ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
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Robert J. Marks

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AI Expert: Pilots in TOP GUN–MAVERICK are Obsolete; You are Not

Today’s ID the Future features a recent Michael Medved Show with artificial intelligent expert Robert J. Marks, author of the new book Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will. The occasion for the conversation is an article by Marks about the Tom Cruise movie Top Gun: Maverick. In the article, Marks argues that, strictly in terms of optimal military tactics, the job of the human fighter pilots in the movie would have been better filled by drones. But as sanguine as Marks is about the possibilities for AI in military and other applications, he is among the loudest voices insisting that the AI community tends to overhype AI capabilities. In his conversation with Michael Medved, and in greater depth in his new book, Marks argues that AI will never replace certain roles and capacities possessed only by human soldiers. And AI, he says, will never be conscious or truly creative. While AI’s best days are still ahead, says Marks, AI will always be limited to what can be performed by an algorithm, in contrast to non-computable you, who face no such limitation.

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Amazing Insect Colonies vs. Evolution

On today’s ID the Future, Animal Algorithms author Eric Cassell delves into another fascinating portion of his new book, the programmed social behaviors of colony insects and the challenge these instinctive behaviors pose for modern evolutionary theory. Cassell and host Robert J. Marks discuss the complex caste system of these colonies, the impressive signaling systems they use to communicate, and how technologists study these tiny-brained creatures to learn tricks for developing and improving drone swarm technology. How could a mindless evolutionary process have evolved these sophisticated colonies, where various castes appear essential to the functioning and survival of the colony, and possess their division-of-labor skills instinctively? Some colony members also behave altruistically, a fact that Charles Darwin himself conceded posed a challenge to his theory. And what about all the growing number of orphan genes researchers are finding among colony insects—genes without any apparent evolutionary ancestry in the history of life? This too, Cassell argues, poses a major challenge to evolutionary theory. Cassell argues that underlying these complex instinctive social behaviors are complex algorithms not unlike those we find in computers; and, as he argues in the book, the best explanation for their origin is intelligent design. Learn more about the book, read the endorsements from a range of scientists and engineers, and pick up your copy here.

Animal Algorithms

New Book Spotlights High Tech Animal Navigation

Today’s ID the Future spotlights the new book Animal Algorithms: Evolution and the Mysterious Origin of Ingenious Instincts. The author, Eric Cassell, joins host and Baylor computer engineering professor Robert J. Marks to discuss the groundbreaking book and, in particular, the chapters on some of the animal kingdom’s most stunning navigators—the arctic tern, homing pigeons, the monarch butterfly, and the desert ant, among others. Cassell has degrees in biology and engineering, and he draws on these and his decades of professional expertise in aircraft navigation systems to show that these creatures instinctively employ navigational technologies that humans have only recently mastered. According to Cassell, their skills are driven by sophisticated algorithms embedded in their brains. But what created these algorithms in the first place? He argues that mindless evolution is a poor candidate for the job. A better candidate, he suggests, is the same cause that builds sophisticated algorithms today—intelligent agency. Tune in as Cassell and Marks touch on everything from magnetic, sun, and celestial navigation to chemotaxis, dead reckoning, spherical geometry, great circle routes, neural networks, and … Viking sun stones. Read the enthusiastic endorsements, and pick up your copy of the book here.

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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.

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Dependency Graph, Pt. 2: Winston Ewert Defends His Groundbreaking New ID Model

On this episode of ID the Future, Dr. Winston Ewert continues unpacking his new hypothesis challenging Darwin’s tree of life. Ewert is a software engineer, and his new model is inspired by the coder strategy of repurposing existing code, called modules, for different projects. Moreover, some of these modules depend on other modules, meaning you can generate a dependency graph to better understand the similarities and differences among software programs that share modules. Ewert argues that a dependency graph model better explains the pattern of similarities and differences in the history of life, better than a model of common descent by unguided evolution. As he also explains, the new model is testable in multiple ways.

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Why Digital Cambrian Explosions Fizzle … Or Fake It

This episode of ID the Future features a follow-up interview with Winston Ewert, co-author of An Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics.

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Darwin as the Pinball Wizard: Talking Probability with Robert Marks

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews Dr. Robert J. Marks, who recently published two papers with William Dembski and another paper with Dr. Dembski and graduate student Winston Ewert. This is Dr. Marks’ first IDTF interview since Baylor University shut down his pro-ID Evolutionary Informatics Lab, now available at a third-party website, EvoInfo.org.

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