Adam Shapiro is a science historian who has cast stones at intelligent design in the past, and missed. Back In July 2020 he offered the strange criticism that ID proponents could have redeemed themselves by prejudging with regard to the COVID-19 virus and concluding (in the absence of needed evidence) that it was of natural origins, thus rejecting “the Chinese lab myth.” That critique has not aged well.
Now Shapiro is back, facing geologist Casey Luskin in a debate on Justin Brierley’s always enlightening podcast, Unbelievable? You can watch the premiere of the debate tomorrow, Friday, March 25, at 11 am Pacific time, and contribute your own thoughts in the live comment box on YouTube. The question up for discussion: “Is Intelligent Design Advancing?”
If you’ll forgive the spoiler, the obvious answer is, “Of course it is!” As Dr. Luskin noted here earlier in the week, he and our physicist colleague Brian Miller get inquiries almost every day from scientists who are edging their way, in private, toward intelligent design, or who have already concluded that the evidence of design is persuasive. As Casey wrote,
On what seems like almost a daily basis, some new ID-friendly scientist emails us out of the blue to make contact with kindred spirits. Sometimes the person may be retired and so can be “out of the closet.” More often, these folks are neck-deep in their careers — actively involved in research and/or teaching. They may be a postdoc, or a junior faculty member; sometimes they are still a student finishing up a PhD. Brian Miller and I frequently Zoom with these people. There’s so much of this sort of thing happening that we’re usually Zooming with newly discovered ID-friendly scientists on multiple days of the week.
That’s a clear indicator of a scientific movement that is advancing, wouldn’t you agree? Let’s see what Dr. Shapiro has to say in response.