If Charles Darwin could have peered into one of today's high-powered microscopes and seen the stunning complexity and function in even the simplest living cells, On the Origin of Species might have been a very different book! On this ID The Future, we go behind the scenes with biochemist Michael Behe to discuss his popular video series Secrets of the Cell. From overseeing intricate animation work to driving off-road in a Jeep through the backwoods, Dr. Behe spills some secrets of his own about his experience getting in front of the camera to bring the wonders of the cell to life. Read More ›
Are we responsible for our choices? What can the laws of nature teach us about morality? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes back Dr. Eric Hedin, Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at Ball State University, to conclude a discussion about his two recent articles on suffering, free will, and morality in a designed world.
Some scientists continue to argue that human free will is an illusion and that we have no more control over our choices than the decision to breathe. But this idea, known as determinism, flies in the face of our human experience. Dr. Hedin explains that far from being slaves to external forces, humans have a great latitude of freedom in the universe. In other words, the ball is in our court.
This is Part 2 of a two-part discussion. Read More ›
Is there strong scientific evidence for near-death experiences? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid speaks with Dr. Gary Habermas about his chapter evaluating the evidence for near-death cases in the new book Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science.
As Dr. Habermas explains, most near-death accounts contain both objective and subjective elements. Personal testimony about other realms can't be independently corroborated, but objective evidence rooted in this world can be confirmed and evaluated. "I can't verify heavenly discussions or heavenly sites," says Habermas, "so the kind of NDE data I'm talking about virtually always occur on this earth in normal kinds of situations, like parking lots or in your home two miles away. That's where the evidence comes from."
Dr. Habermas relays several examples of near-death cases with strong evidential support. He also lays out five different lines of verifiable phenomena. Tune in to learn more about the scientific case for this intriguing phenomenon. Read More ›
Is there interest and support for intelligent design in other countries besides the United States? As today's interview will show, the answer to that question is a resounding yes! On this ID The Future, geologist and attorney Casey Luskin and physicist Brian Miller talk with host Andrew McDiarmid about their recent speaking trip to South Africa and Kenya. Accompanied by historian Richard Weikart for portions of it, the trio gave a total of 65 lectures to over 4,000 people on 7 university campuses and other locations. The response was inspiring. As Luskin puts it in his blog post detailing the trip, support for intelligent design is burning brightly across the continent of Africa. Tune in to learn more about this remarkable experience. Read More ›
Is mankind an error-prone accident of nature or a masterpiece of engineering and intention? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid invites physicist Brian Miller to discuss highlights of the 2023 Westminster Conference on Science & Faith. If you didn't get to attend this year's event in person or via live-stream, Dr. Miller's got you covered! The theme was The Miracle of Man, and speakers explored the uniqueness of human beings in the fields of physiology, biology, paleontology, and genetics, as well as theology and philosophy. Dr. Miller reviews his own talk on the intelligent design of human vision. He also recaps other highlights of the event, including talks from Michael Denton on the fitness of the planet for human life, Michael Egnor on the experimental evidence showing our minds are different than our brains, and more. He concludes by reminding us of the benefits of in-person events. "The presentations spark ideas and present new evidence," says Miller. "Then people will take that and talk about it over dinner, over lunch, or over coffee. And it's just a beautiful time to make new connections." Read More ›
Eminent paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that humans differ only in degree, not kind, from other organisms, and to think otherwise betrays an ancient and outdated prejudice. But does this match up with what science has revealed in the last century? On this ID The Future, we are pleased to share the first half of an engaging conversation between Dr. David Berlinski and host Eric Metaxas on the subject of Berlinski's recent book Human Nature. Some argue that humans are growing more peaceful, enlightened, and improved by the year, and that a coming technological singularity may well usher in utopia. Berlinski isn't buying it. "There is no society without its underlying ideology," he writes in Human Nature. A universal civilization requires a universal theory, and the prevailing grand narrative preferred by most materialist scientists today is fueled largely by Darwin's theory of evolution. But is the world of matter the only world that matters? In this conversation and in his book, Berlinski argues that human beings have a fundamental essence that is radically different from the essence of other organisms and that cannot be changed at will. It's a view that is supported by the latest evidence about life and the universe in biology, chemistry, physics, and even cosmology. And it represents a fatal flaw in the Darwinian story.
This is Part 1 of a 2-part conversation. This interview originally aired as a Socrates in the City event in 2022. We are grateful to Eric Metaxas for permission to share it. Watch the conversation in video form on YouTube. Read More ›
The RNA world is proposed by some to explain how early life began before DNA. But is RNA capable of maintaining a life-friendly self-replication rate? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes back Dr. Jonathan McLatchie to discuss another headache for the RNA world scenario. Before a trial and error process like natural selection can even get started, self-replicating molecules must have a minimal accuracy rate to copy genetic material effectively. The required fidelity rate is estimated to be 2%. Any error rate higher than that results in error catastrophe for organisms. The average error rate in RNA copying is estimated to be around 17%, vastly higher than the estimated maximum error threshold for survival. McLatchie explains the implications of this for chemical evolutionary theories like the RNA world hypothesis. He also explains how a Bayesian approach to this evidence can provide us with the likeliest explanation for the origin of biological life. "The sorts of features that we observe in life are not particularly surprising if we suppose that a mind is involved," says McLatchie. But things like minimal self-replication fidelity are wildly surprising on a naturalistic hypothesis. Read More ›
When it comes to biological life, even the simplest single-celled organism is an astonishingly complex multi-part system. Just how simple can a living cell get? On this ID The Future, Eric Anderson hosts another conversation with Dr. Robert Sadler to evaluate the claims of abiogenesis researchers. A recent Nature paper reports on an engineered minimal cell and how it contends with the "forces of evolution" compared to the non-minimal cell from which it was derived. In an attempt to find life's lowest common denominator, experimenters reduced the minimal cell down from 901 genes to 473 genes. The result was a fragile, irregular organism, sheltered and well cared for. But does this reduction in genomic complexity demonstrate evolution or devolution? Is it an unguided process at work or adaptation within the boundaries of an organism's design? "When people speak of evolution, they speak of random changes and natural selection," Sadler says. "But are they really random? Or does the organism have a built-in ability to change the genome to its own benefit?" Sadler puts the paper's results and claims in perspective for us. Read More ›
Has the accuracy of teaching on evolutionary theory improved in standard biology textbooks in recent years? On this ID The Future, host Daniel Reeves, Director of Education & Outreach at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, speaks with a recent high school graduate named Natalie about her senior year research project. Natalie has had an interest in evolution and intelligent design for years, and she's noticed that textbooks don't always cover important or controversial topics fairly. So when she discovered her school was trialing a new biology textbook, she decided to evaluate the proposed textbook's approach to accuracy and fairness in light of the available scientific evidence. Focusing on the fossil record and genetics, Natalie organized quotations from the textbook into three categories - misrepresented, underdeveloped, or well-aligned - based on how well they conveyed the available evidence. From whale evolution to genetic differences among organisms, Natalie found that more often than not, the textbook was misleading to students in the way it presented or omitted important scientific ideas. "High school students are in such a pivotal time in their life because they're forming their worldview," says Natalie. "And evolution is a theory on the origin of life...that's huge to answering those questions." Natalie encourages her fellow students, and anyone interested in origins, to question and dive deep as they evaluate competing ideas. As biologist and Center for Science and Culture Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells puts it at the start of his latest book, Zombie Science, this book is "dedicated to the students who will need to discern the truth for themselves." Here's one young scholar who is doing just that.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE
In the interview, Natalie shares her personal view that intelligent design should be included in public school science classrooms. However, as a matter of public policy, Discovery Institute opposes any effort to require the teaching of intelligent design by school districts or state boards of education. Attempts to require teaching about intelligent design only politicize the theory and will hinder fair and open discussion of the merits of the theory among scholars and within the scientific community. Furthermore, most teachers at the present time do not know enough about intelligent design to teach about it accurately and objectively.
Instead of recommending teaching about intelligent design in public K-12 schools, Discovery Institute seeks to increase the coverage of evolution in curriculum. It believes that evolution should be fully and completely presented to students, and they should learn more about evolutionary theory, including its unresolved issues. In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can’t be questioned. Read more of our recommendations for science curriculum here: https://www.discovery.org/a/3164/ Read More ›
Is your body engineered? Or did it evolve through impersonal, random processes over millions of years through natural selection? On this ID The Future, host Wesley J. Smith interviews engineer Steve Laufmann and physician Howard Glicksman about their recent book Your Designed Body. In their book, Laufmann and Glicksman evaluate the causal factors of Darwinism - heritability, random mutation, natural selection, and time - and find that they are both inadequate and incapable of producing the interconnected systems of the human body. "The systems that are required to make the human body work," says Laufmann, "are exactly the kinds of things that engineers design and build." Instead, they explain the body through the lens of engineering, showing that design is the most adequate mechanism currently available to explain how the origin of our amazing human bodies. Says Glicksman: "The more we understand how life actually works, the more the neo-Darwinian narrative becomes impossible." This is Part 1 of a two-part interview, originally airing on the Humanize podcast, a production of Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism. Read More ›
