John West in Turin, Italy: Intelligent Design’s Roots and Fruit
Every Friday we repost a gem from our archive of hundreds of episodes. Today’s pick from the vault takes us to a conference in Turin, Italy, where scholar John West speaks about the roots of intelligent design, roots that stretch back to ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. In his talk, West also makes the case that design thinking was crucial to the rise of modern science, and he traces how Darwinism has eroded design thinking, fueled scientific racism, and undermined belief in human exceptionalism. West celebrates some of Italy’s contributions to Western civilization but also calls attention to Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso, who championed various racist ideas undergirded by Darwinian thinking, disturbing work that West learned more about when he visited the Cesare Lombroso Museum in Turin. On the bright side, there has been a surge in skepticism toward Darwinian thinking, West says, along with a powerful resurgence in design thinking.
Dig Deeper
- Listen to another episode with Dr. John West exploring C.S. Lewis’s warnings about scientism: