Does Intelligent Design Point to God? Stephen Meyer with Ben Shapiro — Transcript

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1. 0:00Let's talk for a second about the
2. 0:01intelligent designer. So when you say
3. 0:02intelligent design, everybody goes to
4. 0:04okay, that's God. But your theory
5. 0:06doesn't actually suggest that it's
6. 0:07necessarily God. It just says there has
7. 0:08to be some form of mind or intelligence
8. 0:10that was responsible for this. How do
9. 0:12you connect the intelligent design
10. 0:14theory to God or is it connected to God
11. 0:16at all?
12. 0:16>> Right. Thanks for asking. Um it's a
13. 0:18great question and the um the first
14. 0:20thing is to understand why from the
15. 0:22biological evidence we make an inference
16. 0:24to a mind of some kind. When we're
17. 0:27reasoning about the history of life,
18. 0:28we're using this Darwinian principle,
19. 0:30the Vericausa principle, or using our
20. 0:33knowledge of cause and effect. What do
21. 0:34we know from cause and effect? Well, we
22. 0:35know from cause and effect that it takes
23. 0:37a mind with self-conscious awareness to
24. 0:41create or generate information in a
25. 0:44digital form. And so, we can infer at
26. 0:46least that there was a mind that at
27. 0:48least had the kind of capabilities of
28. 0:49which we are familiar be because of our
29. 0:52own introspective experience of having
30. 0:54minds. Um now when we're talking about
31. 0:56the biological evidence uh the designing
32. 0:58intelligence responsible might be an
33. 1:00imminent intelligence within the cosmos
34. 1:02or it could be a transcendent
35. 1:03intelligence that has the attributes
36. 1:04that Jews and Christians ascribe to the
37. 1:06deity. Both are logical possibilities.
38. 1:09So I've always said when in my books on
39. 1:12the evidence of design and biology that
40. 1:13the theory of intelligent design isn't
41. 1:15an argument for the for God's existence,
42. 1:17but it may have theistic implications.
43. 1:19It's theistic friendly. Now I I happen
44. 1:21to be writing another book that is
45. 1:23extending the design argument into the
46. 1:26realm of cosmology and the foundations
47. 1:28of physics where we find at the
48. 1:30foundation of physical law these
49. 1:32incredibly finely tuned parameters. It's
50. 1:34called the anthropic fine-tuning. And
51. 1:37the physicists since the 50s and 60s
52. 1:39have been discovering dozens of these
53. 1:41fine-tuning parameters both in the way
54. 1:43the universe was set up at the beginning
55. 1:44and the configuration of mass energy and
56. 1:47in the the the the relative strengths of
57. 1:50the different forces of physics and a
58. 1:51number of other parameters like the
59. 1:53expansion rate of the universe and the
60. 1:54speed of light and things like this. And
61. 1:56it turns out we live in what they call a
62. 1:57Goldilocks universe. That the that the
63. 2:00forces are not too strong, not too weak,
64. 2:01the expansion rate not too fast, not too
65. 2:03slow, the arrangement of the the mass
66. 2:05energy just right at the beginning. We
67. 2:07live in a just right universe that has
68. 2:09made life possible. Now that I argue and
69. 2:11many physicists have argued is also
70. 2:13evidence of design. But that evidence of
71. 2:16design is located at the very beginning
72. 2:18of the universe. And neither the
73. 2:20beginning of the universe which we now
74. 2:22know of as a result of our big bang
75. 2:24theory nor the fine-tuning can be
76. 2:26accounted for by an agent within the
77. 2:28cosmos. Clearly no space alien or
78. 2:31imminent intelligence could be
79. 2:33responsible for the laws of physics and
80. 2:35the finetuning of all those laws that
81. 2:37make its very life possible. Nor could
82. 2:39such an agent be responsible for the
83. 2:41origin of the universe itself. So I
84. 2:43think when you bring that other evidence
85. 2:44into the picture that you I think you
86. 2:47can make a very strong theistic design
87. 2:49argument. And in my next book which is
88. 2:50in which be called the return of the god
89. 2:53hypothesis I look at how a theism as
90. 2:56opposed to other competing metaphysical
91. 2:58hypotheses such as pantheism or
92. 3:00materialism or deism best explains that
93. 3:03ensemble of evidence from biology
94. 3:05physics and cosmology. So I do think you
95. 3:07can make a theistic argument, not a
96. 3:09proof for God's existence, but again an
97. 3:10inference to the best explanation of
98. 3:12this ensemble of evidence we have about
99. 3:14biological and cosmological origins.
100. 3:16>> Now is there an easy way out for folks
101. 3:18when it comes to the fine-tuning
102. 3:19argument or to the information argument
103. 3:21by simply saying that there is no such
104. 3:23actual distinction between meaningful
105. 3:24information and Shannon information?
106. 3:26There's no such distinction between
107. 3:27fine-tuning and nonfineetuning except
108. 3:29that we're here to see it. In other
109. 3:30words, if the the only thing that
110. 3:32distinguishes an informationrich segment
111. 3:35of text from a non-informationrich
112. 3:37segment of text is the fact that we
113. 3:38speak English. So if there's a bunch of
114. 3:40letters and we can read them, then we
115. 3:42think that they're meaningful. If
116. 3:43there's a bunch of letters and we can't
117. 3:44read them, we think that they're not
118. 3:45meaningful. So in other words, are we
119. 3:46reverse projecting minds onto a universe
120. 3:49simply because we're here to
121. 3:50>> Well, no, because we do objectively
122. 3:52recognize meaning and function. There is
123. 3:53a possibility of false negative false
124. 3:56negative judgments. We might see a
125. 3:58string of characters and not know the
126. 4:00symbol convention and therefore conclude
127. 4:02that that string is just random or
128. 4:04complex without being specified. But
129. 4:07when we make a qualitative judgment of
130. 4:09specificity of arrangement, when we see
131. 4:11that the arrangement of characters is
132. 4:13necessary to perform an independently
133. 4:15observable function, that's a kind of
134. 4:17information that is real and is
135. 4:20something that we know is only
136. 4:21associated with the causal activity of
137. 4:23intelligent agents. So no biologist
138. 4:25really when you get down to it wants to
139. 4:26say well the sequence of of characters
140. 4:29in the DNA you know the AC's and G's in
141. 4:31the in the DNA molecule uh the
142. 4:33arrangement doesn't matter for building
143. 4:34proteins because all we have to do is
144. 4:36change the arrangement and see that the
145. 4:37the protein unfolds and doesn't and
146. 4:39doesn't catalyze a reaction there's a
147. 4:41real objective way of of recognizing
148. 4:43function in biology just as there is in
149. 4:45in in human language so uh I think the
150. 4:48this qualitative in information in the
151. 4:50information sciences there's a
152. 4:52distinction between specified or
153. 4:54functional information on the one hand
154. 4:56and mere complexity or randomness or
155. 5:00Shannon information on the other and
156. 5:02that's a real distinction and it
157. 5:03underwrites the whole case for
158. 5:04intelligent design. You're right.
159. 5:06>> Okay. So, so uh the the counterveailing
160. 5:08case for a lot of this stuff is the
161. 5:10theory of multiple universes.
162. 5:11>> I was so I I was hoping you would ask
163. 5:12about that.
164. 5:13>> People essentially saying that that we
165. 5:15are a bubble universe that is on a bunch
166. 5:17of other bubbles and that there are an
167. 5:18infinite number of universes. So all the
168. 5:20probabilistic arguments that you make in
169. 5:22favor of the chain of life and the
170. 5:24creation of life, none of this matters
171. 5:25in the end because there are a bajillion
172. 5:26universes and we just we just happen to
173. 5:29be the lucky ones. Exactly. And they
174. 5:31call it the observer selection effect.
175. 5:33We think we're special because all the
176. 5:34conditions that are necessary for our
177. 5:36existence are so incredibly improbable.
178. 5:38But in fact, some universe somewhere had
179. 5:41to arise that produced organisms such as
180. 5:44ourselves, conscious, aware uh conscious
181. 5:47and intelligent agents indeed. Um but
182. 5:50there's a problem with this whole this
183. 5:51whole approach. Uh many problems in fact
184. 5:53and you might imagine in this new book
185. 5:55that I'm doing I'm writing quite a lot
186. 5:56about the multiverse and critique of it.
187. 5:58But let me give you the most important
188. 5:59problem and that is the multiverse
189. 6:01itself uh requires prior fine-tuning.
190. 6:04The multiverse hypothesis uh presupposes
191. 6:06prior fine-tuning. Here's the problem.
192. 6:08If you have all these different
193. 6:09universes out there, a gazillion of
194. 6:11them, um if the universes aren't in some
195. 6:14way connected,
196. 6:16uh then what happens in one universe has
197. 6:18no material effect on events in another
198. 6:21universe. So the the fact that there may
199. 6:23be a gabillion other universes out there
200. 6:26if they're disconnected, doesn't change
201. 6:28anything in our universe, including the
202. 6:30probabilities of our being here. So to
203. 6:33solve that problem and in recognition of
204. 6:35that problem um proponents of the
205. 6:38multiverse have proposed a common cause
206. 6:41for all the universes so that they can
207. 6:43so they can portray the multiverse all
208. 6:45these different universes as the result
209. 6:47of something like a big cosmic lottery
210. 6:49where there's some mechanism that's
211. 6:50churning out universes where eventually
212. 6:53one of them would have to have the right
213. 6:55combination of factors to make life
214. 6:56possible. Now the problem though is that
215. 6:59in all the universe generating
216. 7:01mechanisms that have been proposed
217. 7:03um there is prior fine-tuning. There's
218. 7:06something called inflationary cosmology
219. 7:08and another uh and there's something
220. 7:10called the string theoretic landscape.
221. 7:11So there's a string theory version of
222. 7:13the multiverse and there's an
223. 7:14inflationary cosmology version and in
224. 7:17both cases there has to be exquisite
225. 7:19fine-tuning for the universe generating
226. 7:21mechanism to actually produce multiple
227. 7:23universes. So the univer the the problem
228. 7:26of the origin of the finetuning has just
229. 7:27been pushed back one generation. One of
230. 7:30my philosopher physics colleagues uh
231. 7:32Robin Collins uses an illustration like
232. 7:34this. He says so imagine you have some
233. 7:36chef presents a beautiful loaf of bread
234. 7:38to you and you say oh chef I'd like to
235. 7:40complement your skill as a chef but I
236. 7:42know you didn't actually design the
237. 7:44recipe. It was a bread makingaking
238. 7:45machine. There was no design in this.
239. 7:47There was just a bread makingaking
240. 7:48machine that produced the bread. But
241. 7:49even if that were the case, the
242. 7:51breadmaking machine required prior
243. 7:53design as did the recipe for the dough
244. 7:54that was put in it. So this is kind of
245. 7:56analogous to what's going on with the
246. 7:58multiverse. It only it doesn't eliminate
247. 8:00the problem of fine-tuning. It just push
248. 8:02pushes it back one generation.
249. 8:04>> How about the problem with regard to the
250. 8:05big bang? So a lot of folks have
251. 8:06suggested that the big bang is not
252. 8:07actually the beginning. So there is no
253. 8:09in the beginning. There was prior
254. 8:10universe that that sucked in on itself
255. 8:12and and then blew out again. That
256. 8:14basically time is eternal and there was
257. 8:15no beginning to to time necessarily.
258. 8:17Well, there really aren't good
259. 8:19cosmological models that eliminate
260. 8:21what's called the singularity at the
261. 8:22beginning temporally. Um the the the
262. 8:25standard big bang or the inflationary
263. 8:27cosmology model both terminate in a
264. 8:29definite beginning. There have been a
265. 8:31number of developments in theoretical
266. 8:32physics that have reinforced that. the
267. 8:34singularity theorem of Hawking, Penrose
268. 8:36and Ellis in 1968 and also the um um um
269. 8:42a theorem independently in physics the
270. 8:44the Borg Valin theorem that established
271. 8:47a beginning. But what people have tried
272. 8:49to do phys theoretical physicists have
273. 8:50tried to do to get around the theistic
274. 8:52implications of there being a beginning
275. 8:54is formulating a very abstract model of
276. 8:56physics called quantum cosmology. That's
277. 8:58that's where the action is. if you want
278. 8:59to get around the theistic argument for
279. 9:02the existence of God based on the
280. 9:03beginning of the universe. And I'm I'm
281. 9:06writing about this too. It's really
282. 9:07heady stuff, but it's based on an
283. 9:08analogy to quantum physics. And some of
284. 9:10your you know your your your listeners
285. 9:12and viewers are very smart. So they
286. 9:14might know about the uh you know the uh
287. 9:15the weirdness of of quantum physics
288. 9:17where particles act like waves and waves
289. 9:19act like particles. So there's this um
290. 9:22there's this thing called a a wave
291. 9:23function that describes all the
292. 9:25different places that a particle might
293. 9:27be and then how it might collapse and
294. 9:30manifest one particular set of
295. 9:31attributes upon an observation. And by
296. 9:35analogy, some of the physicists have
297. 9:37said, well, maybe the universe came out
298. 9:39of a bigger wave function, what they
299. 9:41call a universal wave function, where
300. 9:43there was all where there were all these
301. 9:45different possible universes that were
302. 9:47existing in what quantum physicists call
303. 9:49superposition, sort of existing
304. 9:51simultaneously in an abstract
305. 9:53mathematical space of possibilities, not
306. 9:54in not as physical reality. And then
307. 9:57somehow someway all those different
308. 9:59possibilities collapsed and we got a
309. 10:01universe like ours. Okay, now this is a
310. 10:04very bizarre thing for a number of
311. 10:05reasons. One, they've got a mathematical
312. 10:07equation generating a material universe,
313. 10:10which is a very not materialistic
314. 10:12explanation of things. It's almost, as
315. 10:14one of the proponents of this, Alexander
316. 10:16Valinka noted, he said, math is an idea
317. 10:19that exists in mind. So when we say that
318. 10:21the universe came out of a a of of a big
319. 10:24universal wave function equation, are we
320. 10:27really saying that that the universe
321. 10:29came out of a pre-existing mind? He
322. 10:32raises that as a rhetorical question
323. 10:33near the end of one of his books and
324. 10:35then simply changes the subject to
325. 10:36finish the book. The other crazy thing
326. 10:38is that to get that mathematical
327. 10:41equation that might explain our
328. 10:42universe, you have to solve a prior
329. 10:44mathematical equation and you can't do
330. 10:46that without an input of information
331. 10:48which comes from the theoretical
332. 10:49physicists. So like in those origin of
333. 10:51life experiments, they're actually
334. 10:53modeling the need for a mind to generate
335. 10:55information and you get this weird
336. 10:57conclusion in the beginning was the
337. 10:58word, you know. So it's it's very
338. 11:00strange the attempt to get around the
339. 11:02theistic implications of the big bang
340. 11:04have just uh have generated other models
341. 11:06which themselves have implications that
342. 11:09are very theistic.