David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News

David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture.

Klinghoffer is the author of six books including The Lord Will Gather Me In: My Journey to Jewish Orthodoxy, The Discovery of God: Abraham and the Birth of Monotheism, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History, and with Senator Joe Lieberman, The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath. A former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, he has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. He has been a feature reporter and movie and TV critic for the Washington Times.

David is the editor of several books for Discovery Institute Press including Signature of Controversy: Responses to Critics of Signature in the Cell, Debating Darwin’s Doubt: A Scientific Controversy That Can No Longer Be Denied, and The Unofficial Guide to Cosmos: Fact and Fiction in Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Landmark Science Series.

Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

Archives

Intelligent Design: The Canary in the Cancel Culture Coal Mine

David Klinghoffer
September 9, 2020
On this episode of ID the Future, Rob Crowther speaks with David Klinghoffer, editor of Evolution News and Science Today, about contemporary “cancel culture” that’s attempting to push disfavored ideas and people out of the public square, and how the cancel-culture phenomenon struck intelligent design long before cancel culture was a household term. The term — and the movie title — more commonly used in ID circles has been “expelled.” It’s happened to Richard Sternberg, Günter Bechly, Douglas Axe, and other ID-friendly researchers, to the point that many ID-sympathizing scientists have to hide their beliefs to protect research funding and careers. Klinghoffer emphasizes that this isn’t just a debate off in the corner. Rather, ID is a “hard-core truth,” meaning it’s one of those on Read More ›

The Darwin-Fueled Racist Ideas of John Derbyshire and Robert Weissberg

David Klinghoffer
June 5, 2020
On this episode of ID The Future from the vault, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer discusses the move by National Review editor Rich Lowry in 2012 to sever ties with two regular contributors, John Derbyshire and Robert Weissberg, after discovering their connections to racialist groups promoting race superiority, eugenics, and other morally repugnant ideas. Klinghoffer explains how Darwinian evolution has informed proponents of these ideas, and how important it is to identify and root out this kind of thinking before it has a chance to pollute respectable institutions and publications. As Klinghoffer makes clear, Darwinian ideas are hardly the only possible source of racist thinking, and of course racism long predates Charles Darwin. But Darwinism has proved fertile soil …

A Journalist Misreads Intelligent Design. A Nobel-Prize Winning Scientist Backs It.

David Klinghoffer
July 24, 2017
On this episode of ID: The Future, Evolution News & Science Today editor David Klinghoffer takes issue with the suggestion that conservatives tend to view science as “a kind of fakery,” and that they embrace intelligent design primarily out of religious, anti-science motives. Then Klinghoffer considers the case of physicist and Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson, who came out in support of intelligent design on PBS’s Closer to Truth.

David Klinghoffer Takes a Look at Tom Bethell’s New Book

David Klinghoffer
February 3, 2017
On this episode of ID the Future, David Klinghoffer reviews Tom Bethell’s book Darwin’s House of Cards. This volume’s approach to evolution, Klinghoffer says, should serve as a model for the media. Listen in to hear more about Bethell’s interviews with leading paleontologists Colin Patterson and Gareth Nelson.

Anti-Science Label Turns on its Creators

David Klinghoffer
July 27, 2016
On this episode of ID the Future, David Klinghoffer discusses the term antiscience — and how it’s now used by those on both sides of disagreements on scientific issues. Klinghoffer suggests that we discard the label.

Intelligent Design and Human Exceptionalism

David Klinghoffer
June 29, 2016
On this episode of ID the Future, Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer discusses the concept of “human exceptionalism” — the idea than human beings hold a unique place in the world, reflecting a special status not comparable to other creatures. Klinghoffer examines the relation between a belief in intelligent design and a belief in human exceptionalism, arguing that ID helps make the case for human dignity.