On this episode, Dr. Richard Weikart reads selections from his new book Unnatural Death: Medicine’s Descent From Healing to Killing. Dr. Weikart is Emeritus Professor of History at California State University Stanislaus and a Senior Fellow with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. He is author of From Darwin to Hitler, Hitler’s Ethic, Hitler’s Religion and The Death of Humanity. Dr. Weikart begins with a portion from the book’s Introduction, which sets the stage and define...
Aug 07, 2024•31 min•Ep 1938•Transcript available on Metacast If we believe there is no qualitative distinction between animals and humans, are we more likely to protect human life or devalue it? On this episode of ID The Future, host Eric Anderson talks to historian Dr. Richard Weikart about his latest book, Unnatural Death: Medicine's Descent From Healing to Killing, now available from Discovery Institute Press. The book is a wide-ranging history of euthanasia and assisted suicide from Ancient Greece to today. How did we get to the point we are at today,...
Aug 05, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of ID the Future out of our vault, biophysicist Kirk Durston completes a three-part series on three categories of science: experimental, inferential, and fantasy science. Fantasy science makes inferential leaps so huge that virtually none of it is testable, either by the standards of experimental science or by those of the historical sciences, which reason to the best explanation by process of elimination. This is Part 3 of a three-part interview. Source...
Aug 02, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Materialist philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote that "only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation…be safely built.” But is this worldview of scientific materialism in line with what science has revealed to us in the last century? On this episode of ID The Future, we’re pleased to share a recent conversation between Dr. Melissa Cain Travis and author and teacher Dr. Ken Boa on the Explorers Podcast. The topic is beauty, harmony, and truth in the sciences. We a...
Jul 31, 2024•43 min•Ep 1935•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes astrophysicist Guillermo Gonzalez back to the program to read and discuss his poem "Totality: A Celestial Theater," written to commemorate the total solar eclipse that occurred in April 2024. You may already be familiar with Gonzalez's popular book The Privileged Planet, co-authored with Dr. Jay Richards, unpacking the arguments for our privileged place in the cosmos. You might also have heard about his new young adult novel The Farm at the Center ...
Jul 29, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of ID the Future from the archive, host Andrew McDiarmid continues a three-part conversation with biophysicist and philosopher Kirk Durston. The topic is Durston’s article series unpacking three types of science: (1) experimental science, (2) inferential science, and (3) fantasy science. In this second of three episodes, Durston recaps the three types but focuses on inferential science. He explains how it involves, in the historical sciences, abductive reasoning, which is m...
Jul 26, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Can artificial intelligence be applied to the scientific theory of Darwinian evolution to help us evaluate its strengths and weaknesses? On this episode of ID The Future, host Casey Luskin concludes his conversation with two distinguished PhD scientists who are asking tough questions of Neo-Darwinism: Olen Brown, Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Missouri, and David Hullender, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas, Arlington. In...
Jul 24, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast If there's anything left to salvage from the Neo-Darwinian theory of life's origins, it must first be rescued from dogma. On this episode of ID The Future, host Casey Luskin begins a conversation with two distinguished PhD scientists who are asking tough questions of Neo-Darwinism: Olen Brown, Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Missouri, and David Hullender, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas, Arlington. Luskin unpacks three r...
Jul 22, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of ID the Future out of the vault, host Andrew McDiarmid begins a three-part conversation with biophysicist and philosopher Kirk Durston. The pair discuss Durston's article series about three types of science — (1) experimental science, which is generally very trustworthy, with some exceptions; (2) inferential science, which can be trustworthy but often takes huge leaps into the doubtable and dodgy; and (3) fantasy science, which is essentially science fiction masquerading as act...
Jul 19, 2024•17 min•Ep 1930•Transcript available on Metacast Are we to credit an unguided evolutionary process for the gift of sleeping and waking? Or are these intricate systems further evidence of design? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid concludes his conversation with Dr. Eric Hedin on the intelligent design of sleep. In Part 2, the pair dig deeper into the purpose of sleep and why it’s so essential to living organisms. They also look at why it’s unlikely that a gradual Darwinian process can be credited for the origin of sleeping and waking...
Jul 17, 2024•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re asleep an average of about 26 years of our life! Most people have a sense that sleep is important, but many of us aren't sure exactly why. Why is sleep so crucial to survival? And how did the processes of sleep emerge in living things? Could a gradual Darwinian process be responsible, or are the systems involved another instance of intelligent design? On this episode, host Andrew McDiarmid begins a conversation with Dr. Eric Hedin about the origin and intelligent design of sleep. This is P...
Jul 15, 2024•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this ID the Future from the archive, intelligent design pioneer William Dembski unpacks one of his chapters in The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions about Life and the Cosmos, which Dembski co-edited with Joseph Holden and episode host Casey Luskin. Dembski discusses why intelligent design better explains the latest scientific evidence better than blind material processes can. He also talks about ID's cultural implications. Source...
Jul 12, 2024•25 min•Ep 1927•Transcript available on Metacast Five years ago, Yale University professor of computer science David Gelernter wrote that he was bidding farewell to neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Why would he take such a bold step? What convinced him that the neo-Darwinian paradigm no longer satisfied the scientific evidence? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid marks the fifth anniversary of Gelernter's important essay by reading it aloud in full. If you’ve read the essay, this will likely be a good refresher on Gelernter’s argume...
Jul 10, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast The biochemical revolution of the last century has revealed powerful evidence of design in living things. Now, scientists are beginning to realize the benefits of studying designed systems through an engineering lens. On today's episode, Dr. Emily Reeves discusses the intersection of biology and engineering with Fred Williams and Doug McBurney, hosts of the Real Science Radio podcast. In this 45-minute chat, Dr. Reeves explains the importance of using engineering principles to understand biologi...
Jul 08, 2024•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s ID the Future out of the vault, radio host Michael Medved sits down with bestselling science author Stephen Meyer to discuss the Marvel movie Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Medved isn’t wild about the film, but he uses it as a springboard to dive into what he calls “the madness of the multiverse”—namely, the proposals in physics and cosmology for the idea that our universe is just one of many universes. Meyer explains some of the early motivations among twentieth-century ph...
Jul 05, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ready to dip a toe in the ocean of biological ingenuity? Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is back, this time to discuss with host Andrew McDiarmid the engineering elegance and irreducible complexity of the process of bacterial cell division. You may wonder why we should care about something so minuscule as bacterial cells. After all, something so insignificant and unseen has little bearing on our daily lives. But if we've learned anything in the biological revolution of the 20th century, it's that consequ...
Jul 03, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Vitalism is the age-old idea that living things possess a vital force – some fundamental element that generally does not exist in non-life. As a Darwinian paradigm took hold of the natural sciences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, vitalism fell out of favor. But as writer and teacher Daniel Witt reports, a willingness to flirt with vitalism seems to be growing in certain scientific circles. Source
Jul 01, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, biochemist and author Michael Denton and host Eric Anderson conclude their conversation about Denton's book The Miracle of the Cell, and about his epiphany of the many remarkable ways that nature’s chemistry is fine-tuned for life. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Source
Jun 28, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Do living things evolve right before our eyes? Perhaps the most common evidence put forward to support evolutionary theory is the observation that organisms can adapt. But is this adaptability really a hallmark of a gradual Darwinian process? Or is it evidence of intelligent design? On this ID The Future, host Eric Anderson speaks with Dr. Emily Reeves about the adaptability of the humble guppy fish, a new icon of evolution heralded by biologists as proof positive of Darwinian evolutionary proce...
Jun 26, 2024•39 min•Ep 1920•Transcript available on Metacast If you enjoy the work of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, including our books, videos, articles, and research, you may wonder how you can get involved. Options include signing up for our weekly newsletter Nota Bene, joining the Discovery Society, and attending our events. But in the last few years, a new way to promote intelligent design at the local level has been, well, growing. It’s called Roots. On this ID The Future, Daniel Reeves, our Director of Education and Outreach...
Jun 24, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of ID the Future from the archive, host Eric Anderson begins a conversation with biochemist Michael Denton about Denton’s 2020 book The Miracle of the Cell, part of his continuing Privileged Species series exploring nature’s fine tuning for life. New research keeps unveiling ever more ways in which this fine tuning exists, from the cosmos to the atoms of the periodic table, and even to the subatomic level of quantum tunneling. Says Denton: "The miracle of the cell completes the o...
Jun 21, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Are we common or rare? You can be on either side of the question and still be excited about the search for habitable planets capable of harboring life. On this episode of ID the Future, host and amateur astronomer Eric Anderson concludes his two-part conversation with Bijan Nemati, professional astronomer and expert on exoplanet search technology, to review the history of exoplanet research and share key details about upcoming NASA missions. Nemati is currently one of the lead scientists for the...
Jun 19, 2024•25 min•Ep 1917•Transcript available on Metacast One of the most exciting areas of space research is the search for Earth-like planets around other stars. Since the first discovery some 30 years ago, thousands of exoplanets have been identified and catalogued, but the vast majority bear little resemblance to Earth and would not be conducive to even simple life, much less large organisms such as ourselves. However, during the same 30 years, planet-hunting technology has also vastly improved. Where do things stand today, and what can we expect o...
Jun 17, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s ID the Future from the vault, distinguished British physician and author David Galloway explains why he’s convinced that the human fetal circulatory system is irreducibly complex and therefore beyond the reach of a blind gradualistic evolutionary process. In this second half of his conversation with host and fellow physician Geoffrey Simmons, Galloway also mentions some molecular machines that he’s convinced are irreducibly complex and point decisively to intelligent design. This is P...
Jun 14, 2024•19 min•Ep 1915•Transcript available on Metacast For decades we were told that non-coding regions of our DNA are littered with evolutionary junk. But in recent years, numerous discoveries have revealed that function is the rule, not the exception, in the genome. On this episode of ID The Future, Casey Luskin reflects with host Jonathan McLatchie about his recent debate over junk DNA with Rutgers University evolutionary biology professor Dr. Daniel Stern Cardinale, known as Dr. Dan online. Luskin breaks down the main points he made in his debat...
Jun 12, 2024•27 min•Ep 1914•Transcript available on Metacast Does a scientific worldview require atheism? Or are scientific discoveries of the last century pointing back to a God hypothesis? On this ID The Future, Piers Morgan sits down with "one of the most controversial philosophical minds on the planet," Dr. Stephen Meyer, for a lively and wide-ranging discussion about the scientific arguments for intelligent design and the problems with atheism. We are grateful to the producers of Piers Morgan Uncensored for permission to re-post this interview on ID ...
Jun 10, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today’s ID the Future from the archive brings onto the show Scottish physician David Galloway, author of the 2021 book Design Detected and former president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. In his conversation with guest host and fellow physician/author Geoffrey Simmons, Galloway describes how he found himself in the evolution/design controversy and eventually presented his doubts about Darwin to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. This is Part 1 of...
Jun 07, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this ID The Future marking the anniversary of President Ronald Reagan's death, we're delighted to share Discovery Institute Vice President Dr. John West's recent conversation with radio host Michael Medved discussing Reagan’s deeply personal argument for intelligent design. During remarks given at a National Prayer Breakfast event in 1988, Reagan shared his argument for intelligent design in unscripted, humorous fashion. But as Dr. West explains, Reagan’s commitment to intelligent design went...
Jun 05, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes comedian and author Evan Sayet to the podcast to discuss the failure of the atheist origin myth, his journey from liberalism to conservatism, and the role of humor in the scientific debate. His latest book, Magic Soup, Typing Monkeys, and Horny Aliens From Outer Space, takes a cuttingly humorous approach to dismantling the origin myths promoted by atheists to explain away the evidence for design in life and the universe. Philosopher of scienc...
Jun 03, 2024•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of ID the Future from the archive, host 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. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Find more episodes at www.idthefuture.com! Source
May 31, 2024•17 min•Ep 1909•Transcript available on Metacast 
