The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism, Pt. 1
On this episode of ID the Future, we recognize the 75th anniversary this month of the publication of C. S. Lewis’s prophetic science fiction novel That Hideous Strength, with the first slightly abridged part of John West’s documentary The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism. Several scholars were interviewed for the film, including Jay Richards, Angus Menuge, Victor Reppert, John West, and Michael Aeschliman. Scientism is the idea that science is the ultimate path to knowledge and wisdom — the only sure path — and that the spiritual realm is a mirage. Lewis never criticized science, only scientism, the abuse of science that bears an unexpected twinship with magic.
John Lennox Talks AI, SciFi, Transhumanism and the Image of God
On this episode of ID the Future, host Robert Marks continues his conversation with Oxford University mathematician John Lennox about Lennox’s new book 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. Lennox reviews mythology and science fiction writing stretching from the ancient poet Hesiod to the novelist Dan Brown and MIT physicist Max Tegmark. He says that artificial intelligence (AI) predictions down through the ages are all heavily dependent on theological and philosophical presuppositions. He and Marks also discuss AI’s cousin, transhumanism, its surprising history, and its potentially very dark future, including the risk of what C.S. Lewis called “the abolition of man.”
John Lennox on What (Not) to Expect of AI in 2084
On this episode of ID the Future, host Robert Marks interviews Oxford University mathematician John Lennox on Lennox’s new book 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. It’s a wide-ranging discussion about AI’s advantages already being realized, in medicine, for example; AI’s supposed potential to achieve human-like consciousness; ethical issues that AI programmers will have to grapple with; effects that AI will have on the economy and individual workers; and the risks associated with living in an AI world where every movement is tracked. A key question as we move toward this future, says Lennox, is what does it mean to be human?
C. S. Lewis and Intelligent Design
On the episode of ID the Future we bring you a production by Discovery Institute about C.S. Lewis and Intelligent Design. With contributions by Discovery Institute’s John West and philosophers Victor Reppert and Angus Menuge, we hear about Lewis’s early doubts about God based in part on an argument from undesign or “bad design” in nature, and how he moved from this position to developing multiple arguments for intelligent design. Another contribution he made to the intelligent design project wasn’t a specific argument but the example he set. As John West explains near the end of the episode, one of his greatest contributions was a commitment to free inquiry and open debate, one he modeled while a professor at Oxford Read More ›
Michael Egnor on Atheist Jerry Coyne’s Divine Sense Organ
On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid brings listeners a pair of Michael Egnor responses to atheist biologist Jerry Coyne, who recently argued that if God existed, we’d have sense organs to detect Him. We do have that organ, says Egnor. It’s reason, the means by which we can infer the reality of a designing mind behind nature.
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Aeschliman on Three Great Authors Critiquing Scientism
On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid concludes his two-part conversations with Michael Aeschliman, author of the newly revised and expanded The Restoration of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism. Here Aeschliman places Lewis among a strong line of thinkers critiquing scientism, including the philosopher/mathematician Blaise Pascal, who showed that scientific knowledge on its own could never be sufficient for being fully human; the theologian and physicist Stanley L. Jaki, who brilliantly integrated science and theology; and the great English author Jonathan Swift, whose satirical work skewered the illusions of scientific reductionism.
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Aeschliman Talks C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, and That Hideous Strength
Gelernter, Meyer, Berlinski Deny Darwinism, Pt. 3
On this episode of ID the Future we hear the final portion of a three-part series featuring Discovery Institute’s Stephen Meyer and David Berlinski along with distinguished Yale computer science professor David Gelernter, who recently gave up Darwinism thanks in part to their books. Led by Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson, they discuss the hard problem of consciousness, how Darwinism functions as a religious dogma that punishers dissenters, and whether biology can ever “get over Darwin and move on.” This interview is presented here courtesy of Peter Robinson and the Hoover Institution.
Michael Keas on Atheism’s Futurist Myth
On this episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid and historian of science Michael Keas turn from the past to the future. With Keas’ new ISI book Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion as a launching point, Keas describes the surprisingly religious role played by much modern-day atheistic science fiction. Despite some notable exceptions, especially C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, “modern day atheism is becoming more and more indistinguishable from the occult, and science fiction is a part of that,” Keas tells us. And who are the gods of the new occult? Listen in and learn.