ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
Topic

Materialism

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Assembled by Andrew McDiarmid. Book art courtesy Discovery Institute.

Bioengineer Stuart Burgess Reads From New Book Ultimate Engineering

A good way to evaluate scientific theories of origins is to ask what we’d expect to find if the given hypothesis were true and compare that to what we actually observe. Under a Darwinian explanation of life, we’d expect to see designs cobbled together by a blind, undirected process, substandard designs that work but that, in the words of one scientist, wouldn’t win any prizes at an engineering competition. But when we compare that expectation with the scientific evidence, they don’t match up at all. On today's ID The Future, award-winning British engineer and designer Stuart Burgess reads excerpts from his new book Ultimate Engineering. He’s going to share just enough with you today to whet your appetite for reading his book, which is chock full of evidence that humans and other organisms contain countless examples of not just so-so, not just good or very good, but optimal engineering in the design of systems and structures that keep living things alive. Read More ›
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Image copyright Discovery Institute.

Ultimate Engineering: An Interview with Bioengineer Stuart Burgess

Evolutionary theory predicts a living world crowded with substandard designs. But as today’s guest reveals, the latest science has discovered just the opposite—designs so advanced they are at the limit of the possible, precisely as proponents of the theory of intelligent design have anticipated. On this episode of ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes to the show award-winning British engineer and designer Stuart Burgess to begin a two-part conversation with me about the extraordinary engineering feats of the human body: ingenious systems and devices that demonstrate what Burgess calls Ultimate Engineering. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 in a separate episode! Read More ›
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Family, Support, Elderly Care, Assistance, Seniors Concept. Grandmother In Bed.
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Mind and Soul at the Threshold of Death

Does the brain explain the mind completely? And what can phenomena like terminal lucidity and near-death experiences reveal about the relationship between mind and brain? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid concludes his two-part conversation exploring those questions with neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor, co-author with Denyse O’Leary of the recent book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul, and Alexander Batthyany, a leading researcher on terminal lucidity and author of Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border Between Life and Death. In the first half of the conversation, we defined terminal lucidity and explored why it’s so puzzling. Today, we look at how it relates to near-death experiences, and we ask a deeper question: what does this phenomenon suggest about the nature of the human mind? This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
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MRI of head of elderly woman in hands of doctor standing in medical ward near senior patient with relative and nurse. Recovery after a stroke
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Terminal Lucidity: When the Mind Outlasts the Brain

Why would the human mind sometimes appear strongest when the brain is weakest? On today's ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes to the show neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor, co-author with Denyse O’Leary of the recent book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul, and Alexander Batthyany, a leading researcher on terminal lucidity and author of Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border Between Life and Death. The trio begins a two-part conversation discussing the phenomenon of terminal lucidity: what it is, what the evidence shows, and how it relates to debates about consciousness, mind, and human identity. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
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Star explosion in a galaxy of an unknown universe
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Irreducible Intelligence: The Ultimate Origin of Biological Information

What is the ultimate origin of the information that powers life and the universe? For materialists, matter and energy are the fundamental stuff of life, but an even more crucial element is missing from that equation: information. And as our parents likely reminded us, you don't get anything in this life for free. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid concludes his four-part conversation with mathematician and philosopher Dr. William Dembski about his work on the law of conservation of information and how it can help us critically evaluate scientific theories of origins. In this final segment, Dembski explains the ultimate origin of information: what he calls irreducible intelligence. Don't miss other segments of this conversation in separate episodes! Read More ›
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Applying Information Conservation to Biological Origins

Nothing's free in life. It's a sobering reality we all come to realize in life. And this cold, hard truth also applies to the realm of biology. On today's ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid continues his four-part discussion with mathematician and philosopher Dr. William Dembski. The topic is Dembski's work on the law of conservation of information, a principle asserting that information within a search process is redistributed from pre-existing sources rather than materializing from nothing. In addition to being used in computer science and physics, the law can also be applied to theories of biological origins to evaluate which theory best comports with the reality that all information comes with a cost, and that cost must be adequately explained. This is Part 3 of a four-part conversation. Read More ›
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nautilus shell
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Why Intelligence is Necessary to Explain Nature’s Functional Information

We already have a well-established law that shows us how order can decrease in a physical system. But is there a law that explains an increase in order? Scientists have been looking for "nature's missing law" for a while, and while they might be asking the right questions, their training in a bottom-up reductionist framework is leading them to the wrong answers. On this ID The Future, mathematician and philosopher Dr. William Dembski continues a four-part conversation with host Andrew McDiarmid about his work on the law of conservation of information and its implications for theories that attempt to explain the origin of life and the universe. This is Part 2 of a four-part conversation. Read More ›
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Little boy hunting for egg in spring garden on Easter day. Traditional easter festival outdoors. Focus on multicolor eggs.
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Bill Dembski Reveals the Hidden Cost of Information

Chances are you’re already familiar with specified complexity, one of the mathematical pillars of the theory of intelligent design. There’s another pillar that is much less well known but equally vital: the law of conservation of information. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid begins a four-part conversation with mathematician and philosopher Dr. William Dembski. The conversation unpacks Dembski’s work on the law of conservation of information and its implications for scientific theories like Darwinian evolution. In Part 1, Dr. Dembski begins by defining information fundamentally as the narrowing of possibilities, where specifying one outcome excludes others. Using his a simple analogy of location, he explains that identifying a specific place, like the town of Aubrey, Texas, provides more Read More ›

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Scientist with equipment and science experiments ,laboratory glassware containing chemical liquid for design or decorate your content,microscopoe .Pipette dropping a sample into a test tube
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Dr. Edward Peltzer: The Messy Reality of Prebiotic Chemistry

On today's ID the Future, host Casey Luskin continues a deep dive into the mounting hurdles facing origin of life (OOL) research with prebiotic synthesis expert Dr. Edward Peltzer. Peltzer, a seasoned ocean chemist and researcher, breaks down the critical flaws in the RNA world hypothesis, revealing that many successful lab experiments actually rely on investigator interference—intelligently designed interventions that researchers must make in experiments in order to yield results. But that's not how the prebiotic atmosphere would have worked, notes Peltzer: "Unless you've got graduate students and post-docs working on the early Earth to set up these conditions that were used in the experiments, it's not gonna happen." Peltzer also discusses how the goalposts of origin-of-life theory keep moving as our understanding of cellular complexity expands. And he shares a personal story of censorship as the discussion ends by exploring the risks faced by scientists who question the standard evolutionary paradigm. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 1 in a separate episode. Read More ›
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Iceland geothermal zone Namafjall - area in field of Hverir. Landscape which pools of boiling mud and hot springs. Tourist and natural attractions.
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Expert: Without Intelligence, Organic Chemistry Leads to Degradation, Not Life

By now, you may have heard about some of the problems facing the field of origin-of-life research. Maybe you’ve come across Dr. James Tour making the argument that origin-of-life researchers are nowhere near their goal of creating life in a lab or proving a chemical evolutionary scenario for the origin of life. On today's ID The Future, we hear from another expert in origin-of-life chemistry and prebiotic synthesis: Dr. Edward Peltzer. Host Casey Luskin begins a conversation with Peltzer about the significant chemical hurdles facing origin-of-life research, specifically regarding the synthesis of biological building blocks. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 in a separate episode. Read More ›