“We Are Not of Our Own Devising” — Wells, Nelson Pay Tribute to Phil Johnson

berkeley, biology, California, Charles Darwin, common descent, Evolution, ID The Future, John Mark Reynolds, Jonathan Wells, Pajaro Dunes, Paul Nelson, Phillip E. Johnson
A new episode of ID the Future comes from a Berkeley, California, symposium honoring the recently deceased Phillip Johnson. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Biologist Jonathan Wells recalls how he met Johnson and the huge influence the latter had on Wells’s own research and writing. Then philosopher of biology Paul Nelson reminisces on Johnson’s keen intellect, his eye for hidden assumptions, his awareness that “we are not of our own devising,” and on the mountain range of new knowledge opening up to us in biology, one that scientists knew little about even thirty years ago and that Nelson says points strongly away from Darwin’s idea of common descent. Photo: John Mark Reynolds, Phil Johnson, and Paul Nelson, Pajaro Dunes, California, June 1998, by Suzanne Nelson. The post…
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ID Inquiry: Robert J. Marks on Information and Intelligent Design

Evolution, ID The Future, information, Intelligent Design, Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, Podcast, Robert J. Marks, scholars, scientists, Walter Bradley Center
On a classic episode of ID the Future, hear an installment in our ID Inquiry series, in which ID scientists and scholars answer your questions about intelligent design and evolution. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Robert J. Marks discusses information and how it relates to intelligent design. Dr. Marks is the director of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence and co-author of Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. Got a question for an ID scientist? Contact us here. Photo: Robert J. Marks at the launch of the Walter Bradley Center, by Nathan Jacobson. The post ID Inquiry: Robert J. Marks on Information and Intelligent Design appeared first on Evolution News.
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Michael Egnor: How Experiments Show that the Mind Is More than the Brain

Adrian Owen, brain, Chemistry, ID The Future, Michael Egnor, mind, MRI, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, neurosurgery, Podcast, Ray Bohlin, Stony Brook University
On a classic episode of ID the Future, host Ray Bohlin talks with Michael Egnor, a pediatric neurosurgeon and professor of neurosurgery at Stony Brook University, about ways modern science validates the idea that the mind is not reducible to the brain. They delve into oddities of neuroscience that indicate that there is more going on in the brain than mere chemistry, and, in particular, walk through the seminal work of Adrian Owen on MRIs and what they reveal. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Photo: Michael Egnor at the inauguration of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence, by Nathan Jacobson. The post Michael Egnor: How Experiments Show that the Mind Is More than the Brain appeared first on Evolution News.
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Forty Parameters of the Designed Body

equilibrium, Goldilocks principle, Howard Glicksman, human body, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Leonardo da Vinci, Life Sciences, Podcast, Steve Laufmann, Tod Butterfield, Vitruvian Man
On a classic episode of ID the Future, host Tod Butterfield interviews Steve Laufmann about Dr. Howard Glicksman’s 81-part Evolution News series, “The Designed Body.” Mr. Laufmann is a consultant in the field of enterprise architecture, dealing with the design of very large, very complex, composite information systems that are orchestrated to perform specified tasks in demanding environments. Hey, that sounds like the human body! Listen in as Laufmann reflects on the body’s fight against equilibrium, the Goldilocks principle, and more! Download the podcast or listen to it here. Image: Vitruvian Man, by Leonardo da Vinci [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. The post Forty Parameters of the Designed Body appeared first on Evolution News.
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Is ID the Best Kept Secret? No Longer

Ben Shapiro Show, Center for Science & Culture, David Berlinski, Discovery Institute, Evolution News, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Intelligent Design the Future, materialism, Media & Communications initiative, Michael Behe, Prager University, Science Uprising, Stephen Meyer, The Return of the God Hypothesis, Uncommon Knowledge
When I started working for Discovery in 2006, I would mention the name of Discovery Institute to my friends or acquaintances and would get a blank stare. Few people had heard of intelligent design (ID) or Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. But all that has changed this year, thanks to generous donors who have supported us. ID is no longer the best-kept secret on the planet. This year alone, our videos on YouTube have had over 3.2 million views, Evolution News and Science Today articles have reached over 1.7 million users, and our Intelligent Design the Future podcasts have been downloaded well over 600,000 times. Our donors made it possible for Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and others to be featured on the Ben Shapiro Show, Uncommon…
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Historian and Nature’s Prophet Author Michael Flannery Reviews the Reviewers

Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Evolution, Harvard University, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Michael Keas, natural selection, natural theology, Nature's Prophet, Podcast, random variation, ruling intelligence, scientism, The World of Life
On a new episode of ID the Future, Michael Flannery speaks again with host Mike Keas about his book Nature’s Prophet: Alfred Russel Wallace, and His Evolution from Natural Selection to Natural Theology. Wallace was the co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection along with Charles Darwin, but in 1869 he broke with Darwin, disagreeing with him on the origin of special human attributes like art, music, and abstract thought. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Seeing how distinctive humans are from other animals, and after determining that the mechanism of random variation and natural selection was inadequate to explain the origin of those distinctive qualities, Wallace concluded that the origin of our species required a special ruling intelligence to explain our appearance. He dissented from his day’s version…
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Michael Flannery on the Unraveling Darwinian Paradigm

Ann Reid, biologists, Darwin Centennial, Darwin lobby, Darwinian theory, Evolution, Evolution News, ID The Future, Los Angeles Times, matter, Michael Flannery, Michael Keas, molecules, National Center for Science Education
On a new episode of ID the Future, host Mike Keas speaks with science historian Michael Flannery about his recent article for Evolution News, “Darwinism: Past, Present, and Future,” in which Professor Flannery wonders about an Los Angeles Times op-ed by Ann Reid, director of a pro-Darwinism lobbying group, the National Center for Science Education. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Evolution is so well established, she says, that questioning it is like doubting that matter is made of atoms. Really? Flannery says she seems not to have noticed that even mainstream biologists have begun to question the long-term viability of Darwinism. Scientists may have felt triumphant in their certainty at the 1959 Darwin Centennial, but today questions and doubts are rising faster than the Darwin lobby can stamp them out.…
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Jeffrey Epstein and the Silence of the Scientists

child prostitution, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, Emily Kurlinski, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Jeffrey Epstein, Michael Egnor, Money, scientists, silence, thought police
On a new episode of ID the Future, neurosurgery professor Michael Egnor discusses the code of silence that kept numerous scientists tied to consensus and silent on Jeffrey Epstein when they should have spoken out. Download the episode or listen to it here. Talking with host Emily Kurlinski, Egnor says that even when it was already widely known that Epstein was involved in child prostitution, his funding was still widely sought and received by scientific institutions, and he entertained scientists who willingly accepted his money. Anyone who’d spoken up, says Egnor, would likely have lost his career. There is a striking parallel. Egnor offers examples of scientists who were open to intelligent design but either kept silent to protect their career or who stepped forward and suffered the consequences at…
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David Berlinski on Europe, Entropy, Agnosticism

agnosticism, biological origins, Darwinism, David Berlinski, demographic winter, entropy, Europe, Evolution, Faith & Science, Human Nature (book), ID The Future, Jews, Muslim, nation state, nationalism, patriotism, Peter Robinson, Physics, Earth & Space, Podcast, s atheism, science, Second Law of Thermodynamics, theism, Uncommon Knowledge
A new episode of ID the Future features the third and final part of a conversation between Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson and Darwin skeptic David Berlinski, author of the newly released book Human Nature. They discuss the fate of Europe, then turn again to science, and the challenge the second law of thermodynamics poses for Darwinism and, by implication, to any theory of biological origins restricted to purely mindless processes. Berlinski suggests that this poses a considerable challenge, tempting Robinson to ask Berlinski whether he still consider himself an agnostic. Download the podcast or listen to it here. The post David Berlinski on Europe, Entropy, Agnosticism appeared first on Evolution News.
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Berlinski: Evolution Toward Virtue and Progress?

Blueprint (book), children's table, cooperation, Culture & Ethics, David Berlinski, death camps, Evolution, ID The Future, Nazi Party, Nazis, Nicholas Christakis, Peter Robinson, Podcast, Pope Benedict XVI, progress, Regensburg address, religious thinking, theology
A new episode of ID the Future features the second part of a conversation between Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson and polymath David Berlinski, author of the newly released book Human Nature. Robinson asks Berlinski about a book by Nicholas Christakis, Blueprint, which argues that evolution has endowed us with a genetic makeup that drives human culture toward virtue and progress. Berlinski demurs, pointing to the horrors of the 20th century and noting that the virtues Christakis underscores, such as cooperativeness, can also be put to nefarious purposes. The Nazi Party, for instance, “was a marvelous engine of cooperation. All those Nazis cooperated with one another running death camps.” Download the podcast or listen to it here. Robinson also asks Berlinski about Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 Regensburg address and the West’s relegating religious thinking,…
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