Tom Gilson

When we gain new information about beliefs we hold, it’s good practice to update our viewpoints accordingly to avoid incoherence in our thinking. On today’s ID The Future, host Jonathan McLatchie invites professor and author Dr. Tim McGrew to the show to discuss how Bayesian reasoning can help us maintain coherence across our set of beliefs. The pair also apply Bayesian logic to the debate over Darwinian evolution to show that a confidence in design arguments can be mathematically rigorous and logically sound. Bayesian logic provides a mathematical way to update prior probabilities with new information to produce a more realistic likelihood ratio. And when it comes to evaluating different hypotheses, small pieces of evidence can add up. “Even evidence Read More ›

On today’s ID the Future Tom Gilson — author, senior editor with The Stream, and occasional contributor to Evolution News & Science Today — tackles the question of how best to discuss intelligent design with friends and associates skeptical of ID. There is so much misinformation about the theory of intelligent design that many well-intended people reject not the actual theory but a silly caricature, a straw man. They don’t realize that ID is not an argument from ignorance but an inference to the best explanation based on positive evidence for design and negative evidence against competing materialistic explanations. It involves what is known as abductive reasoning, a standard mode of reasoning in the historical sciences. When in conversation with Read More ›

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.