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

Science and faith

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Bidding Adieu to Steven Weinberg’s Take on Science and Faith

On today’s ID the Future, Casey Luskin, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, discusses his Evolution News article about the recently deceased Steven Weinberg. On Weinberg’s view, one of science’s social functions is to undermine religion, which he sees as superstition. Luskin takes the opposite view and points to skilled and successful scientists he got to know in Africa. He says these scientists are convinced that the supernatural is real and would find Weinberg’s secular Western rejection of the supernatural as blinkered. Luskin and host Robert Crowther also discuss a hopeful trend among some atheists toward a more civil and respectful way of engaging intelligent design, even to the point of acknowledging that design theorists are making thoughtful, substantive arguments. Luskin summarizes six lines of evidence for design, and encourages people to escape the internet atheist bubble and read the best ID scholars firsthand rather than depending on strawman summaries of those arguments.

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Jay Richards: Before Carl Sagan Said It, Science Debunked It

On today’s ID the Future, Privileged Planet co-author Jay W. Richards sits down with host Eric Anderson to discuss the gold rush of extrasolar planet discovery and how the Privileged Planet hypothesis has held up since 2004. Richards teases an anniversary edition of The Privileged Planet in the works, and he and Anderson discuss the statement that Carl Sagan is perhaps most famous for. Richards explains how science had already disproven the famous Sagan claim by the time the astronomer first uttered it to millions of viewers in his documentary series Cosmos.

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Science and Faith: Stephen Meyer on the Marc Bernier Show

On today’s ID the Future, listen to host Marc Bernier ask Stephen Meyer perceptive and wide-ranging questions about everything from the possibility of extraterrestrials, to the role of intelligent design in medicine and education, to meaning and the reliability of the mind. The discussion also turns to Meyer’s bestselling new book, Return of the God Hypothesis, and the reconciliation of science and faith. At one point Bernier asks Meyer about the statement, “The heart cannot exalt what the mind rejects,” and in reply Meyer talks about his personal experience grappling with the relationship between science and faith, and tells about a warning he used to give college students in a class he taught. This interview originally appeared on The Marc Bernier Show and is reposted here with permission.

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Stephen Meyer Defends His New Book to Cosmologist Brian Keating, Pt. 2

Today’s ID the Future continues (by permission) the long-form conversation between Stephen Meyer, author of the newly released USA Today bestseller Return of the God Hypothesis, and UC-San Diego physicist Brian Keating. Here in part two the conversation turns to quantum cosmology, multiverse hypotheses, Stephen Hawking, and Hawking’s now-you-see-it/now-you-don’t use of imaginary time to deny a cosmic beginning. Meyer argues that Hawking’s imaginary-time trick doesn’t wash, there remains powerful evidence for a cosmic beginning, and that this beginning is best explained as the creation act of an intelligent, immaterial being. Also, Keating and Meyer tackle the question: Did Isaac Newton really blunder by invoking a God of the gaps to periodically tweak the solar system to smooth out perturbations? That is, was Newton led astray by his theism to opt for a science-stopping invocation of God to explain away a problem in his theory? Meyer’s PhD in the history and philosophy of science happens to be from Newton’s university, Cambridge, and Meyer says that he researched the issue in particular and no, the oft-repeated claim is a myth. What is true, Meyer says, is that Newton, Kepler, and other founders of modern science were inspired to search out and find the rational order hidden in nature because they were theists, convinced that nature was the work of a rational Creator. Check out Keating’s website here, and get a copy of Meyer’s new book here.

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Stephen Meyer Defends His New Book to Cosmologist Brian Keating, Pt. 1

Today’s ID the Future features, by permission, the first part of a long-form conversation between Stephen Meyer, author of the newly released Return of the God Hypothesis, and Brian Keating, the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Physics at the Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. Do the laws of cosmology, physics, and biology exhibit dispositive evidence of a cosmic designer? Do the Big Bang and fine tuning suggest a “Mind” behind it all? In the book and in this conversation Meyer argues yes. Keating tells what he likes about the new book and draws on his deep knowledge of cosmology to press Meyer with some great followup questions. Check out Keating’s website here, and learn more about Meyer’s new book here.

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Bill Dembski Teases the 2021 Dallas ID Conference

On this ID the Future, intelligent design pioneer William Dembski talks with host Robert Crowther about his return to the intelligent design arena and what he’s been up to during his time away from the front lines of the ID movement. He also gives a sneak preview of the talk he plans to give at this Saturday’s Dallas Conference on Science and Faith. The February 20 conference is open to both in-person and live online attendance. To learn more about this exciting event, and to register, go here. 

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Durston on Experimental, Inferential, and Fantasy Science — Pt. 2

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.

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Durston on Experimental, Inferential, and Fantasy Science — Pt. 1

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 from experimental science. Durston and host Andrew McDiarmid then move into a discussion of the reproducibility crisis in experimental science. As Durston explains, without a healthy scientific culture and the right incentives, experimental science can quickly fall into disrepair.

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Eric Metaxas on the Miracle of a Fine-Tuned Universe, Pt. 2

On today’s episode of ID the Future we hear the second half of a talk by bestselling author Eric Metaxas at the January 2019 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith. He’s continuing his discussion on the wonder of our fine-tuned universe, as he explained in a Wall Street Journal article that is “unofficially, the most popular article in Wall Street Journal history,” and in his book Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life. He also tells what he learned through the response to his WSJ article: People are hungry for this kind of information.

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Eric Metaxas on the Miracle of a Fine-Tuned Universe, Pt. 1

Today’s episode of ID the Future features Part 1 of a talk bestselling author Eric Metaxas gave at the 2019 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith in Dallas. His topic was the miracle of our fine-tuned universe, taken in part from his book Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life. Metaxas also discusses another thing he finds amazing: that so many people think the progress of science means the retreat of religion.