Intelligent Design

Most people know Hawaii is famous for its beaches. But did you know it’s also home to one of the world’s leading stations for monitoring the atmosphere? On this ID The Future, self-taught citizen scientist Forrest Mims talks to host Andrew McDiarmid about the history and significance of the world-famous Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. He also shares some of his own experiences and adventures there over the last quarter century. In this episode, Mims reminds us of his dust-up with Scientific American, a controversy that would ultimately launch his career as an atmospheric scientist. He introduces us to some of the pioneering explorers and scientists who set the stage for atmospheric science in Hawaii, including Archibald Menzies, Charles Wilkes, Read More ›

On today’s ID The Future, philosopher of science Dr. Stephen Meyer continues his conversation with Praxis Circle’s Doug Monroe. In this section of a multi-part interview, Dr. Meyer discusses two of the crucial arguments of his latest book Return of the God Hypothesis: the information embedded in DNA code that demands an explanation, and the fine-tuning of the physical properties of the universe and what’s wrong with recent attempts to explain that fine-tuning by resorting to a theory of multiple universes. Dr. Meyer also addresses the question: can there be a theory of everything? Dig Deeper

When we gain new information about beliefs we hold, it’s good practice to update our viewpoints accordingly to avoid incoherence in our thinking. On today’s ID The Future, host Jonathan McLatchie invites professor and author Dr. Tim McGrew to the show to discuss how Bayesian reasoning can help us maintain coherence across our set of beliefs. The pair also apply Bayesian logic to the debate over Darwinian evolution to show that a confidence in design arguments can be mathematically rigorous and logically sound. Bayesian logic provides a mathematical way to update prior probabilities with new information to produce a more realistic likelihood ratio. And when it comes to evaluating different hypotheses, small pieces of evidence can add up. “Even evidence Read More ›