Emily Reeves

Emily Reeves is a biochemist, metabolic nutritionist, and aspiring systems biologist. Her doctoral studies were completed at Texas A&M University in Biochemistry and Biophysics. Emily is currently an active clinician for metabolic nutrition and nutritional genomics at Nutriplexity. She enjoys identifying and designing nutritional intervention for subtle inborn errors of metabolism. She is also working with fellows of Discovery Institute and the greater scientific community to promote integration of engineering and biology. She spends her weekends adventuring with her husband, brewing kombucha, and running near Puget Sound.

Archives

Can Protein Design Outpace Directed Evolution in Recycling Plastic?

_{Emily Reeves
November 11, 2025}

What is polyurethane and where is it used? It’s a type of plastic and it is pretty much everywhere: shoes, clothes, yoga mats, mattresses, couch cushions.

Ancient Eyes, Modern Design: The Remarkable Vision of Trilobites

_{Emily Reeves
October 23, 2025}

Does this discovery suggest that the principles of compound vision emerged nearly half a billion years ago as the authors concluded?

Optimization: The Engineering Explanation for “Evolution Happening Before Our Eyes”

_{Emily Reeves
October 22, 2025}

On Daphne Major, a Galápagos island, there are three major types of finch food: large seeds, small seeds, and pollen and insects.

Cohesins and Condensins: Next-Generation Bobby Pins

_{Emily Reeves
August 22, 2025}

Picture this: you grab a box of bobby pins, clip them to the ends of your hair, and sit in front of a mirror.

How to Study Biology with Systems Engineering Principles

_{Emily Reeves
March 31, 2025}

Traditional methods in biology have proven insufficient for understanding and accurately predicting complex biological systems. Why? The great majority of biologists are trained to study life from the bottom up, as the result of unguided evolutionary processes. It turns out there are better ways to observe, question, hypothesize, experiment, and analyze a complex system. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes biochemist and metabolic nutritionist Dr. Emily Reeves to the podcast to discuss her co-authored paper on how biologists can apply principles from systems engineering to biology to better approach the study of complex living systems. Dr. Reeves explains how the new methodology works and how it can produce fruitful scientific research.

Can Meaning and Purpose Emerge From a Darwinian Process?

_{Emily Reeves
February 24, 2025}

Did meaning and purpose arise from a bottom-up Darwinian process to give us an evolutionary advantage? Or is the universe infused with meaning and purpose for a deeper reason than survival? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid and Dr. Emily Reeves explore whether meaning and purpose can emerge from an unguided evolutionary process. They also discuss the machine metaphor in biology and how it can help us understand and explain living systems.

Paper Digest: Addressing Flaws in Population Dynamic Models

_{Emily Reeves
February 3, 2025}

Reframing genetic variation as falling into separate categories — random and non-random — could provide new insights into the history of life.

The End of the Machine Metaphor?

_{Emily Reeves
January 13, 2025}

Rather than purpose deriving from a purposeless process like natural selection, natural selection can only occur when life itself is the result of purpose.

Studying Biology with System Engineering Principles

_{Emily Reeves
October 29, 2024}

As a biologist, I’ve often wondered what the best way is to integrate engineering ideas in biology research.

Optimization: A Theoretical Principle That Is Predictive for Biology

_{Emily Reeves
September 19, 2024}

Are biological mechanisms optimized, or do they function poorly, evidence of their “poor design”?

Review Article Explores Design Patterns in Biological Cells

_{Emily Reeves
August 1, 2024}

Living cells are strong candidates for being seen as aspects of the natural world resulting from design by an intelligent agent.

Blind Cavefish: Evolutionary Icon, or an Example of Preprogrammed Adaptation?

_{Emily Reeves
July 11, 2024}

There is another model that could explain the transformations of the cavefish. This model is called continuous environmental tracking and it is design-based.

Emily Reeves on Intersection of Biology and Engineering

_{Emily Reeves
July 8, 2024}

The biochemical revolution of the last century has revealed powerful evidence of design in living things. Now, scientists are beginning to realize the benefits of studying designed systems through an engineering lens. On today's episode, Dr. Emily Reeves discusses the intersection of biology and engineering with Fred Williams and Doug McBurney, hosts of the Real Science Radio podcast. In this 45-minute chat, Dr. Reeves explains the importance of using engineering principles to understand biological systems. This interview originally aired on Real Science Radio.

The Engineered Adaptability of the Humble Guppy

_{Emily Reeves
June 26, 2024}

Do living things evolve right before our eyes? Perhaps the most common evidence put forward to support evolutionary theory is the observation that organisms can adapt. But is this adaptability really a hallmark of a gradual Darwinian process? Or is it evidence of intelligent design? On this ID The Future, host Eric Anderson speaks with Dr. Emily Reeves about the adaptability of the humble guppy fish, a new icon of evolution heralded by biologists as proof positive of Darwinian evolutionary processes at work. In this episode, Dr. Reeves uses guppies to discuss why the adaptability of organisms is actually powerful evidence of design. She also explains how biologists can improve their abilities as scientists by learning more about engineering.

Antibiotic Resistance: An Example of Chance and Necessity, or Programming?

_{Emily Reeves
May 9, 2024}

Antibiotic resistance is an icon of observable evolution; however, the extent to which chance mutations underpin the phenomenon remains uncertain.

Predictions for the Guppy from the Engineering/Design Model

_{Emily Reeves
May 8, 2024}

An engineering model would predict that guppies are designed with operational parameters for different traits, which are set by overarching design logic.

Are Guppies Examples of Darwinian Macroevolution?

_{Emily Reeves
May 7, 2024}

It was 1961, in the steep mountain streams of Trinidad where cascading waterfalls create barriers which predatory fish can’t overcome.

Designed Evolution? The Evidence Isn’t There

_{Emily Reeves
March 4, 2024}

Can intelligent design and evolution work together? It's an intriguing idea that is welcomed by some, but does the scientific evidence support it? On this ID The Future, host Casey Luskin speaks with Dr. Emily Reeves to discuss her contribution to a recent paper critiquing theologian Dr. Rope Kojonen's proposal that mainstream evolutionary biology and intelligent design have worked in harmony to produce the diversity of life we see on earth. This is part of a series of interviews on this topic. Dig deeper with more resources and episodes at idthefuture.com.

Paper Digest: Are Trees Well Designed?

_{Emily Reeves
January 25, 2024}

Consistent with Stuart Burgess’s general strategy, this paper is an excellent example of how ID research can be applied in a scientific discipline.

Convergent Evolution: An Argument That Comes at a Price

_{Emily Reeves
January 9, 2024}

Rope Kojonen sees convergence as evidence that laws of form "play a significant role" in helping evolutionary processes cluster around similar solutions.