We were saddened to learn of the recent loss of our friend and colleague Tom Gilson. You may have heard Tom occasionally hosting episodes of this podcast. And if you’re a long-time listener, you’ve been listening to his work regularly. For several years, Tom sound engineered ID the Future, taking raw audio files and producing a polished finished product. His reliable, professional work, coupled with his extensive knowledge of the arguments for intelligent design, made him an ideal candidate to work with. On an ID the Future from the archive, we’ve selected an episode that really highlights Tom’s ability to communicate important ideas creatively and memorably. Here, Gilson offers advice to opponents of intelligent design on how to improve their persuasive strategy. Getting ID theory right instead of criticizing a made-up straw man would be a good start, he says. He then offers several additional suggestions, all of which have the incidental effect of highlighting the many suspect rhetorical strategies commonly employed by prominent opponents of intelligent design theory. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

Dig Deeper

• Gilson confronts the ideas of the New Atheists as co-editor of True Reason: Confronting the Irrationality of the New Atheism. 
• Gilson served as a senior editor at The Stream, where he published over a thousand articles. Read some of his articles.