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Stephen Meyer on Intelligent Design and The Return of the God Hypothesis — Transcript

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0:00Ever since the Enlightenment,
0:02God and science have been kept in
0:05separate compartments, and a lot of
0:06scientists
0:08will tell you that God doesn't even
0:10exist, let alone matter, which is, of
0:13course, the way it should be.
0:15Or is it?
0:17Today on Uncommon Knowledge, Dr. Stephen
0:19Meyer on his new book, The Return of the
0:23God Hypothesis.
0:34Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter
0:36Robinson. A graduate of Whitworth
0:38College, the author Stephen Meyer holds
0:40a doctorate in the history and
0:42philosophy of science from Cambridge. In
0:452009, Dr. Meyer published Signature in
0:47the Cell, DNA and the evidence for
0:50intelligent design. Of Signature in the
0:53Cell, the philosopher Thomas Nagel of
0:55NYU wrote that, quote, "Anyone who
0:57believes God never intervenes in the
0:59natural world will be instructed by
1:02Meyer's careful presentation of this
1:04fiendishly difficult problem." Close
1:07quote.
1:08In 2013, Dr. Meyer published Darwin's
1:11Doubt, the explosive origin of animal
1:13life and the case for intelligent
1:15design.
1:17Of Darwin's Doubt, David Gelernter of
1:19Yale, one of the founders of the
1:21discipline of computer science, wrote,
1:22quote, "Stephen Meyer's thoughtful and
1:25meticulous book convinced me that Darwin
1:29has failed." Close quote.
1:31Dr. Meyer now directs the Center for
1:33Science and Culture at the Discovery
1:35Institute in Seattle. His newest book,
1:38The Return of the God Hypothesis, Three
1:41Scientific Discoveries that reveal the
1:43mind behind the universe.
1:46Stephen Meyer, thank you for joining us.
1:48Thank you for having me, Peter.
1:51Um Steve, a couple of preliminary
1:54questions. What is the God hypothesis?
1:59Well, the God hypothesis is the idea
2:02that the postulation of the existence of
2:05God provides explanatory power with
2:08respect to observations we can make
2:10about the natural world. And in the
2:12book, I argue that it that the God
2:15hypothesis provides superior explanatory
2:17power
2:18over and against other competing
2:21metaphysical hypotheses or worldviews,
2:24whether they be whether it be deism or
2:26materialism or pantheism or some other
2:29things that I consider in the book as
2:30well.
2:31Another preliminary sort of question
2:33here is
2:35biologist Richard Dawkins, quote,
2:37"The universe we observe
2:40has precisely the properties we should
2:41expect if there is, at bottom,
2:45no design, no purpose, no evil, no good,
2:48nothing but blind, pitiless
2:50indifference." Close quote.
2:53Mistaken, but you can sort of see his
2:55point, or demonstrably mistaken? Well,
2:59mistaken, but beautifully framed. This
3:02is, in a sense, the the money quotation
3:05that I use in the book to frame the
3:06argument, because what's implicit in
3:08Darwin in Dawkins' quotation is that a
3:10metaphysical hypothesis, what he means
3:12by blind, pitiless indifference is,
3:14after all, the philosophy of scientific
3:17materialism.
3:18Uh that metaphysical hypotheses are
3:20every bit as testable in their own way
3:23as scientific ones.
3:24We can judge the merits of a
3:26metaphysical hypothesis, of a worldview,
3:29by uh looking at the world around us to
3:32see if it matches the expectations, what
3:34we think should follow if that
3:35hypothesis were true. Dawkins says that
3:38the universe we observe has exactly the
3:40properties we should expect if
3:42scientific materialism is true,
3:44scientific materialism being that
3:45worldview that affirms that matter and
3:47energy are the thing from which
3:49everything else comes, and that matter
3:51and energy are eternal and self-existent
3:53and required no prior creator or
3:55creation. And in the book, I
3:58uh
3:59appreciate Dawkins for framing the
4:01argument that way, but then take him
4:02head-on and ask the question, is that
4:04true or not? And argue that that, in
4:06fact, the the universe has precisely the
4:08properties we should expect if there is
4:11if there was intelligent design built
4:13into the universe, and indeed
4:14intelligent design that has a theistic
4:17source.
4:18So,
4:19the subtitle is three discoveries, three
4:21scientific discoveries that effectively
4:23have changed everything. But
4:25before we get to those three
4:26discoveries, you spend
4:28a portion of your time at the beginning
4:30of the book
4:32elucidating
4:34the old or the original relationship
4:36between
4:38science and theology.
4:41Theology here in the Judeo-Christian
4:43view of theology. And I'd like to take a
4:44moment or two to go through these points
4:47because, frankly, because I found them
4:48so striking. This is not what one hears
4:51in the usual debates.
4:53You quote the historian of science Ian
4:55Barbour, quote,
4:56"Science in any modern form
4:59arose in Western civilization alone."
5:02Well, that's politically incorrect.
5:04That's a dangerous assertion right
5:05there.
5:06"Science in its modern form arose in
5:08Western civilization alone among all the
5:10cultures of the world
5:12because only the Christian West
5:13possessed the necessary intellectual
5:16presuppositions."
5:18Close quote.
5:19So, let's take the first and outrageous
5:21suggestion that science arose in the
5:22West. What about the advanced aspects of
5:26Chinese civilization, mathematics,
5:28architecture, and so forth? They had
5:30those for
5:31at least a few millennia, depending on
5:33how you count, before the West did. Or
5:35the Islamic civilization, which reached
5:37a
5:38a high point in
5:40in reading and interpreting classical
5:41texts, working out mathematics, algebra,
5:43all of that, while we were in while the
5:45West was in its Dark Ages. What about
5:47all that?
5:48Well, this is it may be a controversial
5:51point in the current climate, but almost
5:55all historians of science have observed
5:58the same thing, that
5:59that that modern science, in the sense
6:01of a systematic method for interrogating
6:04and investigating nature, arose uniquely
6:07in a Judeo-Christian milieu in Western
6:10Europe roughly between 1300 and 1750,
6:13with a particular focus on the period of
6:16time from 1500 to 1750,
6:19um often called the scientific
6:21revolution.
6:22Um it is absolutely true that there have
6:25been many advanced civilizations. The
6:27Chinese invented gunpowder, they had
6:29advanced forms of military uh weaponry,
6:32they
6:34organized cities and city-states, the
6:36the the Romans built roads and aqueducts
6:39and and so forth. Uh and but this
6:41actually highlights what was unique in
6:43the West. The material conditions of
6:46doing science were present in many
6:47cultures.
6:49But somehow this systematic way of
6:51investigating nature, involving the
6:53isolation of variables, various
6:55scientific methods,
6:57um and and then the mathematization of
7:00the descriptions of nature, uh this
7:03didn't happen everywhere. It only
7:05happened in the in the Judeo-Christian
7:06West, and it only happened during a
7:08particular period of time. And so, it's
7:10raised this question that historian the
7:12in the way historians of science have
7:13posed it is, why there, why then? What
7:16was the difference? What was the
7:17variable? What was the difference that
7:19made the difference? And they have found
7:20that difference in the realm of ideas.
7:23So, let's go back to Barbour's phrase,
7:25intellectual presuppositions.
7:28Presupposition one, the contingency of
7:31nature. From your book, The Return of
7:33the God Hypothesis,
7:35in 1277,
7:37this says something about the sweep of
7:38your book right there. In 1277, Etienne
7:41Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, writing
7:43with the support of Pope John the 21st,
7:46condemned necessarian theology and 219
7:50separate theses influenced by Greek
7:53philosophy about what God could or
7:56couldn't do." Close quote.
8:00Now, that's a mouthful, and it seems
8:01just unbelievably abstruse. What on
8:04earth has that got to do with the
8:05scientific method?
8:06Let's let's unpack that, because it's
8:07actually fairly clear. The Greeks always
8:10are the great histories of the Western
8:12intellectual tradition, and so they
8:13should be. They gave us philosophy,
8:15Plato and Aristotle. But Greek science
8:18was impeded by assumptions that the
8:21Greeks made about the nature of nature.
8:23They assumed that built into nature was
8:25a kind of intrinsic logic that they
8:28characterized as the logos. And so, they
8:30also assumed that the order that they in
8:34nature was governed by this logic, so
8:37that whatever seemed most logical to us
8:40was also what was built into nature, was
8:42was logic it was the logical form of the
8:44order in nature. So, what's the most
8:46logical and perfect form of of motion?
8:49It's a circle. So, how do the planets go
8:53what what are planetary orbits? What
8:54kind of shape do they have? It must be
8:56circular. And there were numerous um
8:59logically deduced um conclusions about
9:02nature that were not empirically
9:04grounded. So, so the the Greeks the
9:07Greeks worked things out in theory and
9:08assumed that they worked that way in
9:10practice.
9:11Exactly. Exactly. So, they did a lot of
9:12armchair philosophizing about nature. It
9:14wasn't that they weren't interested in
9:16nature, or they didn't assume that there
9:17was an order there, but they assumed it
9:19was an order that had to be a certain
9:21way, the way that appeared most logical
9:24to them. Okay. And now, again from The
9:26Return of the God Hypothesis, because
9:28God himself
9:31because God himself possesses a certain
9:33free will, a certain freedom. Quote,
9:35quoting you,
9:36"The order in nature could have been
9:39otherwise. The job of the natural
9:42philosopher, the old term for scientist,
9:44the job of the natural philosopher
9:46was not to ask what God must have done,
9:49but what God actually did." Close quote.
9:53And that's
9:53And that intellectual This is unique to
9:56the West.
9:57Yes, because and the idea is that yes,
9:59there's an order in nature, but it's an
10:00order that's impressed upon nature or
10:03engraved upon nature from the outside
10:06because because there was a creator who
10:09who chose the form of order that would
10:11be manifest in creation. We have to go
10:13and look and see which form it is. When
10:15I was teaching, I used to use the
10:16example of paintbrushes with my
10:17students. Show them all the different
10:19kinds of paintbrushes that a painter
10:21could use. All of them manifest a
10:24form function relationship, a kind of
10:26order orderliness, but the painter could
10:29choose which one he or she wants to use
10:31for the particular application in mind.
10:33In the same way, God could
10:35uh in in providing, for example, the law
10:37of gravity could have chosen to had a
10:40gravitational attraction much much
10:42stronger or weaker. It has an inverse
10:44square law in Newton's formulation, but
10:46it might have been an inverse cube law.
10:48Might not have had a exponent in the in
10:50the in the denominator at all. It could
10:52have been entirely different. There's an
10:53order, but which order is up for us to
10:56go and to to discover. And that quote
10:58that you just attributed to me is almost
11:00a direct paraphrase of Robert Boyle who
11:03said that the job of the natural
11:04philosopher is not to look at what God
11:07must have done not to not to decide what
11:09God must have done, but to go and look
11:11and to see what he actually did do. So,
11:14it is unique. That was the shift. Yeah.
11:16The the following question would only
11:18occur
11:19in the West. And that question is, "Hmm,
11:22this is interesting. Let's see what the
11:24big guy actually did here." Mhm.
11:27This gives rise to the Western emphasis
11:30on actual observation. Go and look.
11:33Go look and see. Go look and see. It
11:35becomes an empirical science rather than
11:37a deductive or philosophical approach to
11:40to studying nature.
11:42Pre supposition two, the intelligibility
11:44of nature. Again, I'm quoting from The
11:46Return of the God Hypothesis.
11:48Modern science was inspired by the
11:50conviction that the universe is the
11:52product of a rational mind who designed
11:54it
11:56to be understood
11:58and who designed the human mind to
12:00understand it.
12:01You go on to quote the 17th century
12:04astronomer Johannes Kepler, quote, "God
12:07created us after his own image so that
12:08we could share
12:10in his own thoughts." Close quote. Now,
12:14that seems to me almost to merge to be
12:17stepping a
12:18step or two in the direction of a kind
12:20of
12:21feel good
12:2321st century psychobabble view of
12:26Western theology, but but but it's not.
12:30And yet and yet it was a a crucial idea
12:33because it's actually very hard to
12:35discover the order of nature. It's not
12:37an easy thing to conduct experiments.
12:40You there has to be an instinctive
12:42confidence that there is a secret there
12:44in nature to be revealed to
12:47motivate people to do the hard work of
12:49investigating or interrogating nature.
12:51And this this conviction that nature had
12:54an intelligible order that was the
12:56product of the rational mind of the
12:58creator, the same creator who made our
13:01minds and had endowed our minds with a
13:04rationality
13:05enabled us to understand the rationality
13:07and the design and the order built into
13:09nature. That's what gave us confidence
13:11or that's what gave us
13:12that the the theology that human beings
13:14are distinctive.
13:17That we alone this notion about being
13:19made in God's image.
13:20In one way or another, not dogs or cats
13:23or fish or any, but human beings
13:26can understand. Can
13:29That's vital here. We've been made this
13:31Yeah, it was the Judeo-Christian idea
13:33that we'd been made the stewards of
13:34creation. We're all on
13:37one long continuum from from from amoeba
13:40to human beings. Human beings are
13:41different. Well, I I thank you for
13:43pointing that out. Yeah.
13:45Exactly. No, it's absolutely human
13:48exceptionalism, if you if you will. That
13:50there's something unique about the the
13:53intellectual and cognitive
13:55capabilities of human beings that allow
13:57them uniquely to understand the design
14:00and the order and the rationality built
14:02into the natural world. Okay. So,
14:05intellectual presupposition number
14:06three, and this is three of three, so
14:08it's the last one, human fallibility.
14:11On the one hand, human beings are
14:13created in the image of God, so they can
14:15understand.
14:17On the other hand, to quote you,
14:20uh you you note the Christian doctrine
14:22of original sin, humans are vulnerable
14:24to self-deception, flights of fancy, and
14:26jumping to conclusions.
14:28Scientists must therefore employ
14:30systematic experimental methods. Close
14:33quote. Explain that.
14:35Uh this is an idea that's been
14:37emphasized by the historian and
14:39philosopher of science Steve Fuller uh
14:41in Britain and Peter Harrison in in
14:44Australia that the doctrine of original
14:47sin, which was recovered in the same
14:48period when
14:50in late medieval
14:51Catholic theology and during the
14:53Protestant Reformation, the doctrine of
14:55creation was being re-emphasized. With
14:57that came also the doctrine of the fall
14:59of of human beings and therefore the
15:00idea that we were that that fall
15:02affected our cognitive capabilities. We
15:05were capable of understanding
15:07the rationality and design of nature,
15:10but we were also capable of flights of
15:13fancy, of deceiving ourselves, of
15:14self-deception, and therefore it was
15:16necessary to test our theories against
15:19nature. And this again gave an impetus
15:21to observation. We could think of all
15:23kinds of different ways that nature
15:25might be. It was important to find out
15:27what nature actually was like in its in
15:31its reality. And to do that,
15:33methods of testing were developed. And
15:35so, when we think of of testability as a
15:38crucial aspect of scientific
15:39investigation,
15:41this is part of where it came from.
15:43All right. So,
15:45so we've got this notion
15:48that the that nature is contingent. It
15:50could have been different. And the only
15:51way to figure out what it is is to
15:55observe it.
15:57That humans being human, they can
15:58actually get someplace. They can
16:00understand.
16:02But humans being human, they'd better
16:04double-check those observations. That's
16:06why we have peer-review journals,
16:08roughly speaking.
16:09Yes, exactly. There are systems of
16:10accountability that are built in to
16:13check our own
16:14capacity for either self-deception or or
16:17simply missing things. Okay. So, what I
16:20find so striking here is I mean I'm I'm
16:22used to the idea I'm used to books and
16:24arguments where science has its realm,
16:27religion has its realm, but you make a
16:28much stronger argument that science as
16:31we understand it arose from a
16:33distinctively Judeo-Christian worldview.
16:36And that
16:37uh well, so the next question is
16:40what happened? Uh we've already quoted
16:43Kepler, God created us after his own
16:45image. Newton is explicitly and
16:48unashamedly, in fact, unselfconsciously
16:51a believer. He writes
16:53effectively how did God do this? What
16:55was going on here? How do we test this?
16:57But it's
16:58he assumes
16:59some we could argue about exactly what
17:02what the what the
17:03characteristics of his God are, but
17:05there is an omniscient
17:07uh
17:08that he assumes omniscient
17:10all those same presuppositions that we
17:12just discussed, but then he also sees in
17:15the scientific realm that he's
17:17investigating, in the realm of nature
17:18that he's investigating, evidence for
17:21design. So, in the general scholium to
17:23the Principia, the theological epilogue
17:26that he writes to his great masterpiece
17:28on on gravitation, he makes a design
17:30argument about the initial condition
17:33fine-tuning,
17:34the setup job that was required to
17:37create stable planetary orbits. And at
17:40the in this memorable passage, he says
17:42this most beautiful system of sun,
17:44planets, and comets could only proceed
17:47from the council and dominion of an
17:48intelligent and powerful being.
17:50Now, this is written in one of the
17:51greatest works of physics ever written.
17:54Uh and yet there is a
17:57theological deep theological reflection,
18:00a design argument in these which is a
18:03form of natural theology, but he also
18:05brings to bear a theology of nature.
18:07That is to say, he's bringing
18:08theological presuppositions to bear in
18:10the whole framing of the inquiry.
18:13All right. And then it all falls apart.
18:16The Return of the God Hypothesis.
18:18The success of new scientific theories
18:20in the 18th century, you begin there,
18:22about astronomical, geological, and
18:24biological origins contributed to the
18:27rejection of theism as an explanatory
18:30framework.
18:32Explain that. They did they feel they no
18:34longer need
18:35a God to explain
18:37phenomena that they observe in nature.
18:39Uh
18:41no longer useful or they must reject
18:43God. What Explain that.
18:44Well, it it becomes a little of both.
18:45And the the shift starts with
18:47Enlightenment philosophy in the 18th
18:48century. And then the many of the
18:50theories, especially theories about
18:52origins, scientific theories in the 19th
18:54century. I tell the story of Pierre
18:56Laplace in the book who is summoned to
19:00receive commendation before the French
19:02Emperor Napoleon for his great work The
19:04Celestial Mechanics. He attempts to do
19:07precisely what Newton said could not be
19:09done. Newton thought that the laws of
19:10nature were a mode of divine action. But
19:13he also thought the laws, given that
19:15they produced very
19:17um
19:17predictable regularities, could not
19:20explain the origin of the very precise
19:23and specified initial conditions that
19:25made the solar system stable in the
19:27first place. And that required an
19:29initial act of design or creation that
19:32could not be explained as the result of
19:34a regularity or a law.
19:36Uh Laplace came along and attempted to
19:38explain the origin of the solar system
19:39without such initial acts of design. And
19:42then there were other kind there were
19:43other theories in geology and of course
19:45in biology with the origin of species
19:47and and Charles Darwin and the way his
19:50ideas were extended to explain both the
19:52origin of human beings in his book
19:54Descent of Man and to explain even the
19:56first life by other early evolutionary
19:58biologists in the late 19th century. So
20:00that by the end of the 19th century, you
20:02had this kind of seamless materialistic
20:05narrative about how where everything had
20:07come from from the origin of the solar
20:08system to the great geological features
20:10on Earth to the origin of the first life
20:13and subsequent forms of life it without
20:15any reference to a designing
20:17intelligence or creator of any kind. And
20:20that
20:21combination of of of
20:24of theories gave rise to a larger kind
20:27of worldview known as to scholars as
20:29scientific materialism. And there were
20:31other other thinkers in that era
20:34Freud, Marx, Huxley who contributed to
20:36this grand materialistic synthesis by
20:38the end of the 19th century. You write
20:41Darwin, Marx, Freud, Huxley, quote,
20:43"Science seemed to answer many of the
20:46deepest worldview questions that
20:47heretofore Judeo-Christian religion had
20:49answered. Science no longer needed to
20:52invoke a pre-existent mind to explain
20:54the evidence of nature." Close quote.
20:57Okay. So,
21:00this is
21:01I just want to say for our viewers,
21:05there's a lot in your book. It's over
21:08400 pages of close argument. And we're
21:12just getting started. We can't I can't
21:13begin to do justice to the book in a in
21:17video. Just can't do it. So, one of the
21:20many pleasures of this book is this
21:21historical tour de force. Um
21:25before you get to the three scientific
21:26discoveries, which we will get to in
21:28just a moment, you you give us about
21:30five centuries of history of science.
21:33All right.
21:34Which brings us to the present. We've
21:36already quoted Richard Dawkins,
21:39biologist. Here's David Barash, if I'm
21:41pronouncing his name correctly, of the
21:43University of Washington. He wrote a
21:44piece in the New York Times
21:46about the talk he gives to his students
21:48each year, quote,
21:50"As evolutionary science has progressed,
21:52the available space for religious belief
21:56has narrowed." Close quote. Now, that's
21:58a little bit different from saying
22:00science no longer needed to resort
22:04to an omni present, omni, all-knowing
22:07first mover.
22:09Now, it's saying that as science
22:10progresses, it squeezes out any
22:13legitimate possibility of religious
22:15belief. Correct?
22:18That's not only the opinion of Barash
22:21and many of the so-called new atheist
22:23writers, but public opinion polling
22:28data show that it's increasingly the
22:30opinion of many young people. We have
22:31this phenomenon that the pollsters are
22:34picking up they call it the rise of the
22:35nuns, the religiously unaffiliated,
22:38agnostic, and atheistic
22:41atheistic young people between 18 and 33
22:43in that kind of age cohort. And when you
22:46probe deeply with that group of young
22:48people, you find that science has played
22:50an outsized role in
22:53cementing that disaffection with
22:55religion and with belief in God. In
22:58fact, 2/3 of the young atheists surveyed
23:01in one poll say
23:03quote, "Affirm the following statement,
23:05the discoveries of science make belief
23:08in God less probable." And so, that's so
23:13this is the kind of direction that we've
23:14been going in the popular culture. And
23:16the argument of the book is that this
23:19this move towards agnosticism and
23:22atheism is unnecessary,
23:24especially if it claims to be grounded
23:26in science because the scientific
23:27evidence is actually pointing in the
23:29opposite direction. Okay, which brings
23:31us to the first of these three great
23:32scientific discoveries, the origin of
23:34the universe.
23:36The Big Bang.
23:38I quote you, "Advances in astronomy and
23:40cosmology have established that the
23:42material universe had a definite
23:44beginning in time and space, suggesting
23:47a cause
23:48beyond the physical or material
23:50universe."
23:52Now, it's possible to stop right there
23:54and just spend an afternoon
23:56thinking about that. But
23:58the universe
24:00began.
24:02This is
24:04of course what it calls to mind from the
24:05theological point of view is Genesis,
24:07but it had a specific beginning.
24:10All right. I think I understand that.
24:11You may add a sentence or two on that's
24:14a mid-20th century, early to mid-20th
24:16century development scientists. It's now
24:19pretty solidly widely accepted, I think.
24:22Correct from your book?
24:23Correct. Although there are attempts to
24:25circumvent the conclusion and one of the
24:27things I do in the book is to show that
24:29even those attempts within theoretical
24:31physics to circumvent the beginning
24:33themselves end up having
24:35implicit
24:36theological or have have theological
24:39implications.
24:40So, the universe began. Right.
24:42a thought that's hard to get one's mind
24:44around in the first place. My little
24:46mind anyway.
24:48Why does that suggest a cause beyond the
24:50physical or material
24:53universe? I mean,
24:55Steve, things just happen sometimes.
24:58Well, one of the basic principles of
25:00rationality is the principle of
25:02causality that all everything that
25:05begins to exist must have a cause. This
25:07is presupposed in every attempt we make
25:10to make sense of the world
25:11scientifically or otherwise.
25:13And the big discovery of both
25:17observational astronomy and astrophysics
25:19on the one hand and theoretical physics
25:21on the other is that the universe is
25:23expanding outward in a roughly
25:25spherically symmetric way in the forward
25:28direction of time. We first got an
25:30inkling of this from the light that was
25:32coming from distant galaxies and
25:33learning that it was stretched out and
25:35looked redder than it should otherwise
25:37look, where the redder light indicates
25:39longer wavelengths as if the objects in
25:42the night sky from which the light is
25:45issuing are receding. So, if the
25:47universe is expanding outward in the
25:49forward direction of time, then as we
25:51back that time
25:53scale up in our mind's eye, we back
25:56extrapolate, then the matter would be
25:58getting closer and closer together. The
26:00space would be getting more and more
26:01tightly curved because this is the the
26:03contribution from theoretical physics,
26:05Einstein's theory of general relativity
26:07published in 1915 asserted that
26:10gravitational force is a consequence of
26:14massive bodies curving space around the
26:17massive those massive bodies. So, as a
26:19theoretical physicist reflected on this,
26:21in particular Stephen Hawking in the
26:231960s, he realized that as you back that
26:25time sequence up, the matter and the
26:28energy is getting more and more densely
26:29concentrated, causing space to be more
26:31and more tightly curved until at some
26:33point in the finite past, and this was
26:35called his singularity theorem, there is
26:37a point where you reach a limiting case
26:40where the matter becomes so densely
26:41compacted that the space becomes
26:43infinitely curved and at that point all
26:46physical reasoning becomes impossible.
26:49The physicist Paul Davies said, "Beyond
26:51that point, you reach an extremity where
26:53it's impossible to do any physical
26:55reasoning at all and before which there
26:57would be neither matter nor space nor
26:58time nor energy. They come into
27:00existence at that point." So, you can't
27:02explain the origin of the universe as
27:04the result of a material cause because
27:07it's matter and energy themselves that
27:09come into existence at that point,
27:11before which there was no matter to do
27:12the causing.
27:13So, this suggests
27:16an event that took place that began to
27:17exist, therefore it must have a cause
27:19and yet the cause cannot be material. It
27:21must transcend the domains of matter,
27:22space, time, and energy. All right.
27:26I say all right as though I followed
27:27absolutely every word of that.
27:30Oh, that. Yes, of course.
27:32In investigating the Big Bang,
27:34scientists have made a corollary
27:36finding. You've alluded to it several
27:39times already, but I'm going to quote
27:40the book, The Return of the God
27:42Hypothesis.
27:43We apparently live in a kind of
27:45Goldilocks universe where the
27:47fundamental forces of physics have just
27:50the right strengths. The contingent
27:52properties of the universe have just the
27:54right characteristics.
27:56And the initial distribution of matter
27:58and energy at the beginning exhibited
28:01just the right configuration to make
28:03life possible. These facts are so
28:06puzzling
28:07that physicists have given them a name,
28:09the fine-tuning problem.
28:12Explain explain that.
28:14Well,
28:15perhaps a helpful illustration of that
28:17Well, let's talk about that expansion of
28:19the universe. Yes. The expansion is
28:21driven by
28:23a number of factors, one of which is the
28:25outward anti-gravity pushing force that
28:27Einstein called the cosmological
28:29constant. If gravity is pulling
28:30everything in,
28:32then there must be something that has
28:33pushed everything out because we don't
28:35live in a world where all the matter has
28:36collapsed into one place. And Einstein
28:39called that the cosmological constant.
28:41That that's just one of many
28:44finely tuned parameters. It turns out
28:45that that that for the cosmological
28:47constant for the universe to expand in a
28:49way that will be life
28:51conducive, cosmological constant has to
28:54be finely tuned to one part in 10 to the
28:5790th power is is an accepted um
29:00degree of fine-tuning accepted by many
29:02physicists. There are varying estimates.
29:04But to put that number in in context,
29:07that would be like to to to get that
29:09degree of fine-tuning by chance would be
29:10like looking for one elementary particle
29:14blindfolded, not just in our universe,
29:16but in 10 billion universes our size.
29:19It's an exquisite degree of fine-tuning,
29:21meaning that things have to be just
29:23right within very fine tolerances or
29:25limits to get a universe that's going to
29:27come out right. But there are dozens of
29:28these
29:29that if that constant if that constant
29:30is too small, the universe collapses on
29:32itself.
29:32back on itself again, the crunch.
29:34If it's a little bit too big, what
29:35happens?
29:36We we get a heat death of the universe
29:37where everything dissipates and we don't
29:39get stable galaxies or even basic
29:41chemistry, in fact. So, and there are
29:43dozens of such constants.
29:45are dozens of such of such parameters.
29:47Some initial the initial conditions of
29:50matter and energy have to be finely
29:51tuned. That's an even more exquisitely
29:54finely tuned parameter,
29:56but then
29:57the fundamental forces of physics,
29:59gravitation, electromagnetism,
30:02the strong and weak nuclear forces, the
30:04masses of the elementary particles have
30:06to exist within very particular values,
30:09not too heavy, not too light. So, this
30:11is where the Goldilocks concept comes
30:13from. Each of these things collectively
30:15are
30:16within very specific tolerances to allow
30:19for the a life conducive universe.
30:20Right. Now, there's an obvious
30:22objection.
30:24I say it's obvious because you say in
30:26your book that it's obvious. I'm not
30:28coming up with independent objections
30:30here.
30:32And to quote the physicist Brandon
30:34Carter, quote, "What we can expect to
30:36observe must be
30:39restricted by the conditions necessary
30:41for our presence as observers." Close
30:44quote.
30:45If you're a fish in the ocean, you might
30:48be startled to learn that 4/5 of the
30:50planet is covered with water, that the
30:52water has just the right salinity, and
30:54so forth.
30:56Because you're a fish.
30:58And because we're humans, we look at all
30:59this and say, "Wow, isn't that
31:01remarkable?" To which the answer is
31:03what?
31:04Well, it is of course we live in a
31:05universe that has conditions which are
31:08consistent with our own existence.
31:11But, that is not an explanation for how
31:13the conditions were set or why the
31:16conditions are so exquisitely
31:18improbable, overwhelmingly improbable.
31:21So, the
31:22this is called the weak anthropic
31:23principle. This is essentially we don't
31:25need to explain the fine-tuning because
31:27of course we live in a universe that is
31:29consistent that is consistent with our
31:31existence. But, um
31:33it is that is of course uh
31:36obvious that that would be the case.
31:38It's it's it's necessary, but it's not
31:40necessary that those conditions would
31:41have been so overwhelmingly improbable.
31:44And therefore it doesn't actually
31:46provide an explanation for what needs to
31:47be explained, which is the the exquisite
31:50fine-tuning of the fine-tuning. Why why
31:52are the fine-tuning parameters so
31:54improbable? There's a great philosopher
31:56of physics named John Leslie who's come
31:57up with a illustration to illustrate the
31:59fallacy here. He says, "Imagine that you
32:01are uh
32:03part of the resistance. You've been
32:05captured by the Nazis. You're in prison
32:07camp. They put you up against the firing
32:09against the the wall. You're now facing
32:11a a firing squad of a hundred Nazi
32:13marksmen. And the command is given,
32:16ready, aim, fire. There's a hail of
32:18bullets. And you look down, there's a
32:21perfectly inscribed pattern of bullets
32:23around your your your your your body,
32:26but none of them have hit you.
32:28What do you conclude? He says, "Well,
32:30you don't say, well, of course I live in
32:32a universe which is consistent with my
32:33own existence." You say, "Gee, there
32:36must have been something going on here
32:37that the the marksmen so perfectly
32:39missed me."
32:41Um and and so when given a choice
32:43between design and well, it it had to be
32:47this way when things
32:48when when the conditions are so
32:50improbable, the design hypothesis is the
32:52better explanation.
32:53All right. We go from
32:55inconceivably vast to unimaginably
32:59small.
33:01The DNA enigma.
33:04In 1953,
33:06Watson and Crick discovered the basic
33:07structure of the DNA molecule.
33:11The Return of the God hypothesis, quote,
33:13"To a large measure to the discovery
33:17of the information-bearing
33:19properties of DNA."
33:22Information-bearing.
33:24Fascinating to me. I think of it as
33:26little twisted molecules or
33:29And all right, we'll come to this in a
33:30moment.
33:31"Given the discovery of the
33:32information-bearing properties of DNA,
33:35the materialist understanding of life
33:37has begun to unravel. Scientists have
33:39become increasingly aware
33:41that there is at least one appearance of
33:43design in biology
33:45that has not been explained by natural
33:47selection, the information present in
33:49even the simplest living cells." Close
33:52quote.
33:54So, why is that such a problem for the
33:57materialist view?
33:59Well,
33:59um
34:01a little bit more on the discovery and
34:02then I'll explain the problem.
34:04Uh Watson and Crick elucidate the
34:06structure of the DNA molecule in 1953.
34:09In 1957, 1958,
34:11Crick on his own puts forward something
34:13called the sequence hypothesis in which
34:15he proposes that the chemical subunits
34:18called bases or nucleotide bases that
34:20run along the interior of the twisting
34:22helix Are four different amino amino
34:25proteins, right?
34:26Uh amino acids are in the proteins. The
34:28nucleotide bases are the constituent
34:30parts of the DNA.
34:31And these these nucleotide bases are
34:33functioning like alphabetic characters.
34:35They are literally providing
34:37instructions for arranging the amino
34:40acids that build the proteins. So, what
34:42they end up discovering and and uh
34:45Crick's
34:46hypothesis is confirmed.
34:48It's code. What we have now it's not
34:51that the nucleotide base their function
34:53is not determined by their physical
34:54properties, their shapes, their masses.
34:57It's determined by their arrangement in
34:59accord with an independent symbol
35:01convention later discovered and now
35:02known as the genetic code. And so, what
35:05we have is a sophisticated information
35:07storage, transmission, and processing
35:10system at the heart of every single
35:13cell.
35:14And Bill Gates, our local hero here in
35:16Redmond, has said that the the DNA
35:19uh DNA is like a a software program, but
35:22much more complex than any we've ever
35:24devised. Richard Dawkins himself has
35:26acknowledged that the DNA contains
35:29machine code.
35:30Leroy Hood, the biotech pioneer, simply
35:33calls DNA chock-full of digital code. We
35:36have an information
35:38an information-bearing molecule. What we
35:40know from our uniform and repeated
35:42experience, the basis of all uh
35:44scientific reasoning, is that it
35:46whenever we find information, whether
35:48it's in a section of software or
35:50paragraph in a book or a hieroglyphic
35:52inscription or even information embedded
35:55in a radio signal,
35:56in and we trace that information back to
35:59its ultimate source, we always come to a
36:00mind, not a material process. The the
36:04pro the software program requires a
36:05programmer. The information in DNA, I
36:08argue, requires a master programmer.
36:11Now, to
36:12justify that conclusion, I as I have to
36:15examine the various materialistic
36:18attempts that have been made to explain
36:19the origin of information. I do that I
36:21did that first in the book Signature in
36:23the Cell. I reprise some of those
36:25problems with materialistic attempts to
36:27explain the origin of information,
36:28whether they're based on chance or
36:30principles of law or necessity or some
36:33combination of the two. But, it is
36:34universally recognized within origin of
36:36life research that the information
36:38problem has not been solved even as
36:40prominent a an advocate of scientific
36:44atheism Darwinism as Richard Dawkins has
36:46acknowledged that, quote, "No one knows
36:48how life arose from a strictly
36:51materialistic chemical evolutionary
36:54process." Okay.
36:56We begin vast, we go very small, and now
36:59we go very, very old.
37:02The Cambrian Cambrian or Cambrian? The
37:03Cambrian explosion.
37:04Either way, it's potato, potato.
37:07Listen, I'm going to take it the way you
37:08pronounce
37:08I always say Cambrian, but you you
37:10Cambrian, done. Done. We're done. The
37:12Return of the God hypothesis,
37:14quote, "Darwin presented the history of
37:16life as gradually unfolding. In this
37:21view, novel animal and plant species
37:23arose from a series of simpler
37:25precursors and intermediate forms over
37:28vast stretches of geologic time.
37:31But, during the Cambrian explosion,
37:33beginning about 530 million years ago,
37:37most major animals first appear in the
37:38fossil record in a geologically abrupt
37:42fashion.
37:44Although the Cambrian explosion of
37:45animals is especially striking, it is
37:47far from the only explosion of new
37:48living forms. The first winged insects,
37:52birds, flowering plants, mammals, and
37:55many other groups also appear
37:58abruptly in the fossil record."
38:01Close quote.
38:03So, explain that.
38:05Well, in in my previous book Darwin's
38:07Doubt, I addressed this question in a
38:09full book-length treatment, but it I
38:11addressed two separate mysteries that
38:12arise from this. One is the obvious one
38:15of the missing ancestral precursors in
38:17the fossil record that should be there,
38:19but aren't there.
38:20Uh should be there if there was a
38:22gradual unfolding of life in a in a in
38:24the manner of a Darwinian tree.
38:27Uh but, the deeper mystery that I make
38:29much more of is the mystery of is
38:32essentially it's an engineering problem.
38:34How would the evolutionary process build
38:36these new and distinct animal forms
38:39given what we now know about the primacy
38:42of information in living systems? Uh if
38:45you want to give your computer a new
38:46function, we know that you have to
38:48provide new code. Same thing turns out
38:50to be true now in the biological realm.
38:52If you want to build a new form of life
38:54from a preexisting form or if you want
38:56to build the first living cell from
38:58nonliving chemicals, in both cases,
39:00there needs to be an infusion of
39:02information. Where does that information
39:05come from? That question has not been
39:07answered adequately by either chemical
39:10evolutionary theories about the origin
39:12of life or biological evolutionary
39:14theories about the origin of subsequent
39:16forms of life and major innovations in
39:19the history of life such as these these
39:20new animal forms that arise in the
39:22Cambrian and as I mentioned in the book
39:24in other other places up and down the
39:26rock column as well.
39:27All right. This brings us Again, this is
39:30something you've already touched on a
39:31couple of
39:32in a couple of places, but let's let's
39:34be explicit about it.
39:36The question of design itself. You
39:38discuss the the work of the
39:39mathematician and philosopher William
39:41Dembski. To quote you,
39:43According to Dembski, extremely
39:46improbable events
39:48feature one,
39:50that also exhibit an independently
39:52recognizable pattern, feature two,
39:55invariably result from intelligent
39:58causes, not chance.
40:00Close quote.
40:02Right. So, what's happened in the last
40:05uh 20 years or so is that there has been
40:08a development within Dembski has been at
40:10the forefront of this, but others as
40:12well. Uh developments in
40:15uh
40:16methods of design detection.
40:19And we all make design inferences all
40:21the time. It's very common. If you look
40:22at the faces on Mount Rushmore or uh
40:25observe a stop sign or we we recognize
40:28intelligent causes in the echo of the
40:30effects they leave behind.
40:32And what Dembski began to think about
40:34very deeply was, well, what are the
40:36features of all such objects that are
40:39obviously designed? And the answer to
40:42that that had long been given is, well,
40:43they're very improbable. But he showed
40:45that there are many improbable things
40:47that happen all the time that aren't
40:48designed. You can flip a a series of
40:50coins or or you can flip a coin 100
40:52times, you're going to going to get an
40:52improbable outcome. But if you get a you
40:56flip a coin 100 times and it comes up
40:58seven every time, uh you might infer
41:01that the dice
41:02were loaded. And so, it's it's the it's
41:05the combination of an improbable event
41:07with a pattern that we recognize or with
41:10a set of uh discernable functional
41:12requirements that trigger this awareness
41:14of design. And so, I give a number of
41:16examples in the book that that Mount
41:18Mount Rushmore is a great one because
41:20you've got the improbable shapes, but
41:22that's not alone what triggers the
41:23design awareness. It's that there's a
41:25pattern that we recognize that matches
41:27something we know from independent
41:28experience, namely the shape of the
41:30human face, indeed the shapes of the
41:32specific faces of the presidents. Okay.
41:34So,
41:36to paraphrase that great
41:38cosmologist Bill Clinton,
41:41if you see a turtle on a fence post, you
41:43know it didn't get there by itself.
41:45Roughly.
41:47Oh, all right.
41:48The universe had a beginning and was
41:51finely tuned to to permit the emergence
41:54in a way that permitted the emergence of
41:55life.
41:57One, two, DNA demonstrates that even the
41:59tiniest, most rudimentary structures
42:03possess astounding complexity.
42:06Three,
42:07the Cam- Cambrian explosion shows that
42:09at intervals, new forms of life
42:12simply burst into existence.
42:15And this suggests or requires you you
42:19adjust this
42:21some kind of
42:25What do we I'm trying to avoid using the
42:26word God, but we this suggests certain
42:29properties, omniscience, omnipotence.
42:31What what How do you end up with God?
42:33yeah, let's start with designing
42:34intelligence because I the first two
42:36books I wrote were making an argument
42:38for intelligent design without
42:40attempting to identify the nature of the
42:44designer. Um we know from our uniform
42:47and repeated experience that it requires
42:49that that mind is the only known cause
42:51of the generation of large amounts of
42:53specified information, especially when
42:56we find it in a digital or alphabetic
42:58form as we do in living in in the
43:00molecules that make life possible. So,
43:02from the discovery of the the the
43:05functional digital information in living
43:07systems, I inferred that a designing
43:09intelligence must have played a role in
43:11the origin and subsequent uh development
43:14of life.
43:15But I didn't attempt to identify the
43:16designing agent involved. Many of my
43:19readers wanted to know, well, who do you
43:20think the designing intelligence is and
43:22what can science tell us about that
43:23question? And so, to address that
43:26question, I broadened the range of
43:27phenomena under consideration. And
43:30instead of looking just at the evidence
43:31of design in biology, I also looked at
43:34developments in physics and cosmology
43:37about the origin and fine-tuning of the
43:39universe. And because one of the one of
43:42the proposed uh
43:44identities of the designing intelligence
43:46responsible for life is that it was an
43:48immanent intelligence within the cosmos.
43:50Uh even Francis Crick and uh and Richard
43:53Dawkins have floated that idea that
43:55maybe life was seeded here on Earth
43:57because it was so difficult to get life
43:59going here. Maybe it was it started
44:01someplace else and that life form
44:02evolved and eventually became very
44:04intelligent and and and uh seeded some
44:08simple cells on planet Earth. Um
44:11I argue in the new book that that's an
44:13unsatisfactory explanation for a number
44:15of reasons, but one reason that one one
44:18thing that that hypothesis clearly can't
44:20explain is the origin of the fine-tuning
44:22of the laws and constants of physics and
44:23the initial conditions of the universe
44:25that precede the origin of any possible
44:28immanent intelligence within the cosmos.
44:30Dawkins when Dawkins proposed this, he
44:33he suggested that it that such a being
44:35would have evolved by purely natural
44:37processes, but no being within the
44:39cosmos can be responsible for the
44:41fine-tuning of the laws and constants of
44:43physics upon which its very origin and
44:46evolution depend. And so, the
44:48fine-tuning points not to an immanent
44:51intelligence, but requires instead, as a
44:53condition of its explanation, both an
44:55intelligent cause, but one which also
44:58lies beyond the boundaries of matter,
45:00space, and matter, space, time, and
45:01energy, one which is transcendent. And
45:03so, when you bring in the evidence for
45:05the beginning of the universe and for
45:07the fine-tuning of the universe from the
45:08beginning, I think this precludes the
45:10idea of an immanent intelligence within
45:12the cosmos and points rather to a
45:15designing agent which transcends the
45:17universe, but then because of the
45:19biological evidence, is also active in
45:21the creation. So, we have not a deistic
45:24creator, not a space alien, but rather a
45:27a a
45:28a theistic designer that has the
45:30attributes that Jews and Christians have
45:32always ascribed to God.
45:34All right. The biologist Richard
45:36Dawkins, the quotation with which we
45:38began, quote, "The universe we observe
45:40has precisely the properties we should
45:42expect if there is at no at bottom no
45:45design." Close quote.
45:47Steve Meyer, "If a purposive
45:49intelligence had acted periodically
45:52during the history of life on Earth,
45:54we might well expect to find evidence of
45:56episodic bursts of new information
45:59in the biosphere."
46:01Close quote.
46:05How
46:07how strong is your argument, Steve? Do
46:10you just want to say, "Look,
46:12let's face it, fellows,
46:15the Big Bang, the 20th century has
46:17brought major, basic, radical
46:20discoveries that are consonant with
46:24the Judeo-Christian understanding
46:26of God,
46:28which is a in in in this day and age
46:30that would be a very arresting claim by
46:33itself.
46:34Or do you want to say,
46:38these
46:39these discoveries
46:42require
46:44a mind.
46:46And I'm sorry, Dr. Dawkins, but you just
46:48haven't been paying attention.
46:51You haven't been keeping up with the
46:53developments in the 20th century.
46:56The um
46:57great physicist Arno Penzias, who won a
47:00Nobel Prize for discovering the cosmic
47:03background radiation in 1965, which was
47:05one of the key pieces of evidence that
47:08really provided great support for the
47:11Big Bang model and
47:12and uh
47:14sounded the death knell to this it's the
47:16competing steady state model said this.
47:17He said, "The the evidence that we
47:20have," and he was speaking of the
47:22cosmological evidence in this case, "are
47:24precisely what I would have predicted
47:26had I nothing to go on but the five
47:28books of Moses, the Psalms, and the
47:30Bible as a whole."
47:32Now, contrast that statement with
47:33Dawkins' statement. Now, I'm not arguing
47:36necessarily for a specifically biblical
47:39uh God, but I am arguing for uh for what
47:42you might call basic or classical
47:44theism, which would be consistent with
47:46the biblical understanding of God.
47:48The but when So, I'm I'm not merely
47:52saying that the evidence is consonant
47:53with theism. I'm saying that nor am I
47:55saying that theism is proven by the
47:57evidence in a mathematical sense where
47:59you would derive certainty.
48:01But instead, I'm arguing that that
48:03theism provides a better explanation for
48:06these three great pieces of evidence
48:08that we have about biological
48:09biological, physical, and cosmological
48:12origins. And it happens that this type
48:14this standard of evidential support is
48:17precisely what can be provided by
48:19scientific theories. And scientists are
48:22very if they're astute philosophically,
48:24and most of them are, they know that
48:25scientific work does not prove
48:28conclusions with absolute certainty. We
48:30get we we provide evidence or reasons
48:33for believing conclusions, but we don't
48:36provide absolute proof because we always
48:38have to be open to new evidence coming
48:39down the pike.
48:41Um so, we've had this kind of false
48:43dichotomy in the discussion of the
48:44relationship between science and faith
48:46since the Middle Ages. In the Middle
48:47Ages, there were a lot of people trying
48:48to prove God's existence with deductive
48:51certainty. When the Enlightenment
48:52philosophers came along and poked holes
48:54in those proofs and said, "No, they
48:55don't really work," then people went
48:57shifted to
48:59the other end of the
49:00the extreme and embraced something
49:02called fideism, faith and faith alone,
49:04arguing that there there's no evidence
49:05for faith or no reasons for faith. We
49:07just make um blind leaps. And what I'm
49:10arguing is that there's something in the
49:12middle that's still very strong. And
49:14that is we may have good reasons to
49:16believe in God without being able to
49:18achieve that unattainable standard of
49:20absolute certain proof. And the the and
49:24part of this method of reasoning I use
49:25is to show that is to evaluate competing
49:28hypotheses by reference to their
49:30explanatory power. And and when we look
49:33at these three great discoveries, the
49:34universe had a beginning, it's been
49:36finely tuned from the beginning, and
49:38there have been bursts of information
49:40into the biosphere since the beginning.
49:42Theism provides a better explanation of
49:44that ensemble of key facts about our
49:46biological and cosmological origins than
49:49do the other main competing worldviews
49:51or systems of thought, whether that that
49:53be deism or pantheism or materialism or
49:57even this
49:58more fanciful pan
50:00panspermia idea, the space alien
50:02designer concept. So, I examine theism
50:06and its explanatory power and compare it
50:08to that of competing systems and argue
50:10that it provides the best explanation,
50:12not proof, but the best explanation, the
50:14same kind of standard of evidence that
50:16we would want to attain for a very good
50:18scientific theory.
50:21I've been quoting Dawkins. I've been
50:23I've been this
50:24through this whole discussion, I've been
50:25treading water because I'm in the deep
50:27end here.
50:28But now let me swim over to the shallow
50:30end and stand on my own two feet and
50:32just tell you a story. I'm an English
50:34major,
50:35but I'm a product of the American
50:37educational system, public schools in
50:39upstate New York.
50:41And here's the story I can tell you.
50:45It starts with some sort of primordial
50:47chemical soup.
50:49How it got there, we don't know, but
50:51it's there.
50:53And this comes into being in one corner
50:55of some vast
50:57universe. Again, how it got there, we
50:59don't know, but we don't care.
51:02And then there's some sort of
51:05natural event. I seem to recall being
51:07told that it was a lightning strike. The
51:10Miller-Urey experiment, yes.
51:11Uh then and for some reason there's
51:13there's a lot there's a lot of ammonia
51:15in the atmosphere, but there's the
51:16lightning strike.
51:17And in this primordial chemical soup,
51:21there's this life gets started. And it
51:24takes the form of a very simple
51:28life form.
51:29I seem to remember one teacher saying
51:31just picture a blob of Jell-O.
51:35And that's all you need because the blob
51:37of Jell-O subdivides, now you've got two
51:39blobs of Jell-O.
51:41And there are random mutations and
51:44natural selection acts on those random
51:46mutations.
51:48And billions of years later, here we
51:49are.
51:51Now you may believe in God if you want
51:52to, but he just doesn't come into the
51:54story.
51:57Is that I have the feeling that that's
51:59the story that I have in the back of my
52:01mind that a lot of people must have
52:03roughly that story in the back of their
52:05minds. What's wrong with that?
52:06Professor Phillip Johnson from across
52:08the bay at Berkeley, the law professor
52:11who wrote the very influential book
52:13Darwin on trial in the 1990s, used to
52:16tell that story by
52:18mode of almost a paraphrase from the
52:20from the the biblical text, only it was
52:22inverted. Instead of in the beginning
52:24was the word, it was
52:26from eternity past were the particles
52:29and the energy.
52:30And the particles arranged themselves
52:32into more complex chemicals and the
52:34chemicals arranged themselves into the
52:35first cell.
52:36And the first cell evolved by Darwinian
52:38processes to produce more and more
52:40complex forms of life, and then one of
52:42those forms of life, namely human
52:44beings, conceived of the idea of God.
52:48And so in this materialistic narrative,
52:51you do have God, but God only is a
52:52concept in the mind of man. Remember
52:54your Freud, God didn't create man, man
52:57created the idea of God. So, you have
53:00this direct inversion of the theistic
53:03worldview. The theistic worldview holds
53:04that that mind was primary, that God is
53:07a conscious agent who brought the
53:08universe into existence and shaped it
53:11and designed everything that we see. And
53:14and materialism has the the opposite
53:16sort of narrative. The question is which
53:18of the two narratives better comports
53:20with the scientific evidence that we
53:22have, and that's why I appreciate the
53:24the the framing that Dawkins brings to
53:26the issue. The the new atheists are
53:28brilliant at framing the key issues, but
53:30I think if you look at these three big
53:32discoveries,
53:33um they they definitely And to
53:35underscore that, let me tell you just a
53:37quick story.
53:38I I did a debate with one of my friendly
53:41debating partners on the opposite side
53:43of this issue. I tell his name in the in
53:45the book, but I won't I won't say it
53:47here, it's not really important. We did
53:49our debate, we went through we went he
53:51put me through my paces, I put him
53:52through his. We were in a in a in a car
53:54riding back to the airport in St. Louis
53:56St. Louis.
53:57And this particular debating partner
53:59always starts by telling his
54:00deconversion experience, how he was he
54:02was raised in a in a religious home, how
54:05he rejected his his belief in God as the
54:07result of science. And in the car, I
54:10asked him, "Well, what was it
54:11specifically about science that caused
54:13you to reject your belief in God?" And
54:14he said, "Well, you know, it's just the
54:16general success of science, its ability
54:18to you know, to unpack the DNA molecule
54:20and discover the Big Bang." And I said,
54:21"Well, wait a minute, friend.
54:24In our debate, you acknowledged to me
54:25that you didn't actually have an
54:27explanation for the origin of the
54:29information in DNA. We theists love the
54:31discovery of DNA, too, but you haven't
54:33explained the crucial thing about it,
54:34the the information." He says, "Well,
54:36yeah, that's right." But
54:38"And and what about the fine-tuning?" I
54:40said. And he said, "Well, you know,
54:41there's the multiverse."
54:42And I said, "But do you really believe
54:44in all those multiple universes out
54:45there that can't be detected?" And he
54:46said,
54:47"Nah." And I said, "Well, what about the
54:49problem of consciousness?" And then he
54:51said, "Okay, okay, okay, stop piling on,
54:53you know." So, there are these big
54:54questions that scientific materialism
54:57doesn't answer, the origin and
54:58fine-tuning of the universe, the origin
55:00of life, the origin and nature of
55:02consciousness. And I would add things
55:03like in philosophy, the reliability of
55:05the mind or the origin of objective
55:08morality. Why is it that all of us act
55:10as though there is an objective standard
55:12of morality even if we deny that there
55:13could be any such a standard that would
55:15render such a
55:17such a belief
55:18plausible or meaningful. So, there a lot
55:19of fundamental questions the
55:21materialistic worldview has really
55:23failed to answer,
55:25albeit
55:27notwithstanding the great success of
55:29science, but science does not actually
55:31support materialism,
55:33and that's the argument of the book.
55:35Steve, you quote the astrophysicist
55:38Robert Jastrow,
55:40quote, "Science has had extraordinary
55:42success in tracing the chain of cause
55:43and effect backward in time.
55:46For the scientist who has lived by his
55:47faith in the power of reason,
55:50the story ends
55:52like a bad dream. He has scaled the
55:55mountains of ignorance, he is about to
55:57conquer the highest peak. As he pulls
55:59himself over the final rock,
56:02he's greeted by a band of theologians
56:04who've been sitting there for
56:05centuries." Close quote.
56:08But what strikes me in that, very witty,
56:11sums up a great deal,
56:13but he says it ends like a bad dream.
56:17Why
56:18why if it offers a better explanation
56:22should theism strike scientists as a bad
56:25dream? Or let me put it another way.
56:27Why does Stephen Meyer, who has written
56:29now three
56:31carefully reasoned,
56:33thoroughly footnoted works of
56:36scholarship,
56:38why does Stephen Meyer get dismissed
56:42as some kind of snake-handling yokel?
56:45And
56:46why?
56:47There's something going on here that
56:48isn't just
56:50searching in an honest, good-faith
56:53manner for the best arguments, isn't
56:55there?
56:55this is the shift that we were
56:57describing in the beginning of the
56:58interview that this wouldn't have seen
57:01seen been seen as a bad dream to Newton,
57:03Kepler, and Boyle. Uh that science was
57:06revealing the reality of God or was
57:08confirming an expectation of a theistic
57:10worldview, which is I think the gravamen
57:12of the Jastrow quote. Um but somewhere
57:15in the late 19th century, the idea of
57:18science, reason, and non-belief were all
57:21equated such that it was assumed that if
57:24you were going to make progress in
57:25science, it would be outside of or
57:27independent of any kind of theological
57:29framework. And that we could explain
57:32everything by reference to purely
57:34materialistic causes. And when we're
57:37talking about the origin of matter
57:38itself, clearly materialism breaks down
57:41at that point as an explanation. So, I
57:44think reason has been equated with a
57:46materialistic way of thinking.
57:48And that's when materialism gets
57:51challenged, then for scientists who
57:53think of the two things as coextensive
57:55or equivalent, there is a sense of
57:57cognitive dissonance that that emerges.
58:00And I I I think it's it's what I've
58:03essentially what I'm arguing in the book
58:05is that it's perfectly legitimate to
58:06reframe our understanding of reason and
58:09science within a theistic framework
58:11because it was very fruitful in the
58:13beginning and it can be fruitful again,
58:16not only in our personal lives and
58:17thinking about ultimate meaning and
58:19purpose, but fruitful for science
58:20itself. It was after the belief in God
58:23was not a science stopper for Sir Isaac
58:25Newton, it was the science starter.
58:28Last question, Steve.
58:30Genesis 1:1,
58:33"In the beginning, God created the
58:35heaven and the earth." Close quote.
58:39If you had to reduce to one sentence
58:43all that we know,
58:46would that sentence prove scientifically
58:48adequate?
58:50It's strikingly convergent with what
58:53we've discovered from astrophysics and
58:55cosmology.
58:56Uh the first three words of the Bible
58:58are after all in the beginning.
59:00And I've even had physicists tell me
59:01that, you know, the idea that there was
59:03light first and matter second, which is
59:05affirmed implicitly in that passage, is
59:08what we understand from our standard
59:10models of particle physics and our our
59:13our most cutting-edge thinking about the
59:16early evolution of the of the universe
59:18from the beginning forward. So,
59:20um it's it's uh
59:23okay by me, you know, okay by a lot of
59:25scientists. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it it's
59:28And this this was the this was the the
59:30point of the of the statement by Arno
59:32Penzias that
59:34the discovery of a beginning was what
59:36you would expect on that theistic view
59:38that has God creating the universe in
59:41the beginning.
59:43Stephen Meyer, author most recently of
59:45The Return of the God Hypothesis. Thank
59:48you. Thank you for having me on Peter
59:50and for the terrific discussion. For
59:53Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover
59:54Institution and Fox Nation, I'm Peter
59:57Robinson.

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