Intelligent Design

Discovery Institute Fellow Henry F. (Fritz) Schaefer is one of the most distinguished physical scientists in the world. This book describes how Dr. Schaefer became a Christian as a young professor of chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley. Schaefer sees design in the universe reigning from the cosmic level to life’s history as revealed in the fossil record, Read More ›

More than thirty years after his landmark book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), biologist Michael Denton revisits his earlier thesis about the inability of Darwinian evolution to explain the history of life. He argues that there remains “an irresistible consilience of evidence for rejecting Darwinian cumulative selection as the major driving force of evolution.” From the origin of life Read More ›

Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin,” writes Richard Dawkins, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” This little book shows more persuasively than ever before that Dawkins is wrong and that the origin of life continues to pose insurmountable difficulties to unguided material processes. The authors discuss why traditional origin-of-life research has failed and Read More ›

In this revised and expanded collection of essays on origins, mathematician Granville Sewell looks at the big bang, the fine-tuning of the laws of physics, and (especially) the evolution of life. Sewell explains why evolution is a fundamentally different and much more difficult problem than others solved by science, and why increasing numbers of scientists are now recognizing what has Read More ›

Are humans the accidental products of a blind and uncaring universe? Or are they the beneficiaries of a cosmic order that was planned beforehand to help them flourish? Privileged Species is a 33-minute documentary by Discovery Institute that explores growing evidence from physics, chemistry, biology, and related fields that our universe was designed for large multi-cellular beings like ourselves. Featuring geneticist and Read More ›

The 2014 reboot of Carl Sagan’s classic 13-part series Cosmos struck a chord with viewers, garnered 12 Emmy Award nominations, and is headed straight into schools as a science teacher’s instructional aid. It’s also an agenda-driven vehicle for scientific materialism, casting religion as arch foe of the search for truth about nature and pressing its message that human beings occupy Read More ›

For a thing to be real, it must be able to communicate with other things. If this is so, then the problem of being receives a straightforward resolution: to be is to be in communion. So the fundamental science, indeed the science that needs to underwrite all other sciences, is a theory of communication. Within such a theory of communication Read More ›

Thomas has been looking forward to this field trip for weeks! His mom is guiding a group tour of the new insect exhibit at the Museum of Natural Science. Thomas and his friend Sophie are awestruck by the displays, but they have questions when one exhibit claims that butterflies evolved the special ability to transform from caterpillars without a pre-determined Read More ›

This impressive volume contains critical essays on naturalism from the perspectives of theology, ethics, cosmology, ontology, and epistemology. Various Discovery Fellows make contributions including Robert C. Koons, J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, and William Dembski. Koons, a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, begins by noting that there is a simple correlation between existence and the requirement of Read More ›

This book contains a fascinating interview between James Barham, general editor of TheBestSchools.org, and mathematician and philosopher William Dembski, one of the pioneers of the modern intelligent design movement. Follow Dembski’s personal journey from his doubts about Western religion as a young man to his training as a mathematician and a philosopher and his rise to prominence as one of Read More ›

The Magician’s Twin is both a book and a three-part documentary series that explores C.S. Lewis’s views on science, scientism, and society, including such controversial issues as bioengineering, evolution, and intelligent design. Part one of the documentary series, C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism, explores Lewis’s prophetic concerns about the misuse of science to “abolish” man and to undermine Read More ›

Acclaimed historian and biographer Paul Johnson turns his keen eye on Charles Darwin, the towering figure whose work continues to spur scientific debate. With his publication of On the Origin of Species, Darwin forever changed our concept of the world. While Johnson praises Darwin’s extraordinary skills as a natural scientist and his monumental achievements, he does not sidestep Darwin’s tragic failures Read More ›

When Charles Darwin finished The Origin of Species, he thought that he had explained every clue, but one. Though his theory could explain many facts, Darwin knew that there was a significant event in the history of life that his theory did not explain. During this event, the “Cambrian explosion,” many animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record without apparent ancestors Read More ›

The Discovering Intelligent Design Workbook is one part of a comprehensive curriculum that presents both the biological and cosmological evidence in support of the scientific theory of intelligent design. Developed for middle-school-age students to adults, the full curriculum also includes a textbook and a DVD with video clips keyed to the content of the textbook, as well as an online learning companion with quizzes and mini-lectures.

(Note: The textbook and DVD must be purchased separately; this item is the Workbook only.) The Workbook provides review questions, vocabulary questions, and essay questions to enhance the curriculum’s educational value for students. The Workbook also contains inquiry activities to give students hands-on opportunities to learn about intelligent design. These activities allow students to experimentally investigate questions like “Why does ice float?” or “What is the Doppler effect?,” to critically analyze media coverage of the debate over intelligent design, and to even build their own “universe creating machine.” Produced by Discovery Institute in conjunction with Illustra Media, this curriculum is intended for use by homeschools and private schools.

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since Read More ›

Science & Human Origins, the provocative new book from Discovery Institute Press, boldly addresses some of the most popular evolutionary arguments pertaining to controversial claims that humans and apes are related through common ancestry. In Science & Human Origins three scientists challenge the claim that undirected natural selection is capable of building a human being. The authors critically assess fossil and genetic Read More ›