ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
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Blue balloon. Man hold needle directed to air balloon. Concept of risk. Copy space.

Puncturing the Science-Faith Warfare Myth

On today’s ID the Future, join host and geologist Casey Luskin and historian of science Michael Keas for a lively conversation puncturing a series of anti-Christian myths about the history of science, including the Dark Ages myth, the flat-earth myth, the myth that the discovery of how big the universe is rendered humanity insignificant, and the simplistic revisionist history of Galileo and the Inquisition. What about the claim in the recent Cosmos TV series that in abandoning his traditional Jewish faith, seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza was able to provide an improved framework for doing science? As Keas argues, the truth is just the opposite. Spinoza, he says, abandoned a key tenet of Judeo-Christian theology that had proven vital to the Read More ›

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When Darwinian Racism Came to Africa, and the West

Today’s ID the Future features another reading from scholar Olufemi Oluniyi’s new book, Darwin Comes to Africa. In this excerpt we learn how Darwin himself laid much of the groundwork for social Darwinist ideas, primarily in his book The Descent of Man, and how those ideas were energetically developed in the ensuing decades by various mainstream scientists. Oluniyi further details how their work fueled pseudo-scientific racism against black Africans and other indigenous peoples outside the West. To learn more about this neglected corner of modern Western history, and for the good news that the flow of evidence has turned against Darwinism and, with it, social Darwinist principles, pick up Oluniyi’s book here.

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When Darwinism Came to Africa, Horrors Ensued

On today’s ID the Future, hear a Nigerian voice-actor reading from the opening pages of Nigerian scholar Olufemi Oluniyi’s new book, Darwin Comes to Africa. In this section from the preface, Oluniyi explores the relationship of Darwinism to Social Darwinism, and some of the ways Social Darwinism fueled and justified horrific ideas and actions among European thinkers and colonizers. Oluniyi tells the story of Russian scientist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov, who, guided by Social Darwinist thinking, “sought to produce a race of super-soldiers for Stalin’s army by impregnating French Guinea women with the sperm of a dead chimpanzee—black African women, mind you, who were presumed to be less highly evolved and thus closer to chimpanzees than were white European women.” As Oluniyi Read More ›

Olufemi Oluniyi

Olufemi Oluniyi’s New Book, Darwin Comes to Africa

On today’s ID the Future, scholar John West introduces Darwin Comes to Africa, the new book by Nigerian pastor, theologian, journalist, scholar, and human rights activist Olufemi Oluniyi. The work explores the poisonous influence of social Darwinism on British rule in northern Nigeria in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a poisonous influence felt in Oluniyi’s home country down to the present, he argues. The book project grew out of Oluniyi’s intimate knowledge of Nigerian culture as well as his attendance at the 2017 Center for Science & Culture Summer Seminar program in Seattle, Washington. By the end of that nine-day gathering, he had resolved to write a book about the impact of Social Darwinism on his home country Read More ›

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Aerial view of the White Cliffs of Dover. Close up view of the cliffs from the sea side. England, East Sussex. Between France and UK

From “Dover Beach” to Wokeness and Beyond

On today’s ID the Future, host Peter Robison continues a lively conversation with Douglas Murray, author of The War on the West, Tom Holland, author of Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, and Stephen Meyer, author of Return of the God Hypothesis. Here in the concluding part of the interview, the four consider English Victorian poet Matthew Arnold’s elegiac depiction of the West bereft of religious faith. What does this retreating “sea of faith” mean in practical terms for Western culture, and what path, if any, is there to a renewal of Western culture? Can we embrace the Christian ethical framework without belief in God, miracles, and the afterlife? Meyer warns that attempting to borrow some form of Read More ›

empty church
interior view of the Cistercian church at Salem Palace in southern Germany

Tom Holland, Stephen Meyer, Douglas Murray: God and the West

On today’s ID the Future, Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson talks with historian Tom Holland, journalist Douglas Murray, and philosopher of science Stephen Meyer about the decline of theistic faith in the West. Here in Part I of the conversation, the men consider possible causes for the decline of theistic faith. According to Meyer the decline has occurred in the face of increasing scientific evidence for the existence of God. So what gives? Tune in to hear their stimulating exploration of the question, and what each sees as the appropriate response. This material is used by permission of Peter Robinson and the Uncommon Knowledge podcast.

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american football field goal post

James Tour: The Goalposts are Racing Away from the Origin-of-Life Community

On today’s ID the Future distinguished nanoscientist James Tour explains to host Eric Metaxas why the origin-of-life community is further than ever from solving the mystery of life’s origin, and how the public has gotten the false impression that scientists can synthesize life in the lab. Tour explains that origin-of-life scientists aren’t even close to intelligently synthesizing life from non-life in the lab. The problem, Tour says, is that some leading origin-of-life researchers give the impression they are right on the cusp of solving the problem. Not so, Tour says. He offers the analogy of someone claiming, in the year 1500, that he has the know-how to build a ship to travel to the moon, when no one yet knows Read More ›

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Female Eurasian brown bear and her cubs in boreal forest

Mama Bear Apologetics Takes on Atheist Richard Dawkins

Today’s ID the Future puts atheist Richard Dawkins’s book Outgrowing God under the microscope and reveals multiple ways his argument smashes up against contrary scientific evidence. Walking us through the critique are author and Mama Bear Apologetics founder Hillary Morgan Ferrer and her co-host, Amy Davison. Dawkins invokes the beautiful order evident in the murmuration of bird flocks as evidence that complexity can evolve from simple algorithmic rules. But Ferrer explains why the phenomenon of bird murmuration doesn’t even begin to approach what we find when sophisticated engineering order emerges in the growth of embryos. Ferrer also considers the challenges of re-engineering sperm thermoregulation to move from how it works in marine life to how it works in land animals. Read More ›

louis pasteur
01.10.2022, Paris France: illustrated Portrait of Louis Pasteur. High quality illustration

The 200th Birthday of Louis Pasteur: A Man of Science and Faith

December 27, 2022 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Pasteur, the French scientist whose scientific breakthroughs have saved millions of lives, and whose work on microbes sounded the death knell of the idea of spontaneous generation. On this episode of ID the Future, biologist Ann Gauger walks listeners through the triumphs, flaws, and tragedies in the life of this extraordinary individual. In the nineteenth century, it was widely believed that the spontaneous generation of life from non-life was common and unremarkable, since it was thought that spontaneous generation of worms, mold, and other life forms occurred all the time in rotting meat and dirty rags. Pasteur constructed an experiment demonstrating that these “spontaneously” arising worms and such Read More ›

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Westminster Conference on Science and Faith, 2022

Stephen Meyer and Company Answer Questions about Science and Faith

On today’s ID the Future, philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, theologian Vern Poythress, engineer Stuart Burgess, and biologist Jonathan McLatchie answer questions about science and faith posed at the Westminster Conference on Science and Faith, held in the greater Philadelphia area. The session is moderated by Discovery Institute Vice President John West, and the conference jointly sponsored by Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and Westminster Theological Seminary. Panelists: Dr. Stuart Burgess has held academic posts at Bristol University (UK) and Cambridge University (UK), and published over 180 scientific publications on the science of design in engineering and biology. He also has received many national and international awards for design, including from the Minister of State for Trade and Read More ›