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Inside the Theory of Intelligent Design: Meyer’s Introduction — Transcript

by Stephen Meyer · 1,972 words · 307 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Hi, I'm Steve Meyer. I direct the center
0:02for science and culture at Discovery
0:04Institute. I'm a philosopher of science
0:07and a geoysicist by training.
0:11This is a class about the theory of
0:13intelligent design. It will parallel the
0:16content of two books I've written on the
0:18subject, Darwin's Doubt and Signature in
0:21the Cell. In the class, I'll describe
0:23the scientific basis for the theory of
0:25intelligent design. I'll respond to
0:28scientific and philosophical objections
0:30to the theory, and I'll explore its
0:32possible metaphysical and even religious
0:35implications.
0:37You may have heard about the idea of
0:38intelligent design as the result of some
0:41controversy about it in the media. I was
0:44part of one of those controversies a
0:45little while back. In 2004, I submitted
0:49an article to the Proceedings of the
0:52Biological Society of Washington. That's
0:54the oldest peer-reviewed biology journal
0:57in America. It's uh published out of the
0:59Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History.
1:02Uh the editor there, Richard Sternberg,
1:05sent the article out for peer review.
1:08The article was advocating the theory of
1:10intelligent design as the best
1:12explanation for the information required
1:15to build new animals in a period in the
1:18history of life called the Cambrian
1:19Explosion. Anyway, the article came back
1:22with recommendations to publish
1:25contingent upon certain revisions. I
1:28made those revisions and the article was
1:30published in August of 2004.
1:33It was quiet for about a week and then
1:35after that the lid blew off of the
1:37Smithsonian. Letters poured in, emails
1:40questioning the editorial judgment and
1:43demanding censure of the editor. Uh,
1:46they took away the editor, Richard
1:48Sternberg's office. His his Smithsonian
1:50colleagues did. They took away his keys
1:52and his access to scientific samples. He
1:55was also transferred away from a
1:58friendly supervisor and given an office
2:00near the museum directors where they
2:02could keep an eye on him. Soon there was
2:04a emergency meeting of the society that
2:07oversaw the publication of the journal.
2:10The president of the society told
2:11Sternberg not to come to the meeting
2:13even though he was the editor of the
2:14journal. The president told him that he
2:17couldn't guarantee Sternberg's personal
2:19safety that tempers were running so
2:21high. Eventually, a senator had to
2:24intervene to save his job at the
2:25National Institutes of Health where
2:27Sternberg had a joint appointment.
2:29Apparently, people from the Smithsonian
2:31had pressured the NIH to fire Sternberg.
2:35Eventually, he was demoted and he left
2:37the museum when it became apparent that
2:39he really couldn't get any science done
2:40there anymore. Now, the irony of all
2:43this, according to the Wall Street
2:44Journal, which covered the story, was
2:46that Sternberg wasn't even the heretic.
2:48The heretic, they said, was that guy
2:50Meyer out there in Seattle, referring to
2:52me, the author. Now, in addition to the
2:55Wall Street Journal's coverage, the the
2:57uh the story was covered in the
2:59Washington Post, on NPR, and in most of
3:02the Science Press. It was hugely
3:04controversial and it was one of the
3:06first uh controversies about the theory
3:08of intelligent design that made it into
3:10the press.
3:12Unfortunately, this isn't an isolated
3:14case. Uh I've had other colleagues uh
3:17who have experienced censure or
3:20abridgement of their academic freedom
3:21because of their advocacy for the theory
3:23of intelligent design. Here here's a
3:25more recent story that illustrates the
3:27same point. It's the story of Gunter
3:29Beckley, a leading German paleontologist
3:32with scores of peer-reviewed
3:35publications in paleontology. He's had
3:37species named after him because of his
3:39discoveries in the fossil record.
3:41Anyway, about 2009,
3:44uh, Beckley began to read some books
3:46about the theory of intelligent design.
3:48He did that because he was at the time
3:51the spokesman at the Stoutgart Museum of
3:54Natural History for their 200-year
3:57anniversary celebration of Charles
3:59Darwin's birth. It was a huge Darwin
4:01exhibit. Uh Beckley had put together an
4:05interesting display where he had the
4:08origin of species on a on a uh a scale
4:11of justice on one side and then books on
4:14intelligent design on the other side of
4:16the scale of justice. and he piled up
4:18several of the better known books. His
4:20point in the in the exhibition was to
4:22show that Darwin's book outweighed them
4:24all. Well, he made a mistake as he
4:27explains it and that is that of at the
4:29proddding of a colleague, he actually
4:31read some of the books on intelligent
4:32design and found that they were quite
4:34persuasive. Several years later, 2015,
4:38he finally announced his own support for
4:40the theory of intelligent design. The
4:43next year he was told that he wasn't
4:44welcome anymore at the Stuttgart Museum
4:46of Natural History. He was taken off
4:48research projects and exhibitions that
4:50he had helped to to found or create. And
4:53realizing that they couldn't fire him,
4:55the museum directors pressured him to
4:57leave. Uh Beckley like Sternberg
5:01realized he wouldn't be able to get much
5:02science done. He ended up accepting a
5:05modest severance and left the museum.
5:08So my question is this, what is the
5:11theory of intelligent design and why is
5:13it so controversial and why does it
5:16elicit such determined attempts to
5:18suppress it? Well, I'm a proponent of
5:21the theory. So let me give you a
5:23definition of the theory. A definition
5:25that most of us who hold to the theory
5:27would accept. According to proponents of
5:29the theory of intelligent design,
5:31intelligent design is the idea that
5:33there are certain features of life and
5:36the universe that are best explained by
5:38an intelligent cause rather than an
5:40undirected process such as natural
5:43selection.
5:44Now, some in the media and scientists
5:46who oppose the theory have defined it
5:48quite differently. For example, in 2005,
5:51there was a controversial court trial in
5:53Dover, Pennsylvania, and many in the
5:56national media uh covered this trial.
5:58And according to people in the national
6:00media, intelligent design is a
6:02faith-based theory. And secondly, a new
6:04attempt to smuggle creationism into the
6:07public schools. In fact, there was a
6:08Time magazine cover story that described
6:11intelligent design as a faith-based
6:13idea. Now, I'll show in this class that
6:16intelligent design is based on
6:18developments in science and therefore
6:21it's not a faith-based theory. It may
6:23have faith affirming implications, but
6:25it's based on scientific discoveries.
6:27Discoveries like the digital code that's
6:29stored in the DNA molecule, discoveries
6:31of the miniature machines and circuits
6:33that are have been found in cells, and
6:36the discovery of the finetuning of the
6:38laws and constants of physics that make
6:40life possible. I'll also show that the
6:43theory of intelligent design is based on
6:46a standard scientific method of
6:48reasoning in in including a method that
6:52Darwin himself used in the origin of
6:54species. The other thing I'm going to
6:56talk about is that the theory of
6:58intelligent design is actually not a new
7:00idea at all. It has a mo a new and
7:03modern manifestation based on these new
7:04scientific discoveries, but it's an
7:07ancient idea that goes all the way back
7:09to the Greeks and to the Roman
7:10philosophers. It was also a foundational
7:13idea during the scientific revolution in
7:16the 16th and 17th century in particular.
7:19In fact, the idea of intelligent design,
7:21many historians of science will tell us,
7:24actually made science possible because
7:27the early scientists assumed that the
7:29the universe had been designed by a
7:31rational intelligence. And because of
7:33that, they believed that nature was
7:35intelligible to other rational
7:37intelligences such as ourselves. Nature
7:39had been designed by an intelligent
7:41mind. We should expect to find evidence
7:43of law-like regularities and discernable
7:47designs in nature. And therefore people
7:50like us ought to be able to uh study
7:53nature and learn from it profitably. In
7:56addition to this, these early founders
7:58of modern science thought they thought
7:59they saw evidence of that rationality of
8:01that intelligence in nature. Kepler saw
8:04evidence of rationality in the
8:06mathematical harmony of the laws
8:07governing the solar system. Bole thought
8:10he saw evidence of intelligent design in
8:12some of the exquisite mechanisms at work
8:14in chemistry and physics. and Newton saw
8:17evidence of intelligent design in the
8:18match between the optical properties of
8:20light and the structure of the eye. A
8:24couple years ago, I was asked to testify
8:27before a commission called the US
8:29Commission on Civil Rights. The US
8:32Commission was investigating what they
8:34called the possibility that there might
8:36be viewpoint discrimination in the
8:38teaching of biological origins. I was
8:41called to testify about the theory of
8:42intelligent design, which at that time
8:44and still is not taught in American
8:47public schools. Now, after explaining
8:49what the theory was, one of the
8:51commissioners started to ask me what
8:53seemed at first to be a series of very
8:55aggressive questions. But then he kind
8:57of took a little more sympathetic tone
8:59and asked me if my theory wasn't
9:00actually quite similar to that of the
9:02theories of Johannes Kepler and uh
9:05Robert Bole and Sir Isaac Newton, the
9:07early scientists who helped get science
9:09going. I told him that it was and that
9:12um I described a little bit more about
9:14why and then my opposite number at the
9:16hearing interjected and she said well
9:18it's true she said that Newton uh
9:21believed in intelligent design but he
9:23took great pains to keep his ideas about
9:25intelligent design his religious idea of
9:28intelligent design separate from his
9:30science and this is what she said she
9:31said Newton made very a very clear
9:33distinction about how science should
9:35work Newton's view that was that we
9:38should understand the natural world
9:39solely by using natural processes, she
9:42said. And Newton said this for religious
9:45reasons, she claimed because he didn't
9:48want God's existence or God's
9:50transcendence to be tested by the base
9:52methods of science.
9:54Now, turns out that that's just
9:56historically false. And I was able to uh
9:59cite some passages from Newton at the at
10:01the hearing which showed that he built
10:04his ideas about intelligent design right
10:07into the the very structure of his
10:09scientific work. In fact, in the general
10:11scolium to the Prancipia, which is
10:14arguably one of the greatest works of
10:15physics ever written, Newton wrote the
10:18following. He was talking about the
10:21fine-tuning of the positioning of the of
10:24the of the planets in the solar system.
10:26And this is what he said. He said,
10:27"Though these bodies may indeed continue
10:30in their orbits by the mere laws of
10:33gravity, yet they could by no means have
10:35first derived the regular position of
10:37the orbits themselves from those laws.
10:40Thus, this most beautiful system of the
10:42sun, planets, and comets could only
10:45proceed from the council and dominion of
10:48an intelligent and powerful being." Now
10:51in the hearing I was able to paraphrase
10:52a bit of that quote to make the point
10:55that Newton didn't separate his science
10:58from his ideas about intelligent design.
11:00He made arguments for intelligent design
11:03right in his scientific works in the
11:05optics and then again in the Prancipia
11:08which was as I mentioned to the
11:09commissioners one of the greatest works
11:11of physics ever written. So what
11:14happened then to the idea of intelligent
11:15design? Why does it appear that so many
11:18scientists today regard it as
11:19controversial if it was so central to
11:22the foundation of science itself? To
11:25answer that question, we'll need to know
11:27more about what happened in the 19th
11:28century. And we'll need to know more
11:30about Darwin's theory of evolution by
11:33natural selection and in particular how
11:35he attempted to explain away the
11:37appearance of design in living systems
11:39without invoking an actual designing
11:42intelligence. That's what we'll look at
11:44next. But for now, I'd like you to read
11:46the prologue in Signature in the Cell.
11:48We'll see you next time.

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