Jonathan Witt

Jonathan Witt, PhD, is Executive Editor of Discovery Institute Press and a Senior Fellow with the Center for Science and Culture. His latest book is a YA novel co-authored with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, The Farm at the Center of the Universe. Witt also authored Intelligent Design Uncensored (IVP, 2010) with William Dembski, A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature (IVP, 2006) with Benjamin Wiker, and Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design (DI Press, 2018) with Finnish bioengineer Matti Leisola.

Additionally, he authored The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot (Ignatius, 2014) with Jay W. Richards.

Witt served as the lead writer and associate producer for Poverty, Inc., winner of the $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award and recipient of over 50 international film festival honors.

He also scripted three other documentaries that aired widely on PBS and were translated into multiple languages for airing in countries around the globe: The Privileged Planet (written with Lad Allen), The Birth of Freedom, and The Call of the Entrepreneur.

He scripted two DVD curricula carried by Zondervan, including Effective Stewardship, and he served as the lead writer for The PovertyCure DVD Series and the PovertyCure initiative, which includes a content-rich website, more than a million Facebook followers, and a network of 400+ poverty-fighting organizations from around the world.

Witt has provided editing or deep editing work for several successful books, including three New York Times bestsellers.

Before returning to work full time again with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, Witt served as the managing editor for the news and commentary site The Stream, and as a research fellow for the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Witt’s academic essays have appeared in such periodicals as Touchstone, Crisis Magazine, Philosophia Christi, The Princeton Theological Review, The Flannery O’Connor Bulletin, and Oxford’s Literature and Theology. His opinion pieces have appeared in The Seattle Times, The Kansas City Star, Science & Theology News, Breakpoint, The Stream, The American Spectator, The Imaginative Conservative and The Federalist.

He has been interviewed by numerous regional and national radio programs, including Janet Parshall’s America, Janet Parshall’s In the Market, Hank Hanegraaff’s Bible Answer Man, Janet Mefferd of the Salem Radio Network, and Family News in Focus. He is a regular annual speaker for Discovery Institute’s summer seminar on science and culture and has spoken at universities on a range of topics connected to political and economic freedom, cultural renewal, and the arts.

Witt previously served as a tenured professor of literature and writing at Lubbock Christian University. He has a PhD, with honors, in English and Literary Theory from the University of Kansas.

Archives

A Universe Charged with Meaning and Purpose

_{Jonathan Witt
August 28, 2024}

In 1936, Albert Einstein wrote that "the fact that [the world] is comprehensible is a miracle." But why is the universe comprehensible to us? And is it an evolutionary fluke or a hallmark of design? On this episode of ID The Future, we’re sharing a recent conversation between Dr. Jonathan Witt and author and teacher Dr. Ken Boa. The topic is Dr. Witt's book A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature. In this discussion, Dr. Witt and Dr. Boa discuss the meaning and purpose inherent in our comprehensible universe, with examples from mathematics, literature, architecture, and more.

When Materialism Turns on Its Own

_{Jonathan Witt
June 20, 2024}

A cadre of atheist scientists, including Lawrence Krauss and Jerry Coyne, have long worked to silence and deplatform scientists who hold to the theory of ID.

The Farm at the Center of the Universe: Q&A with the Authors

_{Guillermo Gonzalez and Jonathan Witt
June 4, 2024}

The granddad is the novel’s primary defender of intelligent design and belief in God. He’s a bright, curious retired chemistry professor.

“Move Along, Nothing to See Here”: What Happens When You Challenge a Dominant Narrative

_{Jonathan Witt
June 3, 2024}

William Dembski no longer has to be coy about the challenge his design filter poses for modern evolutionary theory.

Darwin’s Racism of the Gaps

_{Jonathan Witt
May 29, 2024}

A defender of Darwinism might object that it’s silly to ding Darwin for his racism, since just about every white person in Victorian England was racist.

New Novel Invites Teens to Ponder Our Privileged Planet

_{Guillermo Gonzalez and Jonathan Witt
May 28, 2024}

Astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez and author Jonathan Witt sit down with host Andrew McDiarmid to discuss their new young adult novel The Farm at the Center of the Universe, now available from Discovery Institute Press.

Eat or Be Eaten: Excerpt from New DI Press Novel for Young Adults

_{Guillermo Gonzalez and Jonathan Witt
May 22, 2024}

In science class, Mr. Charlie (as Isaac had to call him at school) preached Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection — survival of the fittest.

The Farm at the Center of the Universe

_{Guillermo Gonzalez and Jonathan Witt
May 21, 2024}

Why did Isaac’s father have to die so young? Isaac’s older cousin Charlie — a science teacher — says he knows why. Nature is pitiless. There’s no God. No afterlife. Just atoms in the void and the struggle for survival. Charlie says a week at their grandparents’ farm, seeing animals get killed and eaten, will prove it. But at the farm, both of them get more than they bargained for. And soon Isaac finds himself caught in a battle of wits between two men, and facing a choice he alone can …

For Darwin Day, Robert Shedinger Calls Darwin’s Bluff

_{Jonathan Witt
February 12, 2024}

Tucked away in Charles Darwin’s surviving papers is a lengthy manuscript he never finished.

In the Scientific Enterprise, the Wildness of Aslan Counsels Humility

_{Jonathan Witt
January 22, 2024}

Science has made many of its grandest leaps in the face of a mainstream of scientists stubbornly defending a dominant but misguided paradigm.

Systems Biology Cracks Life’s Engineered Intricacies — A Report from CELS

_{Jonathan Witt
January 10, 2024}

The cherished evolutionary story of whales' “vestigial” pelvic bones joins the growing pile of discredited icons of evolution.

How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature

_{Jonathan Witt
January 10, 2024}

Is the universe meaningful or meaningless? Purposeful or pointless? On this ID The Future, enjoy the second half of an interview with Dr. Jonathan Witt about the evidence of purpose and meaning built into the universe. In the second half of a conversation, Dr. Witt describes four characteristics common in works of human genius and shows that these same hallmarks are also found in the natural world. Don't miss the first half of the interview, available in a previous episode.

A Cosmos Charged With Meaning and Purpose

_{Jonathan Witt
January 8, 2024}

Nearly 30 years ago, physicist Steven Weinberg wrote that “[t]he more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.” But is our universe really just a meaningless accident? Or can we detect true genius by studying its workings? On this ID The Future, we are pleased to share the first half of an interview with Dr. Jonathan Witt about the central questions of his 2006 book A Meaningful World, co-written with Benjamin Wiker. Witt explains that the more we learn about the universe, the more it seems laden with meaning. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation.

How Modern Science Strengthens the Claims of Theism

_{Jonathan Witt
July 31, 2023}

On this ID The Future, Liberty McArtor, host of the Know Why Podcast, interviews Jonathan Witt on the compatibility of science and faith, both past and present. Witt is Executive Editor at Discovery Institute Press, as well as a Senior Fellow and Senior Project Manager with Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. His latest book, co-written with Finnish bio-engineer Matti Leisola, is Heretic: One Scientist's Journey from Darwin to Design. In his conversation with McArtor, Witt describes the unique time and place that helped inspire the rise of modern science. "They had the Judeo-Christian worldview," Witt notes, "and that fired the imaginations and ordered the reasoning of those that gave birth to the scientific revolution." Witt also reviews some of the abundant scientific discoveries of the last century that are causing even committed materialists to question or reject the neo-Darwinian explanation. The all-too-common assertion that science and faith are at odds with one another is outdated. Listen in to understand just a few of the reasons why! With thanks to Liberty McArtor and the Know Why Podcast for permission to cross-post this interview.