origin of life

On this episode of ID the Future, Robert Marks continues his conversation with Walter Bradley, co-author (with Charles Thaxton and Roger Olsen) of the groundbreaking 1984 work The Mystery of Life’s Origin. A revised and expanded edition of the book has just been released with new contributions from James Tour, Guillermo Gonzalez, Stephen Meyer, and others, but today Bradley and Marks discuss the book’s first release, including the cultural context that made finding a non-religious publisher an uphill battle, and discussion of some of the endorsements and early reviews, including one drive-by and four positive responses from distinguished scientists Robert Jastrow, Dean Kenyon, Robert Shapiro, and Fritz Schaefer. Bradley and Marks also discuss some scholars who more recently have testified Read More ›

On this episode of ID the Future, Robert J. Marks interviews Walter Bradley, co-author of the seminal 1984 ID book The Mystery of Life’s Origin, now being released in a revised and expanded edition with updates from multiple contributors discussing the progress (or lack of it) in origins science in the 35 years since the book’s original publication. In this first of two podcasts, Bradley discusses the history of the attempts to explain life’s origin naturalistically, and how the three authors of the 1984 book came together to shake up the world of origin-of-life science.

On this episode of ID the Future, physicist Dr. Brian Miller explains several challenges to the origin of life, from thermodynamic challenges to the need for complex systems to create complex systems: information processing, energy production, manufacturing, auto-assembly, control systems, and feedback loops are all required from the start.

On this episode of ID the Future, author and radio host Eric Metaxas interviews Stephen Meyer at the 2019 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith. Meyer, author of the New York Times bestseller Darwin’s Doubt and director of the Center for Science and Culture, tells how he started out asking the “why” questions — some of the same ones Isaac Newton had wondered about — questions that remain with us today. A few years later, in the 1980s, he happened onto a science/faith conference (also in Dallas), and that started him on his journey of studying, writing, and teaching on intelligent design. Please consider donating to support the IDTF Podcast.

On this episode of ID the Future, Rabbi Moshe Averick, author of Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused World of Modern Atheism, responds to the objection that intelligent design is a feeble “God of the Gaps” approach, an argument from ignorance. Provocative and entertaining, Averick describes the attack as “less than feeble.” He says it isn’t because of what we don’t know, but because of what we do know. He offers as an illustration the widespread skepticism in the physics community toward the possibility of anyone ever building a perpetual motion machine. Their skepticism is not driven by ignorance of how to build such a machine, Averick notes. It’s driven by their knowledge of the fundamental laws of physics. Read More ›

On this episode of ID the Future, host Robert Crowther speaks with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jay Richards, a speaker at last weekend’s Dallas Conference on Science & Faith. Coming available soon on video, this conference featured Richards, Eric Metaxas, Stephen Meyer, and world-renowned synthetic organic chemist James Tour — plus a surprise guest. For all the great presenters there, though, Richards’ favorite feature of the conference was the thousand attendees — some of them skeptics — who stayed straight through to the close and beyond, asking questions and learning that science, more than ever, supports faith in a designing intelligence.

On this episode of ID the Future we hear part one of Dennis Prager’s remarkable Prager Show conversation with Dr. Stephen Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Prager had been agnostic on evolution, but reading and talking with Meyer changed his mind, he says. And it wasn’t any religious concerns, Prager explains. It was the science. Please consider donating to support the IDTF Podcast.

On this episode of ID the Future, host Sarah Chaffee and biologist Ann Gauger discuss panspermia, the topic of a peer-reviewed paper published recently by several very serious scientists. Panspermia tries to sidestep problems in origins biology by suggesting that, to quote the title of an old science fiction movie, “it came from outer space.” And yes, maybe even aliens sent it our way. Maybe (honest — this is a real theory) the first octopuses came here special delivery, as encapsulated embryos falling from the sky. Anything but intelligent design, for these very serious scientists.

On this episode of ID The Future, Sarah Chaffee talks with physicist Dr. Brian Miller about a recent article that argues that the fundamental basis of the universe is information. In this episode, Miller explains how physicists have come to rethink the role of information, moving from a materialist view in which information is seen as a byproduct of matter to a view in which information is seen as fundamental to the fabric of the cosmos.