Episode Details

After a seven-episode deep-dive into Intelligent Design, we finally arrive at our better informed opinion of our position on this worldview.

We started this 7-part mini-series introducing the Intelligent Design proposal that many creationists hold, and also shared our position at the outset on it: at that time, we were not convinced, feeling like we should embrace it but still a bit skeptical, and not really knowing what to do. It took seven episodes — three in which we gave you, the non-expert, some conceptual foundations to follow the scientific arguments (what is Intelligent Design; how do genes work; how are proteins made), and then the interviews with two leading Intelligent Design proponents (Michael Behe; Jonathan McLatchie) and the counterarguments from three scientific experts (Nick Matzke; Matt Miller; Mark Pallen). We now feel ready to make a better informed opinion about the ID worldview.

In this episode, Scott and Luke pull the threads together, compare notes, and try to make sense of the differing arguments presented. Points that we covered include:

• the reasons why we decided to do this deep-dive into ID, despite the warning that listeners might not be too interested
• the leaders in this new wave of creationism (Michael Behe; Stephen Meyer; Jonathan McLatchie) are much more highly credentialed in relevant academic fields than those in the first wave (Duane Gish; Henry Morris; Ken Ham)
• the leading ID proponents and the scientific experts that we brought in told very different stories!? Non-experts listening to these two groups aren’t well-equipped to discern the differences, and to evaluate which side is bringing the better information or interpretation.
• both Luke and Scott went into this deep-dive willing to give ID a fair chance, but both found the perspective conveyed by the ID-advocates quite unconvincing (and their modus operandi annoying), and the perspective from the scientists to be not only convincin