By Brian Miller Today’s ID the Future is Part 2 of an extended interview between synthetic organic chemist James Tour and physicist/engineer Brian Miller. Here the conversation turns to the challenge and necessity of quickly evolving error-correction mechanisms in origin-of-life scenarios and the way origin-of-life researchers slip information and design into their origin-of-life work in the lab. Miller also makes a case for the research benefits of studying cells from a design perspective. Source …read more Source: id the future
By Brian Miller Today’s ID the Future features Part 1 of an extended interview that first appeared on a podcast show hosted by distinguished Rice University synthetic organic chemist James M. Tour. As he typically does, since it’s the Science & Faith podcast, Dr. Tour begins his show by asking his guest for a statement of faith. Miller, a Christian, gives his, and then they dive into origin-of-life science. In a surprisingly accessible discussion given the depth of the material, the pair cover a range of issues—thermodynamics and the origin of the first cell, entropy, free energy, order and disorder,
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By Cornelius G. Hunter On this ID the Future Cornelius Hunter continues discussing determinism, which he describes as a “bizarre position” held “with great confidence” by scientists such as the German physicist Sabine Hossenfelder. It’s bizarre, says Hunter, because if it’s true, then the universe’s initial conditions and the laws of nature produced the particular works of Beethoven and Shakespeare willy nilly. If it’s true, then all one says or thinks — right or wrong, true or false — was determined some 13.8 billion years ago. But if that’s the case, then there are no reasonable grounds for concluding that
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By Michael Behe On this ID the Future, Michael Behe responds to the attacks on … his mousetrap. Behe used the common mousetrap to illustrate the idea of irreducible complexity, showing how various mechanical contrivances need all of their main parts to function, and to show how irreducible complexity poses a major challenge to Darwinism’s idea of gradual, step-by-step evolution of some biological machines. Most of the attacks on Behe’s argument have focused on the irreducibly complex biological systems he spotlighted, such as the outboard motor known as the bacterial flagellum. But some of his critics fixated on the mousetrap
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By Michael Behe On this ID the Future from the vault, Lehigh University biologist Michael Behe discusses his peer-reviewed scientific paper in the Quarterly Review of Biology. Behe explains why most examples of evolution in bacteria and viruses entail loss or modification of function rather than gain of a new function at the molecular level. In Behe’s view, this poses a challenge to Darwinian explanations of molecular evolution. Darwinian evolution is supposed to explain how new forms and functions arose in the history of life, but when we study the process at the molecular level, we find evolution creating niche
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By Cornelius G. Hunter On this ID the Future Cornelius Hunter discusses the controversy over determinism and free will. Joined by host Michael Keas, Dr. Hunter, a specialist in biophysics and computational biology, takes listeners all the way back to Aristotle, then to Newton, then to Pierre-Simon Laplace, who theorized that a sufficient computation could determine the future based on just the universe’s initial conditions and the laws of nature. Laplace was a physical determinist, in other words, one who holds that the laws of nature determine everything. That includes human choices, which determinists today, such as German theoretical physicist
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By Wesley J. Smith On this ID the Future from the vault, Wesley J. Smith concludes the discussion of his book and documentary The War on Humans. In this final segment, Smith discusses the impact of Darwinism on bioethics and human rights, and why we need to take the threat of the anti-humanism movement seriously. Source …read more Source: id the future
By Michael Behe On this ID the Future, Michael Behe continues discussing A Mousetrap for Darwin, his newest book. Understanding of the cell has grown “by leaps and bounds” since the 1990s, when Behe’s first book appeared. Fresh discoveries have revealed ever more complex structures inside the cell. As Behe explains, it isn’t just the bacterial flagellum that’s irreducibly complex; the “hook” region inside the flagellum is, too. Evolution’s proper place of study has moved from gross anatomy and population genetics to biochemistry. In his conversation with host Eric Anderson, Behe says that intelligent design theory’s predictions are coming true
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By Michael Behe On this ID the Future, Eric Anderson interviews Michael Behe about Behe’s new book, A Mousetrap for Darwin. In this episode, Behe explains that he was spurred to build this collection of essays by a review in the journal Science claiming he had never answered his critics on key points. That annoyed Behe, because he had, multiple times. A Mousetrap for Darwin compiles more than a hundred of his responses, some of them from difficult-to-access places. The book also contains fresh material from Dr. Behe, including some lively behind-the-scenes details about his interactions with colleagues and critics.
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By Howard Glicksman On this ID the Future Eric Anderson and physician Howard Glicksman further discuss a recent Journal of Anatomy article suggesting possible evolutionary changes in humans: a persistent, prominent median artery in some people’s arms. Journalists have hyped this as evolution in action, but Anderson and Glicksman say there’s little reason to treat this as an evolutionary change, even if it’s real. And they say it’s far from clear how natural selection could select for this as an “adaptation” when its most obvious effect is to contribute to carpal tunnel syndrome and other health problems. Source …read more
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By Howard Glicksman On this ID the Future, Eric Anderson and physician Howard Glicksman discuss a recent article in the Journal of Anatomy suggesting new microevolutionary changes in humans. Researchers say a growing number of adults have a persistent, prominent median artery in their arms, an artery that’s important in the embryonic stage but tends to disappear later on. The study was quickly hyped in the popular press with breathless headlines such as “Evolution arms us with an extra artery.” On the way to separating hype from substance, Anderson and Glicksman dive into the physiology of arteries and embryological development.
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By Wesley J. Smith On this classic ID the Future, hear more from bioethicist Wesley J. Smith about The War on Humans. In this episode of the series, hear about the legal movement to establish legal rights for animals, and even plants. Smith examines the meaning of the term “personhood” and its implications for human rights. Source …read more Source: id the future
By Michael Behe On this ID the Future, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe reads from A Mousetrap for Darwin, his latest book making the case against blind evolution and for intelligent design. The volume contains some brand new material alongside a substantial collection of essays he’s written over the years in response to critics of his three previous intelligent design books. His pro-Darwin critics have jumped all over Behe. Some have even claimed he’s ignored their objections. A Mousetrap for Darwin gives the lie to that charge. Behe has answered his critics, and done so decisively, in everything from the
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By Michael Egnor On this ID the Future, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor discusses his recent article about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn, the great Soviet dissident and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, penned the essay “Live Not By Lies” in 1974, just before he was arrested and exiled from Russia. It was his advice, or even strategy, for living under totalitarianism. Solzhenitsyn’s basic advice is simply not to participate with lies, and to refuse to speak what one does not believe. It’s unnervingly relevant counsel to us in America today, where “cancel culture” and other silencing tactics, long foreshadowed in the
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By Michael Egnor On this ID the Future neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviews Bernardo Kastrup, a philosopher with a background in computer engineering, about consciousness, evolution, and intelligent design. Did consciousness evolve? What does the evidence suggest? And how do materialists deal with the seemingly immaterial reality that is consciousness? This is a guest episode borrowed with permission from Mind Matters, a podcast of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Source …read more Source: id the future
By Wesley J. Smith On this ID the Future from the vault, bioethicist Wesley J. Smith continues discussing The War on Humans book and documentary. In this episode, Smith tells how a good and worthwhile conservation movement is being corrupted into an anti-human movement, and how this hurts humans, especially in the developing world and among marginalized people groups. Source …read more Source: id the future
By Michael Denton On this ID the Future, biochemist Michael Denton draws from his groundbreaking new book, The Miracle of the Cell, to explore a fine-tuning design argument centered on the periodic elements essential for life. Twenty elements—and water, too—appear to have been precisely fine-tuned in advance for highly specific biochemical roles. Without their precise properties, cellular and animal life would be impossible. “Words fail,” says Denton, to describe the “almost eerie sense” that someone very powerful knew in advance the roles and capacities required of various elements to carry out the astonishingly sophisticated activities that make cellular life possible.
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By Wesley J. Smith On this ID the Future from the vault, bioethicist Wesley J. Smith discusses his book The War on Humans, also adapted as a documentary film. Smith discusses what makes humans unique among the creatures of the earth, and why it matters: “Universal human rights are at stake. The intrinsic dignity of human life is at stake. The understanding of our unique place in the world, both in terms of our value and in terms of obligation, they are at stake.” Listen in. For more information about the digital book and the documentary, visit waronhumans.com. Source …read
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By John Lennox On this ID the Future, host Stephen Meyer concludes his three-part conversation with Oxford mathematician and philosopher John Lennox on Lennox’s new film Against the Tide: Finding God in an Age of Science. Science depends on word, on logos, says Lennox, meaning the rational intelligibility of the universe. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, wished to disprove the need for God, but the language of DNA has turned out to be a signpost to an intelligence, Lennox comments, a logos, behind nature. Scientists still claim authority to pronounce against theism, but according to Lennox, such pronouncements come not
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By John Lennox On this ID the Future, Stephen Meyer and Oxford University mathematician and thinker John Lennox begin a three-part conversation about Lennox’s upcoming documentary, Against the Tide: Finding God in an Age of Science. As Lennox explains, he grew up as the child of a uniquely non-sectarian Christian family in Northern Ireland, with parents who encouraged him to question broadly, read widely, and respect every person as a creature made in the image of God. He tells of his encounters with C. S. Lewis at Cambridge University, relates a humorous story in which atheist Peter Atkins gave him
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By John Lennox On this ID the Future, John Lennox tells about discovering the damage atheism does to people, by seeing it firsthand in communist Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and seeing what it does to rationality itself. In his continuing conversation with host and philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, Lennox relates how in his interactions with famous religiously skeptical scientists, he emphasizes that the Judeo-Christian worldview did much to give us science. When skeptical scientists ask the Oxford mathematician and philosopher how Christianity could have anything to say to science, Lennox is ready with an answer. This
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By Michael Denton On this ID the Future, biochemist Michael Denton delves further into his revelatory new book The Miracle of the Cell. Here he discusses finely tuned chemical bonds. Cellular life would be impossible if strong bonds weren’t just so for some cellular functions, and if weak bonds weren’t just so for others. Each type of bond exists in a Goldilocks zone, neither too strong nor too weak for its purposes. They’re tailored to fit. Denton also explores the miracle enzyme known as ATP synthase and some of the fine-tuning particulars of this life-essential molecular complex. Source …read more
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By Michael Flannery On this episode of ID the Future, science historian and host Michael Keas talks with fellow science historian Michael Flannery about the newly updated book Intelligent Evolution: How Alfred Russell Wallace’s World of Life Challenged Darwin. Flannery tells of Darwin’s involvement in the Plinian Society, a “freethinkers” group at Edinburgh University where he studied medicine as a teenager. It was there that he first encountered radical philosophical materialism, the worldview that laid the philosophical foundation for his work in evolution. Flannery also speaks of Alfred Russel Wallace’s “intelligent evolution” and how it differs from Darwinism and from
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By Michael Denton On this episode of ID the Future, biochemist and author Michael Denton tells host Eric Anderson more about his new book The Miracle of the Cell, and about his epiphany when he recognized the many remarkable ways that nature’s chemistry is fine-tuned for life. The focus in this conversation is on carbon chemistry and its “goldilocks zone” ability to form stable bonds but let loose of them when needed. Whereas biologists once wondered about a vitalist “life force” in the cell, Denton sees intelligence and foresight in the very design of carbon, its unique properties, and its
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By Michael Flannery On this ID the Future, science historian Michael Flannery continues discussing his newly updated Intelligent Evolution: How Alfred Russel Wallace’s World of Life Challenged Darwin. Wallace was co-founder with Charles Darwin of the theory of evolution by random variation and natural selection, but unlike Darwin he saw teleology or purpose as essential to life’s history, and a teleological view as essential to the life sciences. According to Flannery, Wallace’s views on the nature of the cell, the special attributes of humans, the irreducible nature of life, and the fine tuning of the universe hold up well today.
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By Michael Denton On this episode of ID the Future, Eric Anderson speaks with biochemist Michael Denton about Denton’s new 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, even to the subatomic level of quantum tunneling. As for the cell itself, It is as if scientists are discovering a “third infinity,” says Denton. Your browser does not support playing Audio, please upgrade your browser or find
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By Günter Bechly Darwinian gradualism predicts biological forms evolving gradually from one to another, but it is widely acknowledged that this is not what the fossil record shows. Darwinists have long suggested that this fossil record pattern of major discontinuities is merely an artifact of the fossil record being incomplete. But on this episode of ID the Future, paleoentomologist Günter Bechly makes the case that recent findings have put the nails in the coffin of this “artifact hypothesis.” He goes on to argue that these findings are “not just a tiny problem but a fatal problem” for modern Darwinism. Your
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