[00:00:00] Speaker A: Walter's response, I think, was timeless. He says, I'm sorry, sir, I'm not the one with the limitations. It's you with the limitations. You live in a little silo of materialism and naturalism. Everything has to fit within that. I, on the other hand, I can accept the natural things, but I also see the things which are outside of it.
ID the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome to I Do the Future. I'm your host, Andrew McDermott. Well, today Dr. Robert J. Marks joins me to share some of his experiences and memories of another precious person, Dr. Walter Bradley, a scientist, humanitarian, and trailblazer in the world of intelligent design, who passed away this summer at the age of 81. Walter received his B.S. degree in engineering science in 1965 and his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering in 1968, both from the University of Texas, Austin. He taught at the Colorado School of Mines at Texas A and M University as full professor of mechanical engineering, and for 10 years at Baylor University as a distinguished professor of Mechanical engineering. He was also a distinguished fellow at Discovery Institute. Walter was a trailblazer in the intelligent design movement, co authoring a book called the Mystery of Life's Origin in 1984 that was a groundbreaking work now in its second edition, and we'll talk about that in this interview. The book deeply influenced figures like Stephen Meyer, Douglas Axe, and Jay Richards, as well as countless others.
Walter catalyzed a new generation of inquiry into life's beginnings. His bold commitment to truth and inquiry earned him appearances in Lee Strobel's documentary the Case for Faith and in the documentary movie Expelled. No intelligence Allowed. Bob, it's great to have you here to talk about Walter today.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Thank you, Andrew. He's one of my favorite people to talk about.
He's a hero of mine.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And I did not have the privilege of knowing him, so I would like to get to know him as we talk about him and as you share your memories.
Now, before we spend time remembering Walter, I want to make sure people know where they can hear your work. So on a regular basis, you're the host of another of Discovery Institute's podcasts, Mind Matters News. Tell us what you explore there.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Mind Matters News is associated with artificial intelligence. In fact, the full name is the Walter Bradley center, so it's actually named after Walter Bradley, the Walter Bradley center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. And there we explore the difference between natural and artificial intelligence. It turns out that most of the headlines that you read today and most of the forecasts that you hear today belong more in a tabloid like the National Enquirer than they do in a legitimate newspaper. And so what we try to do is bring sanity to that and try to take away the hype associated with artificial intelligence. We do that through having columnists that are really very high credentialed, know what they're talking about. We have an economist, we have a neurosurgeon who I'm sure you know, Michael Ignore and Gary Smith, an economist. We have computer scientists and computer engineers writing for us. And they take a look at artificial intelligence from a more informed point of view. They just don't look at the.
They just don't. It's like buying a car when you look at artificial intelligence. You go around, you kick the tires and you say, oh man, the upholstery smells really nice and the seat is comfortable. But what you need to do is look behind the hood. And I think a lot of the people that are talking about artificial intelligence learn about artificial intelligence from other people that don't know about artificial intelligence.
They just read and repeat what they are seeing and they're hearing. So we bring the expertise to the front and show that, yes, artificial intelligence is going to have its limitations.
It's clearly not human. It'll never be spiritual, it'll never love, never have compassion or empathy. But even more significant than that, it'll never understand what it's doing. It can add the numbers 2 and 7, doesn't know what the number 2 and 7 are. And it will never be creative in the sense that humans have a flash of genius when they are creative.
And you have to be careful when you have to define creativity. So we do that very carefully before we say that AI is not creative. We define these things. We define what understanding means, we define what creativity means and then kind of debunk it and show that a lot of the stuff that's out there is actually hype. So we do have that. There's a conference called COSM that happens once a year that's spearheaded by Steve Burry, who is the president of the Discovery Institute. And there we bring together all sorts of really good and high level business people, people that know what they're talking about with artificial intelligence, and also some people that don't know what they're talking about in terms of artificial intelligence. We've had some people there that I've been on a panel afterwards and I said, oh man, this guy is.
He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's probably a good guy, probably well intentioned, but man, now he's way out in left field. So we explore the entire spectrum of what's going on in artificial intelligence. Then we also deal with natural intelligence. One of the latest books written by one of our senior fellows, Michael Egnor, who's a neurosurgeon. It's called the Immortal Mind, written with Denise o'. Leary. And I would recommend that book to anybody. If you want to see how a neurosurgeon takes his science and folds it into the idea of faith, that's the place you should go. So that's another thing we do. We don't proselytize, we don't bible thump. But if God comes up in the conversation, we're not afraid to talk about him.
So that's what, that's what mind matters. Mind matters is about. So it's mind matters AI. Politicians say you should mention it three times. So it's mind matters AI. That's mind matters AI. Mind matters AI. AI.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: There you go. Yeah. Much needed chorus of voices and some wonderful things coming out of your center there.
And I love it. I love technology.
And when I'm not, you know, sharing about intelligent design, I'm, I'm often digging my nose into books about technology and just trying to wrap, wrap our heads around what's going on with us today in this society we live in now.
Yeah. So, Bob, I want to talk to you about Walter. You know, I didn't get to meet Walter. I came onto the ranks at Discovery Institute 13 years ago, but I just. Walter and I's paths never crossed, unfortunately. So I'm looking forward to sharing in the memories and experiences you have to, to tell us today as a way of meeting them, you know.
So let's first discuss Walter's contributions to the Intelligent design movement. And it starts way back in 1984 with the release of this book, the Mystery of Life's Origin. He co authored that with chemist Charles Thaxton and geochemist Roger Olson.
Now here we have three authors tackling a very vexing how does life emerge from that which is not alive? What was Dr. Bradley's role in bringing this book project together and getting it out? I know it was his vision to put it out through a secular press and he accomplished that, didn't he?
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Yeah, he did. In fact, he said that that was a very important aspect of it.
He didn't want to release it as a Christian brand because he wanted it more towards the general audience. And he did that. And the book was written that way too.
And his book went through him and Olson and Thaxton went through all of the modern theories of where life began and showed that they were all say, incorrect. And I think that their views have been adopted pretty universally these days.
So that's what they did. And they didn't even talk about God in the beginning. And what they did is in their final chapter they said, okay, here's what we've done. We've talked about the ways that life cannot emerge and there's no evidence of where life came from. And there's a couple of different places, or not a couple, but a few different places that life could have come from. It could have come from panspermia, which is life being planted on Earth by an asteroid or something. But that just kind of kicks the can down the road a little bit because where did that life come from? And there was one guy that says it formed on the back of crystals. Life formed on the back of crystals? Yeah, sure. And then they mentioned the idea that it could be God the creator. And they were of course interested in the God of the Bible, Christian God. And they just made the point as, yes, these are different theories of where life originated from. So the book itself was not, it was not overtly about intelligent design, but it addressed intelligent design by showing the fault comings, the faults of the current science and then, and then making a stab at explaining, well, what, what did happen? Where did life come from? And God was certainly mentioned there.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And I actually have, this is my copy of it and I love the subtitle of the book, Reassessing Current Theories. It's short, it's sweet, it's intellectually humble, but it's also bold and daring in its aim. Now Discovery Institute Press recently released a new edition of the book, complete with full text of the original, plus new essays.
We've got entries from James Tour, Brian Miller, Guillermo Gonzalez, Jonathan Wells, Stephen Meyer. Is this new edition a testament to the work of Walter and his co authors?
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Well, one of the things that the new edition did was establish that the original observations in the book by Thaxton Olson and Bradley had stood the test of time. So we still don't know where life came from.
I have a friend, a colleague at Baylor who does.
What do they call it? They call it Rare life things. He goes down into caves and looks at how life emerges in sulfur, sulfur atmospheres and things of that sort. And it was actually funded by NASA thinking that, well, you know, if there's life on other planets, this is what it's going to be. It's Going to be in a sulfur cave and it has to survive all of these terrible things. And he goes to these origin of life conferences and confesses to me, yeah, they still have no idea. Everybody is still guessing what has happened. So I think the test of the republishing of the book, along with the great extra work of the people that you mentioned, is that the original premise of the book was timeless and it so far has remained accurate. So is it going to remain accurate? Are we ever going to find out some sort of materialistic origin of where life came from? I'm not sure. I don't think so. But we've had a lot of good minds look at it and thus far nothing.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And you know, I don't know if you know, but I, I worked for my first 10 years at Discovery very closely with Stephen Meyer. I was his right hand man and assistant. And you know, I, I saw Walter's ideas, you know, sort of permeate through Stephen Meyer. He, he had a healthy respect for the chemical evolutionary theories and how to respond to them.
Partly because of that original work from Walter and these other gentlemen.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: We had at the Bradley center, we had a reunion of the authors. So Olson, Thaxton and Bradley came up after all of these years and they were honored. And I think that Steve was particularly enamored with Thaxton. Thaxton really spoke to him and ministered to him. He was one of the other authors of the book. But yeah, it influenced him and a lot of other people too.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Now figures like William Lane Craig and Douglas Axe have credited Walter with inspiring their careers.
So what was it about Walter's thought process or character that influenced them and others so deeply?
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Well, I think he was, he was a genius.
He was always mild, mild mannered, always spoke very, you know, nicely and without, without getting angry. And he knew what he was talking about. And the other thing, he was very bold.
He has taught a number of people, including myself, how to live out loud as a Christian. This does not mean proselytizing or bible thumping, but just letting the world know that you're, you are indeed a Christian. I think that that influence these people because all of the current theories totally distance themselves from anything having to do with faith. They were all based on a materialistic sort of viewpoint. I have a list, for example of current theories of consciousness.
Every single one of them is materialistic, except for mind dualism, which can incorporate the idea of a soul or a mind, the idea that the mind is different than the brain.
So we see this emphasis on materialistic explanations of things. I think the same thing in Intelligent design, right? Everything is materialistic. There's no room for anything to do with faith or God or the actions of an external being.
So I think that Walter actually was instrumental in leading to this conclusion that you could incorporate the idea of faith into what you were doing. In fact, here's a great story. Andrew. He was under a deposition at Texas and he was being queried by the head. He said, yeah, it was the head of the aclu and it was about whether to include in any fashion, Intelligent Design in Texas textbooks. Because Texas adopts textbooks and because Texas is so big when they adopt textbooks, they actually influence the market. A lot of other states buy them also.
And so Walter related the interview to me like this. He said that the lawyer came up and he said, Dr. Bradley. Now of course in the transcript it doesn't say Dr. Bradley, it just says Dr. Bradley.
But, but the lawyers know that that doesn't come out in the transcript. He said, are you a Christian? Walter said, yes, yes, I'm a Christian. He says, well, Walter, if you're a Christian, how can you objectively identify Darwinian evolution? How can you make a commentary on it?
How can you say anything with your bias? Walter's response, I think was timeless. He says, I'm sorry, sir, I'm not the one with the limitations. It's you with the limitations. You live in a little silo of materialism and naturalism. Everything has to fit within.
I, on the other hand, I can accept the natural things, but I also see the things which are outside of it. And I have a much more broader disinterested perspective than you do on it. So, sir, it is not me that is narrow minded and bigoted, if you will, in terms of the interpretation of evolution and the science of textbook. It is you that have the problem. And I thought that was just a beautiful retort that Bradley had. And, and it shut down the, shut down the ACLU lawyer. He changed the, the focus of the questioning after that, after being called out. So yeah, I like that.
Yeah, it really is. And it really, it really shows when somebody comes and says, well, you're a Christian. How can you be objective? I think the Walter's response is a good one. I actually live outside of your silo of materialism and naturalism.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Right, yeah.
No, that's a great story.
Well, let's talk for a few minutes about Walter's academic career. I know it was illustrious as a professor and chair of mechanical engineering at Texas A and M and then later distinguished professor At Baylor, how did Dr. Bradley influence the culture and direction of those departments?
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Well, one of the things that Walter was a pioneer in is something called appropriate technology. He was an engineer. He was a mechanical engineer. So he questioned what was the good use of his skills in engineering. It turns out that a lot of the world third world countries don't need a better computer.
They don't need more bombs and stuff like that. They need technology which is appropriate for what they do.
So he thought that the place that he would like to apply his engineering skills was to appropriate technology, which is things that countries need that will help out the local citizens. He went to countries in Africa, for example, and there he was able to help build bridges. If you're a freshman engineer, that's one of the first things you do is you put together a bridge out of toothpicks and popsicle sticks and see how much weight it can handle. So that was definitely within civil engineering. But the other thing he did, which was, I think, really interesting is he went out and he went to third world countries and noticed that there was a lot of waste and coconuts. A lot of these third world countries are in very hot climates that grow a lot of coconuts. Well, it turns out that they. They harvested these coconuts and left the shells out. And the shells accumulated water during the rain, and that's a great place for mosquitoes to. To live.
So the question is, is there any way that he could actually use the entire coconut? So he did a number of different things. He founded a. He founded a company that actually sold, I believe it was to Ford car mats that go in your trunk that are made out of coconut fiber. And if you've ever messed with a coconut, you know that they're really rough to break. He also looked at the pulp. He invited a guy named John Puma from Papua New guinea to Baylor University to look at ways which we could make fuel out of coconuts.
And that was. That was a great project. He also helped start a company called Dignity Coconuts in the Philippines, where he went in and he. He helped Nationals found a.
An organization which actually harvested and sold coconut oil. And so all of a sudden, all these people were lifted from poverty and were able to incorporate and participate in this company. And that was one of the things he did. He didn't go in and try to say, I'm better than you and how can I be better than you? That's a big fault of a lot of people that go in with ministry to different countries. He went in and he said, how Can I work together with you to maybe actually start a business? I'll help you in the beginning, but in the end, I want the Nationals to take it over and I want to leave. And so he did that with a number of different things that was appropriate technology.
He inspired a lot of people. There's a guy here at Baylor, Brian Thomas, who was a disciple, if you will, of Walter. He started a group called Engineers with a Mission. And they would go out and they would do appropriate technology sort of feats for different people.
And so that's what Walter pioneered in terms of technology. One of the things they did is they went to Haiti. This is kind of cool. Everybody has cell phones, right? Everybody has their cell phone, even the Hades, even though they make like a dollar a day or something, but they have no way to charge them. So he went around and put little solar panels on people's huts and gave them the way to charge cell phones. And then people would come around, he would charge them a nickel to char phone. So he had all these little micro businesses all around. And so that was something that was motivated by Walter Bradley. So appropriate technology, which was using technology to help countries and people in countries where they're at.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Wow. And did he do all this while he was also teaching as a professor, or was this a different season?
[00:20:32] Speaker A: No, no, no. This was. This is incredible. Walter was able to do his ministry. He did a ministry where he talked to people about the evidence of the existence of God.
But he did a lot of this stuff while he was a professor. I mean, doing coconut oil. This was something a mechanical engineer would do. So he got funding from it, and it was funded through his department, and he was funded enough to invite John Puma from Papua New guinea to come over and work with him. And so it was part of his job.
So, no, he did all of this in parallel.
Wow.
And, yeah, just an extraordinary life. Walter lived wall to wall.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Now, tell me about him as a teacher. What was he like in the classroom? Did the students eat it up? Did they request his course again?
Was he popular with the student body?
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Well, I think he was.
One of the things that Walter did is he spoke in over 100 college campuses in North America about scientific evidence of God.
And what he did is he went through different arguments about the fine tuning of the universe. And he would pack auditoriums. In fact, that's where I first met him at the University of Washington. I was the director of Campus Crusade there. And they invited him out and he just packed the place. But he went up to guys he identified as atheists.
And I won't tell you how he identified them, but he says, you guys are atheists because they would always sit in the front row. And he said, yeah. He says, man, I hope you came to ask me some difficult questions. And they went, yeah, yeah, yeah. And one of the things that Walter told me, I think one of his enduring qualities is after this, even though he got hit with all of these very, very difficult questions, he always had a cool, seasoned, level demeanor.
He was an early version of Charlie Kirk in the sense that he was able to respond to these people. He confided in me that the way that he responded to these people was.
His tone was just important as the content of his message.
So he was therefore very.
He was very, very sensitive about doing that and was able to do it with reason. And I see Charlie Kirk, and I see a later version of Walter Bradley defending intelligent design at these campuses and scientific evidence for the existence of God. So it was remarkable.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Wow. And he also mentored students one on one.
How did that personal touch change lives, do you think? Giving people time of day and just helping them understand things better.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Yeah, this is.
I have a couple of illustrations of that. I went to church one day, and I saw a graduate student there who I had known had been definitely not a person of faith. And I said, what are you doing here? He says, well, I've become a Christian. He said, how'd you do that? He says, well, Walter Bradley asked me one day, how was my soul? And I said, well, I don't know. He says, well, I tell you what, if you want to, let's get together once a week and we'll work through the Gospel of John. And then he got through the Gospel of John, and he said, well, you've been dating now for a while, and now you have to make a decision as to whether you want to get married or not. And so the guy became a Christian. It's something that I have tried in the past. I had one student, I went through the Gospel of John, and I says, time to get married. And he said, I'm not sure, but I saw him a couple months later, and he says, oh, yeah, I've become a Christian. I mean, it was really cool. And then let me tell you another story. And this one, I might have a hard time without bringing a tear to my eye. My son broke his neck. He broke the C2, which is the same one that Superman broke. Remember Christopher Reeves broke his neck and became a quadriplegic? Well, fortunately, Joshua was Not that severe. He survived and he's fine today. He walks and talks, but during his recuperation, he was confined to the house because he wasn't allowed to ride in an automobile because the automobile shook, and that was not good for his neck.
So I was in a study with Walter Bradley at Baylor University, and we would go over.
It was a new book by Norman Geisler, who had asked Walter to go through his new apologetics book. And so I was in this class, and I mentioned to Walter that I would go home after his class and I would teach it to my son, Joshua.
And he said, well, you should bring Joshua. This was mostly for faculty, but he says, you know, Joshua could come. I said, he can't ride in the car, Walter. You know, he can't ride here. So Walter said, no problem. So he came out to my house every week for the remainder of the course and taught my son, one on one, the same material that he taught the people.
This was not because of any accolades. It was because he was a good.
He was a good Christian man and lived out his Christianity, be it in front of a big crowd of people or one on one. Just. Just a remarkable man. That's one of the reasons he's my hero.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And a heart for youth, which is obviously necessary when you're teaching, but it sounds like he went above and beyond.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, he certainly did. He certainly did.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Now, I know you. You had a long friendship with Walter. What. What were a few favorite character traits that you observed in him?
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Well, one of the things is that his ability to.
To live outside, live out loud as. As a Christian, without. Without offense. I mean, as I mentioned before, he didn't Bible thump, he didn't proselytize, but he was never.
He was never hesitant about sharing his faith. I have something I want to read here. One of the things he did was he always shared his faith in class. He mentioned that during his time in the university, from his undergraduate through his graduate degree, he never had any professor talk about their faith. And he said he thought this was terrible.
So he decided to do this. And he prayed with Ann. He was still a student at the time. He prayed with Ann and said, I'm going to go in and I'm going to do it. And so he went in and he chickened out. And then he came back and he went in again and he chickened out. And he did it for 22 times.
22 times. This is in his book.
And 23rd time he finally went in. And there's a number of different.
Well, what happened was that he was called in by the dean. And the dean says, I've been looking for you.
And Walter, I think, was just a graduate student at the time. And he said, were you the guy that talked about the fact that you were a Christian in class? And he said, yeah, that was me.
Walter took a deep breath, and the dean said, thank you. It turns out I have two sons in that class. And finally we have them talking about faith and such.
So that was very interesting. That was not always the reaction he got from the dean, but that was one of the reactions.
So later in life, as he went on, he always shared his faith, and he shared it not in a preaching sort of way. In fact, one of the people that wrote a testimonial for Walter's book said what he said on the first day of class. He would always go around, ask people to tell them something about themselves that they didn't know. And then when it was his turn, he said, quote, finally, the most interesting thing I'd like for you to know about me is that I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. And by that, I do not mean that I just go to church. It is the very foundation of everything that I do. And I hope that you will see that it makes a difference in how I treat you this semester. Now, that line is really a challenge to Walter. I hope you can see how it makes a difference in how I treat you this semester.
So I and a number of other people use this as a first day of class. One of the things Walter did was founded Faculty Commons, which is the arm of Campus Crusade that ministers to faculty. He founded with Ray Mellencamp. And that was the purpose of this ministry, was to number one teacher professors how to Live Outside as a Christian without being offensive. And, you know, he wasn't offensive. He was just telling about himself.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: So incredibly, incredibly brilliant. He was called in by a dean one time, and this was another dean. And the other Dean said, Dr. Bradley, you've been talking about the fact you're a Christian and you've been talking about Christ. And he says. Walter said, yeah, but I just tell him what I am. I don't try to convert anybody. I just tell them who I am. Much like the statement I just read. The dean said, well, you know, Walter, you can't do that here at. He was at Texas A and M at the time, or. No, I don't know. He was either Colorado School of Mines or Texas A and M. It's in the book. If you want to Read it. And Walter's response was genius. He says, okay, so I can't talk about Jesus or Christ or faith or anything. And the guy says, yep, that's right.
Walter said, okay, I'll do that.
So how are we going to stop all of the other professors that talk against Christ and against God in their class? Because we have to stop them too, in all fairness, don't we? And the Dean. The dean's eyes got big and he said, wow, I haven't thought about that. I'm probably compressing a little conversation. But he said, I haven't thought about that. And after some further discussion, he says, yeah, go ahead and do it. Because he knew that shutting everybody down about their faith in God was not going to be possible. And if he was going to allow people to dis God and such, that he had to allow people to talk about God as long as it wasn't forceful or contrary to their academics. So I thought that was a genius move also.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: So Walter was gentle and respectful, but he had a boldness and he had a courage that served him well.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: Absolutely well.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Bob, you're the director and senior fellow of the Walter Bradley center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. As we've mentioned, how does the Bradley center reflect Walter's vision for the intersection of technology, ethics, and purpose?
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Well, I think that the Bradley center and Discovery Institute in general reflects the idea that we can talk about science and we can talk about it on a scientific level and an honest intellectual level.
But it also says that we do not have to exclude the idea of a God or a faith.
And even though we don't emphasize that, it's certainly not a topic we shy away from. And so I think that that's true with artificial intelligence, for example. Artificial intelligence questions whether we as people are meat. Computers, are we computers made out of meat? And no, I think that, you know, spiritually we're more than computers made out of meat. I just edited a book with Brian Kraus and Angus Manouj called Minding the Brain, which addresses this, that indeed there is evidence that what is happening in the mind brain situation, debated since Descartes and way before that, is that, yeah, there's something extra there. And we're starting to get scientific evidence that indeed, that the mind, the soul, the spirit, if you will, is greater than just the brain. So that's pretty exciting stuff. So that's one of the things that I hope the Bradley center continues to do.
I think that Discovery does that, you know, you're not an overt. We're not an overt Christian organization, but we don't mind the fact of God coming up in conversation. And I think Walter was the man that pioneered that.
When I first met Walter, most Christian professors lived in a closet. In fact, there was a guy in my department at University of Washington who had been there for years and years and years. I found out he was a deacon at his church. But, you know, he never, he never talked about it. It was something you just didn't talk about. But, you know, there's nothing wrong to talk about it as long as it's, it's consistent with your, with the academics, with what you're teaching. And there's always ways to incorporate faith and curriculum together. So.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Right, yeah. Why would you ignore that aspect of your life if it's a big part of you, you know, and a big part of how you view the world?
You know, those ultimate questions and how you respond to them, it's, it's all part of who you are and you don't want to hide yourself, you know, and it certainly sounds like Walter was, was not someone who did that. He lived out loud, as you say, with his faith, with his science, with his technology, and made many lives the better for him.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. In the book For a Greater Purpose, we have testimonials of people from different walks of life about how Walter impacted their life. And there's so many.
I solicited a few of these comments from people and they would come in like two pages and I would have to compress them. Then they would say, what about so and so and so and so? So we invited them and it just kind of blew up. We got people like William Lane Craig who said, walter is the most remarkable man that I have ever met. I am in awe of him. This from William Lane Craig, a man that I'm in awe of.
We have testimonials from the former president of Baylor University, Robert Sloan, who said, he's the most gifted academic I've ever worked with.
We have Hugh Ross reasons to believe who said that Walter was an incredible guy and he really enjoyed working with him around the world.
So, yeah, the testimonials are astonishing from not only very high profile people, from everyday people like. Well, like my son who broke his neck. He said, walter did this to me. He came and taught me stuff. So, yeah, again, he's my hero and he's changed my life. And if you read his book, it's available, by the way, in Kindle and audio. But if you read his book and you look at his life and Expect his life. His life is very exemplary.
I think that he is a older version of Charlie Kirk in the sense of the way he lived his life in terms of.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: That's a great connection. Yeah.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it really is. I mean, just. Just the way that he responded and interacted with questions was exactly the way that Charlie Kirk did it, you know, respectfully. And even though he got yelled at and stuff, he always maintained the mild demeanor and kept the conversation on an intellectual basis. So it was really good.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: Yeah. So I was just going to say, if somebody's listening or watching today and wants to, you know, learn more about Walter and the things he did with the technology that you've mentioned and the things he used to teach, you're saying the best way is to get a copy of this book, right?
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a copy of the book. It's by William Dembsky and me, and it has a foreword by JP Moreland. And everybody has probably heard of JP Moreland, but not a lot of people know that JP Moreland was on the staff of Campus Crusade when Walter taught at Colorado School of Mines. So they knew each other way back when, when they were doing this parachurch sort of oper.
And that friendship has budded throughout the years.
So, yeah, read that.
We cover most of the things that we've talked about here, plus some more, which you can't do in a podcast, but you can do a book. And it was just a blessing writing it. And again, he is definitely my hero. I have a list of 10 people that have affected me most in life, and he's certainly near the top. Just an extraordinary man.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: So two books to add to your shelf audience, if you don't have them already. We have the second edition of the Mystery of Life's Origin, published by Discovery Institute Press, and the biography of Walter by Bob Marx and Bill Dembsky called For a Greater Purpose. And don't forget, you can actually watch this interview as well as others on our new idea, the future YouTube channel.
Some people like to just listen, but others like to watch. And so we're making it available there. You can
[email protected] do the future.
And that's where to go to check out video editions of I Do the Future. Well, Bob, I appreciate your time. You're doing a great podcast, and I hear that it's in the works to make it video, too. So we're going to see you a lot more than we're going to hear.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: You have been an inspiration for that.
We've been kind of talking about it for a long time, but never did anything. It's like the three birds sitting on the phone line and one of them decided to fly away. How many were left? The answer is three, because deciding to do it wasn't the same thing as doing it. So you were the motivation for us going to video. So thank you for leading the way in that. That's great.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. Well, we'll, we'll be busy promoting that as well as everything else that we do. We have a lot of video, actually. The Discovery Institute puts out, you know, regular video series.
We've got short clips that you can share with associates and friends and family, lots of content. So you can start at the YouTube channel, Discovery Science. That's where a lot of our videos land at the center for science and culture, YouTube.com and just check out Discovery Science and you'll find, find, find things there. Well, Bob, I appreciate your time again. Let's connect soon and, and talk about other things related to technology and intelligent design. There's lots of overlap there, I would say.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: Well, there is, you know, if you ever thought about it, intelligent design and artificial intelligence have a word in common.
Yeah. And that's a big intersection that I think a lot of people miss. So, yeah, there is an incredible intersection.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. All right, thanks, Bob. Well, I'm andrami dermid for IdeaFuture. We're signing off, and thanks for joining us.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: Visit
[email protected] and intelligent design.org this program is copyright Discovery Institute and recorded by its center for Science and Culture.
