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The Science Points to Purpose: A Defence of Intelligent Design | Stephen Meyer — Transcript

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0:00[Music]
0:00Where did life come from?
0:03There's two possibilities. Either life
0:05was the result of undirected material
0:07processes or rather there was some kind
0:10of intelligent agent or mind that was
0:13shaping the material processes. Either
0:16there was mind or there was no mind. The
0:18discoveries of modern science have been
0:20more consistent with the expectations
0:23that are generated from a theistic
0:25hypothesis than they are from a
0:27materialistic hypothesis. Arnopenzius
0:30was quoted as saying that the best data
0:33we have are exactly what I would have
0:35expected if we had nothing to go on but
0:38the first five books of Moses, the
0:39Psalms, and the Bible as a whole.
0:42Science was born of a Judeo-Christian
0:45worldview. Dawkins has inadvertently
0:47discovered he's opened the the
0:50floodgates to all sorts of irrational
0:52ideologies and the science that he
0:54prizes is being swept away in the flood.
0:57I I find the faith to be very rational.
0:59It matches what you would expect to see
1:02in the world around us based on the
1:04revelation of of the biblical text.
1:07[Music]
1:19My guest today, Professor Steven Meyer,
1:22is a man of extraordinary intellectual
1:24reach in both science and philosophy.
1:29He has a PhD in the philosophy of
1:32science from the University of
1:34Cambridge. He's a former geoysicist and
1:37college professor and he now directs
1:40Discovery Institute Center for Science
1:43and Culture in Seattle. His most recent
1:47book is The Return of the God
1:50Hypothesis. Well, Professor Meer Steve,
1:53thank you very much indeed for giving us
1:55your time for a conversation that I
1:58think will be very interesting to a lot
1:59of people.
2:00>> Yeah, thank you for inviting me. Now I
2:04would like to kick off by asking you to
2:07tell us in your language what
2:09intelligent design is and what was your
2:14if you like intellectual journey towards
2:18it.
2:19>> Well thank you um brief answer on on the
2:23what is intelligent design. It's um the
2:27theory that there are certain features
2:29of life and the universe that are best
2:32explained by the activity of a designing
2:34intelligence rather than undirected
2:37material processes such as in the area
2:40of biology the undirected process of
2:44mutation and natural selection. Um and
2:47the kind of the kind of features that we
2:49would be talking about would be things
2:51like in physics what's uh physicists
2:54often call the fine-tuning of the the
2:57physical parameters of the universe the
2:59laws and constants of physics in biology
3:02the miniature machines that are being
3:04discovered inside cells the rotary
3:06engines the sliding clamps the uh the
3:10circuitry in cells and I think most um
3:14fundamentally the discovery at the very
3:17foundation of life and even the simplest
3:18living cells, the the digital
3:21information that's stored in the DNA and
3:24RNA molecules that is crucial to all
3:28forms of life. So those features we
3:30would argue the the molecular machines,
3:33the digital code, the fine-tuning of the
3:36the the the physical laws, uh these are
3:39features that are best explained as the
3:42product of a the of a designing
3:44intelligence rather than some undirected
3:47material process. And that's that's the
3:50key the key claim of the theory of
3:52intelligent design.
3:54>> I have of course heard of it before.
3:56Well, most people have uh interestingly
3:58around 25 years ago uh I was at a formal
4:04lunch
4:06as deputy prime minister of Australia
4:08with my opposite number from Pakistan at
4:11the time. Now he was a Muslim and he
4:15asked me did I think intelligent design
4:18was an argument for the existence of God
4:21and went on to explain before I could
4:23say anything that surely if I went to
4:26the moon and found a watch or a wine
4:29glass they were the two uh examples he
4:32used uh that would be clear evidence of
4:35intelligent design somebody had designed
4:39them and you wouldn't question it and he
4:41was saying that to his way of thinking
4:43the same applied to the natural order
4:45around us.
4:47>> Yeah, it it's an old argument and in
4:50fact it goes back to the ancient Greeks
4:53at least uh the Greeks, the Romans, uh
4:56the medieval Christians, the uh there
4:58have been Islamic philosophers that have
5:00made the argument, Jewish philosophers.
5:02Um what is new and this relates to the
5:05second half of your question that I
5:06forgot to answer about my own journey
5:08into this is that the argument has been
5:11updated and I think made more rigorous
5:14by developments not only in in physics
5:16and biology, the empirical natural
5:19sciences, but also by developments in
5:22the mathematical sciences um that have
5:27allowed us to refine and develop more
5:31precise methods. meths of design
5:32detection. Uh the the key question is
5:36how do you tell when something is
5:37designed by an intelligence and when is
5:41it not? And there have been
5:42breakthroughs I think in our
5:44understanding of the key criteria that
5:47allow us to detect the activity of a
5:49prior intelligent agent. It turns out
5:51that we do that all the time. Um and we
5:54can come back to that. My my own my own
5:56journey into this way of thinking began
5:59as a young scientist. I was working as a
6:01a geoysicist uh for um an oil
6:05exploration company and a conference
6:08came to the city where I was working
6:09that was investigating the the big
6:12questions at the intersection between
6:14science and philosophy. The the origin
6:16of the universe, the origin of life and
6:19the origin and nature of human
6:20consciousness were the three questions
6:22on the on the on the docket. And I
6:25attended this conference and was
6:28especially taken with the discussion of
6:31the origin of life problem as it was
6:34then called in the by by then in the in
6:36the in the mid80s.
6:38Um it had for a long time been in
6:41textbooks explained as the product of
6:44the the origin of the very first life
6:46we're talking about the origin of the
6:47cell. And it was it was sort of assumed
6:49that because uh uh of the the success of
6:54Darwinian evolution that explaining the
6:56origin of the the very first cell would
6:58be easy by reference to some sort of uh
7:01analogous evolutionary process. But by
7:04by the mid1 1980s um the field had come
7:07to a place of impass. And the key
7:10question that was unanswered was how do
7:13you explain or where does the
7:16information present in the cell come
7:18from? How do you get from pure chemistry
7:21in a in an allegedly prebiotic
7:23environment to the code that makes all
7:27of life possible? And that proved to be
7:30at the time a very difficult question.
7:33And I think subsequent to that time it's
7:35become I think in the eyes of many
7:38people studying this problem a nearly
7:39unbridgegable divide that chemistry does
7:41not give you code. These these are
7:43operating at different levels and I
7:46became fascinated with the question when
7:48I first encountered leading scientists
7:50discussing the problem of explaining
7:54the origin of the information
7:55particularly in the DNA molecule. If you
7:57go back to uh the the n late 1950s, you
8:00have the disco first the discovery of of
8:02the uh the structure of the DNA molecule
8:05by Watson and Crick. And then in 1957
8:08and 58, Crick formulates what he calls
8:11the sequence hypothesis, which was the
8:12idea that along the interior of the
8:15famed double helix molecule, the
8:17twisting helix, there are chemical
8:20subunits of the molecule that are
8:22functioning like alphabetic characters
8:24in a written text or like digital
8:26characters, zeros and ones in a section
8:29of machine code. And um idea was that
8:33it's the these digital characters are
8:37performing a function in the cell.
8:39They're they're directing the
8:40construction of mechanical parts, the
8:43proteins and the protein machines, but
8:45they do so in virtue of their precise
8:47arrangement in accord with a code. It's
8:50not their chemist chemical properties or
8:52their physical properties. It's not
8:54their mass. It's not their shape. It's
8:56their arrangement in accord with a code.
8:57So you have something that's
8:58fundamentally not it's contained in a
9:01chemical model in a chemical molecule
9:04but it's not a it's not the chemical
9:06properties of the constituents that give
9:08them their their function. It's their
9:10information bearing properties. And so
9:11the question becomes where does the
9:13information come from? And I became
9:15fascinated with this. I was working in
9:17digital signal processing in u in for an
9:21oil company doing seismic u work and uh
9:25the signal processing it was a form of
9:27information technology and I became very
9:29fascinated to think that the secret the
9:32ultimate question around the the how
9:34life got here on the planet uh
9:36essentially turned on this this crucial
9:38question of the origin of information
9:40the origin of the code and a year later
9:43I was off to to Cambridge in England I
9:45ended up doing um uh a master's degree
9:49in the history and philosophy of science
9:51and then my master's and PhD thesis were
9:53on origin of life biology and u and so I
9:57got hooked on the on the topic
10:00well for a non-scientist like me
10:03when you talk about the information
10:05contained in DNA
10:08it does seem
10:11I have to say intellectually enormously
10:14challenging to think How on earth do
10:17these things you can never see with a
10:19naked eye pass on so much information?
10:21Uh uh you and I are grandfathers. Uh you
10:24don't look like you're anywhere near old
10:26enough to be a grandfather, but I do. I
10:28know that. But when you see those traits
10:30coming through, you can see that
10:33extraordinary information that's been
10:35passed on. It's not just another human
10:38life. It's clearly descended from those
10:42who have given rise to its birth. Is
10:45this what we're sort of talking about
10:47here?
10:47>> Yeah, exactly. John, the um this was a
10:50perennial
10:51uh and long-standing question in
10:53biology. The most obvious observation
10:55that you can make about living things is
10:58that like begets like that organisms uh
11:02that that the the new group of organisms
11:04are like their parents. So there was
11:06always um a question what is it that
11:10that ensures that there is that
11:12transmission of the blueprint of the
11:15pattern of the and there was the thought
11:17there must be something transmitting
11:19some sort of signal that is carrying
11:23instructions or information in some in
11:25in some way to ensure that that the the
11:28fidelity of of that form from one
11:32generation to another. And the the the
11:35the intensity around that question
11:37quickened in the 1930s and 40s as
11:41scientists began to suspect it had
11:43something to do with this molecule deoxy
11:47ribboucleic acid or DNA. And uh it was
11:52in 5253 that that Crick and Watson were
11:56able to elucidate the structure to
11:58formulate a model of of what the DNA
12:01molecule was like. The model suggested
12:04that there was that it was an
12:06information carrier. And in 1958, Crick
12:10really nailed this with something he
12:12called the sequence hypothesis that I
12:14was talking about just a minute ago
12:15where and in many ways I think it was a
12:17more significant achievement than even
12:19elucidating the structure of the
12:21molecule itself was that he realized
12:23that that the DNA was carrying
12:26information in the form of a four
12:28character code. it was essentially
12:30digital and uh in fact one of the early
12:34the the prominent physicists at the time
12:36George Gamma realized that the the DNA
12:39the four they're called nucleotide bases
12:43could be um it was their arrangement in
12:46accord with a code later discerned
12:49called the the genetic code that allowed
12:51the DNA to convey instructions for
12:54building the crucial protein molecules
12:56that do all the important jobs inside
12:58cells. So it was essentially a system
13:01very much like our modern um uh digital
13:05printers or CAD CAM technology where you
13:08have digital information directing the
13:10construction of three-dimensional
13:13mechanical parts and systems that did
13:16specific that do in the cell specific
13:18jobs. So you got digital information
13:20directing the construction of of u
13:24protein molecules that perform functions
13:27in virtue of their three-dimensional
13:29shapes and and characteristics. So
13:32fascinating information processing
13:35system u is really an information
13:38storage transmission and processing
13:40system was discovered in the 1950s
13:42and60s at the foundation of even the
13:45simplest living cells. And so if you're
13:48thinking about the problem of the origin
13:49of life, you have to begin to explain or
13:53come up with a theory that can explain
13:55life as we find it. And as we began to
13:58realize that life was much more complex
14:01than the ideas that were prevalent in
14:03Darwin's time when his his famous
14:06bulldog Thomas Henry Huxley said that
14:08life is a homogeneous globule of
14:10undifferentiated protoplasm. His idea
14:12was it was kind of an enclosure with
14:14with jell- on the inside. Well, the
14:16jello turned out to include
14:19a complex information storage
14:21transmission and processing system that
14:24was building molecular machines and and
14:27that set the bar a lot higher for any
14:31wouldbe origin of life explanation
14:32because it had to explain life as we
14:34find it. The life as it is and life as
14:37it is we now know is much more complex
14:40than what we thought it was at in
14:43Darwin's time in the 1850s and60s.
14:47If you go to Wikipedia, it will describe
14:49intelligent design as pseudo science,
14:54which I would have thought was rather
14:55patronizing given that the scientific
14:58method means I think you put up a
14:59hypothesis and then keep testing it. Um,
15:02which I take it is exactly what you've
15:04been referring to in a way. But on what
15:07basis would it be referred to as a
15:09pseudo science?
15:11Well, there has been a um a tacit rule
15:15in um uh we've also been called um
15:18creationists and cheap tuxedos, which is
15:21so that you the the rhetoric around this
15:24issue has been somewhat intemperate. Um
15:27and I I personally paid a lot for my
15:29tuxedos. I was really offended by that.
15:31But um anyway, the the um
15:36seriously the the the rule that is in
15:40the minds of many scientists that leads
15:42to that designation intelligent design
15:44is pseudocience is a is a a a convention
15:49of method that began to be popular in
15:52the late 19th century a little bit after
15:55the beginning with Darwin and then
15:57afterwards and the rule is sometimes has
15:59it's a big term
16:01It's called methodological naturalism or
16:04methodological materialism. And the idea
16:07is that if you're going to be a
16:08scientist, you have to explain
16:09everything by reference to undirected
16:12material processes. And therefore, you
16:15cannot as a scientist consider the
16:17possibility that a mental agent or mind
16:20or conscious intelligence or creative
16:23intelligence played a role in the origin
16:26of even of life or the universe. You
16:29have to stick to purely material
16:31processes as your your mode of e
16:34explanation. Now the obvious problem
16:37with that is that there are many things
16:39in life or many things in our experience
16:42that were that were produced by
16:44processes other than the strictly
16:47material. That is to say that we're
16:48produced by creative intelligence. We
16:51don't explain the origin of the iPhone
16:54without reference to Steve Jobs or the
16:57origin of the automobile without
16:59reference to Benz or Ford. There are
17:02features of there are systems all around
17:04us that are the product of intelligence
17:06and we know them to be the products of
17:09intelligence by examining the
17:11characteristics that they have. Uh if
17:13you walk into the British Museum and you
17:16see that uh that wonderful display of
17:19the Rosetta Stone with the three
17:21different uh languages or three
17:23different different three texts from
17:25three different languages etched in the
17:27stone. The archaeologists who discover
17:29that did not say, "Oh, well it must have
17:32been wind and erosion because we if we
17:34infer that a scribe was involved, uh
17:37we'd be breaking the rules of science."
17:38No, rather they followed the evidence
17:41where it most logically led based on our
17:43knowledge of cause and effect. And the
17:46the case for intelligent design is based
17:49on a standard method of historical
17:52scientific reasoning where our knowledge
17:54of cause and effect guides the
17:56inferences we make about what the most
17:58likely u cause of of an event was in the
18:02past. So if you look at the Rosetta
18:05Stone, you see an informationrich
18:07inscription. We know that it takes a
18:09mind to generate information and
18:12therefore based on that cause and effect
18:14knowledge. When we see the information
18:16apart from observing the cause, we can
18:18still infer back to the cause because we
18:20know the only known cause of information
18:23whether it's in a hieroglyphic or
18:25alphabetic form is a mind. And in a very
18:28similar way, the inference to design in
18:31biology is based on a standard method of
18:33reasoning in which we prior pri uh
18:36prioritize our knowledge of cause and
18:38effect in making the inferences. We know
18:40that it takes information or sorry I
18:43mean we know that it takes a mind to
18:44generate information and therefore when
18:46we find information in a digital form in
18:49the in the DNA the most logical thing to
18:51conclude is that a mind was also
18:53involved in its origin. Uh, our local
18:56hero here in the Seattle area, Bill
18:58Gates, says that uh, DNA is like a
19:01software program, only much more complex
19:04than any we've ever created. Richard
19:06Dawkins, the staunch uh, evolutionary
19:09biologist and atheist from Oxford, has
19:11acknowledged that DNA is like a machine
19:14code and uh, we know that machine code
19:18or uh, or or software comes from a
19:22programmer. So the discovery of of
19:25information in an alphabetic or digital
19:27form provides strong evidence of the
19:30prior activity of a designing
19:31intelligence. That's not breaking the
19:33rules of science. It's it's following
19:35the most most fundamental rule of
19:37science, which is to follow the evidence
19:39where it leads to the to the best
19:41explanation or the most likely cause.
19:45Interestingly,
19:47the arguments for and against the
19:49existence of God have uh despite the
19:52best efforts of many scientists to imply
19:54that evolutionary theory does away with
19:56the need for the idea of a god. It's a
19:58little old now, but some research was
20:01done on one of our major university
20:03campuses here a few years ago. If you
20:05approached a group of university
20:07students and asked them about the
20:08question of the existence of God, about
20:10half would say, "No, there's no God."
20:11thought about half would you know
20:13nervously say well yes I think there is
20:15if you approach them individually the
20:17number of people who said yes I believe
20:19in a god jumped massively you get this
20:22sort of scorn effect that makes people
20:25reluctant to own and interestingly if
20:28you ask them the question well then why
20:29do you actually believe by far the most
20:31common answer is look at the natural
20:34world around me it can't be an accident
20:37>> so there's a sense in which uh this is
20:41not not as clear-cut as those who would
20:43say, "Oh, it's just pseudocience." would
20:45have you believe. It's not cutting
20:46through to
20:49people in real world.
20:52>> Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt,
20:53John. Yeah. No,
20:54>> I was just going to say notice something
20:55about the rhetorical move there. To say
20:58something is pseudocience
21:00is to imply that there is some uh
21:04definition of science or some rules of
21:07science that must be followed in order
21:09to qualify as science. It is an appeal
21:13to um but but then if you ask people
21:17well what is your definition of science?
21:20People get famously uh um ambiguous in
21:25their answers. They'll say something
21:27about well science has a it's it's
21:29science is following the scientific
21:31method. But what we've shown this has
21:33been part of the focus of my work from
21:36my PhD on is that that the method of
21:39reasoning that's used to to determine
21:43that intelligent design played a role in
21:45the origin of the information necessary
21:47to life is the exact same method that
21:50Darwin himself used. It was a method of
21:52historical scientific reasoning where
21:55again our knowledge of cause and effect
21:57is used to guide our thinking our
22:01inferences about what is the most likely
22:04cause to have been present to produce
22:06the thing that we see. And so if people
22:10want to apply the standard of, you know,
22:13their their their definition of science
22:16evenandedly,
22:17then if they say intelligent design
22:20isn't science, they'd have to say that
22:21Darwinian evolution isn't science or
22:23that chemical evolutionary theory isn't
22:25science. Um, but really you don't settle
22:28these important empirical questions by
22:30appealing to definitions. You have to
22:32settle them by appealing to our our
22:36knowledge of the the the evidence itself
22:40and by using established methods of
22:42reasoning that are that are independent
22:46of metaphysical biases. When when I
22:48mentioned a few minutes ago that the
22:51reason that people will say intelligent
22:53design isn't science is because they've
22:55they've adopted tacitly a rule of
22:58reasoning which says you can't consider
23:01a an explanation that involves creative
23:04intelligence. Well, that's a biased
23:06definition of science. It's one which is
23:08cooking the books. If if you think of
23:10the origins question, where did life
23:13come from? There's two basic
23:16possibilities. Either life was the
23:18result of undirected material processes
23:21or rather there was some kind of
23:24intelligent agent or mind that was
23:26shaping the material processes. Um
23:29either there was mind or there was no
23:31mind. Those are two two logical
23:34possibilities. And if you decide in
23:36advance that you're not going to
23:38consider creative intelligence as a
23:40possible explanation, then well
23:42certainly you will end up with you will
23:44end up affirming that life was produced
23:47by purely undirected material processes.
23:50But notice in making that determination,
23:52you haven't appealed to any evidence.
23:54You've only appealed to your definition
23:55that science must limit itself to
23:58materialistic explanations. So it's it's
24:00a definition that ends up becoming very
24:03circular in that it it it determines the
24:06outcome of the investigation
24:08irrespective of investigating any actual
24:11evidence. And what we're doing in the
24:12intelligent design research community is
24:15not only making an evidential argument
24:16for intelligent design, we're
24:18challenging this rule which we think to
24:20be anti-scientific and anti-intellectual
24:23in that it's limiting the the
24:25intellectual freedom of the scientist to
24:27consider all possible explanations
24:30irrespective of metaphysical
24:32preferences.
24:33>> The impression I have is that you're not
24:35actually quite alone. And there have
24:36been some very significant scientific
24:39thinkers over recent decades who who
24:43have
24:44willingly or unwillingly come to the
24:46conclusion
24:48that the laws by which everything
24:51operates if you like the rules, the
24:53information that's plainly passed on
24:56present such overwhelming evidence that
24:59there must have been a mastermind behind
25:01it that in fact it's not true to say for
25:05a moment that
25:08scientists would say science disproves
25:10God. There are far too many scientists
25:11who have shifted in their thinking even
25:14if it's only to a deist position, not
25:16necessarily a Christian or specific uh
25:19you know religion of um the types that
25:22we recognize.
25:24>> Yeah, absolutely. many non-religious
25:27theists now who have come to believe in
25:30uh a transcendent intelligence
25:32responsible both for the origin of the
25:34universe at the beginning which is
25:35another big and mysterious question. How
25:38did the universe, the material universe
25:40come into existence? Our best physics
25:43tells us that matter, space, time, and
25:45energy all originated a finite time ago
25:50before which or to be more precise since
25:52we don't have time independent of which
25:54there was no matter to do the causing.
25:57Um so materialism as a as a worldview as
26:01a system of thought has come up against
26:03a number of very profound questions. Um
26:07in in uh in your country there's a very
26:09prominent young physicist Luke Barnes
26:12who's written a book with his Cambridge
26:14PhD former Cambridge PhD supervisor.
26:16he's now a professor at Western Sydney
26:19um uh called the fortunate universe that
26:22is looking at the evidence of the
26:24fine-tuning of the the physical
26:26parameters of the of the universe and
26:28suggesting that most logically the
26:30fine-tuning of those parameters suggests
26:32a finetuner. we have all of these um the
26:36basic parameters of physics turn out to
26:38fall within very narrow ranges or
26:40tolerances outside of which uh not only
26:44life but even basic chemistry would be
26:46impossible. And the question is how did
26:48these these different parameters find
26:51one after another find those sweet spots
26:54um that make that make life possible. Um
26:59and and many physicists including uh Sir
27:01Fred Hy who was one of the first
27:03scientists who discovered these
27:05parameters have come to the come to the
27:07conclusion that the fine-tuning is is
27:09pointing to a transcendent intelligence
27:11that is responsible for the the life
27:15friendly structure of the universe as a
27:17whole. Um so there's a I I think a a
27:21fairly significant revolution in thought
27:23taking place. uh there's been a shift
27:25even in the TW last 20 years in in u my
27:29involvement in in this work. There was a
27:32lot of the kind type of rhetoric that
27:34you find on on um Wikipedia where people
27:37would simply dismiss the idea out of
27:39hand. People would um appeal to
27:42authority. They appeal to a consensus
27:43that may or may not have existed. And
27:45now I think you find people taking these
27:47arguments very seriously not only in
27:50biology but also in physics and in
27:51cosmology. Um I in my last book I was
27:55fortunate to have endorsements from uh
27:58seven professors who were who held uh
28:02named professorships in different fields
28:04of science a Nobel laureate. Um, it's
28:07it's by no means the uh an idea that's
28:10confined to uh parochial
28:14um sort of u backwoods of of the
28:18American um Appalachia or something as
28:21it's often portrayed. You know, people
28:23white shed Bible thumpers are the only
28:25people thinking about this. Uh it's very
28:28serious scientists and philosophers are
28:30considering these arguments. And I' I'd
28:32even go back a bit and look at someone
28:34like James Clark Maxwell who was uh
28:38along with Newton and and Einstein. In
28:40fact, all three of those great
28:41physicists believe that there was a mind
28:43behind the universe. Einstein's way of
28:46formulating it was not traditionally
28:48religious. Uh Newton and and um and uh
28:54Maxwell were both devout Christians.
28:56Maxwell said that the conclusion of
28:58design follows
29:01uh inexurably from the application of
29:05the laws of thought to the observations
29:09of the world around us. In other words,
29:11there are features that we see in nature
29:13which we know one of the key laws of
29:16thought only arise from a a particular
29:19kind of cause, an intelligent cause and
29:22therefore we can infer back to a
29:25designing agent. So you had real really
29:27prominent scientists have have um
29:30affirmed this design argument from the
29:32period of the scientific revolution
29:34forward and and even going back further
29:37in into scientific and philosophical
29:39history. So this is a a perennial idea.
29:41It's been a perennial argument in the
29:43west. Did mind come first or was it
29:45brute matter? These were the two great
29:48systems of thought that you found in the
29:49ancient Greeks. So what we're doing is
29:52we're reviving the case for the mind
29:55first view of reality based on on
29:58fundamental discoveries that have been
30:00made in physics in in in cosmology in
30:04biology over the last 100 years.
30:07>> Can I ask you then about the theory of
30:08evolution? It does seem to me that there
30:11are certain
30:13big issues within the theory that are
30:18far from settled and that therefore it
30:21actually remains a theory not something
30:24that's settled by as you put it
30:26consensus in the way that is assumed by
30:31I suppose a lot of people in western
30:33culture.
30:35>> Yeah, it's always been a theory. The
30:37question is whether it's been the best
30:39theory or not or whether it's been a
30:41wellsupported theory. And um I would I
30:45would say there are some obvious
30:47difficulties with the theory that are
30:49are increasingly wellknown. And I
30:50attended a conference at the Royal uh
30:53that was convened by the Royal Society
30:55in London in 2016. And it was convened
30:59by a group of mainly evolutionary
31:02biologists who were quite dis um
31:06disaffected with the standard
31:08neodyarwinian theory that we all learn
31:10in in uh in in university textbooks. and
31:14they were actually calling for a new
31:16theory of evolution because the theory
31:18that we have is in their view
31:20inadequate. About 20% of the scientists
31:23who attended that conference were uh
31:26also proponents of intelligent design
31:28though most of us were kept a little
31:30little lower profiles not to cause too
31:32much enst among our evolutionary
31:34colleagues but um the and there are
31:38great there the big reason for the the
31:40concern about the adequacy of Darwinism
31:43is the lack of uh the the perceived lack
31:47of creative power of the mut the of the
31:50mutation natural selection mechanism,
31:52allegedly the main creative force or
31:56mechanism that drives the evolutionary
31:58process. It turns out that the mutation
32:00natural selection mechanism does a very
32:03nice job of explaining smallcale
32:06variation, the types of things that are
32:07often presented as the main evidence for
32:10evolution in textbooks. things like the
32:12the variation in the size and shape of
32:14the finch beaks of the famous uh Gopagos
32:18finches that Darwin uh wrote about or
32:21the the the famous peppered moths that
32:24the coloration of which turned dark to
32:26light and dark again in the um w with
32:30varying levels of industrial pollution
32:32in the Midlands of England. Um, but the
32:35theory doesn't do it does a good job of
32:38explaining those kinds of small-cale
32:39variations in coloration or superficial
32:42characteristics of organisms. It doesn't
32:44do a good job of explaining the origin
32:46of birds or insects or mammals or animal
32:50body plans in the first place. And so
32:53when you couple that concern with the
32:57evidence we have from the history of
32:59life, namely that there are these abrupt
33:02discontinuous
33:04uh appearances of new forms of life in
33:06the fossil record, not the continuous
33:08gradual unfolding of the uh of the
33:11history of life in a treelike manner as
33:14Darwin described, but rather um what
33:18have been called biological big bangs.
33:20the origin of the the the the major body
33:22plants in the Cambrian explosion. I've
33:24written a whole book about that called
33:25Darwin's Doubt. Um the origin of winged
33:28insects, the origin of turtles, the
33:31origin of of birds, the origin of the uh
33:34angioperm, the flowering plants, the
33:36origin of of the mammals. Um uh all of
33:41these events and more arise very
33:43abruptly in the fossil record. It does
33:44not look it's not a Darwinian picture of
33:46gradual incremental change. So that's a
33:49problem just reading the historical
33:51record. But then as you begin to look at
33:53how the mechanism works um again it does
33:56a nice job of of preserving smallcale
33:59variations but it doesn't do a good job
34:01of explaining the origin of major
34:03innovations in the history of life. The
34:05mutation selection mechanism and there
34:07the problem turns out to be the same
34:10problem that is affecting origin of life
34:12research and that is the problem of
34:14information. And this all came basically
34:17as biologists began to reflect on what
34:21Watson and Crick and the molecular bi
34:23biologists in the 50s and 60s were
34:25discovering, they realized, hey, we got
34:28a problem here. This this whole
34:31mechanism of mutating pre-existing
34:34information doesn't seem like a very
34:36good way of generating new information.
34:39If you think of computer code and you
34:41start to make random changes in zeros
34:43and ones, are you going to change a
34:46section of functioning code into a new
34:50program or operating system or are you
34:53more likely to simply degrade the
34:55existing program and destroy it? And
34:59essentially mutations are operating in
35:02the same way that a r mutations are
35:04random changes in a in a digital bit
35:06string. And we know from the computer
35:08world that if you make random changes in
35:09a digital bit string, you're going to
35:11degrade the information carrying uh
35:15sequence. So it will not perform a
35:17function long before you will ever
35:19change it enough to produce a new
35:22function, a new program or operating
35:23system. So understanding the primacy of
35:26information has led to profound doubts
35:31about the creative power of the mutation
35:34natural selection mechanism. So you have
35:36both a problem with the historical
35:39record doesn't match what you'd expect
35:40from Darwinian evolution and the
35:43mechanism that supposedly drove all the
35:46major evolutionary processes doesn't
35:48seem to have the power to do that. So
35:50there's a kind of a twin twin
35:52difficulties that that have afflict
35:54afflicted the theory.
35:57Imagine for a moment we could bring
35:59Charles Darwin personally back to the
36:01table for this conversation
36:03uh in view of what uh you've just
36:05pointed to the the problem of new forms
36:09of life if you like appearing that don't
36:13show any direct linkage with evolution
36:18uh the sudden emergence so to speak but
36:20also the incredible complexity you've
36:22been talking about the information
36:24contained in DNA how do you think he
36:26would have responded to what we now know
36:30and the challenges or the holes the gaps
36:33that are still there in evolutionary
36:34theory. He was plainly a very
36:36intelligent man plainly and u his book
36:39was beautifully written and it was a
36:41masterpiece of of scientific
36:43argumentation
36:44based on the evidence and uh
36:48observations that he had made at the
36:50time. uh but it it did acknowledge
36:53certain difficulties that have only
36:55become more acute over time. One of them
36:57was the this discontinuous pattern of
37:01appearance of new biological form in the
37:04fossil record. I wrote a whole book
37:06called Darwin's doubt. Darwin's doubt
37:08was about the adequacy of his theory to
37:11explain an event in the history of life
37:13known as the Cambrian explosion where
37:15you have the first major explosion of
37:17new animal form in the fossil record. at
37:20least the majority of the the the animal
37:22body plants first arising and Darwin
37:25openly acknowledged that he he could not
37:28explain that that uh that that class of
37:31evidence in 1859 and I show in the book
37:33that that problem and many related
37:36problems have only become more acute in
37:38the ensuing 160 years. Um so it it's
37:42hard to speculate on on how Darwin
37:45himself would have responded. I would
37:47hope that he would be enough of a
37:48scientist to follow the evidence where
37:50it leads and not be uh beholdened to the
37:54rule of methodological naturalism which
37:56would prevent him from considering the
37:59design hypothesis. I think one of the
38:01interesting things about Darwin's work
38:02was that he was very much engaging the
38:05other side of the argument in his work.
38:08He was aware of the long tradition in
38:11biology of um
38:14science-based
38:16bi uh biology-based design arguments.
38:19And so many of his arguments were
38:22opposed as counterarguments to those uh
38:26other arguments which were part of the
38:28tradition of of the biological sciences
38:30to that point. Many of what what what I
38:33call Darwin's current public defenders
38:37are not as open-minded. They want to act
38:39as if those arguments don't even exist
38:41and that just it's uh to be a scientist
38:44is simply to to read a materialistic
38:46conclusion into every every observation.
38:49And uh I think Darwin was a bit more
38:51open than that. In fact, he was very
38:53open in acknowledging the problem of the
38:55Cambrian explosion and also the
38:57difficulty posed by the functional
39:00integration of parts in complex systems
39:03which is something that that
39:05contemporary intelligent design uh
39:08proponents have picked up in works like
39:09Darwin's black box by Michael Behe.
39:12miniature machines and circuits that
39:14have many parts that are functioning as
39:17an integrated hole and do not admit
39:20gradual change without defect to the
39:22hole. The the origin of which uh are
39:24very difficult to explain in a gradual
39:27in a gradual way.
39:29>> Now, as I mentioned, I'm not a
39:30scientist, but um I'm very aware and
39:35let's assume for a moment that we still
39:36got Charles sitting at the table with
39:38us. He was a man who plainly was
39:41thoughtful and worried about the impact
39:43of his theory on society, how it might
39:46play out in philosophy. Uh would it
39:50damage religion? Would that be a good
39:52thing or a bad thing? Well, if we still
39:55have him at the table, the reality is
39:57that we have to say it's not his
39:58necessarily his fault, but his theory
40:02gave rise to some very very serious
40:06problems. You know, all sorts of groups
40:11jumped on the theory to justify their
40:14views of what society ought to be like.
40:17But the most egregious and obvious one
40:19is plainly uh the way in which the Nazis
40:23and Mussolini and people like that
40:24jumped on the idea of the survival of
40:26the fittest.
40:27>> It it's alas very unfortunate. There's a
40:29historian of science Richard Wyart who
40:32has written extensively on this and it's
40:36extraordinary when you you know you open
40:38mind comp and the references to survival
40:41of the fittest natural selection
40:43evolutionary ideas are are are suffused
40:47uh you know they're throughout the book
40:50um the what the the story that Wikart
40:54tells is that um is that Darwin
40:56influenced
40:58um obviously the social Darwinists in
41:00the United Kingdom. Um but he was his
41:04ideas because they were found the
41:06essential thing is that Darwinism became
41:08an indispensable plank in system in
41:11materialistic systems of thought of all
41:13of all types. Um every every worldview
41:18or or or philosophy
41:21uh metaphysical system has to answer the
41:24fundamental question that philosophers
41:26call ontology or worldview scholars call
41:28the prime reality question. What is the
41:30thing or the entity or the process from
41:33which everything else came?
41:36In Judeo-Christian
41:38religion, in uh in the Islamic faith,
41:41that answer is is provided as a in terms
41:44of a personal God. In materialism,
41:48uh the answer is always matter and
41:50energy. And what Darwin argued was that
41:53matter and energy could essentially m
41:56strictly material processes that the the
42:00process of natural selection in
42:01particular could explain the origin of
42:04new forms of life from pre-existing
42:06forms of life. There were other
42:08evolutionary theorists, Heckle and
42:10Huxley in particular, who quickly
42:13applied that to the question of the
42:14origin of the first life and and then
42:18Darwin himself came back in writing the
42:21uh descent of man in applying his ideas
42:23to the origin of human beings. And so by
42:25the end of the 19th century, you have
42:26this kind of seamless materialistic
42:29story that can be told from the origin
42:32of the solar system to the origin of the
42:34geologic great geological features to
42:37the origin of life to the origin of new
42:38forms of life to the origin of human
42:40beings. All is the product of undirected
42:43mindless materialistic processes. And so
42:46you get these various systems of
42:47materialistic thought arising. and the
42:50the great 20 20th century political
42:54ideologies, both Marxism and National
42:57Socialism um and Western social
43:00Darwinism are all drawing on that same
43:06um origin story to justify the
43:08materialistic character of those those
43:10those specific ideologies. Uh so in one
43:14way you can't say it's it's not all
43:16Darwin's doing. He he was not respon he
43:19was not a Nazi but there were aspects of
43:21his thought that that were consonant
43:24with with national socialism and indeed
43:26with Marxism that were picked up by
43:29these the these uh 19th or 20th century
43:32political ideologies. And the story that
43:36Richard Wikart uh documents is that
43:38essentially that
43:41Darwin influenced Heckle and Huxley.
43:45uh he heckle influenced Hemler and
43:48Hemler influenced Hitler on the on this
43:51on these evolutionary ideas and they
43:53they ended up playing a significant role
43:56uh in his in his formulation of national
43:59socialism and this idea of of helping
44:02the evolutionary process along
44:05politically by choosing certain races as
44:07being more fit for survival. also the
44:10idea of eugenics which was practiced in
44:12the United States right up until World
44:15War II. It wasn't until the discovery of
44:16the death camps that um that the the
44:20horror and the horror of of of the Nazi
44:23form of eugenics that um that the
44:26so-called positive eugenics and some
44:28negative eugenics in the United States
44:29was terminated as a process. So, so
44:32yeah, these these ideas have have had
44:34some rather virulent expressions. Though
44:37the the the the scientific theory of
44:39intel of of of of Darwinism and
44:43neodyarwinism, I think has to be
44:44evaluated quite separately from uh the
44:47way in which others may have picked up
44:49those ideas and applied them in in um in
44:52various political uh ideological
44:55contexts. Steve, um the obvious question
44:58for some people listening to us might be
45:00to say, well, I get the intelligent
45:03design bit. That makes sense. We know
45:04that, but most people do think there's
45:08powerful evidence for a designer out
45:10there. I think that's a fair thing to
45:12say. But they might then say, should I
45:15then jump to the conclusion that
45:16evolutionary theory is all wrong? Uh it
45:19didn't play a role in how we got to
45:21where we are. Uh and well I must believe
45:24in the story of 8day creation
45:287-day creation.
45:29>> Uh very yeah very good question. The
45:32answer to that is no. Um our view of my
45:35view and that of many of the other
45:37leading proponents of the theory of
45:39intelligent design is that is that um
45:42the contemporary theory of evolution
45:44called neodyarwinism
45:46is applicable within a within a a
45:49definable range of phenomena. That is to
45:51say, it explains certain things very
45:52well, but what it explains well are much
45:56more modest phenomena than it has been
45:58used to explain. Uh the it it does a
46:01great job of of explaining smallcale
46:04variation or adaptation of organisms to
46:06their environment, but it does a poor
46:08job of explaining the origin of what's
46:11called morphological innovation, the the
46:14origin of new form as it arises in the
46:16in the fossil record. So and and
46:20typically
46:21what you see is that the processes at
46:24work that the mutation selection
46:26mechanism or just natural selection
46:27operating explains well are processes
46:31that are not generating new information
46:34but rather are um expressing
46:37pre-existing forms of information and
46:39then there's some sort of differential
46:42uh expression of that information that
46:44leads to differential surv survival and
46:47the fixation of some traits versus other
46:49traits in a population. So it's a it's a
46:53good theory that has modest scope
46:57whereas the problem has come in where
46:59people have attempted to apply it
47:01universally to explain the origin of all
47:04forms of life on earth and it clearly
47:06can't do that. Um and the big problem
47:09there is the origin of the information,
47:12the origin of uh of the body plans, the
47:15origin of new form. uh this is where it
47:17breaks down and the books that many of
47:18us have written my book Darwin's doubt
47:22um Michael Beehey's book on the edge of
47:24evolution um uh and many others have
47:28have sort of ex explained the where
47:32Darwinism applies well where
47:35neodyarwinism is effective as a theory
47:38and where it it loses explanatory power
47:41especially with respect to the origin of
47:43these major changes in the history of
47:45life and that's where we see the
47:46evidence of of the activity of a
47:48designing intelligence.
47:51It's it's a bit analogous, John. Oh,
47:54sorry to interrupt it. It's a bit
47:55analogous to to Newtonian and
47:57Einsteinian physics. uh when when
48:00Einstein came along and and put Einstein
48:03and put Newtonian gravity in a broader
48:06picture with general relativity, we
48:09didn't say that Newtonian physics no
48:11longer had any any value or or benefit,
48:14but we we saw that it was limited in its
48:16explanatory scope and that there were
48:18things that it didn't explain that a w a
48:22more a broader explanatory framework
48:25explained better. And and so um we we
48:29most of it we think natural selection is
48:31a real process. It has real real powers
48:35but the powers are not fundamentally
48:37creative in the sense of generating
48:39something new. There was a fairly
48:41important book written in u uh by
48:45produced by two leading evolutionary
48:47biologists in the in the early 2000s
48:50that was published by MIT press called
48:53on the origin of organismal form. And
48:55they had a they had a a chart in the
48:57first chapter of unsolved problems of of
49:00neodyarwinism. And one of them was
49:02simply the origin of biological form. So
49:06this is a pretty fundamental thing that
49:07we thought Darwin had explained back in
49:091859. Many evolutionary biologists are
49:11realizing the theory has not explained
49:14the the origin of of novelty, the origin
49:16of new forms of life in the history of
49:18life. It does seem that um
49:22people are debating
49:26issues of faith and of God more openly
49:30at the moment. The high water mark of
49:33the new atheism appears to have well and
49:35truly passed. In fact, you've seen quite
49:37a few new atheists, very prominent ones
49:40now embracing personal faith. Uh even in
49:44Australia, we're very aware of the
49:46extraordinary reach of the Joe Rogan
49:49show for example. The podcasting world
49:51is now very big. You and I are doing one
49:53and a lot of people tap in. Uh and
49:56you've been on that uh other articulate
49:58Christians, Wesley Huff, an amazing uh
50:02discussion that he had. Are you seeing
50:05or sensing a new spirit of inquiry
50:09abroad at the moment?
50:11>> Absolutely. Um, I had a call earlier
50:15today with Justin Brierly, who's written
50:17a book called The Surprising Rediscovery
50:20of God, and he was telling me about a
50:23new a new survey that's been done in the
50:25UK by some sociologists, I think, called
50:29the Quiet Revival. And there's been a
50:32rather dramatic uptick in church
50:35attendance in the United Kingdom since
50:372018, especially among young people. uh
50:41the the the rate of church attendance
50:43among young people he told me was 4% in
50:452018 it's thou it's now at 16% and among
50:49young men it's at 21%.
50:52Uh but we're also seeing this and I
50:55think maybe what's precaged this is uh a
50:58deep curiosity about the god question
51:00emerging among many of many people in
51:03the intellectual classes. You have books
51:05like Dominion by um by Tom Holland, the
51:08the British historian who's discovered
51:11the importance of Christianity to the
51:13whole value system of the West, whether
51:15people are on the left or they're on the
51:17right. He says, "Look, we're all
51:18swimming in Christian waters. We where
51:20did we get this concern for the poor and
51:23the disenfranchised and the the the uh
51:26the the people who are are crippled and
51:30um these are these are things that
51:32didn't exist in the ancient empires. But
51:35in the second third century you got
51:38concern for the widows and and and
51:40orphans and and uh and people and slaves
51:43and disenfranchised persons of all
51:45kinds. Where did this come from? He said
51:47this is this is something that came out
51:49of Christianity. Um you have um but I
51:53think around this question of science
51:54and God the the new atheists made this
51:57very very strong argument that uh
52:01science properly understood undermines
52:04belief in God. This was the essential
52:06claim of the new atheism. Uh it ca in
52:092007 you had Richard Dawkins's book the
52:12God Delusion and you had lots of other
52:15uh people getting into the act uh
52:18Lawrence Krauss whom I've de debated
52:20several times wrote u the universe from
52:23nothing even Hawking near the end of his
52:26life in a book called the grand design
52:28kind of weighed in but that I think is
52:31in that the arguments of the new
52:33atheists are increasingly a spent force
52:35and I I and I think It's largely because
52:38of the attention that has been focused
52:41on these major scientific discoveries
52:44that are perplexing from within a
52:47materialistic philosophical framework.
52:50The origin of the physical universe a
52:53finite time ago. What's called the big
52:55bang theory or the singularity theorem
52:58from general relativity. These major
53:01developments in physics and cosmology
53:03point to something like a creation
53:04event. Uh, one of the one of the key
53:06scientists who received a Nobel Prize
53:08for his work confirming the big bang
53:11theory, Arno Penzius, who only died
53:14recently, um, P was quoted as saying,
53:18"The best data we have are exactly what
53:21I would have expected if we had nothing
53:23to go on but the first five books of
53:25Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a
53:27whole." The idea was that if you take
53:30theism as a metaphysical hypothesis and
53:33you look at the world around us, what
53:36you see is basically what you would
53:38expect. You would expect to see evidence
53:39of design. You would expect to see
53:41evidence of a creation event. Richard
53:43Dawkins has formulated the issue very
53:46similarly and he said he said that the
53:49universe we see has exactly the
53:51properties we would expect if it were
53:53the product of blind pitiles
53:55indifference. No, no design, no purpose,
53:57nothing but blind, pitiles indifference.
54:00And I use that as a framing quotation in
54:02my book because when you look at the
54:05evidence from cosmology that we have for
54:07a definite beginning to the universe,
54:09that wasn't expected on a materialistic
54:12or atheistic worldview. When you look at
54:15the fine-tuning, that was also not
54:17expected. uh when you when the discovery
54:19of the digital code and the complexity
54:22of life at the at the cellular level
54:24again not expected from a materialistic
54:26point of view. In fact, Dawkins has said
54:28that he he he reacted to some animations
54:31that were produced by an Australian
54:33group a few years ago uh depicting the
54:36the way in which the digital code is
54:38directing the construction of proteins
54:40and and the way in which u genes are
54:43replicated. and he said he was knocked
54:46sideways with wonder at the complexity
54:49of the digital information processing
54:51system inside the cell. Uh the 19th
54:54century materialists expected that the
54:56cell would be a homogeneous globule of
54:59plasm and that's not what we've we've
55:01discovered. We've discovered features in
55:03the cell that are reminiscent of our own
55:05high-tech digital technology. And so in
55:09whether it's cosmology, physics, or
55:10biology, the discoveries of modern
55:13science have been more affirmative.
55:14They've been more consistent with the
55:17expectations that are generated from a
55:20theistic hypothesis than they are from a
55:23materialistic hypothesis. And I think
55:25that's had a profound shift in opening a
55:27lot of minds.
55:28>> It's interesting. I think that I don't
55:30think I'm putting words in Richard
55:32Dawkins mouth when I say that he's come
55:33to much the same conclusion that both GK
55:37Chester and CS Lewis did uh when they
55:40said that, you know, when you stop
55:42believing in God, you don't start
55:43believing in nothing, you believe in
55:44anything. And I think Dawkins has been
55:46truly frightened by some of the madness
55:49and the anti-scientific nonsense as he
55:52sees it himself.
55:54um such as pretending that there are
55:57more genders than simply two. Uh and
56:01that's been a real problem for him and
56:03it's brought him to the point where he
56:04said, "Well, I'm perhaps a cultural
56:07Christian after all because what's
56:09happening now is the emergence
56:11uh of of a lot of really non-scientific
56:15stuff, really nonrational stuff."
56:19Well, and there's a certain logic to
56:21that because science was born out of a
56:24Judeo-Christian
56:25intellectual millu. Um, in in return of
56:29the God hypothesis, my book, I start not
56:31with getting right into the argument
56:33about about what does the current
56:35science say, but rather I I start with
56:38telling the story of the history of
56:39science, the origin of modern science.
56:42um in that crucial period that
56:43scientists call the scientific
56:45revolution or that historians of science
56:47called the scientific revolution between
56:49say 1500 and 1750. And you find that
56:54uh not only were all the major players
56:57devout Christians, but they began to
57:00study this the natural world in a
57:02systematic way for very explicitly
57:05biblical reasons, Judeo-Christian
57:08reasons. They believed that the that
57:10nature was an orderly system because
57:12they believed in a god of order. They
57:14believed that nature was intelligible
57:16and could be in understood that it had
57:18patterns of order that could be
57:20discerned and designs that could be
57:22discerned by the human mind because the
57:24same God who made our minds in his image
57:28made endowed the the the natural world
57:31with with a form of that rationality. So
57:33that there was a principle of
57:35correspondence between as the Cambridge
57:37physicist John Pulkinghorn used to put
57:39it the reason within matches the reason
57:41without the reason in the external
57:43world. And so you had this science was
57:48born of a Judeo-Christian worldview. And
57:52I think what Dawkins has inadvertently
57:54discovered is that in tossing that
57:56aside, he's opened the the floodgates to
58:00all sorts of irrational ideologies. And
58:03the science that he prizes so greatly is
58:07being swept away in the flood. And this
58:10is part of the story that Justin Brierly
58:12tells about the this internal kind of
58:14fracturing that took place uh between
58:18among members of the new atheist
58:20movement in around starting around 2014.
58:23Uh that you have
58:25uh the uber woke and the anti-woke
58:27suddenly uh sort of at each other's
58:30throats within the atheist movement
58:32itself and lacking an objective standard
58:35of morality to which they could appeal.
58:38there was this inevitable fracturing,
58:39ideological fracturing within the
58:41movement. And I think you're right. One
58:43of the things that has has I think been
58:45a very great cautionary note for a
58:48number of new atheists is the the kind
58:50of irrational ideologies that are
58:51emerging. When they thought that by by
58:54affirming atheism they would be
58:56protecting rationality from the benited
59:00religious people. They found a that what
59:02I think they are finding whether they
59:04acknowledge it or not is that apart from
59:06the presuppositions that made science
59:08possible that came out of revealed
59:10religion um you will find culturally a
59:14loss of of scientific trust in science
59:17and a kind of proliferation of very
59:20non-scientific modes of thinking very
59:22irrational modes of thinking.
59:24>> Well, Steve, you're not just a
59:26scientist, you're a philosopher. Um, and
59:29we're told that in fact
59:33the case against God is less now in the
59:36minds of skeptics about science and
59:40science proving or disproving God. In
59:42fact, I often wonder what sort of God
59:45would allow himself to be proven or
59:46disproven by science anyway.
59:49But the real issue now for a lot of
59:51people is suffering. The problem of
59:53evil. Um,
59:57is that in your view where we've got to?
59:59The debate has moved. It's not so much
1:00:02the question of is there a God, but if
1:00:04there is one, why does he allow evil?
1:00:07>> Well, I'm always asked about that. Um,
1:00:11I think there are still Well, I think
1:00:15that's a very keen observation actually,
1:00:16the um perceptive observation. And
1:00:19there's a a very prominent young uh
1:00:21atheist in the United Kingdom, Alex O'
1:00:24Conor, and I'm I'm I'm scheduled to have
1:00:28a conversation with him um moderated by
1:00:30by Justin Brierly soon. And the Piers
1:00:33Morgan people have also asked us to come
1:00:34on and talk with each other. Um and Alex
1:00:38is a very interesting figure in that
1:00:40he's I think a genuine um metaphysical
1:00:43seeker. He's really seeking answers to
1:00:45the deep questions. He's got a big
1:00:46following on his own podcast and in
1:00:50recent years he has kind of moderated
1:00:53from the staunch new atheist position
1:00:56which was that science undermines belief
1:00:58in God to a position of less a less
1:01:03atheistic and more agnostic. But I think
1:01:07his key question and concern or
1:01:09objection or uh to a adopting
1:01:15uh a theistic position or a Christian
1:01:17faith is the problem of evil. And um so
1:01:22I'm you know eager to have that
1:01:23conversation with him. When I was on
1:01:25Piers Morgan they asked me about it and
1:01:27I think Rogan asked me about it as well.
1:01:29But it's um
1:01:33to my way of thinking that the the
1:01:35primary question is how did everything
1:01:38get here? And I think there's a sort of
1:01:41priority in looking at the two
1:01:42questions. The the the origins question
1:01:46is primary because you have to account
1:01:48for how things got here in the first
1:01:49place. the the concern about well why
1:01:52are things not as much as we might like
1:01:55them to be is a bit secondary in the
1:01:59following sense if I look at a at an
1:02:02internal combustion engine and I see
1:02:04that it's rusted or that some of its
1:02:07parts are broken it doesn't obviate the
1:02:13obvious evidence for the design of the
1:02:16engine in the first place it raised a
1:02:18second question which is how were things
1:02:21broken? And I think what the the
1:02:23atheistic argument from the from evil
1:02:26from the problem of evil does is it
1:02:29reverses that priority and it wants to
1:02:31say well because things aren't exactly
1:02:33as we want them or because there is
1:02:35genuine evil in the world there cannot
1:02:38be a god. But that leaves unanswered the
1:02:41question of where things came from in
1:02:42the first place. Especially I think in
1:02:45light of the failure of things like
1:02:46evolutionary theory or the incoherence
1:02:50of exp of materialist explanations like
1:02:53the multiverse for the origin of the
1:02:55fine-tuning or the origin of the
1:02:57universe. I think the theistic
1:02:59explanations for the key origins
1:03:02questions the origin of the universe the
1:03:04origin of the structure of the universe
1:03:05the origin of life the origin of new
1:03:07forms of life the origin and nature of
1:03:10consciousness. I think the the theistic
1:03:12explanations for those fundamental
1:03:14questions are hands down better. And so
1:03:17for me the problem of evil I think is
1:03:21put in a different frame which is to say
1:03:23well if there is evidence for a god then
1:03:26how did things get the way they are
1:03:28where we see both evidence of beauty of
1:03:32of goodness
1:03:34but also of decay of of death and and
1:03:38suffering. And there I think the the the
1:03:42traditional
1:03:44Judeo-Christian
1:03:45biblical answer is is certainly
1:03:49logically consistent. It tells us that
1:03:51there is a backstory that there was a
1:03:53point in which humans rejected
1:03:57u God's commands and his design for
1:04:01human flourishing and that resulted in
1:04:05delletterious consequences not only for
1:04:07our own life our own lives but for
1:04:09nature itself. And there's nothing
1:04:12terribly logically inconsistent about
1:04:15that, but it it requires us to accept
1:04:19the backstory. And that's been been
1:04:22conveyed to us through biblical
1:04:23revelation. And I think if you have good
1:04:26reasons to believe in the reality, the
1:04:28the the biblical text and its
1:04:30revelation, then it's it's much easier
1:04:33to accept the backstory. If you if you
1:04:35have doubts about the the biblical text,
1:04:38the historical reliability of the Bible
1:04:39for example or whatever it is, then then
1:04:42that may leave you puzzled.
1:04:44Um I think the basic idea that that um
1:04:48this the incompatibility of of um
1:04:54of of evil or or um bad things happening
1:05:00to good people or what however it's
1:05:02framed and the existence of God. I don't
1:05:04think there there's a logical
1:05:05incompatibility there when you consider
1:05:08the role of agency that God created
1:05:11creatures who out of his goodness were
1:05:14granted the same type of agency and what
1:05:16we call free will that he himself had.
1:05:19And in so doing, he took a risk. And the
1:05:21risk was that we would use that agency
1:05:24to to harm others or degrade his
1:05:27creation or to do things that would
1:05:30result in what we call evil. Um uh to me
1:05:34that's a satisfying answer. Um and I
1:05:36look forward to the conversation with
1:05:38with Alex and others about that. But um
1:05:41uh it is it is you know it's it's
1:05:44everyone feels this existentially. I've
1:05:46just lost two parents in two years. We
1:05:49just buried my dad on Friday. And so you
1:05:51you feel the sting of death. Um and and
1:05:56it seems profoundly unnatural. It
1:05:58doesn't seem like it could have possibly
1:06:00been intended. And for me as a
1:06:02Christian, the I take great comfort in
1:06:04the biblical revelation and the the
1:06:08teachings of Christ to the very effect
1:06:12pointed effect that it wasn't what God
1:06:14intended, but it was a consequence of of
1:06:16the actions of agents in opposition to
1:06:19his will.
1:06:21So perhaps to pull this together, it
1:06:24seems to me that uh I find us us in
1:06:27agreement that there is a compelling
1:06:28case that there is a God. There is a
1:06:32compelling case surely that he should
1:06:34not be ignored if he's there. And that
1:06:37the most compelling way to understand
1:06:41our place in the universe and our
1:06:45relationship with God is in fact to be
1:06:47found in the Christian story with its
1:06:49explanation of
1:06:52what Pascal called the glory and the
1:06:55scum. Each of us bearing the stamp of
1:06:58nobility but deeply flawed by what
1:07:03Christians call the fall.
1:07:05>> Oh yeah. John Lennox in his conversation
1:07:08recently with Alex Okconor called it the
1:07:10beauty in the bones. You know, we see
1:07:12both. Um, and I again I do liken it to
1:07:16just very simply to something like a
1:07:18rusted engine. We see the evidence of
1:07:20aboriginal design and we see the
1:07:22evidence of subsequent decay. We see
1:07:24that in our own natures and we see that
1:07:27as human beings and we see that in
1:07:29nature itself. And this is something
1:07:31that you would expect if you took the
1:07:32biblical hypothesis about reality as as
1:07:37a uh something to be explored. If you
1:07:40look at Romans 1, it says that from the
1:07:43things that are made, the unseen
1:07:44qualities of the creator are clearly
1:07:46manifest. If you look at Romans 8, same
1:07:49letter, St. Paul, he says that that the
1:07:52the creation, the created order is
1:07:54itself groaning for its redemption, that
1:07:56it's been subjected to decay. So, as a
1:08:00Christian, as I look at the natural
1:08:02world around me, I would expect to see
1:08:04both evidence of of original design and
1:08:08evidence of subsequent decay. That I see
1:08:10both of those things in nature as well
1:08:13as in human nature to me confirms the
1:08:16biblical hypothesis about reality. I
1:08:18have a confirmation of hypothesis, which
1:08:21is how you test an idea if you have a
1:08:23scientific or philosophical turn of
1:08:25mind. So I I find the faith to be very
1:08:27rational in that it matches reality. It
1:08:30matches what you would expect to see in
1:08:33the world around us based on the
1:08:36revelation of of the biblical text.
1:08:38>> Well, Steve, you've done a wonderful job
1:08:41of making very complex ideas and
1:08:45scientific insights
1:08:47um intelligible to lay people like me.
1:08:51Uh and uh that's a great gift. Uh it's
1:08:55very generous of you to devote so much
1:08:58time and effort to helping people unpack
1:09:01what surely in the end is the number one
1:09:04question. Who am I?
1:09:07And how do I relate
1:09:11to the universe around me?
1:09:15>> Well, you're a very accomplished lay
1:09:17person, John. So, I'm I'm very honored
1:09:20to be on your on your podcast. It's a
1:09:22great fun one. One of my other
1:09:24colleagues was on with you and enjoyed
1:09:25it very much. So he recommended it. So
1:09:28thank thank you for reaching out.
1:09:30>> Thank you very much.

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