Fact-Checking Designer Science: Casey Luskin on ID History Errors
Watch Episode
Is intelligent design dying out or just warming up? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes Dr. Casey Luskin to a new and improved podcast studio for a sit-down, in-person conversation! Today, Dr. Luskin discusses a recent book called Designer Science that portrays the ID movement as a short-lived political, cultural, and religious phenomenon. Luskin reveals some egregious errors in this purported comprehensive history of ID. First, a made-up quote from Michael Behe used to support one of the book’s major premises. Second, some glaring omissions, including a number of scientific breakthroughs and developments from ID scientists in the last two decades.
In Part 1, Luskin starts with a brief flyover of the key mistakes and omissions in Designer Science. Then, he zooms in to tell the remarkable story of how an inaccurate and misleading summary of Dr. Behe’s views penned by the ACLU and presented in the Dover vs. Kitzmiller trial in 2005 became a fabricated quote in Designer Science meant to paint ID as an inherently unscientific enterprise. Luskin also explains the surprising response from the book’s publisher after he contacted them to request a correction.
The real take-away from this story, says Dr. Luskin, is something the ID community has known for a long time: the Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling is not a reliable source of information about intelligent design. And trusting the Dover ruling without fact-checking can land you in some serious academic hot water!
This is Part 1 of a two-part studio conversation. Look for Part 2 next!
Dig Deeper
- Watch this in-person, sit-down interview in video format on our YouTube channel!
- Read Dr. Luskin’s detailed critical response to Designer Science at Science & Culture Today.
- More conversation with Dr. Luskin: Go back to the basics of ID!