Pt. 4: Stephen Meyer and Skeptic Michael Shermer
This ID the Future wraps up a lively four-part series between religious skeptic Michael Shermer and Return of the God Hypothesis author and philosopher of science Stephen Meyer. Here Meyer underscores the fact that every worldview must posit something as the prime reality, and he argues that positing mind (rather than matter) as the prime reality solves far more problems in science, and not just in origins science. What about the idea of a multiverse to explain the fine tuning of the laws and constants of physics? Meyer concedes that this is a solution of sorts, but it comes at a tremendous cost, which he explains. That’s just a taste of where Meyer and Shermer go in this final segment. Also threading its way through this rich finale–Deepak Chopra’s eastern take on reality, the mind-bending idea of absolute nothingness, mind-body dualism, Michael Polanyi, John Searle, and even a cameo appearance from the Boltzmann brain. This podcast series is posted here by permission of Michael Shermer. The full video conversation is available here.
How to Destroy Love with Darwinism
On today’s ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid presents an Evolution News essay, “How to Destroy Love with Darwinism.” Altruism as defined by evolutionists means “behavior by an animal that may be to its disadvantage but that benefits others of its kind.” It’s not an easy fit with Darwinism, since Darwinian evolution is all about passing your favored genes onto your offspring. How can a creature do that if she gives her life for another, particularly when it’s not even her own children, and before she has produced any offspring? Such individuals fail to pass on their own genes — a seeming conundrum for Darwinism. Evolutionists have made some progress (they think) explaining such things with theories of group selection or kin selection. But those explanations face some fresh challenges and don’t even begin to explain self-sacrificial acts done for non-kin, a behavior we see among humans. From a design perspective, though, such behaviors are not baffling, for they are not genetically determined acts, as if humans are only wet robots governed by genes. They are acts of true self-sacrificial love, done freely and made possible because reality is more than matter and energy, and humans are more than just DNA survival machines.
Tom Gilson Reviews J.P. Moreland’s New Book on the Dangers of Scientism
On this episode of ID the Future, Tom Gilson reviews J.P. Moreland’s new book Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology. Moreland’s book explains scientism as irrational, self-refuting, and contradictory to crucial human and spiritual knowledge — yet it hangs over and around all of us like the air we breathe. And because it’s everywhere you turn, Moreland argues, it’s vital that we learn to recognize and respond to it. This review first appeared in print at The Stream, where Gilson is a senior editor. Please consider donating to support the IDTF Podcast.
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