Dr. Scott Minnich on the Real Science Behind E. coli “Evolution”

Intelligent Design the Future

Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

Astronomy, Life Sciences, Science, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.3 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Summary

Evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski hopes to demonstrate Darwinian evolution in action. But one humble scientist from Northern Idaho says not so fast! On this classic episode of ID The Future from the archive, host Eric Anderson concludes a conversation with microbiologist Dr. Scott Minnich. In Part 2, Dr. Minnich critiques Lenski's famous Long Term Evolutionary Experiments. Through experiments of his own, Minnich has shown how the practical results of Lenski's project on E. coli are easily repeatable under different conditions, and how some key changes to E. coli are even reversible, both of which speak more to an organism's pre-existing capabilities than to a Darwinian explanation. "Overall, [Lenski's] E. coli haven't generated anything new," observes Minnich. "They're getting rid of stuff they don't need...they have hyper mutational rates...but in the long run, that's not an advantage, because you're just going to acquire too many mutations, and that's the road to extinction."

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0:00.0	ID The Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
0:12.0	Welcome to ID The Future. I'm your host, Eric Anderson, and today I'm continuing our Why It Matters series with the second half of my conversation with Dr. Scott Minnick.
0:21.3	Previously, Dr. Minnick shared his personal journey to intelligent design and why it matters to him
0:26.0	to continue sharing the evidence for design in the world. As we talked, Dr. Minnick shares how he
0:30.7	became involved in reviewing the results of the famous long-term evolutionary experiment of
0:34.9	Richard Lensky and how he and his colleagues conclusively demonstrated that the implications of this important experiment were not, as the supporters
0:41.6	of Darwinian evolution had claimed. We now join the conversation as I asked Dr. Minnick what advice
0:46.6	he would give someone who is sitting on the fence about intelligent design. What advice would
0:51.4	you give to someone who maybe is sitting on the fence about intelligent design or has heard about it?
0:55.8	Not sure what to make of this.
0:58.0	Read, read both sides.
1:00.6	You know, go deep.
1:02.2	I think, you know, there's always a challenge and you have to keep an open mind.
1:07.3	I remember it since in 2004, you know, somebody slipped a nature article under my door.
1:14.0	I came into work in the lab about 10 o'clock and there was this paper on the floor of my office.
1:19.2	And it was from Lensky's lab, you know, where they had this program of Vita to show how information could be generated naturally.
1:29.9	And, you know, I read it.
1:32.4	I read it carefully.
1:33.3	I thought, okay, you know, maybe they've done it.
1:35.6	And but then you could, you know, there are arguments against it that are good.
1:40.2	But I started following that work and following his long-term evolution experiments.
1:46.1	And when he got a mutant that was growing on citrate, I thought, no way.
	...

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