idtop50

Your Designed Body

Steve Laufmann and Howard Glicksman
November 22, 2022
Consider your body. Every day it must solve hundreds of hard engineering problems simultaneously, or else you’ll die. While you’re going about your daily business, your body stores, retrieves, translates, and manages software for thousands of proteins, switches, setpoints, thresholds, feedback loops, coordinate systems, counters, and timers. It disassembles thousands of different complex molecules, converts them into their building blocks, absorbs the building blocks, then reassembles them into the legions of chemicals and proteins that keep you going. Your body also safely transports hazardous chemicals to where they’re needed, without spilling them in places where they’d do harm, and employs them as it orchestrates thousands of complex processes and movements, some nearly …

The Mystery of Life’s Origin

Walter Bradley, Jonathan Wells, Guillermo Gonzalez, Brian Miller, James Tour, David Klinghoffer, Charles Thaxton, and Roger L. Olsen
January 27, 2020
The origin of life from non-life remains one of the most enduring mysteries of modern science. The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy investigates how close scientists are to solving that mystery and explores what we are learning about the origin of life from current research in chemistry, physics, astrobiology, biochemistry, and more. The book includes an updated version of the classic text The Mystery of Life’s Origin by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olsen, plus new chapters on the current state of the debate by synthetic organic chemist James Tour at Rice University, author of more than 700 research publications; philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer, author of Signature in  the Cell; astronomer Guillermo …

Foresight

Marcos Nogueira Eberlin
April 26, 2019
In Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose, learn about jumping insects with real gears, and the ingenious technology behind a power-punching shrimp. Enter the strange world of carnivorous plants. And check out a microscopic protein machine in a bird’s eye that may work as a GPS device by harnessing quantum entanglement. Join renowned Brazilian scientist Marcos Eberlin as he uncovers a myriad of artful solutions to major engineering challenges in chemistry and biology, solutions that point beyond blind evolution to the workings of an attribute unique to minds — foresight. Plaudits and Endorsements Marcos Eberlin, one of the best chemists in the world today, has written a must-read, superb book for anyone considering what indeed science says …

Children of Light

Michael Denton
August 31, 2018
We associate light with the radiant beams that make the world visible to us. But the visible spectrum is only a tiny percentage of an electromagnetic spectrum that extends unimaginably far in both directions. And, as biologist Michael Denton carefully documents, that tiny band of visual light is crucial to life on Earth. In Children of Light, Denton elucidates the miraculous convergence of properties on the tiny band we call the visible spectrum that has allowed intelligent life to flourish on Earth. Follow the journey of light as it beams down from our Sun, through the protective blanket of our atmosphere, to the Earth. Once here, it powers photosynthesis and unlocks the oxygen needed for life. It allows the high-acuity vision that led us to civilization and technology. Light is just one more part of the epic story of our fine-tuned universe, fit for us to flourish here and come to understand it. This book is the third book in the Privileged Species series, which also includes The Wonder of Water and Fire-Maker.

Heretic

Matti Leisola
January 15, 2018
What happens when an up-and-coming European bioscientist flips from Darwin disciple to Darwin defector? Sparks fly. Just ask biotechnologist Matti Leisola. It all started when a student loaned the Finnish scientist a book criticizing evolutionary theory. Leisola reacted angrily, and set out to defend evolution, but found his efforts raised more questions than they answered. He soon morphed into a full-on Darwin skeptic, even as he was on his way to becoming a leading bio-engineer. Heretic is the story of Leisola’s adventures making waves — and many friends and enemies — at major research labs and universities across Europe. Tracing his investigative path, the book draws on Leisola’s expertise in molecular biology to show how the evidence …

The Wonder of Water

Michael Denton
September 11, 2017
About the Book From roaring waterfalls and crashing waves to gentle rain and billowing clouds, water pervades our planet’s majestic biosphere. It is easy to take for granted. But this ever-present substance is amazingly fit in a myriad of ways to sustain life on Earth, especially human life. Its unique properties allow it to fill many roles throughout the biological world, from forming the matrix of our cells, to regulating the temperature of our planet. In The Wonder of Water, biologist Michael Denton delves deep into this grand, untold story and explores how water is specially equipped to allow life to flourish on our blue planet. Find more information on The Privileged Species book series and companion documentaries at www.PrivilegedSpecies.com. About the Author Michael …

Zombie Science

Jonathan Wells
March 27, 2017
About the Book In 2000, biologist Jonathan Wells took the science world by storm with Icons of Evolution, a book showing how biology textbooks routinely promote Darwinism using bogus evidence — icons of evolution like Ernst Haeckel’s faked embryo drawings and peppered moths glued to tree trunks. Critics of the book complained that Wells had merely gathered up a handful of innocent textbook errors and blown them out of proportion. Now, in Zombie Science, Wells asks a simple question: If the icons of evolution were just innocent textbook errors, why do so many of them still persist? Science has enriched our lives and led to countless discoveries. But now, Wells argues, it’s being corrupted. Empirical science is devolving into zombie science, shuffling along unfazed by opposing …

Fire-Maker

Michael Denton
July 18, 2016
From computers to airplanes to life-giving medicines, the technological marvels of our world were made possible by the human use of fire. But the use of fire itself was made possible by an array of features built into the human body and the planet. In Fire-Maker, biologist Michael Denton explores the special features of nature that equipped humans to to harness the powers of fire and remake their world. This book is a companion to the documentary of the same name, available at …

Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis

Michael Denton
January 6, 2016
More than thirty years after his landmark book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), biologist Michael Denton revisits his earlier thesis about the inability of Darwinian evolution to explain the history of life. He argues that there remains “an irresistible consilience of evidence for rejecting Darwinian cumulative selection as the major driving force of evolution.” From the origin of life to the origin of human language, the great divisions in the natural order are still as profound as ever, and they are still unsupported by the series of adaptive transitional forms predicted by Darwin. In addition, Denton makes a provocative new argument about the pervasiveness of non-adaptive order throughout biology, order that cannot be explained by the Darwinian mechanism. Evolution: Still …

Debating Darwin’s Doubt

David Klinghoffer, Paul Nelson, William A. Dembski, Stephen C. Meyer, Casey Luskin, Douglas Axe, David Berlinski, and Richard Sternberg
June 24, 2014
Stephen Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design became a national bestseller, provoking a wide-ranging debate about the adequacy of Darwinian theory to explain life’s history. In Debating Darwin’s Doubt: A Scientific Controversy that Can No Longer Be Denied, leading scholars in the intelligent design community respond to critiques of Meyer’s book and show that the core challenge posed by Meyer remains unanswered.

Discovering Intelligent Design

Gary Kemper, Casey Luskin, and Hallie Kemper
May 7, 2013
The Discovering Intelligent Design textbook is part of a comprehensive curriculum that presents both the biological and cosmological evidence in support of the scientific theory of intelligent design. Developed for middle-school-age students to adults, the curriculum also includes a workbook with learning activities and a DVD with video clips keyed to the content of the textbook.

Science and Human Origins

Ann Gauger, Douglas Axe, and Casey Luskin
August 16, 2012
Science & Human Origins, the provocative new book from Discovery Institute Press, boldly addresses some of the most popular evolutionary arguments pertaining to controversial claims that humans and apes are related through common ancestry. In Science & Human Origins three scientists challenge the claim that undirected natural selection is capable of building a human being. The authors critically assess fossil and genetic evidence that human beings share a common ancestor with apes, and debunk recent claims that the human race could not have started from an original couple. Multimedia Science and Human Origins …

The Myth of Junk DNA

Jonathan Wells
May 31, 2011
Is most of our genome garbage? A number of leading proponents of Darwinian evolution claim that “junk DNA”—the non-protein-coding DNA that makes up more than 95% of our genome—provides decisive evidence for Darwin’s theory and against intelligent design, since an intelligent designer would not have littered our genome with so much garbage. In The Myth of Junk DNA, biologist Jonathan Wells exposes their claim as an anti-scientific myth that ignores the evidence, relies on illegitimate theological speculations, and impedes biomedical research. Far from consisting mainly of junk, the genome is increasingly revealing itself to be a multidimensional, integrated system in which non-protein-coding DNA performs a wide variety of essential biological functions. If anything, the …

God and Evolution

Jay W. Richards
October 15, 2010
Can you believe in God and Darwin at the same time? What is “theistic” evolution, and how consistent is it with traditional theism? What challenges does Darwin’s theory pose for Protestants, Catholics, and Jews? Is it “anti-science” to question Darwinian Theory? Explore these questions and more in the book God and Evolution edited by Jay Richards. God and Evolution is ideal for use in small groups and adult Sunday School classes, and each chapter comes with discussion questions and downloadable video clips to facilitate educational use. A free discussion/study guide is also available for download. Accompanying Video More Information God and Evolution official …

The Design of Life

William A. Dembski and Jonathan Wells
September 5, 2008
About the Book The power of Darwinian evolution on the modern mind lies mainly in its contention that natural selection can account for the appearance of design without a designer. In this comprehensive overview of intelligent design (ID) in biology, mathematician William Dembski and biologist Jonathan Wells make a compelling case that design in biology is real, not an illusion. Dembski and Wells offer clear, direct, and readable discussions drawn from current science research. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the status of the ID versus Darwin debate. This book is published under the imprint of FTE Books. About the Authors William A. Dembski is a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and a Senior Research …

Traipsing Into Evolution

David K. DeWolf, John G. West, Casey Luskin, and Jonathan Witt
March 7, 2006
This book offers a detailed critique of federal Judge John E. Jones's decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, the first trial concerning the constitutionality of teaching intelligent design in public schools.