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

teleology

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3d rendering of pink jellyfish floating in the dark blue ocean background with sunlight.
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Date
November 9, 2020
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The Evolution (or not) of Consciousness

November 9, 2020

On this ID the Future neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviews Bernardo Kastrup, a philosopher with a background in computer engineering, about consciousness, evolution, and intelligent design. Did consciousness evolve? What does the evidence suggest? And how do materialists deal with the seemingly immaterial reality that is consciousness? This is a guest episode borrowed with permission from Mind Matters, a podcast of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

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An old man shakes hands with an opponent in a game of chess, he lost and acknowledges it.
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Author
Michael Flannery
Date
October 21, 2020
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Alfred Russel Wallace and His Friendly Battle with Darwin

Michael Flannery
October 21, 2020

On this ID the Future, science historian Michael Flannery continues discussing his newly updated Intelligent Evolution: How Alfred Russel Wallace’s World of Life Challenged Darwin. Wallace was co-founder with Charles Darwin of the theory of evolution by random variation and natural selection, but unlike Darwin he saw teleology or purpose as essential to life’s history, and a teleological view as essential to the life sciences. According to Flannery, Wallace’s views on the nature of the cell, the special attributes of humans, the irreducible nature of life, and the fine tuning of the universe hold up well today. He and Darwin disagreed on much of this, yet they maintained mutual respect. In this, Flannery says, the two are a great model for scientists who disagree today.

human cell anatomy.jpg
3d rendered medically accurate illustration of the human cell anatomy
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Author
Michael Denton
Date
October 20, 2020
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Michael Denton’s Epiphany about Nature’s Fitness for Life

Michael Denton
October 20, 2020

On this episode of ID the Future, biochemist and author Michael Denton tells host Eric Anderson more about his new book The Miracle of the Cell, and about his epiphany when he recognized the many remarkable ways that nature’s chemistry is fine-tuned for life. The focus in this conversation is on carbon chemistry and its “goldilocks zone” ability to form stable bonds but let loose of them when needed. Whereas biologists once wondered about a vitalist “life force” in the cell, Denton sees intelligence and foresight in the very design of carbon, its unique properties, and its “coincidental” relation to water. According to Denton, all of this, taken together, constitutes “one of nature’s most remarkable examples of nature’s fitness for life on earth.” Carbon’s suite of life-friendly features, he says, is foundational to the cell’s peerless ability to build sophisticated biological forms–everything from the smallest bacterium to the tallest tree, and you and me. 

flying flock Common Crane, Hortobagy Hungary
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Author
Scott Turner
Date
October 2, 2020
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Scott Turner on Purpose in Nature, Part 2

Scott Turner
October 2, 2020

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, Rob Crowther continues his conversation with J. Scott Turner, biologist at the State University of New York (SUNY), visiting scholar at Cambridge University, and author of the new book Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It. Turner critiques evolutionary biology’s bias toward mechanistic and gene-centric thinking, and contemporary biology’s failure to come to grips with the evidence of purpose and intentionality at many levels of biology. Viewing the brain as a computer, for example, obscures many things about the brain and the mind that exceed computers, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

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Ant action standing.Ant bridge unity team carry food Concept team work together
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Author
Scott Turner
Date
September 25, 2020
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Scott Turner on Purpose in Nature, Part 1

Scott Turner
September 25, 2020
Turner argues that modern Darwinism has reached a scientific dead end, unable to tell us what life is, treating many of its features — including purpose and desire — virtually as illusions. Read More ›
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Author
Emily Kurlinski
Date
August 10, 2020
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ID and the CSC Summer Seminar: Transformative

Emily Kurlinski
August 10, 2020

On this episode of ID the Future, host Emily Kurlinski interviews “Mary,” a PhD biochemistry student who tells about her experiences at the annual Center for Science and Culture’s summer seminar program in Seattle, and how her relationships there developed into a community of friendship, professional connection, and support. What about the charge that ID is a “curiosity killer,” tempting scientists to answer every natural mystery with a shrug and a “God did it”? Mary says ID had just the opposite effect on her. Her pro-design perspective actually led her to choose a career in research, and the conviction that nature is a meaningful and purposeful affair makes her more eager and optimistic about uncovering deeper layers of order and elegance in the natural world than otherwise. Why does she use a pseudonym in the interview? You may be able to guess, but listen in to hear her explanation.

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Light and dark bunnies
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Author
Daniel Reeves
Date
June 1, 2020
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Of Natural Selection, Explanatory Deficits, and Bunnies Dark and Light

Daniel Reeves
June 1, 2020

On this episode of ID the Future we hear the first part of Discovery Institute Education Outreach Associate Daniel Reeves’ talk at the 2020 Dallas Science and Faith Conference. Reeves outlines the meaning of natural selection, and traces its history, starting from Darwin’s early understanding, in the days when cells were viewed as just blobs of protoplasm. Reeves carries the story from there through the neo-Darwinian modern synthesis and into the extended evolutionary synthesis, culminating in a 2016 meeting of the Royal Society on the theory’s continuing — and still unresolved — explanatory deficits.

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United hands
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Author
Michael Newton Keas
Date
March 25, 2020
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Charles Darwin vs. Richard Owen on Race

Michael Newton Keas
March 25, 2020

On this episode of ID the Future, Mike Keas interviews science historian and bioethicist Michael Flannery about his recent article on Charles Darwin and archrival Richard Owen. Owen was an evolutionist, too, but of a different stripe. Unlike Darwin, he believed that evolution was guided by teleology or purpose, and he saw humans as different from animals not only in degree but in kind. This led him to reject Darwin’s conclusion of a “hierarchy of races,” as well as Darwin’s expectation that the supposedly “less fit” races of humankind ultimately would be exterminated by the so-called “superior” white race. Most Darwinists today aren’t racist, but Darwinism did grease the skids into a dubious scientific racism that became widespread, encouraging racist eugenics campaigns in both Europe and the United States.

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Author
Michael Flannery
Date
December 18, 2019
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Nature’s Prophet Author Michael Flannery Reviews the Reviewers

Michael Flannery
December 18, 2019

On this episode of ID the Future, Michael Flannery speaks again with host Mike Keas about his book Nature’s Prophet: Alfred Russel Wallace, and His Evolution from Natural Selection to Natural Theology. Wallace was the co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection along with Charles Darwin, but in 1869 he broke with Darwin, disagreeing with him on the origin of special human attributes like art, music, and abstract thought.

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Radio telescopes and the Milky Way at night
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Author
Edward Feser
Date
July 17, 2019
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Edward Feser on the Question of Mind Behind the Universe

Edward Feser
July 17, 2019

On this episode of ID the Future, Michael Egnor continues his discussion with philosopher and professor Edward Feser about Feser’s new book Aristotle’s Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science The question this time is whether evolution is compatible with an Aristotelian understanding of reality. Feser says it could be — but he argues against naturalistic evolution anyway. While Feser differs from intelligent design theorists on his approach to the question, he agrees with the conclusion that nature evidences the existence of a mind instilling purpose, goal-directedness, and function within nature.

Discovery Institute