Intelligent Design the Future

Is the natural world full of flawed, makeshift designs, as some critics of intelligent design have argued? Or are living things far more ingeniously engineered than we've been led to believe? On this episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid is pleased to bring you a conversation with award-winning British engineer and designer Dr. Stuart Burgess, a senior fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture and author of the book Ultimate Engineering. Dr. Burgess has spent decades studying engineering design, both in human technology and in humans themselves. And his work has led him to challenge the popular claim that biology is full of poor design. In this conversation, originally recorded for the Truthful Hope podcast, host Jacob Vasquez talks with Burgess about the so called bad design argument and what engineering principles can tell us about the evidence for intelligent design in nature.

Source

In June 1860, just seven months after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, three men hotly debated the merits of Darwin's argument at a meeting of the British Association. Biologist Thomas Henry Huxley and botanist Joseph Hooker defended Darwin's theory. English bishop, speaker, and writer Samuel Wilberforce critiqued it. And though he was a man of the cloth, Wilberforce did not build a theological case against Darwin. Rather, he evaluated the argument for natural selection on scientific grounds, exposing its "loose statements and unfounded speculations" by weighing it "in the simple scales of logical examination." On this classic ID The Future out of the vault, host Andrew McDiarmid treats you to excerpts from Wilberforce's powerful critique, published as a review a month after the debate in Quarterly Review.

Source

Purpose has been a fundamental part of our understanding of nature for millennia. But the rise of scientific materialism and Darwinism saw purpose get left out of the scientific pursuit. In recent years, materialists have found it necessary to bring purpose back into the equation, and they’re looking for a way to explain it without recourse to intelligent design. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid concludes his conversation with Dr. Stephen Iacoboni, an award-winning cancer researcher and practitioner of medical oncology for forty years. 20th-century materialism treated living organisms as reducible machines governed strictly by Newtonian physics and simple genetic mechanics. But modern research shows organisms are not passive objects: "Organisms don't act like inert objects responding to external forces impinged on them," says Dr. Iacoboni. They are "active agents that figure out what's going on in their conditions of existence and they figure out what to do about it in real time." This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation.

Source

Purpose was once considered fundamental to understanding nature. But for the last few centuries, scientists committed to a Darwinian view of life have ignored it. Now some materialists are reconsidering agency, function, and emergence in biology. But can they succeed without acknowledging intelligent design? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes Dr. Stephen Iacoboni, an award-winning cancer researcher and practitioner of medical oncology for forty years. In his personal memoir, The Undying Soul, he chronicles his spiritual journey and return to faith. And in his book, Telos: The Scientific Basis for a Life of Purpose, he offers a unique reconciliation between faith and science. He also writes regularly at Science & Culture Today. In this opening segment, Iacoboni takes us on a brief historical tour of purpose in science, showing when it began to get excluded in the scientific pursuit.

Source

On this classic ID the Future out of the vault, guest host Robert J. Marks interviews Roger Olsen, co-author of the groundbreaking book The Mystery of Life’s Origin. In the work’s epilogue the authors suggested that a designing intelligence stands as the best explanation for the origin of life. And with a revised and greatly expanded new edition of the book available, Olsen says that more than thirty-five years of additional research from the origin-of-life community have left their conclusions stronger than ever.

Source

Intelligent design is fundamentally a theory of design detection. But in addition to helping us evaluate models that best explain past events, ID can also guide experiments that study the present-day operations of nature. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid records a conversation from our new Studio West in the Seattle offices of Discovery Institute. McDiarmid is joined by two members of our Center for Science & Culture science team, Dr. Emily Reeves and Dr. Brian Miller, to discuss a new paper co-authored by our science team that unpacks how intelligent design can guide scientific research in multiple fields of science.

Source

You may already know that an intelligent design framework can help us empirically detect whether an outcome in nature exhibits properties that indicate design. But did you also know an ID perspective can be applied to experimental science to guide research into how the natural world operates? On this episode of ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid is joined by Dr. Casey Luskin and Dr. Jonathan McLatchie, two members of the Center for Science & Culture's team of resident scientists, to discuss a new paper co-authored by the science team unpacking how intelligent design can guide scientific research in multiple fields of science.

Source

Like many, you may be storing important files and photos in the cloud. But just where is this magical cloud? How is it powered? Is it safe? To answer these questions and more, Mind Matters News host Robert J. Marks is joined by Walter Myers III, a principal engineering manager for Microsoft’s Azure Cloud and a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute. Their conversation provides an overview of cloud computing infrastructure, including an explanation of where the cloud is physically located, the different service models (infrastructure, platform, and software as a service), and the technical details of how data is stored and protected in the cloud. Then, the conversation pivots to the philosophy of identity, exploring the philosophical concept known as the Ship of Theseus. This episode comes from our sister podcast Mind Matters News, a production of Discovery Institute's Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

Source

How rare is Planet Earth in the vastness of the cosmos? Will we find other planets in space that could possibly harbor life? A new space telescope has just been launched that may help us with answers to those questions. On today's episode of ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid concludes a two-part conversation with physicist Dr. Bijan Nemati about his work on the Nancy Roman Space Telescope. In this segment, we dive deeper into what constitutes a habitable planet, how Roman will team up with the James Webb space telescope to discover hidden worlds, and how intelligent design can inform our expectations and interpretations of data sent back from Roman.

Source

A new space telescope was recently launched by NASA. What will it look for? Why do we need another telescope exploring the heavens? And how does an intelligent design perspective enrich both the expectations and interpretations of the telescope’s findings? Today on ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid is delighted to begin a two-part conversation with physicist Dr. Bijan Nemati about his work on the Nancy Roman Space Telescope. He’ll also help us understand the goals of the new observatory and how it will contribute to humanity’s understanding of the cosmos. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation.

Source

On this ID the Future our of the archive, guest host Robert J. Marks interviews chemist Charles Thaxton about a seminal 1984 book he co-authored, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, foundational to the intelligent design movement. The main body of Mystery was generally praised, Thaxton explains. It was the epilogue that proved controversial. There, the three authors reviewed five proposed explanations for life’s origins and suggested that the best explanation was that the first life originated through an act of creative intelligence. Thaxton also tells a little about the recently revised and expanded edition of the book, with new contributions from Stephen Meyer, Brian Miller, James Tour, and others.

Source

Today’s episode of ID The Future comes from our sister podcast Mind Matters News, a production of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Mind Matters regularly explores the nature of intelligence, the origin of information, and the things that make us uniquely human, all concepts that are central to the theory of intelligent design. Enjoy today’s offering of Mind Matters News! In this episode of Mind Matters News, host Robert J. Marks speaks with Baylor University spectrum experts Dr. Charles Baylis, Dr. Austin Egbert, and PhD candidate Jonathan Swindell about the nation’s pressing electromagnetic spectrum crisis. Have you ever thought about all of the electromagnetic waves in the room you’re in right now? You have invisible microwave cell phone signals in the air, plus all of the signals for broadcast television and AM and FM radio. Radiation from a GPS signal is there waiting for you to tap in. The range of frequencies in electromagnetic waves is known as the electromagnetic spectrum. And that spectrum is in great demand, with the rapid proliferation of personal wireless devices, radar network, and satellite weather sensors all competing for a spot. Managing the electromagnetic spectrum is our topic today.

Source

What is the state of the debate over evolution and intelligent design in the UK? And how will Discovery Institute's new Cambridge initiative impact the debate going forward? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes fellow Scotsman Dr. Alistair McKitterick, a Consulting Fellow at the Center for Science & Culture’s Whewell Center in Cambridge and a Program Director at London School of Theology. The pair will discuss how Alistair got interested in intelligent design, his work at the Whewell Center, and the state of the debate over evolution and intelligent design in the United Kingdom.

Source

If the sun didn't power the photosynthesis of green plants, we wouldn't be breathing right now. And without the finely tuned properties of water, Earth would be a frozen, lifeless wasteland. Coincidence? Or is something else at work? On this classic episode of ID The Future out of the archive, host Andrew McDiarmid continues his ongoing series with Dr. Jonathan McLatchie unpacking the many features of our planet and the cosmos that allow for advanced life like ours to exist. Here, the discussion turns to the life-friendly properties of sunlight and water.

Source

What is the story of everything? Is there a scientific and philosophical basis for meaning? Today on ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid continues exploring those questions with physicist and author Dr. Eric Hedin. In Part 2, the conversation turns to the scientific and philosophical basis for meaning in the universe. Dr. Hedin argues that materialism "fails to describe the world we experience." He explores the problem with reducing life and the universe to their lowest terms. Sure, we boil down to matter in motion at the microscopic level, but we also live a life full of meaning at the macroscopic level. To acknowledge one and not the other, or to say that the one causes an illusion of the other, doesn't match up with what science is telling us, says Hedin.

Source

Why are we here? Does life, or the universe, mean anything? And if it does, what? Today on ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid explores those questions and more with physicist and author Dr. Eric Hedin. Using the recent documentary film The Story of Everything as a springboard for discussion, Hedin shows that cumulative scientific evidence is pointing to a purposeful universe, not a cosmic accident. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 next!

Source

In his book Darwin’s Black Box, biochemist Michael Behe writes that in order to understand the barriers to evolution, we have to “bite the bullet of complexity.” On this classic episode of ID The Future out of the vault, Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is back to help us do just that! In the latest installment of an ongoing series, Dr. McLatchie talks with host Andrew McDiarmid about the remarkable properties of carbon and other non-metal atoms.

Source

By now, you’re likely familiar with the multiverse hypothesis, which is actually just one of dozens of cosmological models proposed to explain away the significance of a beginning to the universe and the evidence for fine-tuning. But you may not know there’s a rigorous method to evaluate these models, which can prove helpful in understanding the flaws of each. On today's ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid continues his conversation about evaluating cosmological models with philosopher of physics Bruce Gordon and physicist Brian Miller. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation.

Source

You’re likely familiar with the evidence for the fine-tuning of the universe, and you may be aware that there are several cosmological models attempting to explain away that fine-tuning, including the popular multiverse hypothesis. But did you know an ID scientist has developed a scientifically rigorous method for scoring those models? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid begins a two-part conversation with philosopher of physics Bruce Gordon and physicist Brian Miller about Gordon's scoring system and how it evaluates the many models on offer that might explain the origin and development of the universe. This is Part 1 of 2.

Source

Today’s episode of ID The Future comes from our sister podcast Mind Matters News, a production of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Mind Matters regularly explores the nature of intelligence, the origin of information, and the things that make us uniquely human, all concepts that are central to the theory of intelligent design. Enjoy today’s offering of Mind Matters News! How can entrepreneurs incorporate the benefits of AI while maintaining their dedication to serving fellow human beings? On this episode of Mind Matters News, host Robert J. Marks welcomes David Copps, a renowned entrepreneur, technologist, and thought leader with over two decades of experience pioneering advancements in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

Source