ID the Future

More on James Tour’s Abiogenesis YouTube Series

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Brian Miller
July 21, 2021}

On today’s ID the Future, physicist Brian Miller continues his review of James Tour’s origin-of-life YouTube series. As Miller explains, Tour, a world-renowned synthetic organic chemist and professor at Rice University, was inspired to create the series when YouTuber and evolutionist Dave Farina critiqued Tour’s critique of contemporary origin-of-life claims. In reviewing Tour’s video series, Miller and host Eric Anderson praise the Tour series and discuss the Levinthal paradox of the interactome, the ridiculously long odds of blind processes assembling the first living cell, and the challenge of cell death (think Humpty Dumpty and what all the king’s men couldn’t do). Also discussed: entropy, molecular machines, the challenges that Brownian motion and homochirality pose, the presence of intelligent design in Read More ›

Latest Episodes

The Origin of Life was the Origin of an Engineering Marvel

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Brian Miller
July 19, 2021}

On today’s ID the Future, physicist Brian Miller touches on various challenges facing the origin of the first life. He and host Eric Anderson discuss Jeremy England’s origin-of-life ideas and the RNA World Hypothesis, and offer multiple reasons why they are convinced that various proposed mindless processes do not explain the origin of the first self-reproducing cell. Miller urges another approach, one that draws on engineering principles and embraces the evidence in even the simplest cell of highly intelligent engineering.

Jay Richards: AI Machines Aren’t Us, and Won’t Replace Us

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Jay Richards
July 16, 2021}

On this ID the Future from the vault, author Jay Richards discusses The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines. Science fiction tantalizes us — and pundits terrorize us — with images of intelligent machines taking over for humans. Really taking over, as in replacing us. Some thinkers even say that’s just the next phase of evolution, and we’re just machines ourselves, with consciousness and personhood being a mere illusion. In his conversation with host Robert Crowther, Richards makes the case that this is all wrong, and that consciousness, personhood, agency, and human freedom are all real and worth defending, and that any philosophy (e.g., materialism) that denies these realities is bankrupt. He also Read More ›

An ID Debate, Pt. 2: Joshua Swamidass and Günter Bechly

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Günter Bechly
July 14, 2021}

Today’s ID the Future concludes a debate over the merits of intelligent design and modern evolutionary theory. Günter Bechly is a distinguished German paleoentomologist who was an atheist and Darwinist but became convinced of theism after he finally decided to read some of the books written by leading ID proponents and found their arguments far stronger than he had been led to believe from second-hand accounts. S. Joshua Swamidass is a computational biologist at Washington University in Saint Louis who says ID may or may not be true in some part of what it affirms, but while he believes in a Creator, he doesn’t find the central arguments of intelligent design proponents logical and cogent. He also is more sanguine Read More ›

An ID Debate: Joshua Swamidass and Günter Bechly, Pt. 1

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Günter Bechly
July 12, 2021}

Today’s ID the Future features a debate over the merits of intelligent design. Günter Bechly is a German paleoentomologist heard many times on ID the Future, who says the science convinced him that intelligent design is true. S. Joshua Swamidass is a computational biologist at Washington University in Saint Louis who says ID may or may not be true in some part of what it affirms, but for him, the science doesn’t lead you to it. They met in a dialogue hosted by Justin Brierley on his Unbelievable? podcast, reposted here with Brierley’s permission. This is the first half of the conversation. The second half is coming to IDTF soon.

Biologist Ralph Seelke on How His Lab Results Spell Trouble for Darwin

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Ralph Seelke
July 9, 2021}

Biologist Ralph Seelke describes his evolution research at the University of Wisconsin-Superior and explains the difference between microevolution and macroevolution.

Michael Behe and Cilia 3.0 … or, Irreducible Complexity Cubed

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Michael Behe
July 7, 2021}

On today’s ID the Future, author and biologist Michael Behe discusses with host Andrew McDiarmid how the once seemingly humble cilium is actually even more irreducibly complex than Behe suggested in his ID classic Darwin’s Black Box—and indeed, even more complex than his review of cilia in his update in 2007. At the time Behe described cilia as “irreducible complexity squared.” But as noted in a recent article at Evolution News, even more layers of sophistication in cilia and their Intraflagellar Transport (IFT) system have now been discovered. So, does that mean we are now looking at irreducible complexity cubed? Listen in as Behe and McDiarmid revel in the engineering sophistication of this fascinating molecular machine, and discuss why, more Read More ›

JONATHAN WELLS: BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION BEYOND DNA, PT. 4

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Jonathan Wells
July 2, 2021}

On this ID the Future from the vault, biologist Jonathan Wells rounds out his discussion with host Casey Luskin about his journal article “Membrane Patterns Carry Ontogenetic Information That Is Specified Independently of DNA.” In the first three episodes in this series, Dr. Wells showed that embryo development requires information carried by membrane patterns in embryonic cells. Today, Dr. Wells discusses what this means for future biological research and the challenge it poses to evolutionary theory.

Physicist Eric Hedin: Information, Entropy, First Life

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Eric Hedin
June 30, 2021}

On today’s ID the Future, Canceled Science author and physicist Eric Hedin talks with host Eric Anderson about the challenge the generalized second law of thermodynamics poses for purely naturalistic scenarios for the origin of the first living organism. The problem is generating the reams of exquisitely orchestrated biological information required for even the simplest self-reproducing cell, and fundamental principles of physics, Hedin argues, mitigate against chemical processes getting the job done. What about the fact that the Earth is an open system, gaining energy from the sun? Does that provide an end-run around the second law? Hedin says no and explains why, using easy-to-grasp illustrations. His recent book from Discovery Institute Press, Canceled Science: What Some Atheists Don’t Want Read More ›

Casey Luskin Reviews Three Views on Christianity and Science

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Casey Luskin
June 28, 2021}

On today’s ID the Future, host Tom Gilson and guest Casey Luskin discuss a new book Luskin recently reviewed at Evolution News, Three Views on Christianity and Science. Luskin, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, summarizes the three views covered in the book: the independence view presented by Michael Ruse, the dialogue view presented by Alister McGrath, and the constrained integration view presented by Bruce Gordon. Luskin critiques the first two and argues that the dialogue view, in practice, quickly devolves into a monologue where religion is supposed to sit down and shut up the moment there is a point of difference between religion and consensus science. He says this is doubly problematic because (a) scientists Read More ›

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