ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
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Ola Hössjer

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Casey Luskin and Adam Shapiro Debate Intelligent Design, Pt. 2

This ID the Future continues the debate between design theorist Casey Luskin, an editor of The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, and science historian Adam Shapiro, co-author of Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction. Justin Brierley, of the popular British debate program Unbelievable?, hosts. In this second half of the conversation, Shapiro argues that intelligent design’s popularity seems to have waned. Casey Luskin counters, arguing that the number and frequency of New York Times articles on ID is a superficial metric and that the ID research program is exploding, with the number of peer-reviewed ID papers growing every year, and the number of interested graduate students, ID hubs, and conferences expanding around the world, including ID conferences attended by high-level scientists, including Nobel Laureates. Luskin and Shapiro also discuss religious and academic freedom as it relates to the teaching of evolution and intelligent design in the classroom. Shapiro is actually more sanguine than Luskin about the freedom of high school biology teachers to teach intelligent design. Luskin, who has both a PhD in geology and a law degree, strongly advises high school biology teachers in public schools against teaching ID in the classroom. Instead, he says, the better and legally safer approach is to teach evolutionary theory comprehensively, covering both the evidence for it but also some of the evidence in the peer-reviewed literature against it. Luskin and Shapiro also part company on the nature of the intelligent design argument, with Shapiro suggesting that in practice it often amounts to a presenter highlighting some amazing feature in biology and then giving glory to God. Luskin pushes back, reiterating that intelligent design is an argument based on positive evidence, and is an argument to the best explanation–intelligent design–one that employs standard methods of scientific reasoning. This program is presented here with permission of Justin Brierley. To see this and other Unbelievable? episodes, go here. The first half of this conversation can be found here.

violin music
Neck of violin with pegbox and scrool, on music sheet.

How Finely Tuned Is Our Universe?

On this ID the Future, Baylor University computer engineering professor Robert J. Marks hosts Ola Hössjer of Stockholm University and Daniel Díaz of the University of Miami to discuss a recent research paper the three contributed to the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, “Is Cosmological Tuning Fine or Coarse?” It turns out that’s no easy question to answer rigorously, but this is where the new paper comes in. In this episode the three unpack the long answer. What about the short answer? It’s akin to a description in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Space,” it informs us, “is big. Really big.” Measuring how finely tuned our universe is for life is all about searching large spaces of possibilities; and as it turns out, the space of fine-tuning possibilities is really, really big. Tune in to learn more. *This episode is reposted here by permission of Mind Matters News, a publication of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

Casey Luskin Returns, Teases a New Book, Celebrates ID 3.0

On today’s ID the Future, Rob Crowther continues his conversation with Casey Luskin, the intelligent design proponent who previously worked for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and has now returned. As Luskin explains, he left to pursue a PhD in geology at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. The two discuss the wild conspiracy theories circulated by opponents of intelligent design when Luskin stepped away from Discovery Institute five years ago. Luskin also tells about an upcoming book he’s been working on with William Dembski, another intelligent design proponent who stepped away from day-to-day ID work and is now putting a foot back in the ID waters. Also on tap in today’s conversation, Luskin and Dembski’s upcoming appearance at the 2021 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith, and advances in the ID 3.0 research initiative, including some recent peer-reviewed papers.