

Intelligent Design the Future
Discovery Institute
The ID The Future (IDTF) podcast carries on Discovery Institute's mission of exploring the issues central to evolution and intelligent design. IDTF is a short podcast providing you with the most current news and views on evolution and ID. IDTF delivers brief interviews with key scientists and scholars developing the theory of ID, as well as insightful commentary from Discovery Institute senior fellows and staff on the scientific, educational and legal aspects of the debate. Episode notes and archives available at idthefuture.com.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 19, 2024 • 17min
Three Types of Science, pt. 1: Experimental Science
Biophysicist and philosopher Kirk Durston discusses the categorization of science into experimental, inferential, and fantastical types. He emphasizes the importance of experimental science's credibility and accountability, tackling challenges like reproducibility crisis and the relationship between science and faith. The conversation explores functional information in DNA and proteins as a signal of intelligent design.

Jul 17, 2024 • 22min
Sleeping and Waking: A Designer’s Gift
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, and why intelligent design is a better explanation. This is Part 2 of a two-part discussion.
Source

Jul 15, 2024 • 22min
Eric Hedin on the Intelligent Design of Sleep
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 Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 next!
Source

Jul 12, 2024 • 25min
William Dembski on Why Intelligent Design Matters
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 10, 2024 • 37min
Giving Up Darwin’s Brilliant and Beautiful Theory
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 arguments. If you haven’t read it yet, by all means enjoy!
Source

Jul 8, 2024 • 43min
Emily Reeves on Intersection of Biology and Engineering
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 biological systems. This interview originally aired on Real Science Radio.
Source

Jul 5, 2024 • 18min
Stephen Meyer Visits the Multiverse of Madness
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 physicists and cosmologists for proposing such an exotic theory. Then he turns to what he says is the main driver for interest in the multiverse in our day—a desire to explain away something that is deeply puzzling on the grounds of atheism: that the laws and constants of physics and chemistry are exquisitely fine tuned for life.
Source

Jul 3, 2024 • 21min
The Irreducible Complexity Found in Bacterial Cell Division
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 consequential things often come in very small packages. And if even the simplest forms of life exhibit stunning complexity and engineering prowess, all the more do we! And that complexity and design demands an adequate explanation. Here, McLatchie describes the remarkable process of cell wall breakage and re-synthesis that allows cell division to take place and explains why it's a big problem for Darwinian evolution.
Source

Jul 1, 2024 • 33min
Is Vitalism Making a Comeback?
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

Jun 28, 2024 • 19min
Biochemist Michael Denton on Nature’s Fitness for Life
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