ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
Topic

Richard Dawkins

peacock feather close up. Peafowl feather background. Mor pankh. Beautiful feather.

A Philosopher’s Defense of Intelligent Design

At its core, intelligent design is the science of detecting design. It's a broadly accepted method used by scientists of all stripes in a variety of scientific disciplines. But when design hypotheses are applied to biology, cosmology, or physics, some claim it's no longer a scientific pursuit. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid talks to philosopher and author Peter S. Williams about his recent book An Informed Cosmos: Essays on Intelligent Design Theory. Read More ›
London, England - December 4, 2019: Statue of Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist and biologist in Natural History Museum. London, United Kingdom.

Fooled by Darwinism: One Scholar’s Cautionary Tale

On this ID the Future from the vault, Taking Leave of Darwin author Neil Thomas and host Jonathan Witt continue their conversation about Thomas’s journey from Darwinian materialism to theistic humanism and a thorough skepticism of Darwinian theory. Hear Thomas draw a link between Darwin's theory and the animistic thinking of pagan thought stretching back to the ancient Greeks. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
Spiral stairway abstract swirl hypnotising perspective. View downstairs to infinity circular stairs glowing in yellow light background

How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature

Is the universe meaningful or meaningless? Purposeful or pointless? On this ID The Future, enjoy the second half of an interview with Dr. Jonathan Witt about the evidence of purpose and meaning built into the universe. In the second half of a conversation, Dr. Witt describes four characteristics common in works of human genius and shows that these same hallmarks are also found in the natural world. Don't miss the first half of the interview, available in a previous episode. Read More ›
Vintage book of poetry outdoors

A Cosmos Charged With Meaning and Purpose

Nearly 30 years ago, physicist Steven Weinberg wrote that “[t]he more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.” But is our universe really just a meaningless accident? Or can we detect true genius by studying its workings? On this ID The Future, we are pleased to share the first half of an interview with Dr. Jonathan Witt about the central questions of his 2006 book A Meaningful World, co-written with Benjamin Wiker. Witt explains that the more we learn about the universe, the more it seems laden with meaning. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
Romanesco broccoli close up. The fractal vegetable is known for it's connection to the fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio. Fun food for any practical scientists that loves mathematics

A New Design Inference for a New Generation

Is there an empirical method to determine whether a system is the product of chance or design? On this ID The Future, physicist Brian Miller concludes a two-part conversation with Dr. William Dembski about a new updated second edition of his classic book The Design Inference. In many ways, the 2nd edition of The Design Inference is a brand new book. Dr. Dembski teases out what is new and updated, and he also discusses what it was like to team up with software engineer Winston Ewert on the project. He even gives us a sneak preview of his next book, covering the conservation of information. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Read More ›
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Sunset over Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, U.S.A.

Bill Dembski Reflects on The Origins of a Classic

Hailed as "sparklingly original" and an "important contribution", mathematician William Dembski's 1998 book The Design Inference gave the modern design hypothesis a firm empirical footing and quickly inspired demonization and dismissal from disgruntled Darwinists. Twenty-five years later, Dembski's arguments stand firm, and a second edition with fresh analysis and insight is now available to a new generation of truth seekers. On this ID The Future, physicist Brian Miller invites Dr. Dembski to take us back to the 1980s to tell us the story of how The Design Inference came to be. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 next! Read More ›
composite-image-of-composite-image-of-dna-helix-stockpack-adobe-stock
Composite image of composite image of dna helix

Design or Chance? Casey Luskin on The Andrew Klavan Show

On this ID The Future, we're pleased to share Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan's recent interview with Dr. Casey Luskin. Klavan loves science, but he smells a rat when famous scientists like Richard Dawkins use their displaced authority to make proclamations about science's relationship with religion. So after reading Luskin's recent Daily Wire article about progressives and their long history of banning intelligent design from the classroom, Klavan invited Luskin on his show to help his viewers better understand the theory of intelligent design and the reality of the evolutionary paradigm. Luskin starts with the meanings of evolution and the questions that guide intelligent design researchers. He cites plenty of examples of design from biology and cosmology. Klavan then asks how badly people get censored for considering design perspectives in their work. Luskin explains, using the case of physicist Eric Hedin and his treatment at Ball State University as an example. Luskin rounds out the conversation by explaining how intelligent design uses the scientific method to detect the hallmarks of design in both living systems and the universe at large. "Science never gives us, under any conditions, absolute certainty," Luskin notes. "What it can allow us to do, though, is we can use the methods of historical sciences to infer the best explanation for a given situation given what we know about how the world works." Read More ›
Bruegel tower of babel
Vienna, Austria. 2019/10/23.

David Berlinski on His New Book, Science After Babel

On today’s ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid rings up Science After Babel author David Berlinski in Paris to discuss the philosopher’s latest book. Berlinski is at his cultivated best as the two discuss everything from the biblical Tower of Babel as a metaphor for modern materialistic science, to his friendship with the brilliant and colorful French intellectual Marcel Schützenberger, a world-class mathematician who was self-taught and, as we learn here, came within a hair’s breadth of being swept up in the Chinese Revolution. Berlinski also reflects on the seminal 1966 WISTAR symposium, which laid out some mathematical challenges to Darwinism, challenges that Berlinski says remain unanswered to this day. At the same time, Berlinski gives the devil—here Darwinism—its due. Tune in for this and more, and order your copy of Berlinski’s Science After Babel here.

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The Dawkins Test Returns an Answer: Intelligent Design

In 2009 atheist biologist Richard Dawkins offered a scientific test to decide between Darwinian evolution and intelligent design (ID). The results are in, and as guest Casey Luskin explains on this ID the Future, the evidence has broken strongly in favor of intelligent design. At the time Dawkins presented the test, he was confident that comparative DNA evidence supported Darwin’s tree of life and its idea of universal common ancestry. He made the point in his 2009 book The Greatest Show on Earth and in two interviews. As he put it, “The single most convincing fact or observation you could point to” in favor of Darwinian evolution over against ID “would be the pattern of resemblances that you see when you compare the genes … of any pair of animals you like … and then plot out the resemblances and they form a perfect hierarchy, a perfect family tree. And the only alternative to it being a family tree is that the intelligent designer deliberately set out to deceive us in the most underhanded and devious manner.” But fourteen years later the picture looks very different. Tune in as Casey Luskin details the various ways that the rapidly developing field of phylogenomics is uncovering data that powerfully fits the ID model of life’s history and strongly undermines the idea of universal common ancestry via mindless evolution. As Luskin says in a recent Evolution News article, “Now, years later, scientists have sequenced a great number of whole genomes. And as a consequence, they know that Dawkins was wrong. Every gene does not deliver ‘approximately the same tree of life.’… On its own terms, the Dawkins test for evolution has come up for ID.” So why haven’t evolutionary biologists given up on universal common ancestry? Luskin says that some have, while others reflexively invoke auxiliary hypotheses and employ question-begging computer models to generate tree-like ancestries in the face of contrary data. Luskin compares the behavior to astronomers who protected the dying geocentric model of the solar system by invoking “epicycles” to explain away contrary astronomical data. Better to let the Dawkins Test speak for itself, Luskin says. Listen in for the full story.

maropeng museum cradle humankind
Maropeng Besucherzentrum im Craddle of Human Kind in Südafrika

Casey Luskin Debunks One Museum’s Evolutionary Propaganda

On today’s ID the Future, geologist Casey Luskin continues to unpack his recently published essay against the view that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors via blind Darwinian processes. In this episode he shares his experience of walking into the fossil hall at South Africa’s famous Maropeng Museum and immediately being confronted by a piece of shameless materialist propaganda, a Richard Dawkins quotation prominently displayed as part of a floor-to-ceiling display. The quotation insisted that humans are essentially just DNA survival machines. Luskin says, not so fast, and points out the various ways such a view fails to explain important aspects of human behavior, including altruistic behavior toward non-kin. Luskin and host Eric Anderson also call evolutionary theory to task for being overly supple, with its adherents regularly employing vague just-so stories to explain virtually any behavior or feature AND its opposite. To read Luskin’s essay on the subject, get the new free online ID book from South Africa, Science and Faith in Dialogue, with contributions from Luskin, Stephen Meyer, Hugh Ross, Guillermo Gonzalez, James Tour, Fazale Rana, Marcos Eberlin, and others. Find Part 1 in this Anderson/Luskin podcast series here, and Part 2 here.