Episodes
We were saddened to learn of the recent loss of our friend and colleague Tom Gilson. You may have heard Tom occasionally hosting episodes of the podcast. And if you're a long-time listener, you've been listening to his work regularly. For several years, Tom sound engineered this podcast, taking raw audio files and producing a polished finished product. His reliable, professional work, coupled with his extensive knowledge of the arguments for intelligent design, made him an ideal candidate to...
Published 11/15/24
Published 11/15/24
On this ID The Future, enjoy the second half of an intimate conversation between philosopher of science and bestselling author Stephen Meyer and one of his dearest friends and longest-standing colleagues: Dr. David Berlinski. In Part 2, Berlinski discusses the books he has written, his career in teaching, and some of his memorable experiences critiquing the Darwinian paradigm. Don't miss the first half of the conversation, available in a separate episode. Learn more about Dr. Berlinski at...
Published 11/13/24
On this ID The Future, philosopher of science and bestselling author Stephen Meyer invites us to join him for an intimate conversation with one of his dearest friends and longest-standing colleagues: mathematician, writer, and thinker Dr. David Berlinski. The occasion for the exchange was a recent gathering of Discovery Institute supporters and colleagues in Cambridge, England. In Part 1, Berlinski shares the harrowing story of how his parents survived the Holocaust and immigrated to New...
Published 11/11/24
On today’s ID the Future from the archive, veteran radio host Michael Medved interviews biologist Michael Behe about Behe’s visually stunning YouTube series, Secrets of The Cell. Behe summarizes one of the key messages of the video series, namely that everything from the life-essential blood clotting system to a myriad of crucial protein structures in our bodies increasingly appear to be far beyond the reach of blind evolutionary mechanisms to build. Instead they appear to be the work of...
Published 11/08/24
At Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, we love connecting teachers and students with ID resources and encouraging them to follow the evidence wherever it leads. On today's ID The Future, you'll hear from a group of 10th grade biology students at a private school in North Carolina as they share their experience of learning about the evidence for intelligent design. Their teacher is a graduate of our CSC summer seminar program, where she learned in depth about the scientific...
Published 11/06/24
Let's talk about your digits. No, not your phone number - your fingers and toes, those dangling things on the ends of our hands and feet! Ever wondered how they form during embryonic development? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes back Dr. Jonathan McLatchie to discuss the incredible process of apoptosis that shapes our fingers and toes, and why the operation is better explained by intelligent design than a stepwise evolutionary process. Source
Published 11/04/24
On today’s ID the Future out of the vault, Stairway to Life co-author Rob Stadler and host Eric Anderson delve deeper into Challenge to Origin of Life: Energy Harnessing, an episode of the Long Story Short intelligent design video series. Could the first cell have been much simpler than any current cell, making it easier for it to emerge through blind natural forces on the early Earth? Stadler and Anderson surface one big problem with that idea: in experiments to make relatively simple cells...
Published 11/01/24
The urge to help people kill themselves has intensified in recent decades, even to the point of pushing the reluctant towards death. How did we reach this place? On this ID The Future, historian and author Dr. Richard Weikart joins veteran radio and podcast host Dr. Jerry Newcombe to discuss how the evolutionary ethic has undermined the value of human life, the topic of his latest book, Unnatural Death: Medicine’s Descent From Healing to Killing. Source
Published 10/30/24
How much do you know about intelligent design? How would you define the term? And are you prepared to defend intelligent design to friends, family, or associates who may be critical of the theory? On this episode of ID The Future, Dr. Casey Luskin brings to bear decades of experience as an attorney and ID theorist on the front lines of the evolution debate to give you the basics you’ll need to confidently discuss and defend intelligent design with others. Source
Published 10/28/24
On this ID The Future out of the vault, Origin-of-life specialist Rob Stadler joins host Eric Anderson to discuss a special problem facing all naturalistic origin-of-life scenarios: energy harnessing. To be viable, a cell must have sophisticated machinery, including ATP synthase, to turn raw energy into constructive energy. But how could prebiotic chemicals harness raw energy on the way to evolving into a viable self-reproducing cell without first having the sophisticated machinery to harness...
Published 10/25/24
Zombies are make-believe, but zombie science is very real — and it threatens not just science but our whole culture. On this ID The Future, we’re sharing a conversation between Dr. Jonathan Wells and Hank Hanegraaf on the Hank Unplugged Podcast. This interview originally aired in 2018 shortly after Dr. Wells published Zombie Science, his highly anticipated follow-up to Icons of Evolution. With the recent passing of Dr. Wells, Hank and his team have re-released the interview with some words of...
Published 10/23/24
In 2004, Smithsonian Institute scientist Dr. Richard Sternberg was cancelled for daring to publish a paper by Dr. Stephen Meyer supportive of intelligent design in a peer-reviewed journal. On this ID The Future, writer and teacher Daniel Witt joins us to reflect on the controversy. Witt explains the rhetorical strategies Darwinists have used to deride intelligent design. He also reports on an encouraging trend of scientists willing to stand up to the censors and bullies who get in the way of...
Published 10/21/24
On this ID the Future from the vault, philosopher of science Paul Nelson concludes his talk with host Andrew McDiarmid on what it takes to converse effectively with scientists who are trapped in a naturalistic framework — that is, researchers who draw their conclusions from naturalism’s authority rather than following the evidence wherever it leads. Nelson urges us to keep the third party in the conversation: nature herself. Dr. Nelson explains how. Source
Published 10/18/24
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...
Published 10/16/24
Imagine a large area with gentle rolling hills and valleys, or perhaps a rugged terrain complete with steep mountains and impassible gullies. Now imagine those scenes plotted out in a three-dimensional graph. What your picturing may look similar to the virtual fitness landscapes biologists generate to visualize the variation in population for some species. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes Dr. Brian Miller to discuss evolutionary fitness landscapes and how they bolster the...
Published 10/14/24
How often do we get to have a respectful conversation with someone who disagrees with us? On this ID the Future out of the archive, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson continues sharing with host Andrew McDiarmid about pursuing intelligent design theory in a science culture committed to naturalism. "In the bouncing of opinions off each other and the exchange of views," says Nelson, "truth should emerge." But how do you communicate with scientists and thinkers trapped in a framework of...
Published 10/11/24
Rolex is well-known the world over for crafting high-quality, innovative time-pieces. But did you know they also award funds to people with innovative ideas in science and technology? On this ID The Future, Texan engineer, writer, and self-taught scientist Forrest M. Mims recounts his experience of winning a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 1993 for his innovative proposal to track the ozone layer through a worldwide ground-based network that utilized his own homemade ozone instruments. Mims...
Published 10/09/24
Dr. Stuart Burgess has been studying the arrangement, design, and shape of vertebrate limbs and joints for years. He shares what he learns with engineers working in the field of biomechanics. On this ID The Future, Dr. Burgess discusses his new paper on multi-functioning animal joints with host Dr. Brian Miller. Source
Published 10/07/24
Dr. Jonathan Wells was a true giant of the intelligent design research community. As we mourn his recent passing, we also celebrate anew his considerable contributions to the arguments for intelligent design and the debate over evolution. On this episode of ID The Future out of the vault, Dr. Wells continues a conversation with Tom Woodward on The Universe Next Door. Dr. Wells explains more of the icons of evolution he details in his popular book and why much of what we hear about evolution...
Published 10/04/24
f 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 episode of ID The Future, 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...
Published 10/02/24
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 episode of ID The Future, 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
Published 09/30/24
We were saddened to learn of the recent passing of Dr. Jonathan Wells, a true giant of the intelligent design research community. As we mourn his passing, we are also celebrating anew his considerable contributions to the argument for intelligent design and the debate over evolution. On this episode of ID the Future out of the vault, Dr. Wells begins a conversation on The Universe Next Door with Tom Woodward to talk about his popular book Icons of Evolution. This is Part 1 of a two-part...
Published 09/27/24
The culture of death wrongly interprets the term compassion to mean “to get rid of” rather than its true meaning, “to suffer with.” On this episode, host Eric Anderson welcomes hospice physician Dr. Howard Glicksman to the podcast to discuss physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, the subjects of Dr. Richard Weikart's recent book Unnatural Death: Medicine's Descent From Healing to Killing. Source
Published 09/25/24
On this episode, we’re pleased to share a recent conversation between astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez and author and teacher Dr. Ken Boa on the Explorers Podcast. The topic is Dr. Gonzalez’s passion for astronomy and the wonders of the cosmos. Dr. Gonzalez explains how he developed a passion for astronomy at an early age and how it fueled his career. He also discusses his book The Privileged Planet and his recent young adult novel The Farm at the Center of the Universe. Source
Published 09/23/24