Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: The Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
Welcome to I View the Future. I'm your host, Andrew McDermott. Today I'm welcoming Dr. Brian Miller back to the show. Our topic, Discovery Institute's annual seminar program, happens every summer, and we want you to be involved, or perhaps you know somebody who might be a great fit. Dr. Miller attended the summer seminar in 2016 as a student, and he's now one of the event's teachers. Every year, we'll talk about how the seminars impacted him personally and why the event is such a unique opportunity to learn more about a wide range of topics from the natural and social sciences as well as the humanities. Now, in case you don't know Dr. Miller yet, he is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute's center for Science and Culture, where he serves as Research coordinator. He holds a B.S. in Physics with a minor in Engineering from MIT and a Ph.D. in Physics from Duke University. He helps to manage the CSC's ID 3.0 research program, and he's a primary organizer of the conference on Engineering and the Life Sciences. He has contributed to multiple books and journals covering the debate over intelligent design, including the expanded edition of the Mystery of Life's Origin and the Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith. He is a regular contributor to Evolution News and Science Today, and if you don't know that resource, it's just a wonderful resource. It's our flagship news and commentary site covering the whole debate over evolution and the evidence for intelligent design across the sciences. And of course, you can hear his voice regularly right here on the ID the Future podcast. Brian, welcome back.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be back.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, before we talk about your own involvement with the Summer Seminar, I wanted to get your help. Just reviewing quickly what the Summer Seminar program is all about and some of the basics people might want to know, such as who can participate, what the costs are, where it is, is this in person or online, things like that. Let me give you a little bit of background first, listeners. The CSC Summer Seminar program is sponsored by by the Discovery Institute's center for Science and Culture. It was launched in 2007, and the program has now had the pleasure of hosting hundreds of students and professionals from around the country and around the world who wish to follow the evidence where it leads. The program is led by prominent ID researchers and scholars from a variety of disciplines who are equipped to explore a wide range of questions related to the origin of the universe, life, and human consciousness. Presentations and discussions help equip participants with the tools to Breathe new purpose into the scientific enterprise, as well as to explore the many social implications of scientific theories. Now, Brian, historically there have been two seminars offered concurrently each summer. The Seminar on Intelligent Design in the Natural sciences and the C.S. lewis Fellows Program on Science and Society. Now, can you briefly mention the focus of that first one I mentioned, the one on intelligent design and natural sciences.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Yes, certainly. The seminar on Intelligent Design is really designed for students and professionals in the natural sciences. That would be people that are studying physics or chemistry or biology or geology, and also for people that might be interested in the history and philosophy of science. So those would be the sorts of people that would really be interested in that particular tract.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Okay. And that track prepares participants to make research contributions advancing the growing science of intelligent design. And it's going to explore cutting edge ID work in fields like molecular biology, biochemistry, embryology, developmental biology, paleontology, ID theoretic, mathematics, I mean, you name it.
Now there is the other track, and that is the Seminar on Science and Society. And that on the other hand, is designed primarily for students and professionals in the humanities, the social sciences, law and theology. Now that track explores the growing impact of science on politics, economics, social policy, bioethics, theology and the arts during the past century. Some of the topics explored include the relationship between faith and science, the rise of scientific materialism, evolutionary conceptions of ethics, the coverage of science controversies by the news media, legal and public policy, conflicts over science education, science and the arts, and much more. So you kind of get the idea of the focuses of the two tracks. Now, these two seminars do share a core curriculum and of course a core set of teachers, but they diverge at times to focus on more specialized topics. Now, because of the level of interest in the program, both in the US and abroad, we now have in person seminars which are held at Glen Eyrie Castle and Conference center in Colorado Springs. And then we have an online seminar for international participants. So two ways to join in wherever the participants are in the world. Let's cover a few other basics about the seminars. Brian, is there a cost to participate in the summer seminar program?
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Well, this is really the good news is that there really is no or minimal costs. There's no application fee, there's no tuition fee. We provide the digital course materials for free. That includes books, articles, other resources. And for those in the United States who are coming to the in person sessions, we even cover lodging and meals. And for travel, if there really is a need based travel, if there's a concern about the travel expense, we do have certain need Based scholarships. So we'll even cover the travel if needed.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah, so they're not joking when they say all expense is paid. Well, here's another big question we get regularly. Who can participate?
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Well, it's really intended ideally for people that are advanced undergraduate. That would be people that, let's say, are seniors in undergraduate programs or graduate students. But we also will take a certain number of people that are like, professors, research scientists, teachers, pastors, and other professionals. So anyone within these basic categories would be ideal to apply for the seminars.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Okay. All right. So student applicants must be college juniors or seniors or already in graduate school. And professional applicants may be postdocs, professors, scientists, teachers, pastors, as you're saying, other professionals. And of course, space is limited and admittance is competitive, so the quicker you get an application and the better. Now, Brian, tell us how you came to participate in the summer seminars. You were a student back in 2016, right?
[00:06:53] Speaker A: That's correct. In fact, at that time in my life, what I was doing is I was actually speaking in different countries, on different university campuses and other venues on the interrelationship of faith and science. And I would often travel with Dr. Rice Brooks, who is a leading figure in many of these conversations. And what happened is I actually contacted Dr. Meyer to meet Dr. Brooks, and then we ended up speaking together at Arizona State university. And then Dr. Meyer told me about the summer seminar. So I absolutely had to attend. And once I attended, that really changed the course of my life.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I actually do remember when you and Rice Brooks were getting in touch with Stephen meyer. I was Dr. Meyer's assistant for the first decade of my time here at Discovery, and I do recall making the connection with you guys. Well, what were a few of the highlights for you when you attended as a student?
[00:07:50] Speaker A: Well, I had been reading and admiring many of the intelligent design researchers for years.
I read Michael Behe's book when it first came out. I had spoken with Jonathan Wells.
I greatly admired people like Ann Gager. And when I went to the summer seminar, just meeting these people in person that had such an enormous impact in my life was really significant. But beyond that, I just heard lectures of the cutting edge research into the evidence of design in nature. I mean, some of them were very, very challenging. Like, I remember people were talking about quantum cosmology. They're talking about the formation of galaxies. It was absolutely exhilarating. But one of the series of lectures that was particularly impactful was by Jonathan Wells and Rick Sternberg. And I believe you've had interviews really Honoring Jonathan Wells for his service to the ID community.
And they talked about how the information required for the development of an organism is not entirely contained in DNA. That DNA obviously has essential information, but, but much of the information is not in DNA. And I had never heard anything like that and even went further. They talked about how the genome of organisms, the control center for organisms, might be far, far, far different than what anyone realized. And I won't go into detail because I know you'll be interviewing David Klinghofer, who's associated, who wrote a book about that topic. So I won't spoil the surprise for our listeners.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. But I'm glad you mentioned that, that you, you had the privilege of sitting under Jonathan Wells and Rick as they discuss the wonders of epigenetics and the, the host of information outside of DNA that fuels life. Well, how did the summer seminars impact your career? You mentioned that it had a definite impact on your career trajectory.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Yes, yes, it absolutely transformed the course of my life. And when I was in graduate school and finishing my PhD in physics, I had gone through an enormous faith crisis because I had become convinced reading people like Richard Dawkins and other skeptics that God didn't exist. I was just this accident of nature and I would just die and cease to exist. And that was really depressing. So I had read the Intelligent Design researchers from the beginning. In fact, I remember reading Michael Denton's book Evolution of theory in CRIS, I think back in the 80s. And then I of course read people like Bill Demski, people like Michael Behe. And what happened is a lot of that information about the evidence of design in nature brought me back to faith. It showed me that I had a purpose in my life. It wasn't an accident. But when I went to the summer seminar, I realized that the Intelligent Design research program was so much more than just providing evidence for faith, that it really was center stage to what I believe will be the next great scientific revolution. Because what's happening and what's becoming increasingly clear is that the idea that life is simply not intended accident, it's just the product of natural selection and other evolutionary processes is clearly false. The evidence from everything from mathematics to embryology to the engineering of life really strongly points against that. And what we're seeing is that the evidence or the applying a design framework to life is the only way to advance biology. If you want to understand the higher level organization of life, you have to apply design based principles like engineering, controlled feedback loops, top down design. So what happened is I Suddenly realized that I was in the front seat of watching the next great scientific revolution. And I knew I had to be part of it. What happened is at that time, very serendipitously, Casey Luskin had just left to do his PhD in geology. So there was a need for someone who would help oversee research. And I stepped into that position then. What's happened is in addition to that role, I've been able to be part of a lot of the cutting edge research that is both showing the evidence for design in nature and in showing how the design framework can help advance biology. So it's been an amazing experience.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And in the time you've been with discovery, you've contributed to some of that awesome cutting edge science. We're so proud to have you on board with us.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: One of the great honors was I was able to serve as the technical consultant for Stephen Meyer with Return of the God Hypothesis. So myself, other physicists, other experts in science and philosophy really were standing by Steve as he wrote this monumental book that that really brings together all the different design arguments from different fields and shows the implications both from to philosophy and theology even. So that was just an amazing honor.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And I actually share that with you. I was able to help Dr. Meyer with that book, you know, working on the indexing and gathering information he would need and helping to proofread. That was an awesome project to be a part of and I'm really glad to have done that. Well, Brian, can you give us some examples of what other seminar graduates have gone on to do after attending the seminar?
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Oh, yes, it's really been exciting to watch because what we've seen is people that, let's say were part of our seminars 10, 15 years ago are now professors at highly respected research universities. They have their own laboratories. And what they've done is they've been able to use the design framework to shape their research and to ask different questions and their colleagues and even help to make discoveries that other people weren't even thinking about looking at. So that's been incredibly exciting. We have people that have found postdoc positions because of coming to our seminar. We've been able to hook them up to different professors. We've had people that have reshaped their career directions.
And then on the other side, more on the CS Lewis side for science and culture, we've had people that have become advisors to government officials at pretty much every level of government. And they've helped to speak to topics that were covered in the seminar, things like bioethics and Then other people have participated in research. Just, they just volunteered their time. So they may have been a professor at a university, they might be a computer programmer, but they've participated in groups like our engineering group, and they've really helped to uncover the mysteries of biology. They're doing some really cutting edge work in things like adaptation. And they've either published papers or they're in the process of publishing papers. And of course, one of the very exciting fruits of our seminars, we've had different people who've met their spouses.
One of our favorite examples, of course, is Emily Reeves, who's one of our research scientists, and Daniel Reeves, who helps to provide administrative support and organizational support to a lot of our activities.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that has been a rewarding part of it for sure. And I'm glad you mentioned that. About, about. I mean, that really is the crux of the whole thing is, is allowing participants in whatever research field they're they're operating in to learn how to apply the principles and arguments of intelligent design to their specific research and to their field, therefore opening up a host of new fruitful research opportunities. That is really the amazing thing that is offered here at the seminar.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Oh, I want to mention one more example. One of the most exciting examples is the people that have come internationally. So what's happened is we've had people that have participated in our summer seminar who are now leading entire networks of scientists in different countries. They are regularly speaking at their universities. They've even helped to implement intelligent design clubs and research programs at different universities. And they've literally touched tens of thousands of people's lives in their countries. So that's been another amazing fruit of really helping to advance ID dramatically in different nations.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So exciting. And that's one reason why we offer an online version of the seminars to international students who may not be able to attend in person, but can certainly get all the material and all the instruction, you know, online through, through that. So that's, that's an offer for international students in particular. Well, Brian, you're now one of the teachers each year at the summer seminars. And one of the things you present on regularly is the evidence for intelligent design and physics. That's, of course, your wheelhouse. Cosmology and planetary science. Give us just a little peek into what you cover on that.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Well, I'll be covering a lot of the material that was talked about in Stephen Meyer's book, the Return of the God Hypothesis. He'll talk about how the laws of nature were designed for life. We'll Talk a bit about complementing the work of people like Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards about the design in our Plan Planet. I'll talk a bit about the evidence of design, obviously in biology, but what I really am excited about is talking about how the design from different scientific disciplines, physics, chemistry, biology, work together almost like a, like a, an orchestra to allow such things as technology on our planet and cultural advancement. And I really think this is just an exciting, cutting edge arena for intelligent design, is how the various design parameters work together cooperatively. And this is something that Guillermo Gonzalez, Jay Richards talked about in the second edition of the Privileged Planet. Also, I'll talk a bit about our engineering research group and I'll talk about also just a lot of Our Intelligent Design ID 3.0 Research projects in multiple disciplines, of how we are publishing multiple papers, advancing the field in different disciplines, and particularly talking about how we're applying engineering principles to life and coming up with insights, coming up with a broad perspective of living systems that others are missing because they lack that design framework. So I'm really looking forward to talking about that.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And you'll also be speaking on the evidence for design at the origin of life. What's included in that teaching?
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Well, the origin of life would be the epicenter of my interests and expertise because I have a PhD in complex systems physics. And I've been addressing this question of the origin of life for the last, I think, 30 years or so. And I really believe the origin of life is where the pendulum will shift most quickly. And that's going to be the tipping point, because what I'll talk about is how the most fundamental laws of physics and chemistry demonstrate that there's absolutely no possibility for a cell coming together purely through natural processes. In fact, what's amazing is how many leading origin of life researchers who are materialists, so they assume that life must have originated from a natural process, acknowledge that everything we know about physics and chemistry suggests that the origin of life does not appear possible. I also talk about how many origin of life researchers have made claims in the press about how they've made progress in understanding life's origin. And I'm going to demonstrate how every step forward they claim to make is only because of the enormous amount of intelligent intervention in their experiments. In other words, they create experiments that are so unrealistic they have no relevance to what could have happened on the early Earth. But they designed the experiments to, let's say, combine amino acids into a chain or to produce a cell membrane, something like a cell membrane. And what These experiments all demonstrate is the absolute necessity of intelligence to move molecules towards life. I'll also talk about some of the drama of chemist chain tours, challenges to the origin of life community, and some of the exciting dialogues took place his speaking at Harvard in a debate with Lee Cronin. So unpack some of the excitement behind that. I'll show the positive evidence for design in a minimally complex cell that partly results from studies of minimally complex self replicating machines. There's a lot of research out there and to what is absolutely required for self replication for anything, whether it's a machine, whether it's a cell, and what you find is even the simplest possible cell that won't just start to decompose, has to have everything from energy production to information processing to error correction. The list goes on. So I'll show how the positive evidence for design related to a minimally complex cell is absolutely overwhelming.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that definitely sounds intriguing. Well, Brian, you're an example of someone whose career trajectory was deeply impacted by this summer seminar program. What would you tell listeners who are listening to this episode and might be interested in participating in the seminars, but still a little unsure, you know, whether it's time involvement or they're afraid to kind of stick their neck out wherever they're doing their work or studies at the moment? Speak to them for a moment.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: Well, I just want you to encourage you that yes, there will be a significant time investment. You'll need to read materials beforehand. There's the week that we'll spend in person if you're in the United States, or the seminars we'll have online. But it will change your life. Like there are countless people that have participated that have talked about how the seminar was a turning point in their life, it changed their career direction, or it helped to open their minds to the evidence of design in nature and that knowledge they've used to help transform other people's life, that give them hope and purpose, help to advise them on how to direct their research to be more fruitful. And what happens is you'll also find an amazing community.
So people have developed lifelong relationships, they've developed research partnerships.
They just describe countless ways that this has impacted their life in ways that way make up for the time investment. Also, we will train you on how to not allow this knowledge to override your career. So we'll teach you when to speak, when not to speak, and how you can avoid getting kicked out of grad school by talking about design at the wrong time. We'll give you advice on how you can apply these principles in your career without destroying your career. In fact, what most people don't realize, our listeners, I suspect, do, is that the intelligent design research community is a lot like an iceberg. You see a handful of people that are publicly talking about design and nature, people like Stephen Meyer, people like you, people like myself, Casey Luskin, Emily Reeves.
But there are, for every one of us are countless researchers behind the scenes who are not public about their views, but they're using their knowledge of design to help shape their research, to help advise politicians, to help speak to people who feel like they're, they, they're an accident of nature and helping to give them hope. So I just encourage you to take, make the investment.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks Brian. That's really good. Well, let's make sure listeners know how to learn more and apply for the seminar program. Deadlines are approaching fast, Brian. Where can listeners go for more information and to submit an application?
[00:23:36] Speaker A: Well, all the information is@discovery.org SEM so that's D I S C O v e r y.o r g discovery.org and then you'll be, you'll go to the page that has all the information, the deadlines, and you'll be able to download the, you'll be able to download the application or you can actually fill things out online. You can download additional information.
It'll tell you what you need and then you'll be all set. And also there'll be emails on the website that'll tell you who to contact if you need more information.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: Well, Brian, I really appreciate your time today talking about your experiences and what participants can expect and I appreciate what you do in these seminars to educate and inspire the next generation of ID scientists.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: It's a pleasure to speak with you about this and it's been really a pleasure and an honor to serve the Intelligent Design community and Discovery Institute.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: I think we can safely say there's no other program like it around, making it a singular and valuable opportunity to learn from experts in these fields and network, as Brian said, with like minded participants, build that community. It's good to know that you are not alone in the ideas that you're having. Again, deadlines are approaching, so to learn more and submit your application, visit discovery.org SEM S E M that's discovery.org SEM for ID the future. I'm Andrew McDermott. Thanks for listening.
Visit us at idthefuture. Com and intelligentdesign.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Org.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: This program is copyright Discovery Institute and recorded by its center for Science and Culture.
