Intelligent Design

Biology’s Big Bang: The Cambrian Explosion

Paul Chien
August 15, 2024
Darwinian evolution predicts the gradual emergence of new life forms in the history of life. But the fossil record tells a different story. Journey with Professor Paul K. Chien to Chengjiang, China, and the world’s most extraordinary Cambrian fossil site. As he shows, this fossil site (along with many others around the world) points not to gradual evolution but to the sudden appearance of entirely new animal body plans. The best explanation? Intelligent design. About the In a Nutshell Series This series of booklets was created to help Discovery Society members educate themselves about the basic arguments for intelligent design and the critiques of Darwinian evolution. Each booklet presents the content of one chapter of Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell. To help you …

Evolution’s Irreducible Complexity Problem

Robert P. Waltzer
August 15, 2024
Join professor of biology Robert Waltzer as he shows how some evolutionists play a bait-and-switch game. They give examples of microevolution, such as changes in the average beak size of Galapagos finches, and then act as if this proves macroevolution—that is, the evolution of entirely new body plans in the history of life. Not so fast, Waltzer says. An insurmountable obstacle stands in the way of large-scale evolutionary change: irreducible complexity. What’s more, your own body is actually an irreducibly complex system of irreducibly complex systems, pointing strongly to intelligent design. About the In a Nutshell Series This series of booklets was created to help Discovery Society members educate themselves about the basic arguments for intelligent design and the …

Factories that Build Factories

Eric H. Anderson
August 15, 2024
Evolutionists acknowledge that without a self-replicating entity, the Darwinian process has nothing to work with. So how could mindless chemicals have built the first self-replicating entity to kickstart Darwinian evolution? As design theorist Eric Anderson explains, evolutionists suggest that something simple—like a self-replicating molecule—kickstarted the origin of life on Earth. But is that idea realistic? As it turns out, engineers are trying to build a self-replicating machine, and while they are nowhere close to succeeding, their efforts reveal that even the simplest self-replicating system must be unimaginably sophisticated. Mindless processes aren’t up to the task. What’s required is a most intelligent designer.  About the In a Nutshell Series This series of …

Taking Leave of Darwin

Neil Thomas
August 2, 2021
University professor Neil Thomas was a committed Darwinist and agnostic — until an investigation of evolutionary theory led him to a startling conclusion: “I had been conned!” As he studied the work of Darwin’s defenders, he found himself encountering tactics eerily similar to the methods of political brainwashing he had studied as a scholar. Thomas felt impelled to write a book as a sort of warning call to humanity: “Beware! You have been fooled!” The result is Taking Leave of Darwin, a wide-ranging history of the evolution debate. Thomas uncovers many formidable Darwin opponents that most people know nothing about, ably distills crucial objections raised early and late against Darwinism, and shows that those objections have been explained away but never effectively …

Canceled Science

Eric Hedin
February 27, 2021
Eric Hedin was enjoying a productive career as a physics professor at Ball State University when the letter from a militant atheist arrived and all hell broke loose. The conflict spilled first onto the pages of the local newspaper, and then into the national news. The atheist attack included threats from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which targeted Hedin after learning his Boundaries of Science course exposed students to an evidence-based case for design and purpose in cosmology, physics, and biochemistry. Canceled Science tells the dramatic story of the atheist campaign to cancel Hedin’s course, reveals the evidence the atheists tried to bury, and explores discoveries that have revolutionized our understanding of the nature and origin of matter, space, and even time …

A Mousetrap for Darwin

Michael J. Behe
November 17, 2020
Darwin’s Black Box thrust Michael Behe to the forefront of the intelligent design movement. The Lehigh University biochemist has haunted the dreams of Darwinists ever since. Each of his three books sparked a firestorm of criticism, in everything from the New York Times and the journal Science to the private blogs of professional atheists. Over the years, Behe has had a delightful time rebutting each attack, and now his responses are collected in a single volume entitled A Mousetrap for Darwin. The book’s title alludes to Behe’s homey illustration for his idea of irreducible complexity. A mousetrap with a missing part doesn’t work just a little worse. It doesn’t work at all. The same goes for the bacterial flagellum pictured on the …

Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell

Thomas Y. Lo, Paul Chien, Eric H. Anderson, Robert A. Alston, and Robert P. Waltzer
May 20, 2020
Are life and the universe a mindless accident — the blind outworking of laws governing cosmic, chemical, and biological evolution? That’s the official story many of us were taught somewhere along the way. But what does the science actually say? Drawing on recent discoveries in astronomy, cosmology, chemistry, biology, and paleontology, Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell shows how the latest scientific evidence suggests a very different story. Journey into the smallest cell, to the farthest reaches of the universe, and to the great flowering of form and energy known as the Big Bang. Learn about the mission to build a self-reproducing 3D printer, and how those efforts shed new light on the origin of the first life on earth. And travel with a marine biologist to …

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 and Jonathan Witt
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 …

Darwin’s House of Cards

Tom Bethell
December 21, 2016
About the Book In this provocative history of contemporary debates over evolution, veteran journalist Tom Bethell depicts Darwin’s theory as a nineteenth-century idea past its prime, propped up by logical fallacies, bogus claims, and empirical evidence that is all but disintegrating under an onslaught of new scientific discoveries. Bethell presents a concise yet wide-ranging tour of the flash points of modern evolutionary theory, investigating controversies over common descent, natural selection, the fossil record, biogeography, information theory, evolutionary psychology, artificial intelligence, and the growing intelligent design movement. Bethell’s account is enriched by his own personal encounters with some of our era’s leading evolutionary thinkers, including Harvard …

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 …

How to be an Intellectually Fulfilled Atheist (Or Not)

William A. Dembski and Jonathan Wells
March 16, 2015
Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin,” writes Richard Dawkins, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” This little book shows more persuasively than ever before that Dawkins is wrong and that the origin of life continues to pose insurmountable difficulties to unguided material processes. The authors discuss why traditional origin-of-life research has failed and why intelligent design is necessary to explain the breathtaking variety of information-rich structures and high-tech engineering inside the cell. Updated and expanded, this third edition includes nearly 20 pages of new material from the authors. Published under the imprint of FTE …

In the Beginning

Granville Sewell
March 11, 2015
In this revised and expanded collection of essays on origins, mathematician Granville Sewell looks at the big bang, the fine-tuning of the laws of physics, and (especially) the evolution of life. Sewell explains why evolution is a fundamentally different and much more difficult problem than others solved by science, and why increasing numbers of scientists are now recognizing what has long been obvious to the layman, that there is no explanation possible without design. This book summarizes many of the traditional arguments for intelligent design, but presents some powerful new arguments as well. Plaudits Calm, thoughtful, and far-ranging. William Dembski, author of The Design Inference Sewell provides delightful and wide-ranging commentary on the origins debate and …

Discovering Intelligent Design: Workbook

Casey Luskin, Gary Kemper, and Hallie Kemper
May 7, 2013
The Discovering Intelligent Design Workbook is one 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 full curriculum also includes a textbook and a DVD with video clips keyed to the content of the textbook, as well as an online learning companion with quizzes and mini-lectures. (Note: The textbook and DVD must be purchased separately; this item is the Workbook only.) The Workbook provides review questions, vocabulary questions, and essay questions to enhance the curriculum’s educational value for students. The Workbook also contains inquiry activities to give students hands-on opportunities to learn about intelligent design. …

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.

Metamorphosis

David Klinghoffer
October 24, 2011
About the Book Throughout history, butterflies have fascinated artists, philosophers, scientists and schoolchildren with their profound mystery and beauty. Illustra Media’s new film Metamorphosis explores the remarkable world of butterflies as few documentaries have before, tracing their amazing transformation from caterpillars into winged masterpieces through MRI imaging, computer animation, and stunning nature footage. How did these extraordinary creatures come into being? Are they the products of a blind, undirected process? Or were they the result of intelligent design? In this digital companion to the film, learn more about both the science and artistry of butterflies, how butterflies challenge Darwinian evolution, and how they point toward intelligent design. This …

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 …

Alfred Russel Wallace

Michael Flannery
March 1, 2011
For years Alfred Russel Wallace was little more than an obscure adjunct to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Remembered only for prompting Darwin to write On the Origin of Species by sending Darwin his own letter proposing a theory of natural selection, Wallace was rightly dubbed by one biographer “the forgotten naturalist.” A decade of recent interest in Wallace has done much to bring him back from history’s crypt of forgotten figures, but there is still significant disagreement over his legacy. The provocative thesis of this new biography is that Wallace, in developing his unique brand of evolution, presaged the modern theory of intelligent design. This was Wallace’s ultimate heresy, a heresy that exposed the metaphysical underpinnings of the emerging Darwinian …

Signature of Controversy

David Klinghoffer, David Berlinski, Casey Luskin, Richard Sternberg, Jay W. Richards, Stephen C. Meyer, and Paul Nelson
March 1, 2011
Signature of Controversy is a response to the 2009 bestseller Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer, a book recognized as establishing one of the strongest pillars underlying the argument for intelligent design. To call Signature in the Cell important is an understatement. The critical response that followed the publication of Stephen Meyer’s book was fascinating, but the fact is that few — if any — of the critics really grappled with the crux of Meyer’s argument or with the substance of intelligent-design theory. This is remarkable and telling.  In Signature of Controversy, defenders of intelligent design analyze the hostile response using the critics’ own writings.  Edited by David Klinghoffer and including essays by David …

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 …