nature red in tooth and claw

Today’s ID the Future continues a lively and cordial conversation between atheist Michael Shermer and Stephen Meyer, author of Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe. In this segment of the four-part series, Shermer and Meyer discuss a fourth argument for theism, the moral law within. Then they discuss the similarities and differences between inferring design for something like the Rosetta Stone versus inferring intelligent design from the information in DNA or the fine tuning of the universe. The interview is reposted here by permission of Michael Shermer.

As a nod to Darwin Day and Black History Month, today’s ID the Future spotlights the racist thinking of Charles Darwin and the scientific racism fueled by Darwinism and Darwinists. As guest and historian Michael Flannery notes, Darwin’s followers, including Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, took ideas found in Darwin’s work and used them to vigorously press the case for eugenics, a movement that came to have a horrifying impact for American blacks in the twentieth century, including for thousands who were subjected to forced sterilizations.  Was Darwin’s racism purely a function of his time and place, Victorian England? Flannery says no, and on two counts. First, he says that the co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection, Alfred Read More ›

On this episode of ID the Future, From Darwin to Hitler author and historian Richard Weikart speaks with Mike Keas about a recent book on Darwinism, Christianity, and war by Michael Ruse. Weikart says that in the course of the book Ruse appears to shift from warning others about treating Darwinism as a secular religion to himself embracing it as such.

On this episode of ID The Future, John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science & Culture and author of Walt Disney and Live Action: The Disney Studio’s Live-Action Features of the 1950s and 60s talks about Walt Disney’s life-long fascination with evolution. By exploring the subtle messages promoted by Disney’s theme parks and animated features West shows that evolution rather than being a one-off was an recurring fascination of Disney’s. From the Magic Skyway created for the 1964 World’s Fair to the 1948 animated film Fantasia we see Disney’s recurrent contemplation of evolution. Fantasia explored worldviews from rationalism to materialism to animism. On first blush Fantasia’s “Rite of Spring” seems to promote Darwinian Materialism but is really an Read More ›