Casey Luskin

Associate Director and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture

Casey Luskin is a scientist and an attorney with graduate degrees in science and law, giving him expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution. He holds a PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg where he specialized in paleomagnetism and the early plate tectonic history of South Africa. He earned a law degree from the University of San Diego, where he focused on First Amendment law, education law, and environmental law. His B.S. and M.S. degrees in Earth Sciences are from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied evolution extensively at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and conducted geological research at Scripps Institution for Oceanography. Dr. Luskin has been a California-licensed attorney since 2005, practicing primarily in the area of evolution-education in public schools and defending academic freedom for scientists who face discrimination because of their support for intelligent design (ID).

In his role at Discovery Institute, Dr. Luskin works as Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture, where he helps direct the ID 3.0 Research Program, and assists and defends scientists, educators, and students who seek to freely study, research, and teach about the scientific debate over Darwinian evolution and ID. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture.

In 2001, Luskin co-founded the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center, a non-profit helping students to investigate evolution by starting "IDEA Clubs" on college and high school campuses. Casey and the IDEA Club movement he co-founded were featured in the April 27, 2005 cover story of the journal Nature. 

Dr. Luskin has lectured widely on ID at university campuses and conferences on four continents, and has coauthored or contributed to multiple books. In 2006, he coauthored Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover Decision, a detailed critique of the first court ruling to assess the constitutionality of teaching ID in public schools. In 2012, he coauthored Science and Human Origins, reviewing fossil and genetic evidence which challenges human/ape common ancestry. He is coauthor of Discovering Intelligent Design, the first comprehensive introductory intelligent design curriculum, published in 2013. He co-edited with William Dembski and Joseph Holden The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos, which won an honorable mention in World magazine's 2021 "accessible science" book of the year awards. Luskin has also contributed to the volumes Intelligent Design 101: Leading Experts Explain the Key Issues; Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Theological, and Philosophical Critique (Crossway, 2017); The Praeger Handbook of Religion and Education in the United StatesDictionary of Christianity and Science (Zondervan, 2017); Science and Faith in Dialogue (Aosis, 2022); Signature of ControversyThe Unofficial Guide to CosmosDebating Darwin's Doubt; More than Myth; and the award-winning God and Evolution. 

Dr. Luskin has published in both technical law and science journals, including Journal of Church and StateMontana Law ReviewGeochemistry, Geophysics, and GeosystemsSouth African Journal of Geology; Hamline Law ReviewLiberty University Law Review; Trinity Law Review; University of St. Thomas Journal of Law & Public Policy; and Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design. He also contributed to The Archaean Geology of the Kaapvaal Craton, Southern Africa (Springer Nature, 2019) and Ancient Supercontinents and the Paleogeography of Earth (Elsevier, 2021).

A senior editor at Salvo Magazine, Luskin has published in a variety of print and online popular media. He has commented on the debate over evolution in hundreds of radio, TV, and other media sources, including the NY TimesLA TimesNatureScienceU.S. News & World ReportWashington D.C. ExaminerHuman EventsThe BlazeThe Stream, The Federalist, Christianity TodayBeliefNetTouchstoneWorldChristian Science Monitor, Coast to Coast, NPR, CNN.com, C-SPAN, and Foxnews. Luskin is a regular contributor to Evolution News and the ID the Future Podcast.

Casey is a Christian with a Jewish background. His special interests include geology, science education, biological origins, and environmental protection. He and his wife reside in the Seattle region, where they enjoy hiking, camping, kayaking, sailing, and other outdoor activities.

Archives

Two Nature Articles Call for Rethink in Biology

It's not just intelligent design theorists who are calling for a major rethink of biology and origin-of-life research. On this ID The Future, Casey Luskin speaks to host Andrew McDiarmid about two recent articles in the prestigious journal Nature that review major problems with current theories on the origin of life and the source of genetic complexity in living things. Dig deeper with more resources at idthefuture.com.

The Incompatibility of Evolution and Design

On this ID The Future, philosopher Stephen Dilley speaks with scientist and attorney Casey Luskin about theologian Dr. Rope Kojonen's recent proposal on the compatibility of evolution and intelligent design. In previous episodes of this series, Dr. Luskin interviewed colleagues Brian Miller, Emily Reeves, and Stephen Dilley about their contributions to a recent paper critiquing Kojonen's model. Now, Luskin concludes the series with some additional insights of his own. This is the final episode in a series. For more, visit idthefuture.com.

Casey Luskin On Junk DNA’s ‘Kuhnian Paradigm Shift’

Prevailing scientific assumptions often die hard, especially when they fit so neatly into an evolutionary view of the development of life on earth. On this episode of ID The Future, Dr. Casey Luskin gives host Andrew McDiarmid an update on the paradigm shift around the concept of "junk DNA." Year after year for over a decade, new evidence has emerged revealing important functions for non-protein coding DNA, vindicating intelligent design scientists who have long predicted such function. Luskin summarizes the evidence and suggests a new way to look at these genomic treasures.