It's easy to be blown away by the examples of engineering prowess in the human body. But it can be challenging to turn that evidence into a robust argument for intelligent design you can share with skeptical friends and colleagues. To help you learn to do that, host Andrew McDiarmid begins a roundtable discussion with not one, not two, not three, but four guests to the podcast, all part of our team of resident scientists at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture: geologist and lawyer Casey Luskin, biochemist and metabolic nutritionist Emily Reeves, biologist Jonathan McLatchie, and physicist Brian Miller. The first half of the discussion kicks off with a review of the basics of design detection, including various methods for empirically detecting the hallmarks of design in nature. After that, these four experts take turns diving into examples of extraordinary design in the human body. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
You might already have heard that the laws that govern our universe are finely tuned to allow for our existence. But beneath the special numbers of the universe lies an even deeper mystery: the laws of nature themselves. On today's ID The Future, join host Brian Miller as he begins a two-part conversation with physicist Aaron Zimmer and mathematician Ellie Feder, hosts of the Physics to God podcast, as they discuss their new work arguing for an intelligent cause based on the qualitative structure of reality's rules.
The dream of finding a unique, logically necessary "theory of everything" has failed, which leaves an intriguing question: Why these specific laws? Zimmer and Feder explain why fundamental forces like gravity and complex systems like quantum mechanics are uniquely designed to produce a complex universe featuring atoms, molecules, stars, and life. The new argument focuses on the fundamental qualitative structure of the laws of nature, rather than the finely tuned quantities. Zimmer and Feder argue that these laws are not logically necessary, debunking the idea that a unique "theory of everything" could explain them. Instead, the laws are uniquely designed to produce a complex universe.
This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
No amount of small, blind, and gradual changes to the steam engine could ever have produced the internal combustion engine. To get to that fundamentally new type of engine, an infusion of new information was required. That analogy can be applied to the origin of biological life too. The spectacular order, complexity, and design we see in life could not have been achieved gradually by a process that lacked foresight. On today's ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes mathematician Granville Sewell to the podcast to share some of his compelling arguments for intelligent design.
We might think that mathematicians are focused on incredibly complex ideas and equations, way above the everyday thoughts of the rest of us. But as Sewell points out, mathematicians are trained to value simplicity, and complex problems can often be solved in simple ways. Sewell's straightforward, yet profound arguments for intelligent design are worth memorizing and sharing with your friends, family, and associates. Read More ›
Failed ideas tend to eventually crumble under the weight of contrary evidence. Is modern evolutionary theory heading for the same fate? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid speaks to biochemist Michael J. Behe about his core arguments for intelligent design and his recent experience sharing them at an Ivy League school. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and author of Darwin's Black Box, recently presented some of his ID arguments to faculty, students, and post-docs at Cornell University. Behe reveals how his talk was received and shares some of his key insights highlighting the problems with Darwinian evolution. Read More ›
Did God use evolution to create life? On this ID The Future, we’re sharing the second half of a recent conversation with Dr. Casey Luskin that originally aired on the Truthful Hope podcast. Casey is critiquing theistic evolution, the view that God used evolutionary mechanisms to create life. In today's episode, he continues by next addressing the inadequacy of natural selection and random mutation to generate biological complexity. Luskin also points out that even non-ID scientists have expressed skepticism about the explanatory power of neo-Darwinism. All this makes it very hard to justify the position of theistic evolutionists, who claim God uses evolution to create life. In reality, the more we learn about the complexity and design of life, the less adequate neo-Darwinism is as an explanation. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
Some people attempt to reconcile belief in God with the standard evolutionary account of life's origins by combining the two. Theistic evolution is the view that God used evolutionary mechanisms to create life. But does this view stand up to scrutiny? Today, Dr. Casey Luskin critiques this perspective in the first half of a conversation that originally aired on the Truthful Hope podcast.
The conversation kicks off with some clarity over terms, including what is meant by “evolution.” The theistic evolution perspective, also sometimes called evolutionary creation, accepts the standard scientific evolutionary account—the same view held by atheists—and simply adds the theological claim, "but this is how God did it". Critically, these proponents reject the idea that design can be empirically or scientifically detected in nature. As Luskin highlights, the central scientific problem with theistic evolution is that it inherits all the numerous scientific problems associated with the standard evolutionary account. This first half of the conversation rounds out with examples of those problems, specifically from the issue of the origin of life. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
Here's an experienced scientist who thinks YOU should have the power to settle the question of design in nature, not the scientific experts. Why? Because the majority of scientific authorities are committed scientific materialists, a view that hinders unbiased scientific inquiry by forbidding explanations outside the material realm. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid concludes his conversation with recently retired bio-scientist Dr. Michael Kent. In Part 2, Dr. Kent continues to unpack the scientific discoveries of the last century that have changed the debate over design in nature and made materialism an increasingly irrational view of the history of life and the universe. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
What you believe about the origin of life and the universe affects everything you do. So it's crucial that you decide for yourself whether the design that's evident in nature is the product of a designer or the outcome of a blind, unguided process. Today on ID The Future, retired bioscientist Dr. Michael Kent explains how we can take back important scientific decisions that belong to us and not to a scientific elite largely guided by materialist assumptions. Kent also reviews some of the top evidence for intelligent design, including the revolutionary discoveries that the universe had a beginning and is finely tuned for human life. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 in a separate episode. Read More ›
In 1984, three scientists dared to probe the mystery of life's origin by putting the prevailing theories of prebiotic and chemical evolution to the test. One of those men was engineer Walter Bradley. Today, Dr. Robert J. Marks joins host Andrew McDiarmid to share some of his personal anecdotes and professional insights about Dr. Bradley, a scientist, humanitarian, and trailblazer in the world of intelligent design who passed away this summer at the age of 81. A Distinguished Fellow of the Discovery Institute, Bradley taught mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University, Baylor University, and the Colorado School of Mines. His book, co-authored with chemist Charles Thaxton and geochemist Roger Olsen, deeply influenced prominent figures in the intelligent design research community like Stephen Meyer, Douglas Axe, and Jay Richards and helped to catalyze a new generation of inquiry into life’s beginnings. The Mystery of Life's Origin was re-released in 2020 as a new, expanded second edition. Read More ›
Every day your body must solve hundreds of hard engineering problems simultaneously, or else you’ll die. These problems involve multiple coordinated, integrated systems that have to come online, not gradually, but all at once and at just the right time and place. Can an evolutionary process explain the development of these systems? You be the judge. On today's ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes Steve Laufmann, co-author with Dr. Howard Glicksman of the new book Your Amazing Body, a fresh, abridged version of their previous book Your Designed Body. In this discussion, Laufmann brings his engineering background to bear on the marvels of human anatomy, showing us how the human body is not just functional but brilliantly designed. We’ll explore how engineering intersects with biology, how an engineer and a physician worked together to lay out this evidence, and what the new streamlined book can offer readers. Read More ›
