Intelligent Design The Future show

Intelligent Design The Future

Summary: The ID The Future (IDTF) podcast carries on Discovery Institute's mission of exploring the issues central to evolution and intelligent design. IDTF is a short podcast providing you with the most current news and views on evolution and ID. IDTF delivers brief interviews with key scientists and scholars developing the theory of ID, as well as insightful commentary from Discovery Institute senior fellows and staff on the scientific, educational and legal aspects of the debate.

Podcasts:

 Michael Behe Answers Your Questions | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 912

This episode of ID the Future features Darwin Devolves author Michael Behe. The Lehigh University biologist and Discovery Institute senior fellow sat down to answer some of the most common questions put to him about evolution and intelligent design, and here we collect his answers to three of those questions: (1) What are some new examples of irreducibly complex systems? (2) What are some objections to ID from well-known critics? And (3) Why aren’t you convinced by theistic evolution arguments?

 Fine Tuning in a Nutshell: No Problem | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1114

On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid interviews Robert Alston, Ph.D electrical engineer working at Picatinny Arsenal and co-author of the new book Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell. The two discuss the origin of the Nutshell book and the origin and fine tuning of the universe. Though cosmic fine tuning is often referred to as “the fine tuning problem,” Alston says it’s really no problem at all — not unless you’re trying to shoehorn it into the box of philosophical materialism.

 A Doctor Examines Some Intricate Control Systems Sustaining Your Life Right Now | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 946

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, Ray Bohlin interviews physician Howard Glicksman about a common cause of death, cardio-pulmonary arrest, using the subject as a doorway to explore some intricate, interdependent control systems that sustains life. Dr. Glicksman is a medical doctor and author of an extended series of posts at Evolution News & Science Today, “The Designed Body.”

 John Lennox Talks AI, SciFi, Transhumanism and the Image of God | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1270

On this episode of ID the Future, host Robert Marks continues his conversation with Oxford University mathematician John Lennox about Lennox’s new book 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. Lennox reviews mythology and science fiction writing stretching from the ancient poet Hesiod to the novelist Dan Brown and MIT physicist Max Tegmark. He says that artificial intelligence (AI) predictions down through the ages are all heavily dependent on theological and philosophical presuppositions. He and Marks also discuss AI’s cousin, transhumanism, its surprising history, and its potentially very dark future, including the risk of what C.S. Lewis called “the abolition of man.”

 John Lennox on What (Not) to Expect of AI in 2084 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1106

On this episode of ID the Future, host Robert Marks interviews Oxford University mathematician John Lennox on Lennox’s new book 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. It’s a wide-ranging discussion about AI’s advantages already being realized, in medicine, for example; AI’s supposed potential to achieve human-like consciousness; ethical issues that AI programmers will have to grapple with; effects that AI will have on the economy and individual workers; and the risks associated with living in an AI world where every movement is tracked. A key question as we move toward this future, says Lennox, is what does it mean to be human?

 Our Irreducibly Complex Calcium Control System | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1445

On this episode of ID: The Future from the vault, Dr. Ray Bohlin interviews Dr. Howard Glicksman about the irreducible complexity of the human calcium control system. Glicksman is a medical doctor and author of an extended series of posts at Evolution News & Science Today called The Designed Body.

 Bits and Bytes at the Bottom | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 751

On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid reads a recent article from Salvo magazine, “Bits and Bytes at the Bottom.” In the essay, systems engineer Ken Pedersen and Discovery Institute senior fellow Jonathan Witt begin by noting that scientific materialism sees reality as the result of accidental collisions and combinations of elementary particles--a worldview devoid of ultimate meaning and purpose. Many scientific materialists expressed confidence that any shortcomings in their paradigm would be shorn up by fresh discoveries soon enough, but as Pedersen and Witt explain, a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century. A paradigm shift occurred, one famously summarized by renowned theoretical physicist John Wheeler: “Bit before it.”

 NCSE Pushes Unscientific Pro-Darwin Survey | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 840

On this episode of ID the Future, Robert Crowther interviews Sarah Chaffee, Education and Public Policy Program Officer for the Center for Science and Culture, on a recent survey conducted by the dogmatically pro-Darwin National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and published in Nature. The NCSE claims that the survey shows that science teachers “advocate evolution” even more now than in 2007. But as Crowther and Chaffee’s discussion suggests, the survey appears gamed to produce a pro-Darwinist outcome, so much so that even teachers who follow the Discovery Institute’s policy of promoting critical thinking skills by teaching biology students both the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory could be counted as evolution advocates by the survey. Then too, as Crowther and Chaffee further note, how likely are biology teachers with doubts about modern Darwinism to participate in a survey by an organization famously instrumental in attacking Darwin-doubting biology teachers?

 DNA as Clue: How Intelligence Detects Information, and Creates It | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 885

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, attorney and engineer Eric Anderson continues his discussion hosted by Mike Keas on what it means that there’s information in DNA, and how this distinguishes it from most other physical objects. He talks about what intelligence really is and does — and why we know it’s involved in creating the unique information in DNA. And he recommends an answer we can give to those who “dig their heels in” and disagree on what information is about.

 Cosmos: Possible Worlds and the Copernican Demotion Myth | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1021

On this episode of ID the Future, host Jay Richards interviews historian of science Michael Keas about a new documentary claiming that Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the solar system “demoted” humans from the place of honor at the center of everything. Neil deGrasse Tyson champions this persistent myth in episode 8 of the new National Geographic series Cosmos: Possible Worlds. The reality is quite different. As Keas explains, in Copernicus’s day, the Earth was thought to be at the bottom of the universe, the “sump” where all the filth collected, while the starry heavens were considered the place of honor. Keas and Richards trace the history of the demotion myth and discuss how Copernicus, Kepler, and other luminaries of the scientific revolution saw the Copernican revolution very differently, as a glorious promotion of humanity’s place in the cosmos.

 C. S. Lewis and Intelligent Design | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 978

On the episode of ID the Future we bring you a production by Discovery Institute about C.S. Lewis and Intelligent Design. With contributions by Discovery Institute’s John West and philosophers Victor Reppert and Angus Menuge, we hear about Lewis’s early doubts about God based in part on an argument from undesign or “bad design” in nature, and how he moved from this position to developing multiple arguments for intelligent design. Another contribution he made to the intelligent design project wasn’t a specific argument but the example he set. As John West explains near the end of the episode, one of his greatest contributions was a commitment to free inquiry and open debate, one he modeled while a professor at Oxford University.

 Answering Our ID Critics: Distinguish Information In from Information About | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 868

In this episode of ID the Future from the vault, Mike Keas interviews attorney and engineer Eric Anderson about the first of two mistakes ID antagonists often make regarding information in nature. There is information to be gained about natural phenomena, like Saturn’s rings for example, but is there information actually in Saturn’s rings, or is that information produced by intelligent agents studying Saturn’s rings? The answer to that question should be clear — and it makes a huge difference in how we understand information and intelligence. Eric Anderson is the co-author of the new Discovery Institute press book Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell.

 Intricate Optimized Insect Designs -- via Evolution? | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 738

On this episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid draws on an essay at Evolution News & Science Today to explore some intricate optimized insect designs that are inspiring human engineers and raise the question, could evolution have done that? Cicadas and dragonflies use an exquisitely engineered "bed of nails" on their wings to disarm and neutralize bacteria. Butterflies and bird feathers also use this trick. There are fruit flies that have multiple navigation systems, complete with error correction for hard turns. And the sea skater insect is able to walk on water and launch itself explosively thanks to an impressive combination of engineering marvels. Did evolution really bring all those design factors together? Or was something else required--intelligence and foresight?

 In a Nutshell: Three Great Problems for Evolution | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1008

On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid continues his conversation with Robert Waltzer, chair of the department of biology at Belhaven University and co-author of Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell, on three big problems faced by naturalistic evolutionary theory. First, it appears that science has turned up several instances of what is known as irreducible complexity, something that Darwin himself said would falsify his theory if ever discovered. Second, various proposed “trees of life” conflict with each other, a problem that has grown worse as additional evidence and methods have arisen, a trend that makes theories of common descent difficult to sustain. And third, we know of no case where information is generated or improved without intelligent action behind it. Evolutionists still hold on to their theories, but why are they not more open at least to debate and criticism? Professor Waltzer suggests multiple possibilities.

 Michael Behe on E. Coli and a Citrate Death Spiral | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1263

On this episode of ID the Future, biochemist Michael Behe reviews the Long Term Evolution Experiment at Michigan State, where Richard Lenki’s team was initially excited to see what they thought was a new species forming in their flasks of E. coli. As Behe has written at Evolution News, one flask of E. coli in Lenski’s experiment evolved the ability to metabolize (“eat”) citrate in the presence of oxygen. But along with it came multiple mutations breaking genes, degrading genetic information, and ultimately increasing the bacteria’s death rates. It all goes to support Behe’s thesis in Darwin Devolves: evolution is good at creating niche advantages by breaking things; it isn’t good at building fundamentally novel form, the very thing the grand narrative of modern evolutionary theory purports to do.

Comments

Login or signup comment.