Is God Too Complex to Explain Anything? Stephen Meyer Responds to Dawkins — Transcript

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1. 0:00I want to get into arguments for God's
2. 0:02exist. So I don't want to get there too
3. 0:04quickly, right? I want to point out the
4. 0:05fact that many of these things that we
5. 0:07had that were being discovered in
6. 0:09science such as big bang cosmology and
7. 0:10finetuning and so on preeded the new
8. 0:14atheist movement. So my question for you
9. 0:17is what do you think it was that
10. 0:19triggered the new atheist movement and
11. 0:22and and how what what did that do and
12. 0:25why is it now dying or is maybe dead?
13. 0:28That that is a really good question
14. 0:30actually because the the arguments were
15. 0:34they had the evidence that was was
16. 0:37attracting me to this kind of work that
17. 0:39had led me to go off to Cambridge to do
18. 0:43graduate work in on my PhD was in origin
19. 0:46of life biology. I [snorts] was
20. 0:48investigating whether or not this early
21. 0:51formula early reformulation of the
22. 0:54design argument based on the discovery
23. 0:56of the informationbearing properties of
24. 0:59biomacroolelecules and the importance of
25. 1:02those molecules to explaining the origin
26. 1:04of life. I was discovering whether all
27. 1:06of that might in fact ha provide the
28. 1:09basis of of a compelling design argument
29. 1:11or whether it wouldn't. Okay. So when I
30. 1:14encountered this in ' 85, I was really
31. 1:16intrigued but I wasn't entirely
32. 1:18convinced. And so I spent a lot of time
33. 1:20thinking about this during my PhD years.
34. 1:22But the point is all of these new
35. 1:23developments in science, the the
36. 1:25molecular biological revolution happened
37. 1:27in the 1950s,60s and 70s and it rocked
38. 1:30it has rocked the world of evolutionary
39. 1:34biology and origin of life research. um
40. 1:37the these the materialistic attempts to
41. 1:39explain the origin of both new forms of
42. 1:41life from simpler pre-existing forms
43. 1:43that'd be biological evolution and the
44. 1:45origin of the first life from simpler
45. 1:48pre-existing chemicals that'd be
46. 1:49chemical evolution
47. 1:51those attempts have I think reached an
48. 1:54impass because of the things that were
49. 1:57discovered in modern molecular and cell
50. 1:59biology during that period of time
51. 2:01>> so so all of that precedes the new
52. 2:03atheists so why why did they get away
53. 2:05with it
54. 2:05>> I with with with becoming this great
55. 2:08cultural force, especially with
56. 2:10Dawkins's claim that it was Darwin that
57. 2:13made it possible to become an
58. 2:14intellectually fulfilled atheist that he
59. 2:16rooted his case for atheism
60. 2:19>> in the denial of design. His reasoning
61. 2:22was very very um by the way I I I love
62. 2:25Dawkins um
63. 2:27>> as an individual you mean?
64. 2:28>> Well, I've as a writer I I've I've only
65. 2:30met him once and that was in a book
66. 2:32signing line. But what I love about him
67. 2:34is that he has this beautiful clarity in
68. 2:37the way he frames issues.
69. 2:38>> He from my by by my lights, he always
70. 2:41gets the issue wrong in the end, but he
71. 2:44frames things so beautifully and and
72. 2:46clarifies what's at stake in the
73. 2:47discussions. So his his reasoning in the
74. 2:51God delusion was pretty straightforward
75. 2:54that the the strongest public evidence
76. 2:58that we had always had for the existence
77. 3:00of God was the design in nature.
78. 3:04>> But prior and and so prior to Darwin,
79. 3:07the design argument provided compelling
80. 3:09a compelling public basis for belief in
81. 3:13God, one of Aquinas's five ways, right?
82. 3:16Um but when Darwin came along and
83. 3:19explained design without a designer,
84. 3:22namely by invoking the undirected
85. 3:24unguided process of natural selection
86. 3:26acting on random variations to account
87. 3:29for the appearance of design but not the
88. 3:31reality of design.
89. 3:33We now had an account of that appearance
90. 3:36without having to invoke an actual
91. 3:38designing intelligence of any kind,
92. 3:40including a creator god. And so Darwin
93. 3:43made it possible to be an intellectually
94. 3:45fulfilled atheist. Post Darwin, we now
95. 3:47know that God that that belief in God is
96. 3:50tantamount to a delusion. He would never
97. 3:52say that he had completely disproven the
98. 3:55existence of God. But he would say that
99. 3:57he had rendered belief in God uh or that
100. 3:59Darwinism had rendered belief in God to
101. 4:02be an incredibly improbable belief.
102. 4:05>> I know you want to be friendly to him
103. 4:07and that's great, but the argument is
104. 4:08crap. Oh, of course
105. 4:09>> it's crap because you could have all
106. 4:11sorts of arguments for thinking God
107. 4:12exists that have nothing to do with the
108. 4:13design argument.
109. 4:14>> You might take an you might have an
110. 4:15ontological argument. You might have a
111. 4:16cosmological have an epistemological or
112. 4:19a moral argument. Exactly. Yeah. But but
113. 4:20>> and the conclusion doesn't even follow
114. 4:22even if you follow his premises.
115. 4:24>> Yeah. There there's there's so much to
116. 4:25say about it. But but uh he he you know
117. 4:29he's an Oxford professor at the time.
118. 4:31He's got a lovely accent. He's very uh
119. 4:35he's I he's extremely well spoken and he
120. 4:37frames arguments in a way that are at
121. 4:39least superficially very compelling and
122. 4:42uh you know his book the blind
123. 4:43watchmaker was was really his first
124. 4:45great book in ' 86 and it's he says the
125. 4:48biology is study of complicated things
126. 4:50that give the appearance of having been
127. 4:52designed for a purpose. M
128. 4:53>> so he sets up the he sets up the right
129. 4:55issue. Is the appearance of design real
130. 4:57or elucory? And Darwinism isn't just
131. 5:00about the idea that things change over
132. 5:02time. Okay, that's that's that's a
133. 5:04rudimentary meaning of of um of
134. 5:08evolution that everyone accepts. Yes,
135. 5:10things change over time. It's not even
136. 5:12the idea that things change over time in
137. 5:14a continuous way such that the best way
138. 5:15to represent life, the history of life,
139. 5:18is as a great branching tree. The idea
140. 5:19of universal common descent. I'm
141. 5:22skeptical about universal common
142. 5:23descent, but that's not the key issue in
143. 5:25play. The key issue in play is design or
144. 5:27no design. Is there evident I is the
145. 5:30appearance of design the product of
146. 5:32undirected unguided processes? That's
147. 5:34Darwinism. Or is it the product of
148. 5:37intelligence
149. 5:39acting in some discernable way? That's
150. 5:42that's the real issue.
151. 5:43>> Do you think the appetite for what the
152. 5:44new atheists had to say to us was borne
153. 5:47out from 9/11? like like this.
154. 5:50>> I think I mean I think some some people
155. 5:51have argued that the real the real
156. 5:54target there was Islamic extremism and
157. 5:57they were the new atheists were afraid
158. 6:00to attack Islam so they just attacked
159. 6:01religion in general. Um
160. 6:04>> I don't know that's a bit of motive
161. 6:06mongering. I I really don't know about
162. 6:07that. I think there's a that what what's
163. 6:09interesting is that when you read the
164. 6:11books
165. 6:12>> um you find that they really uh they
166. 6:15really allied the the the kind of
167. 6:17evidential arguments for theism that
168. 6:19that I make in in this book and that
169. 6:22that many people in our larger network
170. 6:25and uh uh of of of researchers w would
171. 6:29make who are are theistic. you know, the
172. 6:31the the fine-tuning argument was already
173. 6:34well well honed by the time the the new
174. 6:36atheist books came out and it had been
175. 6:38advanced by people like Sir John
176. 6:39Pulkinghorn. Um these these were serious
177. 6:42figures advancing this argument and I I
178. 6:45they they address it kind of
179. 6:47superficially but it's they don't make
180. 6:48very compelling reputations of it.
181. 6:50positing a multiverse turns out as I
182. 6:52show in return of the God hypothesis not
183. 6:54to really work because the universe
184. 6:56generating mechanisms that are necessary
185. 6:58to render the the multiverse plausible
186. 7:01themselves have to be finely tuned in
187. 7:03order to generate new universes. So, um,
188. 7:06the the the argu the it it was a a
189. 7:11system of thought that was allegedly
190. 7:14based on science, but the science it the
191. 7:17the scientific arguments that it posited
192. 7:21were were very poorly formulated and and
193. 7:25um not very compelling. I would say it
194. 7:27felt like for a long time people wanted
195. 7:29to do away with God and there was this
196. 7:31idea in the in in the air that if you
197. 7:33did believe in God you were naive and
198. 7:36judgmental and puritanical and
199. 7:38narrow-minded. That was all that was all
200. 7:40there and it was almost like then the
201. 7:42new atheists came along and they just
202. 7:43lit the match and we all just agreed
203. 7:45that God didn't exist for no good.
204. 7:47>> I think there there are cultural there
205. 7:49are cultural moods right now and I think
206. 7:51we are in a different mood.
207. 7:52>> That's what I wanted to get. What's
208. 7:53what's happened that the mood has
209. 7:55changed? Because I don't know any
210. 7:57blowhard atheists who are successful
211. 7:59anymore. I know people who would say
212. 8:00that they are atheists and they might
213. 8:02define that in several ways, but they're
214. 8:04at least nuanced and and careful in how
215. 8:07they talk about.
216. 8:07>> I think there are a lot of atheists who
217. 8:09want to say that the new atheist
218. 8:10arguments are were really bad. If I
219. 8:12could just say one of them that I think
220. 8:14is particularly bad that that that
221. 8:16Dawkins dined out on and just over and
222. 8:18over and over again the claim that well
223. 8:20if you posit the existence of God or an
224. 8:23intelligent designer to explain anything
225. 8:26>> yes
226. 8:26>> then you violated AAM's razor because
227. 8:28you've posited something that's more
228. 8:30complex than the thing that you're
229. 8:31explaining and and we need to we need to
230. 8:35affirm only explanations that posit more
231. 8:37simple things. So why is that false?
232. 8:39Well, first of all, just rough and
233. 8:41ready, if that were true, it would
234. 8:43always be wrong to posit the action of
235. 8:46an intelligent agent to explain anything
236. 8:48because an int an agent with a mind is a
237. 8:51more complex thing than the thing that
238. 8:53the agent is has done or is doing. So, u
239. 8:56>> So, if we went to Mars and we found an
240. 8:58arrow head,
241. 8:59>> yeah, we in I don't know why we'd find
242. 9:01that in Mars.
243. 9:02>> Well, maybe maybe we'd find something
244. 9:03like
245. 9:04>> we wouldn't be able to
246. 9:05>> Yeah, maybe we find a space station. We
247. 9:07couldn't positive design. Well, we have
248. 9:09a book here on the table. If we posit an
249. 9:11author for the book, let's say let's
250. 9:13let's not say it's my book. Let's say
251. 9:14it's the God the God delusion. Yes. And
252. 9:17we say, "Well, Richard, uh, where did
253. 9:19the God what is the cause of the text in
254. 9:22the God delusion?"
255. 9:23>> Is is the answer not Richard Dawkins?
256. 9:26But wait, Richard Dawkins is more
257. 9:27complex
258. 9:29>> um than than the thing that Richard
259. 9:31Dawkins has written, right? So,
260. 9:33excellent. So, it's self-refuting in
261. 9:35that sense. But the fallacy here is he's
262. 9:37mis he's misapplied AAM's razor. Aams
263. 9:40razor says that the the principle of
264. 9:42parsimony in explanation is that we
265. 9:45should not needlessly multiply
266. 9:48theoretical entities. It should not be
267. 9:50complex in the sense that we are
268. 9:51generating lots and lots and lots of ad
269. 9:54hoc hypotheses. It is not a prohibition
270. 9:57against positing a more complex entity
271. 10:01as an explanatory
272. 10:02>> oh an explanatory cause.
273. 10:05>> That's the best way I've ever heard that
274. 10:06refuted. And and in fact when you do
275. 10:08that that that is if I posit a simple if
276. 10:11I posit a single mind to explain
277. 10:14something that someone else is coming
278. 10:16along and positing multiple theoretical
279. 10:20entities as in the multiverse and its
280. 10:23postulation of all of the entities from
281. 10:26string theory and all of the entities
282. 10:28from the inflationary cosmology
283. 10:30positing a single god as the explanation
284. 10:32for the fine-tuning is infinitely
285. 10:35simpler than the all of the theoretical
286. 10:38apparatus you need in the multiverse to
287. 10:40account for the same thing.
288. 10:41>> Very good.
289. 10:42>> So it it was this is just you're you're
290. 10:45it's I' I've self-triggered myself, but
291. 10:48I wanted to talk about this because he
292. 10:50got away with this bad argument less
293. 10:52than any scientific argument back and
294. 10:54forth about about design or no design or
295. 10:57cos the cosmological argument. It was
296. 10:59this repeated appeal to
297. 11:01>> you must have been pulling your hair out
298. 11:03because layman like myself, you hear
299. 11:05that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I
300. 11:06guess.
301. 11:06>> Fair enough. Yeah. That's good. No, but
302. 11:08it's a complete mislication of the
303. 11:10principle of of parsimony in in in
304. 11:13assessing competing explanations. It's a
305. 11:15it's a bad use. It he's not actually
306. 11:18applying AAM's razor. This is not what
307. 11:19Audence Razer