ID the Future

ID the Future _{Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast}

Brian Miller on Advancing Biology Through an Engineering Lens

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Brian Miller
June 18, 2025}

Can viewing life as designed enhance scientific research? Today, host Andrew McDiarmid speaks with physicist Dr. Brian Miller about the fruitful research that can result when engineering principles are applied to the study of biological systems. Dr. Miller is part of a group that brings together engineers, scientists, and scholars to demonstrate how engineering principles, patterns, and tools can deepen the understanding of biology. The group hosts an annual Conference on Engineering in Living Systems, hosted by the Discovery Institute, that highlights new insights and research projects in this bold new approach to the study of life. Here Dr. Miller gives the lowdown on current research as well as this year's conference.

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Denyse O’Leary: Why Materialism Can’t Explain the Mind

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Denyse O'Leary
June 16, 2025}

Is the soul a myth? Does your mind really just boil down to brain function? On today's ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid speaks with journalist Denyse O'Leary about surprising findings out of neuroscience that shatter materialist assumptions. O'Leary is co-author with Dr. Michael Egnor of The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon's Case for the Existence of the Soul. In this conversation, O'Leary reports on recent findings about the origin of consciousness, the challenge that near-death experiences present to materialism, and why the only way to move past materialism is to reject it fully as a model.

Stephen Meyer: God Behind the Birth of Science and the Cosmos

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Stephen C. Meyer
June 13, 2025}

Do we have to choose between science and God? Absolutely not, says philosopher of science Dr. Stephen Meyer. In fact, theistic ideas about nature actually inspired the rise of modern science. On today’s ID the Future from the archive, Return of the God Hypothesis author Stephen Meyer and radio host Michael Medved discuss the arguments presented in a series of short videos featuring Dr. Meyer that explore the increasingly strong scientific case for intelligent design and for the idea that the universe is the product of a transcendent mind.

Michael Egnor Reads From His New Book The Immortal Mind

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Michael Egnor
June 11, 2025}

On this ID The Future, Dr. Michael Egnor reads the Introduction to his new book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon's Case for the Existence of the Soul, now available from Worthy Books. In this reading, Dr. Egnor shares his journey from being a medical student who believed science could explain everything, including how consciousness emerges from the brain and whether we have a soul, to a neurosurgeon who questioned the conventional materialist view. He discusses how years of operating on and examining patients with brain damage led him to wonder how large parts of the brain could be removed without affecting a person's mind or their ability to think, reason, believe, and desire. His personal story, including a profound experience in a hospital chapel during a family crisis, became a turning point that challenged his atheism and led him to believe that the immaterial aspects of our minds are real and that nature is an open system, not a closed one.

Jay Richards on the “Ground Clearing” Work of Jonathan Wells

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Jay Richards
June 9, 2025}

Before the positive case for intelligent design can be received effectively, the case against the Darwinian evolutionary mechanism must be clearly laid out. One man who was instrumental in this initial "ground clearing operation" was biologist Dr. Jonathan Wells, our friend and colleague who passed away in 2024. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes Dr. Jay Richards back to the podcast to share his memories of Dr. Wells and discuss the significance of Wells's life and work.

Engineered Complexity in the Microbial World

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Dustin Van Hofwegen
June 6, 2025}

On this ID the Future from the archive, host Jonathan Witt speaks to molecular biologist and professor Dustin Van Hofwegen about his research into the engineered complexity in microbial life. Hofwegen shares his research on the famous decades-long E. coli evolution experiment conducted by Richard Lenski, which showed the sudden appearance of an ability to utilize citrate after many generations. However, Van Hofwegen's own experiments demonstrated that this "evolutionary innovation" actually points to the intelligent design built into living systems instead of an undirected process like natural selection.

Physicist Brian Miller: The Non-Algorithmic Nature of Life

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Brian Miller
June 4, 2025}

For decades, we’ve thought the control center of life lies in DNA. But a new scientific framework is emerging that challenges that idea, and suggests that vast portions of the genome are immaterial and lie outside the physical world. Today, physicist Dr. Brian Miller shares his perspective on the cutting-edge, potentially revolutionary research of mathematical biologist Dr. Richard Sternberg on the immaterial aspects of the genome. In this exchange, Dr. Miller shares several examples of the immaterial nature of life. These ideas point towards the earliest stages of the next great scientific revolution and have significant implications for the intelligent design debate.

A Neurosurgeon Pulls Back the Curtain on the Soul

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Michael Egnor
June 2, 2025}

On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid is thrilled to welcome back renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor to continue discussing his new book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon's Case for the Existence of the Soul. The book tackles provocative ideas, making a case that the human soul exists and that the mind is immortal. In this compelling conversation, we unpack some of the powerful arguments and evidence Dr. Egnor has marshaled. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation.

Michael Denton on the Primal Patterns That Govern Living Systems

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Michael Denton
May 30, 2025}

On this classic ID The Future out of the vault, biochemist Dr. Michael Denton discusses the implications of recurring animal body plans, arguing that they are predetermined types that point away from purely mechanistic processes. He observes that structures like the insect body plan were fixed long ago and haven't changed. He argues they are better understood as instances of predetermined type rather than collections of historical adaptations. This predetermination, he suggests, is the product of laws of form, which he finds inexplicable on a mechanistic view of nature.

Can Evolutionary Processes Explain Human Creativity?

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Robert J. Marks
May 28, 2025}

On this ID The Future, we're sharing a conversation that first aired on Mind Matters News, another podcast from the Discovery Institute that focuses on the intersection of artificial and natural intelligence. In this episode, guest host Pat Flynn welcomes engineer Dr. Eric Holloway and professor Robert J. Marks to discuss the information cost of creativity. The conversation is based on a chapter in the recent volume Minding the Brain, authored by Dr. Holloway and Marks. This conversation originally aired on the Mind Matters News podcast. Visit mindmatters.ai/podcast for more.

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