John G. West

Senior Fellow, Managing Director, and Vice President of Discovery Institute

Dr. John West is Vice President and a Senior Fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, where he also serves as Managing Director of the Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, which he co-founded with philosopher of science Stephen Meyer in 1996. His current research examines the impact of science and “scientism” on public policy and culture. His other areas of expertise include constitutional law, American government and institutions, and religion and politics.

Dr. West was previously an Associate Professor of Political Science at Seattle Pacific University where he chaired the Department of Political Science and Geography, and he has taught political science and history courses at California State University, San Bernardino and Azusa Pacific University. From 1986-1989, Dr. West served as Managing Editor of Public Research, Syndicated, which distributed essays on public affairs to more than 700 daily and weekly newspapers.

Dr. West has written or edited twelve books, including most recently the expanded edition of Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, The Magician's Twin: C.S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society, and Walt Disney and Live Action. Other books include:

Additionally, Dr. West has directed and written several documentaries, including Revolutionary, Privileged Species, the award-winning Biology of the Second Reich and Human Zoos, Darwin’s Heretic, The War on Humans, The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism, and The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis and Intelligent Design. He also helped produce the popular YouTube series, Science Uprising. Listed in Who’s Who in America, he has been interviewed by Time, Newsweek, USA Today, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, and he has appeared on CNN, FoxNews, and C-SPAN.

Dr. West holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University and a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington. He is a recipient of several academic fellowships, including a Haynes Foundation Dissertation Grant, an Earhart Foundation Fellowship, a Richard Weaver Fellowship, and a Chevron Journalism/Economics Scholarship. Dr. West is a member of Pi Sigma Alpha (the national political science honor society) and Phi Beta Kappa.

Archives

Human Zoos: Socrates in the Studio with Dr. John West

Eric Metaxas and John G. West
August 6, 2024
The day after his Socrates in the City event on C.S. Lewis and Scientism, The Discovery Institute’s Dr. John West sits down with Host Eric Metaxas to discuss his documentary Human Zoos: America’s Forgotten History of Scientific Racism. Human Zoos tells the shocking story of how thousands of indigenous peoples were put on public display in America in the early decades of the twentieth century. To watch the full documentary, head to …

The Book Evangelical Elites Don’t Want You to Read

Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale is powerful, troubling—and necessary.
John G. West
August 5, 2024
If you want to better understand what’s going on inside American evangelicalism’s elite, Shepherds for Sale (2024) by Megan Basham is a great place to start. And if you are a member of the evangelical elite yourself, you should read her book to understand what is going on among rank-and-file evangelicals. A journalist with The Daily Wire, Basham has spent the past several years chronicling the growing chasm between many evangelical leaders and those they are supposed to shepherd. Her reporting has defied the standard narrative. Most journalists who cover evangelicals obsess over pastors and ministry leaders who they think have sold their souls to right-wing populism. That’s a legitimate concern and worth reporting on. However, this way of framing coverage of evangelicals …

We Hold These Truths: Exploring Intelligent Design through the Memorials of Washington DC

John G. West
July 2, 2024
Celebrate July 4th weekend by exploring the importance of intelligent design to some of the greatest figures in American history through this brief tour of four iconic memorials in Washington, DC. We’ll visit the Jefferson Memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, the Word War II Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. Your tour guide is Dr. John West, Vice President of Discovery Institute and co-founder of its Center for Science and …

Ronald Reagan’s Deeply Personal Argument for Intelligent Design

John G. West
June 5, 2024
On this ID The Future marking the anniversary of President Ronald Reagan's death, we're delighted to share Discovery Institute Vice President Dr. John West's recent conversation with radio host Michael Medved discussing Reagan’s deeply personal argument for intelligent design. During remarks given at a National Prayer Breakfast event in 1988, Reagan shared his argument for intelligent design in unscripted, humorous fashion. But as Dr. West explains, Reagan’s commitment to intelligent design went much deeper than a few off-the-cuff laugh lines. Reagan fought against atheism and materialism in his diplomacy as president and even in his role as a father.

Eric Metaxas, Francis Schaeffer, and The Great Evangelical Disaster

Two prophets and their critiques of compromised Christianity.
John G. West
May 10, 2024
Forty years ago on May 15, evangelical Christian thinker Francis Schaeffer died after a long battle against cancer.   He went out with a bang, not a whimper. A few months before his passing, Schaeffer published his final book, The Great Evangelical Disaster. Many of his last weeks were spent promoting its message. Schaeffer’s book indicted the evangelical leadership class for abandoning historic Christianity in a quest for cultural acceptance—especially in the areas of biblical authority, the value of human life, sex and gender, and politics. “he problem of evangelical accommodation,” Schaeffer observed, “is that … has constantly been in one direction—that is, to accommodate with whatever is in vogue with the form of the world spirit which is dominant …

C.S. Lewis on Evolution and Intelligent Design with John West (2024 Dallas Conf. on Science & Faith)

John G. West
April 8, 2024
What were C.S. Lewis’s real views on evolution and intelligent design? Dr. John West, Vice President of Discovery Institute, explores this topic in this lecture from the 2024 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith sponsored by Discovery Institute. Dr. West is editor of The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society and co-editor of The C.S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia. Find out more at Dr. West’s website, …

Roundtable on Human Uniqueness

John G. West
March 25, 2024
A roundtable discussion exploring what makes humans unique featuring Dr. John West, Vice President, Discovery Institute; Dr. Casey Luskin, Associate Director, Center for Science and Culture, Discovery Institute; Dr. Robert J. Marks, Director, Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence, Discovery Institute; and Dr. Mark Garcia, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary. This roundtable was part of the 2023 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith co-sponsored by Discovery Institute and Westminster Theological Seminary. The event took place in September …

Darwinists Devolve

John G. West
February 5, 2024
One sign of a robust scientific theory is the quality of its most prominent proponents. But serious advocates of Darwinism have become an endangered species.

Ten Questions to Ask When Evaluating a Christian College

John G. West
January 22, 2024
As a former professor at an evangelical Christian university, I am sometimes asked by concerned parents to recommend a good Christian college for them to consider for their children. Because the spiritual health of specific colleges and universities can change radically over time, and because there can be a wide diversity of views even among different academic departments on the same campus, it is not always possible to provide specific recommendations. What I can provide are questions you can ask if you or your teens are seeking to find a biblically-faithful college or university. Don’t just rely on marketing materials produced by the college or university! Those materials will invariably stress how the institution integrates the Christian faith with learning in everything it does. …

Thus Saith the Science: C.S. Lewis on the Dangers of Scientism

John G. West
November 24, 2023
Progress is an appealing idea, but what happens when we do not all desire the same things? On this ID The Future, we mark the 60th anniversary of the death of British writer C. S. Lewis as host Andrew McDiarmid concludes a conversation with Dr. John West about Lewis's prophetic warnings to us about science and scientism. Dr. West explains how scientism harms real scientific progress and leads to moral relativism. And he discusses how we can bring science back into alignment with older, deeper human truths. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation.

C. S. Lewis’s Prophetic Legacy on Scientism

John G. West
November 22, 2023
What happens when science leaves human values behind? Or when governments become governed by scientists? On this ID The Future, we mark the 60th anniversary of the death of British writer C. S. Lewis as host Andrew McDiarmid begins a conversation with Dr. John West about Lewis's prophetic warnings to us about science and scientism. Dr. West discusses what scientism is, what happens when science neglects deeper human truths, and how Lewis warned against the rise of technocracies. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation.

The Washington Post Exposes the Smithsonian’s Racist Brain Collection

John G. West
August 30, 2023
On today’s ID the Future, host Michael Medved talks with Human Zoos film director John West about a recent Washington Post series exposing how the Smithsonian Institution collected hundreds of brains from indigenous peoples as part of an early-20th century effort to promote Darwinian racism. The motivation for the brain collection was to document how some people were supposedly lower on the evolutionary ladder than others. As West notes, many of these brains are still stored in steel vats at a non-public Smithsonian facility in Maryland. Tune in as West and Medved explore this disturbing topic and how it all ties into Darwin’s theory of evolution. And to watch the segment from the Human Zoos documentary detailing this gruesome …

When Darwinian Racism Came to Africa, and the West

John G. West
March 8, 2023
Today’s ID the Future features another reading from scholar Olufemi Oluniyi’s new book, Darwin Comes to Africa. In this excerpt we learn how Darwin himself laid much of the groundwork for social Darwinist ideas, primarily in his book The Descent of Man, and how those ideas were energetically developed in the ensuing decades by various mainstream scientists. Oluniyi further details how their work fueled pseudo-scientific racism against black Africans and other indigenous peoples outside the West. To learn more about this neglected corner of modern Western history, and for the good news that the flow of evidence has turned against Darwinism and, with it, social Darwinist principles, pick up Oluniyi’s book …