Our colleague Casey Luskin sat down for a “Person of Interest” interview with Terrell Clemmons at Salvo Magazine. It’s a worthwhile read and his answer to a question about the state of the intelligent design versus evolution debate is very much worth sharing. Clemmons asked, “Where have you seen the ID movement make strides?” Dr. Luskin replied:
Having engaged in this debate now for about 25 years, I’m highly encouraged by how ID predictions and assumptions have borne good fruit in science. We’ve discovered that “junk DNA” is both functional and crucial, and that genomes are full of unique “orphan genes.” New layers of information and control have been found in epigenetics, RNA splicing, and the “sugar code” that are now fully accepted by science. Systems biology — a field which uses ID-based assumptions that organisms have a “top-down” hierarchical design — is now widely practiced in biology.
Meanwhile, old evolutionary problems remain unsolved. Evolutionary biology still has not provided stepwise explanations for irreducibly complex features. The fossil record still shows a pattern of explosions — the opposite prediction of Darwinian evolution. The revolution in genome sequencing has produced huge amounts of DNA data that contradict the “tree of life.” And perhaps most importantly, leading evolutionary scientists have begun to acknowledge that the neo-Darwinian model has failed to explain a fundamental aspect of evolution: the origin of new complex biological features.
These failures of neo-Darwinism have led to the emergence of the “Third Way Evolution” camp — a group of mainstream scientists who don’t support ID but recognize the need for new evolutionary models. Some Third Way proponents even acknowledge there is teleology and purpose in living systems. The rise of the Third Way camp is a major step in the right direction.
And then there’s the growth of ID research. A major part of my job at Discovery Institute is to manage our ID 3.0 Research Program where we are funding dozens of projects being conducted by pro-ID scientists worldwide. We’re funding research that is discovering evidence for design in protein complexity, molecular machines, orphan genes, overlapping genes, evolutionary algorithms, the engineering of biology, population genetics, earth’s unique design, cosmic fine-tuning, and much more. The ID community has now published over 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers, showing that ID is a viable scientific paradigm to guide research.
Read the rest at “IDEA Man: A Conversation with Casey Luskin.” This is part of the material that I wish someone would share with Elon Musk. It’s also encouraging to think about as we approach the end of the year. Please consider supporting the work of the Center for Science and Culture!