Screenshot-2025-07-11-at-50618PM
ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
Share
Facebook
Twitter/X
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Walter Bradley on The Mystery of Life’s Origin

Episode
2081
With
Robert J. Marks
Guest(s)
Walter Bradley
Duration
00:19:54
Download
Audio File (13.5 mb)
Share
Facebook
Twitter/X
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

We are grieving the recent loss of Walter Bradley, a longtime Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute and namesake of the Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. So today, out of our archive, we bring you the first half of Robert J. Marks’s 2020 interview with Walter Bradley, co-author of the seminal 1984 intelligent design book The Mystery of Life’s Origin. The book is now available in a revised and expanded edition with updates from multiple contributors discussing the progress (or lack of it) in origins science in the 35 years since the book’s original publication. In this first of two podcasts, Bradley discusses the history of the attempts to explain life’s origin naturalistically, and how the three authors of the 1984 book came together to shake up the world of origin-of-life science.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 next Friday!

Dig Deeper

  • Learn more about the life and legacy of Walter Bradley in this biography.

Walter Bradley

Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Walter L. Bradley (1943-2025) received his B.S. degree in Engineering Science (Physics) in 1965 and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering in 1968, both from the University of Texas (Austin). He subsequently taught at the Colorado School of Mines, Texas A&M University as Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and for 10 years at Baylor University as a Distinguished Professor. His research area has been Materials Science and Engineering, with a focus on the mechanical properties of plastics and polymeric (plastic) composite materials, fracture and life prediction. He has received more than $7 million in research funding and published more than 150 refereed technical papers and book chapters. He was honored by the American Society for Materials and the Society of Plastics Engineers as Educator of the Year. His most recent work focused on converting agricultural waste into functional fillers for engineering plastics to provide new economic opportunities for poor farmers in developing countries.
Tags
abiogenesis
Charles Thaxton
crystal theory
early earth atmosphere
energy barrier problem
geochemistry
James M. Tour
Jon Buell
Miller-Urey experiment
NASA
origin of life
Roger Olsen
science journalism
SETI
the mystery of life’s origin
Walter Bradley