Today’s ID the Future features the second half of a recent webinar spotlighting historian Richard Weikart and his new book, Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism. Here Weikart fields questions from the webinar audience. Along the way Weikart touches on the connection between Darwinism and scientific racism, the objection that Darwinism, properly understood, doesn’t support scientific racism (much less Nazi racism), the racism inherent in Darwin’s own writings and those of prominent early Darwinists such as Ernst Haeckel, and more recent manifestations of Darwinian-inspired scientific racism both academic and populist. This and much more is explored in Weikart’s new book, available here. And for scientific reasons to reject Darwinism along with its racists implications, jump over Read More › Source

Intelligent Design The Future

Darwinian Racism Webinar, Pt. 2

On today’s ID the Future, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson discusses his chapter in a recent Harvest House anthology edited by host Casey Luskin, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith. Nelson says the theory of universal common descent, a key component of modern evolutionary theory, has generated multiple predictions that have failed. The prediction he discusses here is that there would turn out to be a single universal genetic code, since that’s what we should expect if all life on earth is descended from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). Findings over the past three decades have  proven that prediction spectacularly wrong. How does the theory of universal common descent shrug off this contrary empirical finding? The trick for Read More › Source

How Universal Common Descent Survives Failed Predictions

On this classic ID the Future, hear the story of how leading German paleo-entomologist and Darwinist Günter Bechly became convinced of intelligent design. Host Ray Bohlin shares the clip from the documentary Revolutionary, and sits down with the star of the film, Lehigh University biologist and Darwin’s Black Box author Michael Behe, to discuss some possible lessons to glean from Bechly’s dramatic story. In the time since the documentary was filmed, Bechly was forced to resign from his position as curator at the prestigious State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany. Then his English language Wikipedia page disappeared in an apparent attempt to shove this distinguished scientist down a memory hole. Bechly, meanwhile, is standing by his convictions and continuing Read More › Source

A Darwin Day Exhibit Backfires

Today’s ID the Future is part one of a recent webinar featuring Darwinian Racism author and noted historian Richard Weikart, discussing his new book with webinar host and Center for Science and Culture managing director John West. Weikart and West begin by discussing Whoopi Goldberg’s recent claim that the Jewish Holocaust under Nazi Germany was not racist. Yes it was, explains Weikart. Hitler and the Nazis believed that the Nordic or Aryan Europeans, which included Germans, were a superior race, and they viewed Jews, blacks, Slavs, and other races as inferior. Worse, Hitler and other Nazis drew upon Darwin’s theory of evolution, and in particular ideas laid out in Darwin’s The Descent of Man, as well as the work of Read More › Source

Darwinian Racism: The Author Webinar, Pt. 1

On this ID the Future, biophysicist Cornelius Hunter explores Charles Darwin’s theological arguments for his theory of evolution. By theological, Hunter doesn’t mean that Darwin was arguing for theistic evolution. He means that Darwin received what is known as theological utilitarianism from the intellectual culture of his youth, which had strong deistic tendencies and expected everything in creation to be perfectly adapted, and he made a case against it, presenting mindless evolution as a better explanation for his observations of the biological world than theological utilitarianism. But one problem with this approach, according to Hunter, is that it assumed that theological utilitarianism is THE alternative to blind evolution. In fact, there are other alternatives, including an orthodox Judeo-Christian understanding of Read More › Source

Darwin’s Rhetorical Foundation of Sand: Theological Utilitarianism

Today’s ID the Future features the newly released Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism by distinguished historian Richard Weikart. Here Andrew McDiarmid reads from the introduction and chapter one. Weikart begins his book by revisiting the harrowing Columbine High School mass shooting and underscoring the curious fact that one of the mass shooters, a white nationalist, claimed inspiration from not just Adolf Hitler but also Charles Darwin. Since Darwin was a peaceable Victorian English gentleman and naturalist, what possible connection could there be between Darwin on the one hand and Hitler and contemporary white nationalism on the other? Weikart shows that the connection is in fact quite clear from the writings of Hitler, Darwin himself, and Read More › Source

New Book on How Darwinism Fueled Nazi Racism, White Nationalism

On today’s ID the Future Biola University physicist John Bloom discusses his chapter in the recent anthology The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, co-edited by host Casey Luskin. Bloom’s focus in his contributed chapter is the pivotal role of Christianity in the rise of science. Bloom, the academic director of Biola’s master’s program in science and religion, draws on his PhD training in physics but also on his PhD in ancient Near Eastern studies and his study of the history of science. Here he argues that while the Babylonians and Greeks contributed some discoveries and insights that would eventually play into the rise of science, science did not take off, was not born, until a cluster of crucial ideas Read More › Source

John Bloom on the Match that Lit the Scientific Revolution

Today’s ID the Future concludes a three-part series featuring author Neil Thomas in a free-ranging conversation with radio show host Hank Hanegraaff. The focus is Thomas’s recent book, Taking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic Discovers the Case for Design. Here Thomas and Hanegraaff discuss the logical positivists and what Thomas sees as their failure to consistently apply their evidential standards to Darwinism. Thomas also contrasts the cosmic nihilism of Richard Dawkins with the mounting evidence of fine tuning for life, and calls out what Thomas describes as the magical thinking at the heart of Darwinism. Hanegraaff and Thomas also explore how Darwin’s theory of evolution has roots in an ancient philosophical system that was long regarded as resting on Read More › Source

Neil Thomas Takes on Epicurus and the Logical Positivists

On this ID the Future, Taking Leave of Darwin author Neil Thomas continues a lively conversation with radio host Hank Hanegraaff. In this second in a three-part series, the two touch on the fossil record’s challenge to Darwinism, Gould and Eldredge’s rescue attempt, the question of whether Darwin’s best known contemporary defender is dishonest or merely self-deluded, the wishful thinking surrounding origin-of-life studies, the failed attempts to reduce the mind to mere brain chemistry, and the morally repugnant pro-eugenics ideas rooted in Darwinism and touted in the textbook at the heart of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. The conversation is posted here by permission of Hank Hanegraaff. Get Neil Thomas’s book here. Source

Neil Thomas Talks Darwin, Aquinas, OOL and … Young Frankenstein

Today’s ID the Future kicks off a three-part series featuring Taking Leave of Darwin author Neil Thomas interviewed by radio host Hank Hanegraaff. In this first part, Hanegraaff begins by lauding Thomas’s book and underscoring how influential Darwin’s theory of evolution has been on Western culture. Then Thomas sketches the cultural milieu and individual motivations that he’s convinced drew Darwin toward his formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Here the focus is not on the various evidential weaknesses of Darwin’s theory (which Thomas does cover in his book) but on a question that puzzled Thomas once he became convinced of just how evidentially weak the case for Darwinism was: How was it that a theory so poorly Read More › Source

Neil Thomas and Hank Hanegraaff: An Autopsy for Darwinism

On this classic ID The Future, Stephen Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, honors Phillip Johnson, the U.C. Berkeley law professor who helped ignite the modern intelligent design movement with the publication of his highly successful book Darwin on Trial. Meyer says Johnson had the courage to speak up when others wouldn’t. “The overweening dynamic of this debate is fear,” Meyer says. “There are many many many people who have come up to the water’s edge, who have seen the problems with Darwinian evolution, have counted the cost, and recoiled.” But one Berkeley law professor did not recoil. As Meyer put it, “Johnson had the guts.” Source

Stephen Meyer on Phillip Johnson’s Courage

Today’s ID the Future dives into the controversial realm of artificial intelligence (AI). Will robots or other computers ever become so fast and powerful that they become conscious, creative, and free? Will they reach a point where they can create faster and better AI, which will create faster and better AI, and quickly leave humanity in the dust? To shed light on these and other questions swirling around the exciting field of AI, host Casey Luskin interviews computer engineering professor Robert J. Marks, head of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. In the course of the fast-paced interview, Marks touches on dystopian AI and the limits of computer algorithms (they can never do anything that is inherently Read More › Source

Bob Marks on Why AI Won’t Destroy the World, or Save It

On this ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid sits down with Emily Reeves, one of the speakers for the January 22, 2022, Dallas Science and Faith Conference. The two walk through the lineup of speakers for the conference (Stephen Meyer, Brian Miller, Casey Luskin, Ray Bohlin, and others), tease some of the talks, and discuss how to join the one-day event live, either in person in the Dallas area or online. For more about the conference, slated for this Saturday, and to sign up, go here. Source

Emily Reeves Previews Dallas Science/Faith Conference 2022

On this ID the Future from the vault, Eric Anderson makes his first appearance on ID the Future, in an interview with host Casey Luskin. By this point Anderson had been involved in the intelligent design debate for over a decade, and at that stage his primary focus was on analyzing the logical and rhetorical bases of arguments to help people understand strengths, weaknesses, and underlying assumptions of arguments made in the ID and evolution debate. He later used those skills in helping assemble a team of contributors for an excellent recent ID book Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell (Discovery Institute Press), to which he also contributes. There he taps another area of his expertise, the ongoing efforts Read More › Source

Eric Anderson: Probability and Intelligent Design

On this ID the Future, geologist Casey Luskin discusses biogeography and the problems it poses for the idea of universal common descent. To make it work, evolutionists have to propose, for instance, that old world monkeys rafted across the Atlantic from Africa to South America on a natural raft. Really? That’s some raft. And how did the monkeys not starve to death? Or die of thirst? They couldn’t drink salty ocean water, after all. And talk about a genetic bottleneck! That’s just one of several problems Luskin raises with the idea that all species gradually evolved from a universal common ancestor. In his conversation with host Emily Reeves, he also touches on the problem of convergence, as when two creatures Read More › Source

Casey Luskin: Biogeography Is No Friend of Common Descent

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, weekly 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.

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Intelligent Design The Future

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