Intelligent Design: The Canary in the Cancel Culture Coal Mine
On this episode of ID the Future, Rob Crowther speaks with David Klinghoffer, editor of Evolution News and Science Today, about contemporary “cancel culture” that’s attempting to push disfavored ideas and people out of the public square, and how the cancel-culture phenomenon struck intelligent design long before cancel culture was a household term. The term — and the movie title — more commonly used in ID circles has been “expelled.” It’s happened to Richard Sternberg, Günter Bechly, Douglas Axe, and other ID-friendly researchers, to the point that many ID-sympathizing scientists have to hide their beliefs to protect research funding and careers. Klinghoffer emphasizes that this isn’t just a debate off in the corner. Rather, ID is a “hard-core truth,” meaning it’s one of those on Read More ›
Dembski’s ID Filter — the Sea His Critics Swim In
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 ›
NCSE Pushes Unscientific Pro-Darwin Survey
On this episode of ID the Future, Robert Crowther interviews Sarah Chaffee, Education and Public Policy Program Officer for the Center for Science and Culture, on a recent survey conducted by the dogmatically pro-Darwin National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and published in Nature. The NCSE claims that the survey shows that science teachers “advocate evolution” even more now than in 2007. But as Crowther and Chaffe’s discussion suggests, the survey appears gamed to produce a pro-Darwinist outcome, so much so that even teachers who follow the Discovery Institute’s policy of promoting critical thinking skills by teaching biology students both the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory could be counted as evolution advocates by the survey. Then too, as Read More ›
New Book: Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell
On this episode of ID the Future, host Rob Crowther interviews Dr. Thomas Y. Lo, one of the co-authors of the brand new Discovery Institute Press book Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell. The genesis of the book was at a Discovery Institute summer seminar. Lo began discussing with professors and students the idea of a new concise, accessible guide to evolution and design. Before long he was joined by four others, including two PhD biologists. The new book covers everything from cosmology and the origin of life to irreducibly complex biological marvels. The final chapter focuses on the mystery of the Cambrian explosion and the extraordinary Cambrian fossils of Chengjiang, China, including a firsthand account of one of Read More ›
Jay Richards on How the Warfare Thesis Ignores the Roots of Science
On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, CSC Director of Communications Rob Crowther interviews CSC Senior Fellow Jay Richards. Listen in as Richards rebuts the warfare thesis – the idea that religion and science are antagonists – and argues that historically, Judeo-Christian culture “was the seedbed from which science emerged.” Has science missed out by being partnered with materialism?
Paul Nelson on the 2020 Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design
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 ›
Jay Richards on Eat, Fast, Feast and Human Design
On this episode of ID the Future, Jay Richards discusses his new book Eat, Fast, Feast. Fasting is a traditional religious practice “that’s fallen on hard times,” he says. We “graze” instead. But there’s scientific evidence for the value of intermittent fasting: it reduces total calories while upping adrenaline and human growth hormone, and without reducing metabolic rates. All this in addition to the spiritual benefits that have been recognized across cultures for many centuries. There are simplistic “just-so” evolutionary stories in other diet and health books attempting to explain how our bodies became well adapted for intermittent fasting, but he argues that a much better explanation is that we were intelligently designed this way. In his conversation with host Read More ›
Behe Barnstorms Brazil
The Dangers, Limits and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
On this episode of ID The Future from the vault, Robert Crowther explores the dangers and potential of artificial intelligence with Dr. Robert Marks, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University and co-author of Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics.
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