Stephen Meyer, Eric Metaxas: Gain and Loss and the Origin of Life

abiogenesis, Adolf Hitler, agnosticism, Atheism, Brian Miller, Charles Thaxton, Darwin's Doubt, Douglas Axe, Eric Metaxas, Evolution, Günter Bechly, Intelligent Design, James Tour, Jews, materialism, Nazi Germany, origin of life, Petra Moser, Richard Sternberg, Roger Olsen, Stanford University, Stephen Meyer, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, United States, Ur-text, Walter Bradley
Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany “revolutionized U.S. science and innovation,” as Stanford University historian Petra Moser and others have pointed out. Hitler’s loss was our gain. Something not entirely dissimilar is the case in the history of the intelligent design movement and its own revolution. On his radio show today, Eric Metaxas talked with Darwin’s Doubt author Stephen Meyer about the reissue of the expanded version of the Ur-text of intelligent design, a 35th anniversary edition of The Mystery of Life’s Origin. Dr. Meyer contributed a new chapter, as did James Tour, Brian Miller, and other scientists who have come to doubt purely materialist accounts of how the first life arose. Steve points out to Eric that “Some of our very best scientists are refugees from top-level institutions in the mainstream science establishment.”…
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Jay Richards: Warfare Thesis Ignores the Roots of Science

Center for Science & Culture, Faith & Science, ID The Future, Jay Richards, Judeo-Christian culture, materialism, Podcast, religion, Robert Crowther, science, Warfare Thesis
On a classic episode of ID the Future, Center for Science & Culture Director of Communications Rob Crowther interviews CSC Senior Fellow Jay Richards. Listen in as Richards rebuts the warfare thesis — the idea that religion and science are antagonists — and argues that historically, Judeo-Christian culture “was the seedbed from which science emerged.” Has science missed out by being partnered with materialism? Download the podcast or listen to it here. Photo: Jay Richards in a scene from “Why Materialism Fails,” via Discovery Institute. The post Jay Richards: Warfare Thesis Ignores the Roots of Science appeared first on Evolution News.
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Listen: Kirk Durston on Fantasy Science and Scientism

Atheism, biophysics, Evidence, experimental science, fantasy science, historical sciences, ID The Future, inferential science, Kirk Durston, materialism, mathematics, multiverse, philosophy, Physics, Earth & Space, Podcast, proteins, testing
On a new episode of ID the Future, Kirk Durston, a biophysicist focused on identifying high-information-density parts of proteins, completes a three-part series on three categories of science: experimental, inferential, and fantasy science. Download the podcast or listen to it here. 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. One example of fantasy science, according to Durston, is the multiverse. As he argues, that is an imaginative story largely untethered from evidence and testing, but told using math instead of literary devices. Scientism, “atheism dressed up in a lab coat,” can lead to fantasy science of this kind because it commits…
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The “Surprisingly Consistent” Answer to the Question: Are We Alone in the Universe?

a posteriori reasoning, abiogenesis, astrobiology, astronomy, biology, brain, Breakthrough Listen, carbon, consciousness, consensus, Danny C Price, Darwinism, Dyson Sphere, earth, extraterrestrial life, faith, Jeffrey Epstein, Lee Spitler, Macquarie University, Mars, materialism, neuroscience, nitrogen, Orsola De Marco, oxygen, Physics, Earth & Space, science fiction, SETI, starlight, universe
You can understand a lot about modern science if you understand SETI research. Not that SETI is all that sophisticated and certainly not because it’s been successful (it has not), but because it tells you a lot about the materialist metaphysical bias in modern science.  “The Big Question” From The Conversation: Are we alone in the Universe? The expert opinion on that, it turns out, is surprisingly consistent. “Is there other life in the Universe? I would say: probably,” Daniel Zucker, Associate Professor of astronomy at Macquarie University, tells astrophysics student and The Conversation’s editorial intern Antonio Tarquinio on today’s podcast episode. “I think that we will discover life outside of Earth in my lifetime. If not that, then in your lifetime,” says his fellow Macquarie University colleague, Professor Orsola…
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Just the Facts? Michael Flannery on Charles Darwin and Materialism

atheists, Brian Miller, Edward Aveling, Evolution, ID The Future, Ludwig Büchner, materialism, Michael Flannery, Plinian Society, Podcast, University of Edinburgh
On a classic episode of ID the Future, host Brian Miller interviews Michael Flannery on how Darwin’s background conditioned him to materialism, and how this influence shaped his development of the theory of evolution. Listen in to learn more about Darwin’s experiences at the University of Edinburgh with the Plinian Society, and his interaction with prominent atheists Edward Aveling and Ludwig Büchner near the end of his life. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Photo: Mural portrait of Charles Darwin, Sidney Street, Sheffield cc-by-sa/2.0 © Neil Theasby via Geograph. The post Just the Facts? Michael Flannery on Charles Darwin and Materialism appeared first on Evolution News.
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Is Joe Blow “Anti-Intellectual”?

AIDS, anti-intellectual, babies, climate change, conception, Darwinists, DDT, eugenics, Evolution, fossil fuels, gender, global cooling, global warming, Jeffrey Epstein, life, malaria, materialism, men, moral purity, Paul Ehrlich, polar bears, polar ice caps, schoolchildren, schools, science consensus, scientists, Skeptics, Steven Novella, truck driver, women, Y2K, Yale University
It’s a common claim among Darwinists that people who question “expert” scientific opinion on such topics as evolution, global warming, and the mind-brain relationship are “anti-intellectual” science deniers. Steven Novella, a Yale neurologist and credulous Darwinist and materialist makes the claim in a recent post: As science-communicators and skeptics we are trying to understand the phenomenon of rejection of evidence, logic, and the consensus of expert scientific opinion.  Ironically, Novella, who considers himself a skeptic, decries the skepticism of people who don’t agree with him. Purity and Consensus How can it be, scientific experts ask, that so many people doubt scientific experts? Novella: There is, of course, no one explanation — complex psychological phenomena are likely to be multifactorial. Decades ago the blame was placed mostly on scientific illiteracy, a…
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No Success Without Successors: John Mark Reynolds on the Legacy of Phillip E. Johnson

California, Center for Science & Culture, Constantine School, Discovery Institute, Evolution, Houston, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, John Mark Reynolds, materialism, Pajaro Dunes, Phillip E. Johnson, Podcast, success, successors, Suzanne Nelson, truth
On a new episode of ID the Future we hear John Mark Reynolds’s concluding comments at the November 2019 symposium in honor of the late Phillip E. Johnson. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Reynolds is a Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, president of the Constantine School in Houston, and a longtime friend of Phillip Johnson. Reynolds says he saw in Johnson a mind constant and relentless in the pursuit of truth, a man who refused to distort the truth to fit it into a materialist paradigm, and who passed along that mindset to as many as he could, for he knew there is no success without successors. Photo: John Mark Reynolds and Phil Johnson, Pajaro Dunes, California, June 1998, by Suzanne Nelson. The…
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Information as Matter’s “Fifth State” — A Physicist’s Contortion

Big Think, biological information, category error, consciousness, contortionist, cosmos, Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, dark matter, Denyse O'Leary, Evolution News, gas, information, Intelligent Design, John Archibald Wheeler, liquid, Mass, mass-energy, materialism, Melvin Vopson, Mind Matters, natural world, origin of life, Philip Berry, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, plasma, Robert J. Marks, solid, The Mystery Life’s Origin, University of Portsmouth, Ur-text, William Dembski
Materialism drives its adherents into twists of logic, in line with remarks that Robert J. Marks made over the past weekend at the Dallas Conference on Science & Faith. Marks was introducing one of the authors of the newly expanded 1984 intelligent design “Ur-text,” The Mystery Life’s Origin. As Evolution News summarized, “His comments included the observation that as a theist, Dr. Marks is grateful to have all possible scientific explanations of the natural world, including intelligent design, available to him whereas atheists and materialists have that option arbitrarily foreclosed to them.” Whether on the origin of life, of biological information, or of the cosmos itself, how far these contortionists have been compelled to go is indicated in a fascinating post by Denyse O’Leary at Mind Matters. Dark matter is the unknown…
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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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#8 of Our Top Stories of 2019: Remembering Phillip E. Johnson (1940-2019)

ancient Greeks, Boalt Hall School of Law, Casey Luskin, censorship, Center for Science & Culture, Christians, creationism, Darwin on Trial, Darwin's Nemesis, Darwinism, Discovery Institute, Evolution, Genesis, Intelligent Design, Intelligent Design 101, John Mark Reynolds, Kansas State Board of Education, materialism, naturalism, objective education, Phillip E. Johnson, scholars, Science (journal), scientists, Sunday School, Supreme Court, The Wedge of Truth, UC Berkeley
Editor’s note: The staff of Evolution News wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We are counting down our top ten stories of 2019. If you haven’t done so yet, please take a moment now to contribute to our work in bringing you news and analysis about evolution, intelligent design, and more every day of the year. There is no other voice, no other source of information, like ours. Thank you for your friendship and your support! The following article was originally published here on November 3, 2019. Author’s note: With great regret, we recognize the passing of Phillip Johnson, a key guiding spirit of the intelligent design movement. He died peacefully overnight this weekend, at age 79, at his home in Berkeley, California. I am publishing below…
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