philosophy of science

On this episode of ID the Future, Kirk Durston, a biophysicist focused on identifying high-information-density parts of proteins, completes a three-part series on three categories of science: experimental, inferential, and fantasy science. Fantasy science makes inferential leaps so huge that virtually none of it is testable, either by the standards of experimental science or by those of the historical sciences, which reason to the best explanation by process of elimination. One example of fantasy science, according to Durston, is the multiverse. As he insists, an imaginative story largely untethered from evidence and testing but told using math instead of literary devices is still an imaginative story untethered from evidence and testing. Scientism, “atheism dressed up in a lab coat,” can lead Read More ›

On this episode of ID the Future, biophysicist and philosopher Kirk Durston continue his discussion of three types of science: (1) experimental science, (2) inferential science, and (3) fantasy science. In this second of three episodes, Durston recaps the three types but focuses on inferential science. He explains how it involves, in the historical sciences, abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation), and he explains how such reasoning can be used as we consider the best explanation for the origin of biological information, and in such a way that it is rooted in observation.

On this episode of ID the Future, biophysicist and philosopher Kirk Durston discusses his recent article series about three types of science — (1) experimental science, which is generally very trustworthy, with some exceptions; (2) inferential science, which can be trustworthy but often takes huge leaps into the doubtable and dodgy; and (3) fantasy science, which is essentially science fiction masquerading as actual science. In this first of three episodes, Durston focuses on experimental science. Such science is, at its best, reproducible and verifiable. Durston says he has yet to find a true conflict between experimental, reproducible scientific observations and his religious faith. The contradictions he encountered were all between his faith and the inferences that some scientists were drawing 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, host Mike Keas and philosopher J. P. Moreland continue their conversation on Moreland’s new book Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology. Scientism is the view that science trumps all other knowledge, but Moreland and Keas reveal in this podcast just how much science depends on both philosophy and history. Scientism is, thus, self-defeating. Nevertheless, and as Moreland goes on to argue, it remains “at the bottom of the turmoil that is facing our culture,” and many young people are being sucked into its errors.

Today on ID the Future we hear from the editors of the major new Crossway book, Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique. Philosophers J.P. Moreland and Stephen Meyer examine contradictions right at the heart of theistic evolution, answer logical challenges directed back at intelligent design theory, and explain more than one severe issue with thinking science ever has or ever could thrive on its own, without strong support from both philosophy and theology.