Casey Luskin

Associate Director, 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. 

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. 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 States; Dictionary of Christianity and Science (Zondervan, 2017); Signature of Controversy; The Unofficial Guide to Cosmos; Debating 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 State; Montana Law Review; Geochemistry, Geophysics, and Geosystems; South African Journal of Geology; Hamline Law Review; Liberty University 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).

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 Times, LA Times, Nature, Science, U.S. News & World Report, Washington D.C. Examiner, Human Events, The Blaze, Christianity Today, BeliefNet, Touchstone, World, Christian Science Monitor, 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

Casey Luskin Reviews Three Views on Christianity and Science

Casey Luskin
June 28, 2021
On today’s ID the Future, host Tom Gilson and guest Casey Luskin discuss a new book Luskin recently reviewed at Evolution News, Three Views on Christianity and Science. Luskin, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, summarizes the three views covered in the book: the independence view presented by Michael Ruse, the dialogue view presented by Alister McGrath, and the constrained integration view presented by Bruce Gordon. Luskin critiques the first two and argues that the dialogue view, in practice, quickly devolves into a monologue where religion is supposed to sit down and shut up the moment there is a point of difference between religion and consensus science. He says this is doubly problematic because (a) scientists Read More ›

Casey Luskin Returns, Teases a New Book, Celebrates ID 3.0

Casey Luskin
January 27, 2021
On today’s ID the Future, Rob Crowther continues his conversation with Casey Luskin, the intelligent design proponent who previously worked for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and has now returned. As Luskin explains, he left to pursue a PhD in geology at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. The two discuss the wild conspiracy theories circulated by opponents of intelligent design when Luskin stepped away from Discovery Institute five years ago. Luskin also tells about an upcoming book he’s been working on with William Dembski, another intelligent design proponent who stepped away from day-to-day ID work and is now putting a foot back in the ID waters. Also on tap in today’s conversation, Luskin and Dembski’s upcoming appearance Read More ›

Casey Luskin’s South Africa Adventures

Casey Luskin
January 25, 2021
On this ID the Future, Rob Crowther interviews geologist Casey Luskin, recently back from getting his PhD in geology at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Luskin, who formerly worked for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, and has just now rejoined the CSC, tells about his adventures doing field research in Africa, his side interest in human origins, his cross-cultural experiences, the amazing game parks, museums, and fossil sites he visited, and a little bit about his PhD, including some evidence suggesting that parts of Africa and Western Australia used to be connected.

Darwin’s Poisoned Tree

Atheistic Advocacy and the Constitutionality of Teaching Evolution in Public Schools
Casey Luskin
March 1, 2016
This article appears in the Fall, 2015 issue of the legal journal Trinity Law Review, Vol. 21 (1), pp. 130-233, published by Trinity Law School. Click here for a PDF of the full article. Introduction The teaching of biological origins in public schools is a contentious and highly debated area of the law. If there is any fixed star of Read More ›

A Slightly Technical Introduction to Intelligent Design

Biology, Physics, Mathematics, and Information Theory
Casey Luskin
March 1, 2016
Intelligent design — often called “ID” — is a scientific theory that holds that the emergence of some features of the universe and living things is best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID theorists argue that design can be inferred by studying the informational properties of natural objects to determine if they bear the type of information that in our experience arises from an intelligent cause. Proponents of neo-Darwinian evolution contend that the information in life arose via purposeless, blind, and unguided processes. ID proponents argue that this information arose via purposeful, intelligently guided processes. Both claims are scientifically testable using the standard methods of science. But ID theorists say that when we use the scientific method to explore nature, the evidence points away from unguided material causes, and reveals intelligent design.

The Taxonomy of Information, Pt. 3

Casey Luskin
January 4, 2016
On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin continues his discussion on the taxonomy of information. He explains how intelligent design employs the scientific method, uses principles of uniformitarianism, and enables scientific advances.

The Taxonomy of Information, Pt. 2

Casey Luskin
December 30, 2015
On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin continues his discussion on the taxonomy of information. He delves into the definitions of semantic information and complex & specified information, detailing their relationship and explaining how to use information to make a design inference.

Decade after Dover, Pt 3: Judge Jones’ Judicial Activism

Casey Luskin
December 23, 2015
On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin discusses the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. Ten years ago, on December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones ruled in Kitzmiller v. Dover that intelligent design is religion and not science. His decision was based on faulty reasoning and misrepresentation of intelligent design. Listen to a recent lecture by Casey Luskin who covered the trial for Evolution News. Here in part three he discusses whether Judge Jones employed judicial activism.

Decade after Dover, Pt 2: Does ID Require a Supernatural Creator?

Casey Luskin
December 21, 2015
On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin discusses the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. Ten years ago, on December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones ruled in Kitzmiller v. Dover that intelligent design is religion and not science. His decision was based on faulty reasoning and misrepresentation of intelligent design. Listen to a recent lecture by Casey Luskin who covered the trial for Evolution News. Here in part two he discusses whether intelligent design requires a supernatural creator.

Decade after Dover: Casey Luskin Recaps Trial

Casey Luskin
December 18, 2015
On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin discusses the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. Nearly ten years ago, on December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones ruled in Kitzmiller v. Dover that intelligent design is religion and not science. His decision was based on faulty reasoning and misrepresentation of intelligent design. As we approach the 10–year anniversary of Dover, listen to a recent lecture by Casey Luskin who covered the trial for Evolution News in his role as then Science Education Policy Program Officer. In this first segment of a three part series Casey recaps how the trial came about.

An Introduction to Intelligent Design

Casey Luskin
August 21, 2015
Click here for a reproducible PDF of this article.PDF En Español Intelligent design — often called “ID” — is a scientific theory that holds that the emergence of some features of the universe and living things is best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID theorists argue that design can be inferred Read More ›

Debating Darwin’s Doubt

A Scientific Controversy that Can No Longer Be Denied
David Klinghoffer
July 15, 2015
In 2013 Stephen Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design became a national bestseller, provoking a wide-ranging debate about the adequacy of Darwinian theory to explain life’s history. In Debating Darwin’s Doubt: A Scientific Controversy that Can No Longer Be Denied, leading scholars in the intelligent design community respond to critiques Read More ›

Was Intelligent Design Ever Peer-Reviewed?

Casey Luskin
June 17, 2014
Yes. Although open hostility from those who hold to neo-Darwinism sometimes makes it difficult for design scholars to gain a fair hearing for their ideas, research and articles supporting intelligent design are being published in peer-reviewed publications.

Discovering Intelligent Design

Gary Kemper
September 30, 2013
The Discovering Intelligent Design textbook is 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 curriculum also includes a workbook with learning activities and a DVD with video clips keyed to the content of the textbook.

Science and Human Origins

Ann Gauger
June 18, 2012
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 ›

Intelligent Design Is Peer-Reviewed, but Is Peer-Review a Requirement of Good Science?

Casey Luskin
February 10, 2012
As may be seen from our newly updated page listing Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design, the ID movement has developed a diverse research program bearing fruit in the form of more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Beyond doubt, ID proponents have published a significant body of legitimate peer-reviewed research. In the past, critics charged Read More ›