Intelligent Design The Future

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, Casey Luskin sat down with Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig to talk about Dr. Lönnig’s direct area of specialty: carnivorous plants. Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig is a retired geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Germany.

On this episode of ID The Future, Sarah Chaffee talks with bioethicist Wesley Smith about the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR. Smith describes it briefly and discusses its larger implication for bioethics.

On this episode of ID The Future, Sarah Chaffee talks with physicist Dr. Brian Miller about a recent article that argues that the fundamental basis of the universe is information. In this episode, Miller explains how physicists have come to rethink the role of information, moving from a materialist view in which information is seen as a byproduct of matter to a view in which information is seen as fundamental to the fabric of the cosmos.

On this episode of ID the Future, we listen in on a few minutes from a lecture given by CSC Senior Fellow Michael Denton. We’ve all heard of the importance of photosynthesis as an oxygen creating process. In this segment, Denton explains the “remarkable set of coincidences” which makes the creation of oxygen through photosynthesis possible. From the specific energy of visible light to the unique properties of water, this degree of improbability screams DESIGN. For more from Denton, this time focusing on H2O itself, take a look at his new book, The Wonder of Water. 

On this episode of ID The Future, Tod Butterfield talks with historian Dr. Richard Weikart about his new book Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich. In this episode, Dr. Weikart explains how Darwinian evolution informed Hitler’s ethics.

On this episode of ID The Future, Tod Butterfield talks with historian Dr. Richard Weikart about his new book Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich. Here Dr. Weikart explores the claim that Hitler was a creationist and shows why it misses the mark.

On this episode of ID the Future, we continue to celebrate geneticist Michael Denton’s new book, The Wonder of Water, with this reposted interview where Denton reflects on the concept of bottom-up, versus top-down, causation, and which is the better explanation for the world we live in.

On this episode of ID The Future, Tod Butterfield talks with CSC Senior Fellow Dr. Richard Weikart about his recently published book Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich. In particular, Weikart explores Hitler’s pantheism and his antipathy toward Christianity.

On this episode of ID the Future, to celebrate Michael Denton’s newest book, The Wonder of Water, we bring you a conversation between Ray Bohlin and Howard Glicksman on the body’s wondrous control systems for using water. Dr. Glicksman is a medical doctor and author of an extended series of posts at Evolution News & Science Today, "The Designed Body."

On this episode of ID the Future, hear a clip from the ID film Revolutionary, and join Ray Bohlin and Michael Behe as they discuss how German paleo-entomologist Günter Bechly became convinced of intelligent design, and the lessons to glean from Bechly’s dramatic story. In the time since this documentary was filmed and this podcast recorded, Bechly was forced to resign from his position as curator at the prestigious State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany. And now this month, his English language Wikipedia page has disappeared. Bechly, meanwhile, is standing by his convictions. Revolutionary the film is now available online here.

On this episode of ID The Future, Sarah Chaffee interviews Center for Science and Culture Research Coordinator Dr. Brian Miller about co-evolution. Together they explore a recent paper on the subject by Winston Ewert and Robert Marks in BIO-Complexity.

On this episode of ID the Future, Ray Bohlin and Michael Behe discuss the limits of evolution. Does evolution innovative by building things, or does it only innovate by breaking things? Behe demonstrates the surprising answer with a closer look at polar bears. Behe is the subject of an engaging new science documentary now available online: Revolutionary.

In this episode of ID the Future, geneticist and biochemist Michael Denton reads the beautiful introduction to his new book, The Wonder of Water. He begins at Yosemite’s Bridalveil Fall and explores how water is curiously fine-tuned for life. Indeed, thanks to a unique cluster of properties, water is able to fulfill many roles essential to our living planet. It’s thanks to some of those properties that rivers and streams can leech and carry minerals from rock to various places they’re needed in the biosphere. Water’s unusual properties also make it an ideal medium for our circulatory system. There it serves not only to transfer nutrients and oxygen but also expel carbon dioxide, excess body heat, and waste products—again, thanks to a unique cluster of properties. Denton’s new book can be purchased here.

On this episode of ID the Future, Brian Miller, who holds a Ph.D. in physics from Duke University, examines Dr. Jeremy England’s physics-based theory of the origin of life. England’s theory, based on his studies of “non-equilibrium systems,” suggests that a system driven strongly enough could create order and therefore be a potential explanation for the origin of life. Miller summarizes the theory and discusses what he sees as its fatal weaknesses.

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, Stephen Meyer is on The Universe Next Door to discuss Thomas Nagel's controversial book Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Nagel, a leading philosopher of science and a self-described agnostic, tells in his book how he has become disenchanted with the materialist worldview, and how science today leaves fundamental questions unanswered--such as the nature of mind and consciousness. Meyer also discusses the origin of animal body plans and the inference to design.