Seven Years On, the Mind vs. Machine Debate Hasn’t Aged

Are we any closer to Strong AI and the Singularity than we were in 2019? Don't bet on it. On this classic episode of ID the Future from the archive, Andrew McDiarmid catches up with philosopher Jay Richards at the 2019 COSM conference in Seattle. The two discuss the history of George Gilder’s Telecosm conferences and how the first one gave birth to a book Richards edited and contributed to 18 years ago, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I. Source

Did Charles Darwin settle the question of biological design once and for all? That's certainly the impression given by some of his modern defenders, including Richard Dawkins. But the actual history of Darwin's theory tells a different story about the dominant theory of biological origins and why it fails to explain the complexity and specificity and purpose of life. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid continues his conversation with author and scholar Neil Thomas. In his books Taking Leave of Darwin and False Messiah, Thomas examines the intellectual influences behind Darwin's theory, the objections raised by his contemporaries, and the larger philosophical assumptions that have shaped modern evolutionary thinking. Source

In September 2026, philosopher of science Dr. Stephen Meyer argued in Britain’s Daily Telegraph that discoveries in cosmology and biology are strengthening the case for intelligent design and the God hypothesis. Eminent biologist Richard Dawkins was given a chance to respond, and he did so with a vigorous defense of Darwinism and his 20 year old book The God Delusion. But did Dawkins really respond to Meyer’s arguments? And did Charles Darwin actually demolish the argument from design, as Dawkins insists? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes British scholar and professor emeritus Neil Thomas to the podcast to discuss the Telegraph dust-up and respond to Dawkins's claim that Darwin demolished the design argument. In his two books Taking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic Discovers the Case for Design and False Messiah: Darwinism As the God That Failed, Thomas has explained why he walked away from Darwinism and why the theory of natural selection that rose to prominence in the last 150 years is much weaker and less scientific than its champions would have us believe. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Source

Rolex is well-known the world over for crafting high-quality, innovative time-pieces. But did you know they also award funds to people with innovative ideas in science and technology? On this classic ID The Future out of the vault, Texan engineer, writer, and self-taught scientist Forrest M. Mims recounts his experience of winning a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 1993 for his innovative proposal to track the ozone layer through a worldwide ground-based network that utilized his own homemade ozone instruments. Mims discusses the work that led to the honor, the memorable trip to Switzerland to collect the award, and how the Rolex Award propelled his career in science. Source

Today’s episode of ID The Future comes from our sister podcast Mind Matters News, a production of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Mind Matters regularly explores the nature of intelligence, the origin of information, and the things that make us uniquely human, all concepts that are central to the theory of intelligent design. Enjoy today’s offering of Mind Matters News! When we are asked to point to heaven, we point up. But that’s not where heaven is. That’s outer space. Today on the Mind Matters News podcast, host Robert J. Marks shares a lecture he recently gave in his Baylor University course Multidimensional Signal Analysis entitled “Where is Heaven?” The speculative talk approaches the concept of multiple dimensions from mathematical and theological angles to ask whether heaven might exist in dimensions beyond the ones we can perceive. Source

Is the natural world full of flawed, makeshift designs, as some critics of intelligent design have argued? Or are living things far more ingeniously engineered than we've been led to believe? On this episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid is pleased to bring you a conversation with award-winning British engineer and designer Dr. Stuart Burgess, a senior fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture and author of the book Ultimate Engineering. Dr. Burgess has spent decades studying engineering design, both in human technology and in humans themselves. And his work has led him to challenge the popular claim that biology is full of poor design. In this conversation, originally recorded for the Truthful Hope podcast, host Jacob Vasquez talks with Burgess about the so called bad design argument and what engineering principles can tell us about the evidence for intelligent design in nature. Source

In June 1860, just seven months after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, three men hotly debated the merits of Darwin's argument at a meeting of the British Association. Biologist Thomas Henry Huxley and botanist Joseph Hooker defended Darwin's theory. English bishop, speaker, and writer Samuel Wilberforce critiqued it. And though he was a man of the cloth, Wilberforce did not build a theological case against Darwin. Rather, he evaluated the argument for natural selection on scientific grounds, exposing its "loose statements and unfounded speculations" by weighing it "in the simple scales of logical examination." On this classic ID The Future out of the vault, host Andrew McDiarmid treats you to excerpts from Wilberforce's powerful critique, published as a review a month after the debate in Quarterly Review. Source

Purpose has been a fundamental part of our understanding of nature for millennia. But the rise of scientific materialism and Darwinism saw purpose get left out of the scientific pursuit. In recent years, materialists have found it necessary to bring purpose back into the equation, and they’re looking for a way to explain it without recourse to intelligent design. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid concludes his conversation with Dr. Stephen Iacoboni, an award-winning cancer researcher and practitioner of medical oncology for forty years. 20th-century materialism treated living organisms as reducible machines governed strictly by Newtonian physics and simple genetic mechanics. But modern research shows organisms are not passive objects: "Organisms don't act like inert objects responding to external forces impinged on them," says Dr. Iacoboni. They are "active agents that figure out what's going on in their conditions of existence and they figure out what to do about it in real time." This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Source

Purpose was once considered fundamental to understanding nature. But for the last few centuries, scientists committed to a Darwinian view of life have ignored it. Now some materialists are reconsidering agency, function, and emergence in biology. But can they succeed without acknowledging intelligent design? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes Dr. Stephen Iacoboni, an award-winning cancer researcher and practitioner of medical oncology for forty years. In his personal memoir, The Undying Soul, he chronicles his spiritual journey and return to faith. And in his book, Telos: The Scientific Basis for a Life of Purpose, he offers a unique reconciliation between faith and science. He also writes regularly at Science & Culture Today. In this opening segment, Iacoboni takes us on a brief historical tour of purpose in science, showing when it began to get excluded in the scientific pursuit. Source

On this classic ID the Future out of the vault, guest host Robert J. Marks interviews Roger Olsen, co-author of the groundbreaking book The Mystery of Life’s Origin. In the work’s epilogue the authors suggested that a designing intelligence stands as the best explanation for the origin of life. And with a revised and greatly expanded new edition of the book available, Olsen says that more than thirty-five years of additional research from the origin-of-life community have left their conclusions stronger than ever. Source