Jay Richards

On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid catches up with philosopher Jay Richards at the recent COSM conference in greater Seattle. The two discuss the history of George Gilder’s Telecosm conferences and how the first one gave birth to a book Richards edited and contributed to 18 years ago, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I. Is the “singularity” coming, as Kurzweil argues there and elsewhere, when machines equal and then quickly surpass human intelligence? Does “machine learning” really mean learning? Will “Skynet” wake up? Jay describes Kurzweil’s sunny version of strong AI and the dystopian version. Then he argues the other side, namely that human beings possess something beyond the purely material, Read More ›

On this episode of ID the Future, philosopher and Discovery Institute senior fellow Jay Richards shows how materialism is an acid that eats itself along with the self. Richards argues that it also eats all the immaterial things that make science work — all while posing as objective science. The interview is taken from Discovery Institute’s new Science Uprising initiative, featuring high-concept short YouTube videos and single-expert interviews touch on a wide range of subjects related to intelligent design, philosophical materialism, theism, atheism and modern Darwinism. Richards and other familiar faces are among the experts, along with two or three distinguished scientists who may be new to followers of ID the Future. Check it out here.

On this episode of ID the Future, host Robert Crowther speaks with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jay Richards, a speaker at last weekend’s Dallas Conference on Science & Faith. Coming available soon on video, this conference featured Richards, Eric Metaxas, Stephen Meyer, and world-renowned synthetic organic chemist James Tour — plus a surprise guest. For all the great presenters there, though, Richards’ favorite feature of the conference was the thousand attendees — some of them skeptics — who stayed straight through to the close and beyond, asking questions and learning that science, more than ever, supports faith in a designing intelligence.

On this episode of ID the Future, Father Michael Chaberek, author of the books Catholicism and Evolution and Aquinas and Evolution, explains why the theory of intelligent design meshes well with the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. In his conversation with host Jay Richards, Chaberek, creator of the site Aquinas.Design, notes that some Thomists complain about ID, but he argues that they misunderstand what ID is and isn’t. As for criticism that ID is a “God of the Gaps” argument, Chaberek urges Thomists to consider where that complaint leads: For Catholics, and Christians generally, that complaint proves way too much, he argues.

On this episode of ID the Future, Robert Crowther talks with author Jay Richards about Richards’ new book 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, since we’re machines ourselves. Jay Richards explains how that’s wrong, and there’s a lot more to hope for than to fear in our future with our new smart machines.

On this episode of ID the Future, philosopher Jay Richards continues his conversation with host and historian of science Mike Keas about Henry Kissinger’s recent Atlantic article on “The End of the Enlightenment.” In the piece, Kissinger sounds an alarm over artificial intelligence, and raises questions about machine ethics and the possibility that humans may learn we’re not so special after all. Richards, author of the new book The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work In an Age of Smart Machines, pushes back, explaining how we can continue to use artificial intelligence to our advantage, prudently but without fear of the robot apocalypse or of computers becoming conscious and free. No, Richards argues, those qualities cannot be programmed. They are, and will remain, the human advantage.

On this episode of ID the Future, Jay Richards talks with host Mike Keas about a recent Atlantic article from former National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger on “How the Enlightenment Ends” with the rise of artificial intelligence. Richards, whose forthcoming book The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work In an Age of Smart Machines, covers this territory and more, explains that AI is about statistical processing, not budding consciousness; and the ethical concerns it raises are both important yet in some ways not so new.

On this episode of ID the Future, host Mike Keas talks with Discovery Institute senior fellow Jay Richards, editor of God and Evolution, about a recent article by evangelical Michael Gerson in The Atlantic. There Gerson suggests that evangelicals have been culturally marginalized in part due to a misguided rejection of modern evolutionary theory. But Richards argues that Gerson fundamentally misunderstands the theory. Richards and Keas also explore the temptation to cede ground on an issue like evolution in order to curry favor with the mostly secular Washington establishment.

On this episode of ID: The Future, CSC Senior Fellow Jay Richards explains how perfect solar eclipses are the tip of an iceberg-size design argument found in a book he co-wrote, The Privileged Planet. The conditions for a habitable planet (right distance from the right size star, a big but not too big moon that is the right distance away to stabilize Earth’s tilt and circulate its oceans) are also conditions that make perfect solar eclipses from the Earth’s surface much more likely. And perfect eclipses aren’t just eerie and beautiful. They’ve helped scientists test and discover things, and are part of a larger pattern: The conditions needed for a habitable place in the cosmos correlate with the conditions well suited for scientific discovery. As Richards notes, this correlation is inexplicable if the cosmos is the product of chance. But if it’s intelligently designed with creatures like us in mind, it’s just what we might expect.

On this episode of ID the Future, hear Jay Richards’ recent talk given at a Washington D.C. event entitled “March for Science or March for Scientism? Understanding the Real Threats to Science in America.”