Phillip Johnson and William Provine on Focus on the Family

Recently Focus on the Family aired part one of a two-part series on evolution. Reaching back into the archives, they played selections from a 1994 debate between intelligent design advocate Phillip Johnson (U.C. Berkeley) and Darwin-defender William Provine (Cornell). One thing in particular struck me: ID advocates are often accused of wanting to push ID into the public high school classroom. Yet even in this early debate, Phillip Johnson clearly notes that ID advocates would be happy just to see Darwinism taught fairly with both its strengths and weaknesses made clear. And, more importantly, ID advocates would like to see the academy open up to discussion of intelligent design — not primarily the high school classroom. You can listen to Read More ›

Need Summer Reading? Try These Books

Before you head to the beach this summer, don’t forget to grab a few good books. Over at ID the Future, I’ve attempted to aid you by interviewing a number of authors with new books out this month. You can listen to these authors discuss their books and judge for yourself what is most interesting: First, I interviewed J. Budziszewski on his latest book on natural law theory, The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction. Second, see my interview with Benjamin Wiker on his new biography The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin. Third, check out this interview with John Mark Reynolds on his new introduction to classical and Christian Read More ›

Intelligent Design and the Artist’s Soul (Part 3)

Editor’s Note: This is crossposted at Professor Scot McKnight’s Beliefnet blog, Jesus Creed. The first post in this series is found here, and the second here. The Origin of Beauty Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt’s masterful book A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature gives the following illustration of how modern scientific reductionists treat nature and the arts: Imagine hearing the following account of one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s symphonies: ‘We have been able to prove that this particular symphony is actually reducible to a series of notes that happen to be played both at the same time in chords and one after another, creating a string of disturbances in the air caused by Read More ›

Intelligent Design and the Artist’s Soul (Part 2)

Editor’s Note: This is crossposted at Professor Scot McKnight’s Beliefnet blog, Jesus Creed. The first post in this series is found here. Intelligent Design and the Deity In the predominant narrative, Charles Darwin was a humble scientist who proposed a strictly scientific theory. Upon publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, religious folks like Bishop Wilberforce voiced theological objections to it; and thus began the most salient episode in the ‘war between science and religion.’ Many Christians adopt a similar narrative, but suggest this was all a misunderstanding; Darwin’s theory simply has nothing to do with religious or philosophical questions. If I may be so bold, I’d like to suggest that both narratives are wrong.