David Coppedge

David Coppedge is a freelance science reporter in Southern California. He has been a board member of Illustra Media since its founding and serves as their science consultant. He worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for 14 years, on the Cassini mission to Saturn, until he was ousted in 2011 for sharing material on intelligent design, a discriminatory action that led to a nationally publicized court trial in 2012. Discovery Institute supported his case, but a lone judge ruled against him without explanation. A nature photographer, outdoorsman, and musician, David holds B.S. degrees in science education and in physics and gives presentations on ID and other scientific subjects.

Archives

Missiles & Jackhammers: How Plants Spread Themselves Far and Wide

David Coppedge
March 26, 2025
Host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes science reporter David Coppedge to the show to explore some fascinating examples of intelligent design in the plant world. They look so helpless tied to the soil, but plants and fungi have perfected technologies for spreading themselves far and wide. Coppedge and McDiarmid unpack the ingenious methods plants and fungi use to disperse their spores. The conversation also touches on the engineering principles behind plant root systems, and how studying these natural designs can inspire advancements in human technology through biomimetics.

Using AI to Discover Intelligent Design

David Coppedge
February 26, 2025
Can we train AI models to help us detect evidence of intelligent design? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes science reporter and former NASA engineer David Coppedge to the podcast to talk about scientists who are doing just that: using artificial intelligence to make design inferences. Here, Coppedge tells us about a group of scientists who are training an AI model to search through imaging data to identify possible instances of human-made geoglyphs in the Nazca Plain in Peru. It's another intriguing example of intelligent design in action in the everyday world around us.