Future from the vault, Robert Marks and Winston Ewert, both of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, discuss three of their papers written with design theorist William Dembski. The focus here is evolutionary informatics, algorithmic specified complexity, and information theory as it relates to biology and evolutionary theory. Ewert discusses the mathematical foundation for why we know Mount Rushmore is designed in a way that Mount Fuji isn’t. In particular he unpacks a recent advance in information theory, the theory of algorithmic specified complexity. Also in the conversation mix, snowflakes and … poker. To find all three papers under discussion, and more on the topic, jump over to the Evolutionary Informatics website.

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Today’s ID the Future provides another peek at A Mousetrap for Darwin: Michael J. Behe Answers His Critics. Here Behe and host Eric Anderson discuss the new book’s section on malaria evolution. Evolutionists say malaria’s ability to evolve resistance to the antimalarial drug chloroquine is powerful evidence of unguided microbe-to-man evolution. Behe discusses how this evolutionary innovation required two coordinated mutations and lies at the outside edge of what blind evolution can manage. But many innovations in the history of life require three or more coordinated mutations, which Behe argues is so improbable as to lie beyond the reach of blind evolution. If so, this would discredit evolutionary theory. Drawing from his new book, Behe discusses various attempts to discredit Read More ›

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On this ID the Future, German paleontologist Günter Bechly explains why the Precambrian fossil Namacalathus fails as a transitional precursor to the Cambrian explosion. Darwinists want to find transitional precursors to the Cambrian animals to minimize how poorly the Cambrian explosion fits with Darwinism’s story of a gradual evolutionary development. Dr. Bechly gives other examples of such efforts as well and shows how each fails. As he says, the more we learn about the Cambrian and Precambrian, the more dramatic the Cambrian explosion appears and the poorer it fits with modern evolutionary theory. As he also notes, the points he makes in this episode have been made by mainstream evolutionary paleontologists. He differs only in stepping back from the larger pattern Read More ›

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On this ID the Future Lehigh University biologist Michael Behe dives deeper into A Mousetrap for Darwin. Behe and host Eric Anderson pivot to the new book’s section defending Behe’s earlier work, The Edge of Evolution. In that earlier book, Behe reviewed hard data from evolution studies of malaria parasites, HIV, and E. coli, showed that blind evolutionary processes face severe limits as to what they can build, and argued that intelligent design was required for the origin of life’s great diversity. In this new conversation Behe touches on some of the attempts to refute that argument and suggests why those refutations fail. For a more in-depth look at his defense of The Edge of Evolution, get your copy of Read More ›

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On this ID the Future, Michael Behe continues discussing his new book, A Mousetrap for Darwin, with host Eric Anderson. Here the focus is the blood clotting cascade. Behe has argued it’s irreducibly complex, like a mousetrap, and that blind evolution couldn’t build it one small functional step at a time. Behe says a better explanation is that it was intelligently designed. His critics have responded to his argument over the years. Here Behe returns the favor. His most prominent interlocutor on the matter is the recently deceased Russell Doolittle. Behe shows that Doolittle misread the paper he relied on to refute Behe. Professor Behe also responds to Kenneth Miller and Keith Robison. According to Behe, his critics have managed Read More ›

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