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Why Scientists Are Forced to Ignore Evidence for Design — Transcript

by Stephen Meyer · 2,842 words · 477 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00the idea that well, you you
0:03theists have your prior assumptions,
0:06your faith commitments. We just we're
0:09just all about the evidence. But but as
0:12as many of the people we've been talking
0:14about on the side opposite demonstrate,
0:16they have their own their own set of
0:18assumptions. And what what actually has
0:21caused people to not see the evidence of
0:23design in nature is a deep prior
0:26presupposition known as not just
0:29materialism in the in the sense of
0:31metaphysical materialism, but a
0:33commitment to methodological materialism
0:35that says that if you're going to be a
0:36scientist, we have to explain everything
0:39by reference to purely material
0:40processes or entities irrespective of
0:43what the the evidence is. Right. So, if
0:45you see evidence for
0:48a dualist understanding of the mind that
0:50that that the
0:51the mind is not just the chemistry at
0:53work in the brain. There's a wonderful
0:54book out that provides a very strong
0:57evidential case for a kind of dualist
0:59understanding. That's the the work of
1:01Michael Egnor in his
1:03his book um
1:05uh The Immortal Mind.
1:06>> Dualist meaning that the mind is
1:08distinct from the brain.
1:09>> brain. They interact, but but the
1:12physical brain is not the sole the whole
1:14of our
1:16our existence. We are a composite entity
1:19that involves more than just just the
1:21chemistry at work in or the cells in the
1:24brain. Um neurophysiology has been
1:27constrained in its understanding of
1:30human nature and reality because of this
1:33principle of materialism. When we think
1:35about the origin of life, we what I've
1:37seen in you know, researching this now
1:39for for nearly 40 years is that you have
1:42these cycles where you'll have the
1:43chance hypothesis will arise. And then
1:45that obviously doesn't work. And then
1:47we'll get theories that invoke natural
1:48laws. And those don't explain the origin
1:50of information either. Then we'll have
1:52theories that combine the two. And they
1:54have they They
1:56deep problems. And so then we go back to
1:58the chance hypothesis but there's
2:00another possibility. Maybe maybe the
2:02information necessary to produce life is
2:04in fact the product of an intelligent
2:06agent but if you preclude that from the
2:08outset of your investigation, you'll
2:10never get there. You'll never see that.
2:12It'd be like going into the the British
2:14Museum looking at the Rosetta Stone and
2:16saying well, I'd like to say it was the
2:17product of a scribe but because I'm
2:19committed to methodological materialism,
2:22I'm going to have to invoke wind and
2:23erosion.
2:24>> [laughter]
2:25>> So you miss something, right? And and so
2:29so it's not just theists have prior
2:32commitments and I think being aware of
2:34those prior commitments allows you to to
2:38to subject them to critical test when
2:40the when the the need arises. If you're
2:41not aware of them, you you get blinders
2:44on and you just work within one
2:45framework and you keep trying to to jam
2:49materialistic square pegs into into into
2:53into theistic or
2:55round holes.
2:56>> But you know, the the theists are not
2:57blameless here in as much as there have
3:00been plenty of people under the banner
3:02of Christianity or really any other
3:04religion, I guess, who but Christianity
3:06is the one that matters here cuz it's
3:08it's what's of interest to us.
3:10>> It's what's of interest to us.
3:11>> Um who have who have posited a a
3:13problem, a conflict between reason and
3:16faith.
3:16>> Absolutely. And there are there are
3:18well-established flavors of Christianity
3:21that that adopt this.
3:23>> Whereas you bring up the example of
3:25this, you know, shocking new discovery
3:27that the mind and the brain might be
3:28distinct. Think well, you know, all
3:30human beings in our civilization at
3:33least for the last, I don't know,
3:352,000 years or so, maybe a little bit
3:37longer.
3:37>> period of the Greeks?
3:38>> Yeah, yeah, maybe
3:40approaching 2,500 years, 3,000 years.
3:43Have have recognized this
3:45for pretty simple reasons, you know, St.
3:46Thomas Aquinas who
3:49on basically every show I can't help but
3:51talk about my Mayflower cigars and St.
3:53Thomas Aquinas. Those are the two.
3:55>> it in at least one. We haven't got to
3:56>> There's what? Yes, yeah, yeah. I
3:57wouldn't want to let it go. But but
3:59Aquinas makes a pretty clear argument
4:01for it, which is
4:04the mind can't be physical, the
4:07intellect can't be physical because it
4:09deals in immaterial substances. So the
4:11the eyes What what is the eyes receive
4:13color?
4:14And that's how we see the physical
4:16world. The ear receives sound.
4:19And the mind receives universals.
4:23>> Justice.
4:24>> Thinks about mathematics.
4:25>> Mathematics.
4:26>> Yes. And so
4:28a purely physical object could not deal
4:31in any material substance. And so there
4:33has to be a distinction between the mind
4:34and the the brain.
4:36Good enough for me. And an argument from
4:39the First Vatican Council says that God
4:42can be known with existence of God can
4:44be known with certainty.
4:46By human reason in the created world.
4:48That
4:48>> Simple as that.
4:49>> Two things to say about that. One, just
4:50a quick experiment that Michael Egnor
4:52cites in his new book.
4:54When brain physiologists have for
4:56various reasons therapeutic needed on
4:59occasion to sever the two hemispheres
5:02electrically.
5:03And they find that a person who is still
5:06consciously aware
5:08can relate
5:10um
5:12sense data that's presented to one
5:14hemisphere
5:16only
5:17to sense data that's been presented to
5:19the other hemisphere only and can relate
5:23the two and make
5:25and connect make intellectual
5:27connections and draw analogies and
5:30between the two even though there is no
5:33physiological center of the brain that's
5:36processing that information.
5:37>> You want to hear something really weird?
5:38>> That implies an immaterial entity
5:41>> Yes.
5:41>> that is in that is doing the processing.
5:45Which which call the mind or the soul.
5:47>> of that just gave me chills. Even though
5:50you just described evidence for the
5:52thing that I just said I believe. I just
5:55not 20 seconds ago said I believe it.
5:57And yet your description of the physical
5:59evidence for that just gave me chills.
6:00>> Yeah. Well, I would recommend Agner's
6:02work on this. I had the same experience
6:03when he explained it to me over the
6:05phone one time. And but but what what
6:07what which is to say that neuroscience
6:10is catching up with or providing
6:12additional evidential support for the
6:16the the dualist philosophy of the
6:18classical philosophers. You know, so
6:19that's pretty pretty exciting. And the
6:22other thing is on the the the
6:24faith-reason divide.
6:26There there has been this
6:27anti-intellectual
6:29strain in
6:31recent last 100 years Christianity, in
6:34particular in our country. And I think
6:37in fact just the other day I well, I had
6:39an
6:40an interview this morning on a
6:42television interview and and the host
6:43said, "Well, why is it that in your film
6:46you talked about science and its
6:48relation
6:50to God not scripture? Why didn't you
6:52talk about scripture?" And and and I
6:54think there's the sense that that that
6:57science has been opposed to a biblical
7:00or Christian worldview
7:02rather than seeing it as the front I
7:04just made the point that well, it's in
7:06the that
7:07there's this dichotomy, the sense that
7:10that that religious people have the
7:12faith and the scientists and the
7:13philosophers and the scholars have facts
7:15and the facts oppose the faith. And so
7:18many religious people, many Christian
7:20people have withdrawn from the realm of
7:23intellectual discourse feeling that it's
7:26it's opposed to what they value most
7:28rather than seeing that the facts
7:30support the faith. And you go back to
7:31just something very simple in the
7:32scripture, Romans chapter 1.
7:35From the crea- the from the creation of
7:38the world God's invisible qualities, his
7:40eternal power and divine nature,
7:42Sometimes in older translations rendered
7:44wisdom have been clearly seen
7:47from what has been made. The facts of
7:49the world point to not only God's
7:51existence, but they even tell us
7:52something about his attributes. And so
7:54there's there's no necessary separation.
7:56We don't have to keep the the the the
7:59world of the intellect, the world of
8:00facts, the world of reason down here and
8:03and and the realm of of of of morality
8:06and and religious belief up here ever
8:08separated in the manner that Stephen J.
8:10Gould commended to us with his idea of
8:13NOMA, non-overlapping magisteria. No,
8:16the
8:16the realms overlap because it's God's
8:18world.
8:18>> Yes, yes.
8:20I don't know. To me, I would jump
8:22headlong into that because I said,
8:23"Well, look, either it's true or it's
8:25not." And if it if it's true, then it
8:28must obtain uh
8:30in the world. You know, not just in this
8:32one classroom or in this one So,
8:35uh it seems to me there's something very
8:36attractive now. And maybe it's because
8:40it's so subversive.
8:41>> Mhm.
8:42>> You You have seen a a spike in
8:45uh conversions in in Europe and in the
8:47United States. And specifically to
8:50Catholicism, I've noticed. And
8:53you've seen a little bit of a spike
8:55a return to the mainline Protestantism
8:57which had been
8:58basically eradicated over the last 60
9:00years. Uh
9:01but but a return to liturgy, to smells
9:04and bells and complexity and all. And
9:06it's really weird because in this
9:08country
9:09Catholicism used to be a low-class
9:10thing. It was for your Irish maid. It
9:12was not for, you know, the the
9:14>> the intellectual Christian.
9:15>> Yes, right. Uh but now it's weird.
9:19Catholicism and to some degree the high
9:21high church Protestant traditions and
9:23and Eastern Orthodoxy even have
9:27this kind of intellectual cachet to
9:29them. They're catching on. The The
9:31Catholic Church is still bleeding
9:32members cuz cradle Catholics are falling
9:34away, but the the number of adult
9:36conversions is skyrocketing uh in in the
9:38West and
9:40I I wonder if there's this flip of ethos
9:44uh in that
9:45now the the atheists have lost their
9:48their mojo. They've lost their cred and
9:50the intellectual mojo
9:52>> This is a point I wanted to come back to
9:53before but with your quote of Plantinga
9:55that the the fun- one of the funniest
9:57things or the most ironic things about
9:59the new atheism is that it wasn't new at
10:01all. It was it was reprising the village
10:04atheism of the late 19th century, the
10:06scientific atheism of the late 19th
10:07century. And and I think when when you
10:10ask well what why why did it lose its
10:12mojo? I think it was partly because
10:14there it wasn't really offering anything
10:16new. It was offering something that had
10:18been
10:19that
10:20that had either been refuted or for
10:22which the the evidence was right there
10:26to do the refuting, you know?
10:27And so Yeah, there's this there's a
10:30study in Britain again I
10:32cite my my friend Justin Brierley and
10:35there's a study in Britain on the um
10:37uh the quiet revival.
10:40And and this is happening very rapidly
10:42in 2018
10:44the it was the the number of of young
10:48people
10:49forget the the cohort was maybe 18 to 30
10:52who are attending church was in the low
10:55single digits, about 4% very low among
10:58young men only slightly lower young
11:00among young women it's jumped among
11:03young men to 21 or 22% from like 2%
11:06almost a tenfold increase and among
11:08young women from 4 to 16, a fourfold
11:11increase, something like that. So
11:13there's there's something going on and
11:15this is one of the things that that
11:16excites us in coming out with this film
11:19into the culture right now. We we we
11:21feel like we're it it it's we're hitting
11:23a cultural seam where there's
11:24receptivity to the message of this that
11:26people are looking not only for evidence
11:30that supports belief in God but I think
11:32people are also young people in
11:33particular looking for something that
11:35would ground
11:36a yearning for meaning.
11:38>> Yeah.
11:38>> There's a Harvard study that
11:41uh show that in which it was documented
11:44that something like 56% of young people
11:47in the 18 to 30 range
11:50acknowledged having persistent doubts
11:51about whether their own lives had any um
11:55uh enduring or lasting meaning.
11:58And and this makes perfect sense in
12:00light of the new atheism and the
12:02dominance of materialism, naturalism as
12:06a worldview that it's not just been the
12:07new atheist. This has been the dominant
12:09the default way of thinking in the West
12:11for quite some time.
12:12>> Yeah.
12:12>> In the elite intellectual culture in the
12:14universities, the law schools, the
12:15courts, the media.
12:17And young people pick up on that, of
12:20course, and uh and it makes sense. If
12:23your if your worldview is materialistic,
12:26nothing can make sense nothing can mean
12:28anything to a
12:30>> rock or a planet or a galaxy or even a
12:33DNA molecule. Things only mean things to
12:35persons. Things are meaningful to
12:37people. And so and yet we all die.
12:41And so if there is no
12:45ultimate person that whose existence
12:48precedes ours and can
12:51can
12:52continue beyond ours.
12:54>> outlast ours
12:54>> outlast ours. That's the verb I was
12:56looking for. Thank you.
12:57Uh there can be no possibility of
12:59ultimate meaning. This is axiomatic and
13:01there was a
13:02great Bertrand Russell quote about the
13:04heat death of the universe and and the
13:06the sense that that this is
13:08>> It's all pointless.
13:09>> complete Everything's pointless and
13:11because of the heat death of the
13:12universe,
13:13this is this is beyond certain. This is
13:15absolutely certain. And I think young
13:17people uh perceive that. And I so I
13:19think there's a there's a craving for uh
13:23a basis for meaning again. And if there
13:26is a if there is a personal God, a
13:28personal creator
13:29uh who wants to know us
13:32the and if there is evidence of that,
13:33moreover, then the then the then the the
13:36question of meaning is back on the
13:37table.
13:38>> Yeah, I I guess I even come at it from
13:40the opposite direction, which is the
13:42materialist would say, "Yes, isn't it a
13:44pity? You wish there were meaning, but
13:46there isn't. That's why you're
13:47depressed. That's why you're taking
13:48drugs."
13:49>> Yeah, but [laughter] but, you know,
13:51hopefully that
13:51>> the condescending affect as he's
13:53mimicking. Yeah, yeah, that's
13:54>> So sorry.
13:56>> but I guess my reaction to that is
14:00there is meaning.
14:01>> There is meaning.
14:01>> There manifestly is meaning. We all
14:04behave
14:05>> as if
14:06>> as if
14:06>> Right.
14:07>> for all of history, everywhere in the
14:08world.
14:09>> Right.
14:09>> And we can even investigate meaning. We
14:12can know things about it. One discovery
14:15of semiotics, of the study of symbols,
14:17>> Right.
14:17>> is that meaning participates both in the
14:20real world with real things I can touch,
14:22you know,
14:22>> Right.
14:23>> and with rational creatures, you know,
14:24objects of my mind.
14:25>> Right.
14:26>> And that uh you know, a um a yellow
14:29light, for instance,
14:30means something. It's a convention, it's
14:32just a symbol, but it means something.
14:35And what's so curious about the yellow
14:36light is its meaning is not totally
14:39fixed. I participate in its meaning
14:42because if I were a granny and I saw the
14:44yellow light, it would the meaning that
14:46I would pull out of it is to slow down.
14:48>> Right.
14:48>> But the meaning that I pull out of it
14:50is, of course, to speed up because I
14:51want to get past the light.
14:52>> Yeah.
14:52>> I know what it's trying to tell me. I
14:54know what it says about the law. I know
14:56what it says about the law. And yet
14:58there's this dynamic meaning that is
15:00pulled out of the universe both from
15:02>> I I I love that move, Michael, because
15:05you can make an evidential case for
15:07theism which grounds a belief in in a
15:11transcendent or ultimate persistent
15:14meaning.
15:15>> Yes.
15:15>> Or you can presuppose the reality of
15:18meaning
15:19and and point out that we all live as if
15:21there was such a thing and then
15:23challenge people to
15:26fess up and acknowledge what is implied
15:29by the existence of such a thing which
15:30>> Surely it's a curious fact.
15:31>> which is which is namely some ultimate
15:34person who is the ground of it all. I
15:37think there's a moral argument that can
15:38be can be unpacked in the exact same way
15:41or an epistemological argument. We all
15:43live as though we have objective
15:45knowledge of the world which implies
15:47that we believe that our minds are
15:49reliable. There are all kinds of
15:52post-enlightenment
15:53epistemologies, philosophies that deny
15:56the reliability of the mind, but we live
15:58as though our minds are reliable and and
16:01perhaps the best I think the best
16:03grounding of that belief is actually
16:05theism, the idea that our minds were
16:06made by a benevolent God to know the
16:08world that he made.

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