Robert Crowther

On this episode of ID the Future, Robert Crowther interviews Eric Holloway, Associate Fellow at the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence, about Holloway’s recent article answering a common criticism of intelligent design theory. The criticism centers on William Dembski’s explanatory filter for detecting design, especially Dembski’s crucial innovation, which was to include specification as the filter’s final step. Critics say specification is an ad hoc addition, conjured up by ID theorists for no good reason except to prop up ID theory. No one else uses it, they say. They’re wrong, says Holloway. Dembski accurately formalized a filter we use so often that we’re like fish in the sea. We are unaware of it because it’s ubiquitous. To Read More ›

On this episode of ID the Future, host Rob Crowther talks with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and philosopher of science Paul Nelson about the upcoming Summer Seminars at the Discovery Institute in Seattle in July. In two overlapping tracks, these seminars provide nine days of intensive study on design in the natural sciences and in humanities and the social sciences, with the opportunity to interact with top scholars and other students. It’s “summer camp for nerds,” says Nelson, and the opportunity for upper-level undergrads, grad students, professors, and professionals to break free of the isolation they often experience in environments where design is kept off the table. Nelson discusses why he loves lecturing at the seminars every July, and what Read More ›

Did you know that a growing number of scientists doubt the Darwinian theory of evolution? This in spite of the fact that over the past two decades the scientific establishment has ramped up their support of modern Darwinism with increasing agitation. And ramped up the persecution of scientists who dissent from Darwinian evolution. Robert Crowther explores why some scientists are willing to risk their research and careers to voice their skepticism of the theory. Listen in, and be sure to visit dissentfromdarwin.com to learn more and meet some of the scientists on the list.

On this episode of ID the Future, Rob Crowther continues his conversation with J. Scott Turner, biologist at the State University of New York (SUNY), visiting scholar at Cambridge University, and author of the new book Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It. Turner critiques evolutionary biology’s bias toward mechanistic and gene-centric thinking, and contemporary biology’s failure to come to grips with the evidence of purpose and intentionality at many levels of biology. Viewing the brain as a computer, for example, obscures many things about the brain and the mind that exceed computers, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

On this episode of ID the Future, hear about a recent study from scientists at Yale that found that “human brain development is a symphony in three movements.” The human brain develops through distinct patterns in gene activity at different stages in the life span, which these researchers have likened to the choreography of an orchestra or ballet. Listen in!

On this episode of ID the Future, hear about a few cases of scientism acting as a quasi-religion. For many people, science — and evolution in particular — gives their lives a sense of meaning, providing an overarching vision of something larger than themselves. These recent pieces of science news illustrate exactly how evolutionary thinking can serve in the role of religious faith as scientific claims are made that go far beyond the evidence. For more on C.S. Lewis’ warnings against scientism, watch the short documentary The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism

On this episode of ID the Future, hear about a new short documentary that explores C. S. Lewis’ life-long struggle to find intelligent design in a world filled with pain. Discover Lewis’ journey that took him from a position sharply hostile to arguments for design to views bearing remarkable similarities to those advocated by ID proponents today.

On this episode of ID the Future, learn about some of scientists’ latest attempts to copy sophisticated designs found in the natural world. This emerging science of imitating nature, known as biomimetics, has attracted extensive research and led to new technologies. As uniform experience has shown, such good design comes not from blind processes, but from a good mind.