Science and Culture Today Discovering Design in Nature

ID the Future

with Andrew McDiarmid

No Thinking Without a Thinker: Dr. Mihretu Guta on Consciousness

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Dr. Mihretu Guta
February 20, 2026
Starting this month, ID The Future listeners will get to enjoy a new episode each month (as well as a bingecast archive episode) from our sister podcast Mind Matters News, a production of the Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. The Mind Matters News podcast brings you interviews and insight from computer scientists, engineers, inventors, neurosurgeons, and other experts who bring sanity to the conversation about natural and artificial intelligence, going beyond the hype to explore the undercurrents of these important ideas. And although the Mind Matters News podcast will not often explicitly discuss intelligent design, it regularly explores the nature of intelligence, the origin of information, and the things that make us uniquely human, concepts that are central to the theory of intelligent design. On this archive “bingecast” episode, hosts Robert J. Marks and Angus Menuge welcome Dr. Mihretu Guta to discuss his contribution to the book Minding the Brain. Dr. Guta discusses the nature of consciousness and the challenges in understanding it from a philosophical perspective. He argues that consciousness is a unique property that is deeply subjective and personal, making it difficult to study scientifically. Guta contrasts first-order and second-order approaches to understanding consciousness, emphasizing the need to go beyond just the empirical observation of mental phenomena and examine the underlying metaphysical and ontological questions. The discussion covers a number of relevant topics, highlighting the profound and puzzling nature of consciousness and the importance of philosophical inquiry in grappling with this fundamental aspect of human experience.

Bioengineer Stuart Burgess Reads From New Book Ultimate Engineering

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Stuart Burgess
February 18, 2026
A good way to evaluate scientific theories of origins is to ask what we’d expect to find if the given hypothesis were true and compare that to what we actually observe. Under a Darwinian explanation of life, we’d expect to see designs cobbled together by a blind, undirected process, substandard designs that work but that, in the words of one scientist, wouldn’t win any prizes at an engineering competition. But when we compare that expectation with the scientific evidence, they don’t match up at all. On today’s ID The Future, award-winning British engineer and designer Stuart Burgess reads excerpts from his new book Ultimate Engineering. He’s going to share just enough with you today to whet your appetite for reading his book, which is chock full of evidence that humans and other organisms contain countless examples of not just so-so, not just good or very good, but optimal engineering in the design of systems and structures that keep living things alive.

Rockets & Wristbones: Optimal Engineering in Biology

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Stuart Burgess
February 16, 2026
Is life the result of purposeful design or unintended evolutionary accidents? It’s an ongoing debate that’s about to be impacted by new scientific evidence that suggests living things are full of optimal engineering. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid concludes his conversation with award-winning British engineer and designer Stuart Burgess about his new book Ultimate Engineering. In it Burgess gathers together compelling examples of advanced structures and systems in the human body and other vertebrates that go far beyond what humans have produced and point to intelligent design, not the cobbled-together results of a blind, purposeless process. In Part 2, Burgess compares his professional work on European Space Agency satellites to the far more sophisticated systems found in biology. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 1 in a separate conversation.

Latest Videos

How High-Tech in Your Cells Points to God

The Center for Science and Culture
February 2, 2026
God Proofs

Do you know that the cells inside you are filled with high-tech features and devices? And that they point to God? A short animated video inspired by the graphic novel The God Proofs: How Science Points to YOUR Creator by Doug Ell for young teens and above.

How Logic Points to God

The Center for Science and Culture
January 26, 2026
God Proofs

Does logic point to… God?!!! A short animated video inspired by the graphic novel The God Proofs: How Science Points to YOUR Creator by Doug Ell for young teens and above.

How to Build a Baby

The Center for Science and Culture
January 21, 2026
Secrets of the Human Body

In this episode of Secrets of the Human Body, join medical doctor Howard Glicksman and systems engineer Steve Laufmann as they investigate the intricate systems required to build a human baby.

How Common Sense Points to God

The Center for Science and Culture
January 19, 2026
God Proofs

Does common sense point to… God?!!! A short animated video inspired by the graphic novel The God Proofs: How Science Points to YOUR Creator by Doug Ell for young teens and above.

Intelligent Design

Historical Sciences

Origin of Life

Evolution

Irreducible Intelligence

The more an environment is tuned to amplify probability, the more improbable that environment becomes, requiring further explanation.

Paleontology

Cosmology

Human Origins

Archaeology

The Joy of (Neanderthal) Cooking

The Darwinian account of the human race would be much easier to believe in good faith if scientists could point to a clearly inferior and clearly human being.

History of Science

Geology

Life Sciences

Life Sciences

Neuroscience

Medicine

Biology

Physical Sciences

Physics

Chemistry

Astronomy

Fine-Tuning

Earth Sciences

Geophysics

Environment

Rare Earth

Planetology

Culture

Human Exceptionalism

Oregon Law: Goodbye, Burger

In an era where many among us “feel” more than “think,” the potential for such radical proposals becoming law cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Arts

Ethics

Social Sciences

Faith and Science

Science Education

Scientific Freedom

Science Reporting

On the Origin of Our New Name

First, the conversation delves into the site’s launch in December 2004, when the modern intelligent design movement and the Internet were both relatively new.

Science Struggles with Reality

There seems to be little relationship between many science writers’ current concerns and the reasons that public trust in science has been steadily declining.

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