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Why Some Scientists Are Rethinking Darwin's Theory of Evolution | Stephen Meyer — Transcript

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0:00For decades now, we've been told the
0:02biggest questions of how life and our
0:04universe [music] came to be were
0:05settled. But what if they're not? The
0:08scientific discoveries of the last 100
0:09years
0:10>> [music]
0:10>> and right up to the present are pointing
0:12in a very different direction than
0:14people thought in the late 19th century.
0:16Stephen Meyer has spent his career
0:18digging into the deepest mysteries of
0:20our existence. [music] Natural selection
0:22does a nice job of explaining that that
0:23small-scale variation, but it doesn't do
0:25a good job of explaining [music] the
0:27origin of what biologists call
0:28morphological innovation, the origin of
0:31major new body plans or new form in new
0:35organs, new tissues, [music]
0:36but especially new body plans in the
0:38history of life. What if modern biology
0:40textbooks [music] leave out the most
0:41important part of the story? Darwinian
0:44evolution
0:45functions as a kind of secular religion.
0:47It's the question of the origin of the
0:49first life itself. How do you get life
0:50going? That's something Darwin never
0:52addressed.
0:53Meyer is a New York Times [music]
0:54best-selling author and founder of the
0:56Discovery Institute Center for Science
0:58and Culture. Now, in a new film, The
1:01Story of Everything, [music]
1:02coming to theaters April 30th, he lays
1:05out a case that could reshape how we
1:07think about life [music] itself. This is
1:09American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanni
1:11Kalla.
1:14Stephen Meyer, such a pleasure to have
1:16you on American Thought Leaders. Great
1:18to be with you, Yanni. Thank you for
1:19inviting me in such a beautiful studio
1:21as well. You know, I have to offer you
1:25huge congratulations on The Story of
1:27Everything. It's
1:28a
1:29beautiful marvelous film, and I hope it
1:30does incredibly well, and at the outset
1:32I'll recommend everybody go see it.
1:35But let's start here, okay?
1:38Back when I was studying biology in my
1:41undergraduate degree,
1:43third year in third year biology,
1:45um
1:47something occurred to me.
1:49And that was that um people would say,
1:52"I believe in evolution."
1:55And I realized as I was studying
1:57evolution and continued to study
1:59evolutionary biology that when people
2:01said that they meant different things,
2:03okay?
2:04And so for example, what I first thought
2:07people were saying was that evolution by
2:09natural selection, this kind of dark
2:11specific Darwinian mechanism, happens.
2:15Right? Which I think is true as a
2:17concept, right? Like this the you can
2:20see it in viruses for example.
2:22>> true. Exactly.
2:24>> Indisputably true.
2:25However,
2:27what struck me was that when people say
2:28that often they would really mean
2:31I believe that that's where humans come
2:33from.
2:34There was this kind of quasi-religious
2:37belief in it,
2:38right? Which was just odd to me because
2:40I was very obvious to me that there were
2:42all these different clearly there would
2:43have to be all these different
2:44mechanisms at play to get the diversity
2:47of life. It's like we've been arguing
2:49almost at cross-purposes around this
2:51question. That's That's where I want to
2:52start.
2:53>> Yeah, that's a great place to start
2:55because there's a great deal of
2:56equivocation
2:58around the term evolution. It can be
2:59many different things. And just initial
3:02observation and reaction to what you've
3:04said is that there's a huge difference
3:06between the idea that natural selection
3:08is a real process that takes place and
3:11the claim that natural selection acting
3:13on random variations and mutations has
3:16unlimited creative power. It can be a
3:19process [clears throat] that is uh a
3:21real part of of biological phenomena
3:24without necessarily having unlimited
3:26creative power. And many leading
3:29evolutionary biologists today are now
3:31calling for a new theory of evolution
3:33because they recognize that the mutation
3:36natural selection mechanism has limited
3:38creative power, quite limited creative
3:40power. I attended a conference in 2016
3:44uh now 10 years ago at the Royal Society
3:47in London that was convened by a a of
3:50biologists and evolutionary biologists
3:52who have been calling for a new theory
3:53of evolution precisely because they
3:55realize that the mechanism of mutation
3:57and selection
3:58uh has such limited power. That it does
4:00a nice job of explaining small-scale
4:03variation and adaptation. All the
4:05classic examples that we learn about in
4:07the biology textbooks, the same ones
4:08that are are repeated over and over
4:10again. There's a fairly limited number
4:12of these. But the peppered moths that
4:15change coloration from dark to light and
4:16dark again, the uh or maybe it's the
4:19other way around. The uh um
4:22the Galapagos finches in the the with
4:24the beaks that get a little bigger, a
4:25little smaller and and in and change
4:28shape in response to varying uh uh soup
4:31food supplies and and and weather
4:33patterns, antibiotic resistance, uh and
4:36so forth. Uh
4:38natural selection does a nice job of
4:39explaining that that small-scale
4:41variation. But it doesn't do a good job
4:43of explaining the origin of what
4:44biologists call morphological
4:46innovation, the origin of major new body
4:49plans or new form in new organs, new
4:52tissues, but especially new body plans
4:54in the history of life. That that uh we
4:57find again and again in the fossil
4:58record the that kind of morphological
5:01innovation occurs very abruptly. And the
5:04mechanism of natural selection um
5:06does not explain that well. Runs out of
5:09of uh um
5:11capability very quickly. So we can talk
5:13about more about why that's the case.
5:14But it the the distinction between just
5:17the fact of a mechanism that does
5:19something and the claim that it can do
5:21everything is uh often overlooked.
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6:55So, you know, back in that same class
6:57that I was taking, uh there was a uh a
7:00man who became my friend. Actually, you
7:02know, I
7:03we thought of us as kids then, I guess,
7:04but
7:05um Dennis Venema, he uh he had the
7:08audacity to do one of we all had to
7:11produce a seminar as part of the seminar
7:14series, right?
7:15>> And so, he had the audacity in front of
7:17a a group of people who were definitely
7:20um you know, committed to
7:22to evolution, okay? To do uh
7:25uh a seminar on flaws in evolutionary
7:28theory, okay? And he was he was an
7:29evangelical Christian. Later actually
7:31became part of this BioLogos group, um
7:35which is, you know, basic quite quite
7:37committed now to to the adequacy of of
7:41evolutionary theory and to the creative
7:43power of natural selection. So,
7:46that's anyway, go ahead.
7:47>> no, no, that and and so it's
7:49it's interesting, right? But I I what I
7:52thought when I saw this, because this is
7:53kind of like, you know, that the class
7:55is kind of, you know, pitchforks and
7:57tiki torches. Yeah, right. It becomes
7:58like this kind of thing, because people
8:00are so emotional, somehow, so
8:01emotionally invested in this, right? But
8:04>> I have a friendly, well,
8:06of blessed memory, of a friendly
8:08debating partner, Michael Ruse, passed
8:10away last fall.
8:11And he's on the other side of the issue,
8:13obviously. He was, and he was a
8:15committed
8:16neo-Darwinist.
8:18Um, but he wrote an important book in
8:20which he acknowledged, or really
8:23highlighted, the fact that for many of
8:25his colleagues, um,
8:27Darwinian evolution
8:29functions as a kind of secular religion.
8:32And you can see why, because it's
8:33answering one of the most fundamental
8:35questions that any worldview or religion
8:37has to answer, which is, what is the
8:39thing or the entity or the process from
8:41which everything else came? And the the
8:43neo-Darwinian explanation of the origin
8:45of new forms of life is part of the
8:46answer to that really fundamental
8:49question, which is not only a scientific
8:50question, but a philosophical worldview
8:52question. But Ruse's critique of some of
8:56his own colleagues was that
8:58because it functions like a a secular
9:00religion, sometimes there's resistance
9:03to a more dispassionate scientific
9:06evaluation of its of its of its merits.
9:09It's just like to me, the eye. Yeah.
9:12Just the eye, right? And we have we have
9:15a complex eye in an octopus, for
9:16example, that's it different in some
9:19foundational ways than a than a complex
9:21eye in a human being. But no one's been
9:23able to explain to me how you get an eye
9:26with all, you know, the lens and all
9:27these complex things through a process
9:29of natural selection. I I actually think
9:31you you never get an eye through the
9:33process of natural selection, because
9:35there's just so many of these
9:36intermediate forms. You know, actually
9:38let let's do this because I I even think
9:40that maybe there's viewers out there who
9:42hear about this natural selection and
9:44evolution, you might not even understand
9:46the exact mechanism. So, let's just kind
9:47of define what it is very quickly and
9:50how I mean and if I'm wrong, you tell
9:52me, right? But I just don't think you
9:53ever get an eye through natural
9:54selection.
9:56Well, natural selection is the idea that
9:59with the Darwinian process as a whole
10:01envisions um
10:03uh differential reproduction. That there
10:06would be an organisms that would
10:08reproduce, leave offspring with varying
10:10traits, that some of those traits would
10:13be more favored in a competition for
10:15survival. And that um and that those
10:18would be differentially or on a
10:21statistical basis passed on more
10:23frequently than those traits that that
10:25are not
10:27um
10:27uh as advantageous. And over time, the
10:30idea is that there would be an
10:31accumulation of the more favorable
10:33traits and that the differences that are
10:35represented by those those uh genetic or
10:39mutational variations that arise in a
10:41population would would
10:43uh eventually become fixed in the
10:45population and there would be an overall
10:47directional change to the organism. So,
10:49something like
10:50>> if I may, so something fundamentally new
10:51would arise. But let's talk about the
10:53I'll just use quickly to reframe with
10:54this example, right? The Darwin's finch,
10:57okay? The reason you get a finch that
10:58has a very very long beak is because
11:00there's some kind of food
11:02out there that a long beak can get.
11:06Yeah, there's actually there's been a
11:07study of of this by
11:09a couple called the Grants and they
11:11showed that um that there were
11:14variations in the in the weather
11:16patterns in the Galapagos and that uh
11:19part of that it resulted in
11:22um
11:22in I think it was a series of droughts
11:24and so that there were the only very
11:26hard nuts left and so that the the the
11:29finches that survived better
11:31uh were on average had a 5% longer or
11:34forgetting the exact figure, beak that
11:36enabled them to crack through the nuts.
11:38And so you got a a small-scale variation
11:41or adaptation of the of the structure of
11:44the beak to to permit
11:47more effective
11:49Galapagos finch foraging. But the But
11:52the bottom line is is the ones that have
11:54the longer beaks in this case survive
11:56more often, which is why over time you
11:58get a longer and longer beak. Basically,
12:00that's the process, right? Well, that's
12:02that's that's the claim that that
12:03process can go on in an unlimited way
12:06producing all forms of life that we see.
12:08But that But you How do you get an eye
12:10with that? Let me Let's go more
12:12fundamental.
12:14The eye, like everything else in the in
12:16the body, depends upon the function of
12:19large biomacromolecules
12:21called proteins. Proteins do all the
12:24important jobs in cells. They catalyze
12:26reactions. They
12:28very fast rates that would not otherwise
12:30occur. They build the structural parts
12:32of miniature machines. They help process
12:34information. And they're part of what
12:37are in the case of the eye, part of
12:38what's called a biosynthetic pathway,
12:40the vision cascade, that allows vision
12:43even even to get a light-sensitive spot.
12:45You have to have a whole series of
12:47proteins that are interacting with each
12:49other in a kind of chain to make make
12:52light sensitivity possible. And so if we
12:55want to explain the origin of anything
12:58novel in life, we have to explain the
13:00origin of proteins. Now we know proteins
13:02are built by reference to the
13:04information that's stored on the DNA
13:06molecule. And that information is is
13:09stored in essentially a digital form.
13:10There's a four-character digital code of
13:14of little subunits along the spine of
13:17the DNA molecule that function like
13:19alphabetic characters in the written
13:20text or the zeros and ones in a section
13:22of software.
13:24Now we know something from our
13:25experience of software. And that is that
13:27if you start to change the zeros and
13:29ones in a section of software for doing
13:31something specific for a specific app or
13:33a program or an operating system, and
13:36you start to to to change them very
13:38much, you will degrade the function of
13:41the of the code so that it will so that
13:43the app or the program or the operating
13:45system will no longer work long before
13:48you will have made enough changes to
13:49produce something fundamentally new,
13:51okay? So, when I ask in talks, I ask
13:55you know,
13:56if there's computer programmers there, I
13:57ask them to
13:58if you're going to if you can start
14:00changing zeros and ones in a section of
14:01functioning code, are you going to build
14:03something new first or will you degrade
14:05what you have first? And they laugh. The
14:07answer's obvious. Well, it turns out
14:09we've learned the same thing is true of
14:11the digital code in the DNA that makes
14:13the protein molecules. You can alter it
14:15a little bit, and if you do, you can
14:17sometimes alter the function of the
14:19existing protein provided you don't
14:22change the overall structure of the
14:24protein that's called a fold. The fold
14:26makes possible sometimes multiple
14:28functions that are related but within
14:30that structure. But as you accumulate
14:32random mutations, some and usually
14:35between three and five, maybe up to 7%.
14:37I mean, maybe it's even 10%, but a very
14:39small number of mutations in in various
14:42proteins will cause the structure the
14:44structural stability of that fold that
14:47makes protein function possible at all
14:49to simply degrade. It's called there's a
14:52loss of what's called thermodynamic
14:54stability
14:55and structural stability. The thing
14:57unravels.
14:58But we've also learned that to build a
15:00new fold capable of completely novel set
15:03of functions, you have to the sequence
15:05differences between them are on the
15:07order of 65 and sometimes as much as
15:0880%. So, the same thing holds in the in
15:11the gene protein world that holds in the
15:13computer science world, that if you
15:15start randomly changing things at the at
15:18the genetic level, that's the way and
15:20that's what a mutation is, As those
15:22accumulate, you're going to inevitably
15:24degrade and destroy the possibility of
15:26function in what you have long before
15:29you will have changed it enough to
15:31produce something fundamentally new that
15:33will create
15:35genetic and and and and morphological
15:37novelty. So, that's the problem. And
15:40that that applies not only to the to the
15:41origin of the eye because the eye
15:43depends on all these proteins in what's
15:44called the vision cascade, but it it
15:47applies to virtually every uh
15:49significant biological change that you
15:51could imagine. So, this is one one of a
15:53legion of
15:56at least this let's call it a suite of
15:58fundamental problems with the idea that
15:59the mutation selection mechanism is
16:02fundamentally creative. It it is a real
16:04process. People like me who hold to the
16:07theory of intelligent design
16:09affirm that it's a real process. It's
16:11part of what we know about how biology
16:13works, but it has very limited creative
16:15power.
16:16And this is actually, you know, one of
16:18the key arguments you make in The Story
16:20of Everything, which I think you develop
16:22you know, it's it's it's absolutely
16:23fascinating that that the scientific
16:25discoveries that we've made in the in
16:27the realm of exactly the kinds of things
16:29that you talk about actually have given
16:31us a lot of information that we didn't
16:34have that might have made us overlook
16:36that, you know, creative power that's
16:39somehow
16:40you know, in the system but isn't
16:42explained by the by the random mutation
16:44>> exactly. It's the advance of science
16:46that has made us more confident that
16:48there's that there is a designing
16:50intelligence behind life in the
16:51universe. We don't deal a great
16:54great deal with the question of
16:57biological evolution in the film. We
16:59talk a bit about the the miniature
17:01machines that are present inside cells
17:04and how difficult they are to explain by
17:07a step-by-step gradual
17:09Darwinian process of natural selection.
17:11We look particularly at two machines
17:13that I think are really fascinating. One
17:15is the bacterial flagellar motor that
17:17our colleague Michael Behe has made
17:18famous. And the other is the ATP
17:20synthase, uh which is a little turbine.
17:22So, one's a rotary engine, the other is
17:23a turbine, and they're inside cells.
17:25This is, you know, that we used to in
17:27the 19th centuries, you were saying uh
17:29or alluding to it,
17:31the view was, right after Darwin
17:32published The Origin, that the cell was
17:35a simple homogeneous globule of
17:37undifferentiated protoplasm. That's a
17:39favorite quote of mine from Thomas Henry
17:41Huxley. I like it because he was one of
17:43the great scientists in the in 19th
17:45century, and it now seems so ignorant to
17:47us. Because as we've opened up the cell,
17:50we found this exquisite realm of digital
17:52and uh digital nanotechnology. And uh
17:56if you look at the these these these
17:58protein these machines, they're made of
18:00multiple protein parts, and if you have
18:03some some even a large set of those, but
18:06not the totality of of the parts, then
18:09you get no function. Natural selection
18:11selects for functional advantage. If the
18:14intermediate structures on the way to an
18:16eye or on the way to a flagellar motor
18:19or an ATP synthase confer no function,
18:22then there's nothing there to be
18:24preserved and passed on by the process
18:26of natural selection, and the
18:27evolutionary process will terminate
18:29before the the system ever gets built.
18:31So, we do have a bit in the film about
18:33that. It is a critique of of biological
18:35evolution, but the film's much more
18:37concerned with the question of the
18:39origin of the first life itself. How do
18:40you get life going? That's something
18:42Darwin never addressed.
18:43>> Let's go back to third year university
18:45on that.
18:45>> Yeah, sure. Okay. It was a very
18:48strange thing for me because it it was
18:50it became very clear to me that
18:51evolution by natural selection wasn't
18:54the only mode, right? This is actually
18:56what my my work became looking at
18:57alternate models of evolution because
19:01I I again, it's like I I still am
19:04perplexed in a way,
19:06unless we're really just talking about
19:08ideology, right? Um why
19:11>> very cutting edge because that's where
19:13the field has gone. People
19:25Well, no. So, I mean, I just I had
19:27basically started I started a PhD ended
19:29up finishing it as a master's. My life
19:31got kind of thrown a massive curve
19:33curveball, if you will.
19:34>> But, um, but no, I was looking at the
19:36hybridization between two species of
19:39lemur, actually.
19:41And just because I was curious, I had
19:43heard about this particular unusual
19:44situation in this one reserve in
19:46Madagascar, where it looked like two
19:48species were were coming into one,
19:52right? And I was just I was just
19:53interested in, again, alternate models.
19:56And I was like, "Oh, this this looks
19:57exciting. And I get to go to
19:59Madagascar."
19:59>> [laughter]
20:00>> I think there was a a film about
20:01Madagascar with lots of lemurs in it.
20:03>> Well, there there was. And then, in fact
20:04In fact, nobody understood what I
20:06studied until that film.
20:07>> Until the
20:08cartoon came out.
20:09>> a cartoon, and then everybody knew.
20:11Yeah, exactly. But, um, this is, you
20:14know, what what I came to, right? And I
20:16think when a lot of people say, "I
20:18believe in evolution," right? What
20:21they're saying is that
20:23human beings are meat.
20:25Or human beings are meat computers.
20:28Or something like that.
20:30Right? Like it's just be We're We're
20:32We're not the product. There's no kind
20:34of, you know, divine inspiration here.
20:36There's no We're not made in the in the
20:37image of God as certain faiths would
20:40would describe, Christianity notably and
20:42others. And there isn't that
20:44significance, you know? Well, this gets
20:46back to that
20:47that meaning of evolu- There are three
20:50basic meanings of evolution. One is that
20:52there's been change over time.
20:54And that can refer to small-scale
20:56adaptation, like the Galapagos finches
20:59or the peppered moths. Or it can refer
21:01to the idea that that,
21:03life on the planet now is different than
21:05it was a long time ago. So, if we look
21:07in the fossil record, we no longer have
21:09trilobites or triceratopses.
21:12So, the composition of life on the
21:14planet is different than it was as
21:15recorded in the fossil record a long
21:17time ago. So, that that that meaning of
21:20evolution I think is pretty much
21:21indisputable. But then there's a second
21:23meaning of evolution that's the idea
21:24that there's been continuous change over
21:27time such that the best way to represent
21:29the history of life as a great branching
21:31tree where the base of the tree is
21:33represented by one or very few simple
21:36one presumably one-celled organisms and
21:39then we've had a kind of continuous and
21:40gradual morphing and changing of those
21:42very simple forms into all the forms we
21:44see today. But everything is related by
21:46common ancestry.
21:47That's a more controversial meaning. But
21:49then the most controversial meaning is
21:51the third meaning. Not that that and
21:53that has to do with the the action of
21:56mutation and natural selection. But not
21:59just the idea that the process occurs,
22:01but rather that it occurs it has
22:03sufficient creative power to explain all
22:06of the change implied by that that tree
22:08of life picture of the history of life
22:10and and and also the appearance of
22:12design that living organisms manifest.
22:15So, a big part of the idea of Darwinism
22:18of Darwinian evolution was the idea that
22:20there is this unguided undirected
22:21process that can
22:23can account for the appearance of design
22:25without having without the process
22:27having been designed or directed in any
22:29way. So, it's inherently materialistic.
22:32And that's where then it helps it helps
22:35to underwrite a larger materialistic
22:37worldview.
22:39Richard Dawkins has famously said Darwin
22:41made it
22:42made it possible to be an intellectually
22:44fulfilled atheist. Well, why? Because
22:46he's given an account of the appearance
22:48of design without there being a
22:49designer. Mhm. An undirected process is
22:53doing all all the the creative work.
22:56Is this you know, in preparation for
22:58this we pulled a quote from Darwin from
23:01the origin of the species, you know, it
23:03just appropriately given our discussion
23:05right now, but if it could be
23:06demonstrated that any complex organ
23:08existed which could not possibly have
23:11been formed by numerous successive
23:12slight modifications, my theory would
23:14absolutely break down. Yeah. Right? Um
23:17this is kind of in the sphere of the in
23:18the context of the eye, in the context
23:20of the, you know, molecular motors that
23:22we described.
23:23>> sure.
23:23>> And you know, kind of end of the
23:25creative power that you just described.
23:26But let me No, let let's jump to
23:28something
23:29>> Can I Can I comment on that real Okay.
23:30>> to clarify for your audience because
23:32that's a that's a quote that Michael
23:34Behe has
23:35highlighted because it does establish a
23:38standard for the explanatory efficacy or
23:42or sufficiency of Darwinian theory that
23:44Darwin himself put forward. And in the
23:47case of if we look at the the bacterial
23:49flagellar motor that Michael Behe has
23:51made famous,
23:52it's got roughly 30 protein parts.
23:55It is a It is a a tiny rotary engine
23:59that sits in the in the cell membrane of
24:02a bacterium. And it it has a rotor, it
24:05has a stator, it has U-joints and
24:07bushings. It has a long whip-like tail
24:09that functions like a propeller. And if
24:11you have only
24:13some of those parts, but not all,
24:16say if you've got 26 or 25 or 24 or
24:19whatever it is,
24:21the the the motor will not function. So
24:23if you're trying to build a motor
24:25through natural selection and random
24:26variation, you need to build that
24:28successively through a series Darwin is
24:30saying a series of incremental steps.
24:32And as you add parts,
24:35presumably each for it to be for those
24:38for those that combination of parts to
24:39be preserved, the the motor or that
24:42combination must confer some functional
24:45advantage on the organism. The problem
24:46is if there's no it comes when there's
24:48no functional advantage until you have
24:50all of the parts or a a core set of
24:53parts that are are hard to reach through
24:55that gradual process. And that's the the
24:57mysterious part from a Darwinian point
24:59of view of all of these molecular
25:01machines. They're they're multi-part
25:03functionally integrated systems that
25:05require either all of the parts or a
25:08very large core set of the parts to
25:10function at all. And the which means
25:12that the intermediate steps would not be
25:13preserved and and passed on, which mean
25:16again it's natural selection only
25:17selects for functional advantage. If
25:19there's no functional advantage till you
25:20get to a very complex end point, you're
25:23not going to you're not going to
25:24You're not going to be able to build it.
25:26Let let's talk about So actually again,
25:27speaking of the BioLogos people, I think
25:30one of the most kind of compelling
25:31arguments
25:33for natural selection, right? Being a
25:36major process, okay? And and and I I'm
25:40very curious how you explain I think I
25:41think the BioLogos people would point to
25:43this. Basically, human and chimpanzee
25:46genetics are, you know, the people say
25:48it's 98.8%
25:51overlap. That's kind of astonishing. And
25:53then there's certain types of gene
25:55patterns that people will point to. The
25:57science has revealed So people would
25:58say, I I I think, that science has
26:01revealed no, actually there is
26:02definitely a common ancestor. And look
26:04at like explain to me why the genetics
26:06are so similar, right?
26:09Well, um they're not. Okay. The those
26:12numbers are dropping fairly
26:14precipitously. Mhm. Um
26:17but there's been uh so the and the final
26:19number when we compare gene sequences,
26:22uh I think it's yet to be determined,
26:24but it's it's dropping at least into the
26:26the mid to low 90s and probably going to
26:28go lower. Um Okay, but but but there's a
26:30lot of similar There's a a shocking
26:32amount of similarity if there's no
26:33common ancestor.
26:34>> there's a shocking a lot of difference
26:36between morphologically and behaviorally
26:39between chimps and humans that cannot be
26:41accounted for by the the 2% of of
26:46the alleged
26:47small 2% of gene differences. But
26:50there's a more interesting and more
26:51important study that's just come out in
26:53the journal Gene. And that is that the
26:55proteome, the things that the the the
26:58genes make, uh the proteins, all the
27:00ensemble of proteins that the gene genes
27:03make, are in sequence comparisons
27:05running between 45 and between only 45
27:08and 65% similar. Mhm. And that tells
27:11[clears throat] us something very
27:12important. That the How do you account
27:14for that? Well, that the information
27:16processing systems in the two in the two
27:18organisms are are
27:21uh
27:22profoundly disparate, very different. Uh
27:25so, the genes are functioning as the
27:27genetic information is functioning as
27:29essentially a library that can put
27:31together proteins. We also know that
27:33that the same same genes
27:35can be read and and concatenated
27:38differently to produce very different
27:40proteins. And so, what what's And this
27:43helps explain a long-standing uh
27:45mystery, which is
27:47if if if our genetics are so similar,
27:50then why are we behaviorally,
27:51morphologically, anatomically so
27:53different? And the answer is that
27:55there's the way that the information is
27:57processed, the way it's uh um expressed
28:02is very different in the in the two
28:04organisms. And so, if if high degrees of
28:08of similarity point to common ancestry,
28:11what do very divergent modes of
28:13information processing point to? Perhaps
28:15separate ancestry. So, I don't think
28:17this is all a closed question. And I
28:19think we've we've kind of been given one
28:21little smidgen of the
28:23of the of of what's really going on when
28:25we just didn't analyze the lowest level
28:28in the biological hierarchy and say,
28:29"Yeah, there's a lot of genes." You
28:31know, for example, we in both organisms,
28:34we have a gene for making hemoglobin.
28:36Hemoglobin captures molecular oxygen in
28:38the blood. There's really no reason for
28:40the gene for making that protein needs
28:42to be very different at all in the two
28:44organisms. Mhm. But to account for
28:46higher-order anatomical structures and
28:49and behavioral structures that are are
28:52grossly different, that the genetic
28:54information is going to have to be
28:55expressed and processed very
28:56differently. So, the the genes are
28:58functioning as a kind of library, and
29:00then there's something that's accessing
29:01the information. You can pull this gene
29:03and this gene. You can put them together
29:05this way or this way, or you might
29:07insert something else. So, the genetic
29:10text can be can be concatenated and and
29:13aligned in different ways to produce
29:15completely different proteins for
29:18completely different biological
29:19functions. So, there's a a great
29:22disparity in this information-processing
29:24system between the two organisms, and
29:26that's what accounts for the difference
29:27in the so-called proteome. And I think
29:29that's much more significant because
29:30it's telling us how an animal is
29:32actually built is not just the bottom-up
29:34genes. It's how the genes are processed
29:36and expressed.
29:38Um something called a developmental gene
29:40regulatory network that we probably
29:41ought to talk about because it's it's
29:42one of the things that the
29:44mutation-selection
29:46uh also can't explain. It's a a very
29:48important part of body plan development.
29:50I think
29:51this question, right, of why would, for
29:55example, mammals, right,
29:58and with humans and all be so much more
30:01similar genetically
30:03in terms of the code, right?
30:06And then why would invertebrates be much
30:08more similar, right? And then why would,
30:11you know, see how we we have all this
30:12sort of, you know, classification of
30:14species. And I remember Dennis telling
30:17me back in the day cuz I think when he
30:18did that seminar, whatever year 3, that
30:21he was like I think he was pretty much a
30:23creationist at the time, but he changed
30:25his mind. And he changed his mind
30:27because he said, "I looked at the
30:28genetic data,
30:29and I I saw these kinds of patterns, and
30:31right, that's what made me think that
30:33there's sort of, you know, that there's
30:35there's more of a role of evolution by
30:37natural selection." And he It's not that
30:39he stopped become being a Christian. He
30:40very much be stayed being a Christian,
30:42but he thought it was it was it would
30:44become a lot more compatible in his
30:46mind. And that's indeed what he's been,
30:48you know, speaking about over years and
30:50so forth. But how does that conceptually
30:53how is that explained in your your view?
30:55Yeah. Well, there's a assumption of
30:57genetic reductionism there. The genes
31:00are the the the only thing that
31:02determines form, okay? The genes make
31:05have information for making the small
31:07level small
31:09level protein parts. But the proteins
31:12have to be arranged into biosynthetic
31:14pathways. The pathways characterize
31:16different types of cells. Different
31:18types of cells have to be arranged into
31:20different types of tissues and organs.
31:23And different types of tissues have to
31:24be organized into different types of
31:26body plans. And so the the question of
31:29macroevolution is about the origin of
31:30new form, about the origin of of form at
31:33the higher level of body plans. So this
31:36the the the assumption that that
31:39led to the conviction of common ancestry
31:41on the basis of alleged high degrees of
31:44genetic similarity overlooked the
31:46importance of all these other layers of
31:48organization that have to be accounted
31:50for in accounting for the origin of
31:52biological form. And we now know that
31:54there other there are other lay there
31:56are there's information stored at higher
31:58levels beyond the genome. And we know
32:00that there are processes that are at
32:03work that are responsible for
32:06differentially expressing that genetic
32:08information during the process of animal
32:10development. And that's that's actually
32:12one of the this is
32:13I would love to explain about something
32:15called developmental gene regulatory
32:17networks because genetic information
32:19alone will not make an animal, okay?
32:22The genetic information has to be
32:23processed and expressed in very specific
32:25ways.
32:26>> I I'll just say one thing as before you
32:27continue, right? I mean there there is
32:29an explanation as to why things that
32:32kind of are some somewhat similar in
32:34form would have similar genetic codes
32:37too, right? Because you need this the
32:39similar types of proteins
32:41>> Well, exactly. The The That's the The
32:43lower level parts, of course, are going
32:45to be very similar, okay? It's the way
32:48the lower level parts, the lower level
32:50protein parts, and cells are are
32:53organized into into very different kinds
32:55of of We'll talk about animals for the
32:58present. Um so, something called a
33:00developmental gene regulatory network.
33:02It's absolutely crucial to building a
33:04new form of animal or to building an
33:06animal form, an animal body plan. The
33:09idea is that as cells go through their
33:11division, from you have a fertilized
33:13egg, then it get it divides into two,
33:15and then into the four cells, and then
33:16to eight, 16. There's this geometric
33:18expansion of the number of cells. And at
33:21different points along the way,
33:23different parts of the genome are
33:24expressed to produce very specific
33:26proteins to service very specific types
33:29of cells as they are differentiating one
33:32from from another. So, you have bone
33:33cells or nerve cells or muscle cells,
33:35and different types of proteins that are
33:37being are being built at just the right
33:39time so that those cells are being
33:41differentiated, say if it's a bone cell,
33:44from a muscle cell. And what a
33:45developmental gene regulatory network
33:47does, it what what it is is a mapping of
33:51the genetic information in the genome
33:54and the the different gene products, the
33:57the proteins, and also something called
33:59regulatory RNAs that regulate in turn
34:03which So, you have a gene, produces a
34:05regulatory RNA, and that regulatory RNA
34:08will then either turn on or turn off
34:10other parts of the genome in different
34:12cells at just the right time so that the
34:14right proteins are built in the right
34:17cell to create the to allow for the
34:19differentiation of cells as the animal's
34:22developing. And this is all beautifully
34:24choreographed. Everything turns on and
34:26off at just the right time. Now, as
34:28scientists have mapped this, in
34:29particular, uh one scientist at Caltech
34:32with colleagues uh scientist uh Eric
34:35Davidson who alas passed away just a few
34:37years ago. As they map this and they map
34:40the functional relationships involved,
34:42what they came back with was something
34:43that looks like a beautiful integrated
34:45circuit. And where you see all these
34:48these if
34:49one to many and many to one functional
34:51relationships and but instead of being a
34:53circuit that is describing the flow of
34:56electricity, it's essentially describing
34:58the flow of information and the way the
35:01information is controlling the animal
35:03development. So that's just a
35:04fascinating piece of science that just
35:07extraordinary. Now, here's but here's
35:09the rub here for macroevolutionary
35:11theory. The idea that that the mutation
35:13selection mechanism can can generate
35:15large-scale changes changes sufficient
35:17to account for one for for the change of
35:19one body plan into another. Where a body
35:22plan is a unique organization of body
35:25parts and tissues, okay?
35:28So what Davidson and colleagues found
35:31was that as you start to alter if you by
35:35random means or otherwise you start to
35:36alter any of the core elements of these
35:39gene regulatory networks, the whole
35:41process of animal development shuts down
35:44before you get to to the termination
35:46point of a fully developed animal form.
35:49But that creates a problem for
35:50evolutionary theory. Because if you
35:52wanted to change body plan A
35:55some animal form maybe an arthropod of
35:57some kind into body plan B some other
35:59kind of animal form
36:01what we know is you got to have a gene
36:04regulatory network a new gene regulatory
36:06network that's coordinating the
36:08expression of all that genetic
36:09information in a different way.
36:10>> little step by little step. You can't
36:12get it little step by you can't change
36:13it at all. I mean
36:15very modest changes are
36:17are allowed but very little. So if you
36:19can't change the body
36:21the developmental gene regulatory
36:22network into a fundamentally different
36:25one, you will never be able to change
36:26the body plan into a fundamentally
36:29different one. So, this is a This
36:30creates a huge problem for the origin of
36:33animal body plans. And the animal body
36:35plans arise abruptly in the fossil
36:37record, we know. I wrote a whole book
36:38about this called Darwin's Doubt,
36:41uh a book about the what's called the
36:42Cambrian explosion. And And so, there
36:45are really profound mysteries. Now, this
36:46is a problem not only for neo-Darwinian
36:48evolutionary theory, but any theory of
36:51evolution because evolution is a fun-
36:53fundamentally about about major change.
36:56If you can't If you can't change the
36:58developmental gene regulatory networks
37:01in a significant way, you will not be
37:02able to change body plans in a
37:04significant way. So, this This is This
37:07is really a fundamental challenge to all
37:09forms of macroevolution. And um And And
37:12it underscores what we've been talking
37:14about, that the the the most important
37:16aspect of of uh
37:19morphological development and and and in
37:23turn evolutionary transformation is not
37:27going to happen just at the genetic
37:28level. It's going to happen at the level
37:30of the processing of that information,
37:32and that's where things are highly
37:33constrained. It's actually If you think
37:35of when you look at that DG It's called
37:37a DGRN, a developmental gene regulatory
37:39network. It It's It looks like an
37:41integrated circuit, and it's also
37:43subject to the constraints problem of
37:45engineering. Whereas And that is the
37:47more functionally integrated a system,
37:50the more difficult it is to perturb any
37:52part of the system without defect to the
37:54whole. And And this And that applies to
37:57human integrated circuits. It applies to
37:59this genetic integrated circuit that's
38:01responsible for body plan development.
38:03And
38:04if can't change it much, you're not
38:05going to get a new body plan.
38:07If you, you know, even with a a watch,
38:10right? You take a part away, you add a
38:12part. Yeah.
38:13>> system stops working.
38:14>> That's right. That's right.
38:16I mean, why the hostility?
38:20Incredible hostility towards the idea
38:23that there's some kind of creative
38:24force. There seems to be this, you know,
38:29deep disinterest
38:32in exploring, you know, that there's
38:34some kind of creative force here. Well,
38:36I don't think there's that much
38:37hostility to the idea of a creative
38:39force, more to the idea of a creative
38:41intelligence. Well, okay, so yes, thank
38:44you for
38:45Thank you for correcting that. Yes.
38:47>> Well, the creative force would put you
38:48more in a pantheistic frame where, you
38:50know, maybe people wouldn't be quite so
38:51hostile to that. Uh but but we are the
38:54the underlying ideology that has really
38:57governed modern science since the late
38:5919th century for
39:01is is one of materialism. It's there's a
39:03materialistic worldview that that many
39:06scientists have a have, in a sense,
39:08bolted onto science and said that
39:10science equals materialism or, more
39:13precisely, uh there's been a convention
39:16that's arisen that says if you're if
39:18you're going to explain something
39:19scientifically, you must explain it by
39:21reference to
39:23strictly materialistic processes, matter
39:25and energy, natural processes, no
39:28creative intelligence is allowed as a
39:30possible feature in your explanation.
39:33So, that and that that itself is a kind
39:35of faith system we're talking about,
39:36right?
39:37>> it's a presupposition.
39:38It it's become a nor-
39:40a kind of normative convention within
39:42science and it reflects an underlying
39:44commitment to not just a methodological
39:46convention but to a metaphysical
39:48commitment in materialism. And and so,
39:52now, and that's where I think
39:54my my
39:56late friend Michael Ruse's
39:58insight comes in is that if if
40:01evolutionary theory,
40:03if neo-Darwinian or some other
40:06materialistic evolutionary theory is
40:08being challenged,
40:11many people will sense in that a
40:12challenge not just to the science that
40:15that hold but also to the deeper
40:17worldview commitments or metaphysical
40:18commitments that they have. And like all
40:20of us, if our deep metaphysical or
40:23religious beliefs are being challenged,
40:24we can easily respond
40:26um emotionally or less than object-
40:28objectively. And so, I think you know,
40:30the debate gets very hot and it and I
40:32think less so in the last 5 or 10 years.
40:34I think there's a lot more
40:36uh acceptance that first of all,
40:38neo-Darwinism is not an adequate
40:40evolutionary theory. We need a new one
40:42if we're going to operate within the
40:43framework of um materialistic
40:45evolutionary biology, but um
40:48uh an increasing number of scientists
40:50are are now aligning with our work on
40:52intelligent design. They're using it to
40:54make new discoveries. They think it's a
40:56useful framework for understanding life,
40:58and there's a compelling uh compelling
41:00argument for intelligent design as as
41:03part of the explanation for how things
41:05got here.
41:06So, great. You you've set up uh a very
41:09important question that I want to ask
41:11you. You know, you you come in, you're
41:13someone that believes in God. What
41:15should we as viewers, right, of the
41:17show, or what should I understand about
41:19your suppositions and and how you came
41:21to
41:22research and believe what you do and
41:24explore this.
41:25>> Yeah, sure. Um
41:26it might be good just to define the
41:28theory first of all. The idea of the
41:30theory of intelligent design holds that
41:32there are certain features of life in
41:34the universe that are best explained as
41:37a product of a designing intelligence,
41:39creative intelligence, rather than a
41:42strictly undirected
41:44physical or material process such as in
41:46the biological realm, natural selection
41:48acting on random mutations.
41:50Um and the kinds of features we're
41:52talking about are things like
41:54uh
41:55the digital code that's stored in the
41:56DNA molecule, the complex information
41:59processing system that not only takes
42:02that stored that takes that stored
42:03information and processes and expresses
42:05it in uh in the in the construction of
42:08proteins and protein machines, the
42:10presence of of nano machinery inside
42:13life, certain patterns in the fossil
42:15record. All these things are things that
42:17we think would be are best explained
42:19because a creative intelligence has
42:20played a role in the origin and history
42:22of life. In the realm of physics, we
42:24have phenomena like the fine-tuning of
42:27the initial arrangement of matter and
42:29energy at the beginning of the universe,
42:31and the fine-tuning of the laws and
42:33constants of physics. The basic
42:35parameters of physics fall within very
42:37narrow
42:38ranges or or tolerances outside of which
42:41not only life but even basic chemistry
42:43would be impossible. Many physicists
42:45have come to the conclusion that that
42:46fine-tuning is the result of of a
42:48fine-tuner, of a transcendent
42:49intelligence.
42:50>> you make that argument beautifully in in
42:54The Story of Everything. Right. Right.
42:56>> three things we look at. In the film, we
42:57look at the evidence for the beginning
42:59of the universe, and with it the the the
43:03very real possibility that we're looking
43:05at evidence of a creation event.
43:07We also look at the discovery of the
43:09fine-tuning, and we look at the interior
43:11of the cell and the discoveries of the
43:14miniature machinery and the digital code
43:16that makes the proteins that make the
43:17machines and make everything else inside
43:19living cells. The
43:21But, as far as the theory of intelligent
43:23design, I attend a conference early in
43:25my scientific career. I'm working as a
43:28geophysicist for an oil company doing
43:31digital signal processing of of seismic
43:33data. It's an early form of information
43:35technology. I attend a conference in
43:38which
43:39there is a very intense debate about the
43:41origin of the first life. A new book has
43:43come out at the time called The Mystery
43:45of Life's Origin, and at the conference
43:47one of the leading
43:49chemical evolutionary theorists, someone
43:51who had formulated a
43:53very popular theory about how the
43:56non-living chemicals in the so-called
43:58prebiotic soup or environment had
44:01arranged themselves into the first
44:02living cells. That that scientist named
44:05Dean Kenyon at the conference repudiated
44:08his own work and said that he thought it
44:10was time for the philosophers and the
44:13theologians to reopen what he called the
44:15natural theological question. And that
44:17is the idea of whether
44:19the question of whether what we're
44:21seeing in nature is actually pointing to
44:23the existence of of a creative
44:24intelligence of a of a creator. Okay.
44:26And So he be you know, he just ta- told
44:29you and you're like, "Wow, that's
44:30interesting."
44:30>> No, it was shocking. It was a shocking
44:32sort of of about-face from a leading
44:34evolutionary biologist. He leading in he
44:37worked on the theory of chemical
44:38evolution, how you get from chemistry to
44:40the first living cells. What and both he
44:43and these other authors were intrigued
44:45with the idea that what we were looking
44:47at was inside the cell was evidence of
44:50what they called an intelligent cause
44:52because the crucial feature that had not
44:54been explained about the origin of life
44:56was the origin of the information that
44:58was stored in the in the DNA molecule.
45:001953 Watson and Crick elucidate the
45:03structure of DNA as a double helix. In
45:051958, Crick realizes that the chemical
45:09subunits along the spine of the DNA
45:10molecule are functioning like alphabetic
45:13characters in a written text or like the
45:15digital characters in a section of in a
45:18in a machine code.
45:19And so this this puts the whole question
45:22of biological origins in a completely
45:24different frame. We we the scientists
45:27were able to fairly quickly to figure
45:28out what the information on the DNA
45:30strand did, where the information
45:33resides, but the question of where it
45:34came from has been unanswered from
45:36within an evolutionary framework. And
45:38yet we know that information, especially
45:40in a digital or alphabetic form, always
45:43arises from a mind. Bill Gates has said
45:45that DNA is like a software program, but
45:47much more complex than any we've ever
45:49created. Uh Richard Dawkins has
45:51acknowledged it's like machine code.
45:53Well, we know that that computer code
45:55comes from a programmer, and we know
45:56that whenever we see information and we
45:58trace it back to its source, whether
46:00we're talking about um
46:02information in a book or information in
46:04a hieroglyphic inscription or
46:05information we're transmitting as we
46:07speak to each other information
46:09transmitted over a wire always
46:13arises first in a mind in an
46:14intelligence. So the discovery of
46:16information at the foundation of life
46:18I've argued is a powerful indicator of
46:20the activity of a a master programmer or
46:23intelligence in the in the origin of
46:25life and interestingly the method of
46:28reasoning that I used to come to that
46:30conclusion it has a it has a name it's a
46:33scientific method it's either called the
46:35method of multiple competing hypotheses
46:37or the method of inference to the best
46:39explanation is the very same method that
46:42Darwin used in the origin of species
46:44we're we're we're using standard methods
46:46of what are called historical scientific
46:49reasoning or forensic scientific
46:50reasoning to come to the conclusion that
46:52intelligent design must have played an
46:54important causal role in the origin of
46:55life as evolutionary biologists use in
46:59in their own work. So it's we're we're
47:00not
47:01there's no special pleading here there's
47:04it's not a special kind of science we're
47:06using the same scientific methods but
47:08we're just coming to a different
47:09conclusion because we're taking the fact
47:11of information as a foundational feature
47:14of living systems very seriously and
47:16saying that has to be explained and it
47:18has to be explained by reference to the
47:20same types of cause and effect processes
47:22that we see
47:24at work all around us. We know that it
47:26takes a mind to generate information so
47:28when we find it at the foundation of
47:29life the most logical thing to conclude
47:31is that a mind did in in fact produce
47:33it. One of the things that I've heard
47:35most often in people sort of dismissing
47:38intelligent design is they'll just say
47:40oh there's this amazing diversity it's
47:42all fantastic but you just want to make
47:44it fit into this
47:45>> I I I I love responding to arguments
47:47like that because they're transparently
47:48fallacious right? That's that's an
47:50argument from personal motivation that's
47:53a form of ad hominem argument that can
47:54be that same that same accusation can be
47:57leveled at people who are developing
47:59Darwinian explanations. As you've
48:02already pointed out, there's this kind
48:03of religious fervor around this. And I
48:05think I think the motivations of the
48:08proponents have to be set aside, and we
48:11have to evaluate the arguments on the
48:13basis of the merits.
48:15>> And because there is this fervor, this
48:17is this is my point. This is what we
48:19notice, right?
48:20>> on both sides just as of course
48:22Christians would like like to see
48:23evidence of of a creator. And yes,
48:27and yes, materialists would like to be
48:28able to explain things without reference
48:30to such a creator. I mean, after all,
48:32it's it's Dawkins who says that Darwin
48:34made it possible to be an intellectually
48:36fulfilled atheist. Atheist. And you can
48:38hear the sigh of relief in his voice as
48:40he says this. In the film, we have a
48:41quote for him as saying that
48:43where he says that that
48:45that science is now
48:48emancipated us from the idea that that
48:50design points to a designer. Well,
48:52what's this idea of emancipation? That
48:54sounds like you're you're looking for
48:55some So, everybody has motivations,
48:57right? The great thing about training in
48:59in philosophy, and I'm a philosopher of
49:02science, and
49:04is that it it it teaches you to say,
49:07"Okay, they're motivations, but let's
49:09set that aside. Now, let's argue
49:11let's evaluate the propositions. Let's
49:13evaluate the evidence. Let's evaluate
49:15the competing explanations and see which
49:17are
49:18provide the best explanatory power."
49:21And there's a key there's a key
49:22criterion of
49:24of explanatory success that is part of
49:26the method of reasoning that I used to
49:28develop the case for intelligent design.
49:30And it was the same method that Darwin
49:31used. And it's the idea of causal
49:33adequacy. If you want to explain
49:36something, you want to posit a cause
49:38which is known to produce the effect in
49:40question. Charles Lyell, who was
49:42Darwin's one of Darwin's mentors, the
49:44great geologist, had a
49:46his in his book Principles of Geology,
49:48there was a long subtitle. It was it
49:50said the the changes on the earth's
49:52surface by reference to causes now in
49:54operation. And the idea is that
49:57explanation that's best is the one
49:59that's going to be that's positing a
50:01cause which is known to have the power
50:03to to produce the effect in question.
50:06When I came across this when I was
50:07thinking about whether or not there was
50:10the information in DNA was this inside
50:12the cell provided evidence for
50:15intelligent design. Could I make could
50:17is there scientific argument a rigorous
50:19scientific argument that could be made
50:21to support that conclusion? And I asked
50:23myself the question, well what is the
50:25cause now in operation that produces
50:29functional digital information?
50:32And we know of one. It's it's it's an
50:33intelligence. One of the early
50:35scientists who applied the information
50:38sciences sciences to analyzing molecular
50:40biology was a man named Henry Quastler.
50:43And he he was quoted as saying, "The
50:45creation of new information is
50:47habitually associated with conscious
50:49activity. That's what we know from our
50:50uniform and repeated experience, which
50:52is the basis of all scientific
50:54knowledge.
50:56It takes a mind a conscious intelligence
50:58to generate information. And that's what
51:00we have at the foundation of life.
51:03Where
51:04>> And that by the way is one of the the
51:05key
51:07stories in the film about the the Watson
51:09and Crick discovery, the realization
51:11that we not only have we we not have a
51:14beautiful double helix molecule, but
51:16inside the molecule is this information.
51:18And then it's a question Where does that
51:20come from?
51:20>> Well, to explain the origin of life, you
51:22got to explain the origin of these large
51:24biomacromolecules that make life work,
51:26especially the ones that are chock-full
51:28of the information that that build all
51:30the important structures inside the
51:31cell. Yeah, and just to be clear, we're
51:33talking about, you know, structured
51:34information, not like the information
51:37that a shotgun spatter or or Yeah, yeah,
51:40that's that's that's actually very a
51:42crucial distinction. That there is in in
51:44the the of engineering and there's a
51:46mathematical definition of information
51:48that was formulated by a really a great
51:51scientist in the late 1940s
51:53named Claude Shannon. And in Shannon's
51:56idea Shannon's idea of information is
51:58about
51:59essentially it's it's a measure of the
52:01improbability of a sequence in an
52:03information
52:05carrying or the information carrying
52:07capacity or the informa- or the
52:08improbability of a sequence in a in a
52:10channel of communication. And
52:14the kind of information we're talking
52:15about in the DNA molecule or in a
52:17section of computer code or in a human
52:19language is that you wildly improbable
52:23>> wildly improbable but there's something
52:25else as well. And that is that there's a
52:28specificity of arrangement of the
52:29characters that allow them to perform a
52:32communication function. So you can have
52:34Shannon information without the sequence
52:37being functional or or communicative.
52:40Having is uh
52:42it can be
52:43can you can have a sequence that's
52:45highly improbable that doesn't have any
52:46meaning in it or that it performs no
52:47communication function. When Crick um
52:51talked about the information in DNA he
52:52was very careful to distinguish the kind
52:55of information that was present in DNA
52:57from mere Shannon information. He he
52:59said it we're talking about the
53:00specificity of the sequence. So it's the
53:03difference in simple example that I use
53:05well we use in the film is the
53:07difference between you know what
53:09the monkeys might type at the typewriter
53:11which would have a calculable amount of
53:13Shannon information but not be
53:15meaningful or functional versus a line
53:17of poetry like time and tide wait for no
53:20man. The specific the specificity of the
53:22arrangement of the characters gives that
53:24second symbol string something that's
53:26not present in the first which is the
53:28ability to to convey meaning or to
53:30perform a communication function. And
53:32DNA performs the function of instructing
53:36the cellular machinery as to how to
53:38build the proteins and protein machines.
53:41Um
53:42a good analogy might that would for
53:45younger audiences in particular might be
53:46something like um
53:48a 3D printer, a digital printer. That we
53:51we have digital information that
53:53produces a three-dimensional structure
53:55or engineers would know about what's
53:57called CAD CAM, computer-assisted design
54:00and engineering where an engineer will
54:01sit at the console, write some code,
54:04it'll go down a wire, it'll be
54:05translated into another machine code
54:08that can be read at a manufacturing
54:09apparatus. And then that manufacturing
54:12apparatus, for example, if you're at the
54:13Boeing plant in Seattle where we are,
54:15might put the use that information to
54:17put rivets on the airplane wing at
54:19exactly the right place. So, you've got
54:21digital information producing a
54:23three-dimensional mechanical structure.
54:26That's what's going on inside cells.
54:28That is the kind of technology that we
54:29have encountered in the interior of what
54:32used to be thought of as simple
54:33homogeneous globule of plasma. So, that
54:36and and to explain the origin of life,
54:37you've got to explain the
54:39those complex inner workings. And those
54:41inner workings I think scream design.
54:43Yeah.
54:44No, it's I mean it's fascinating. We've
54:46really, as we've been talking here, we
54:48really covered, you know, we a little
54:50bit more in-depth or a lot I mean the
54:52the substance of the interview has been
54:54about this the third part, which is the
54:56life aspect of the universe. Right, as
54:58opposed to like, you know, kind of the
55:00the origin itself, which, you know, we
55:03everybody's now familiar with the Big
55:05Bang. Yeah. And, you know, but not that
55:07nuance. I mean, again, fascinating. I
55:09love I also love the
55:11the graphics that you've kind of created
55:14to sort of build the story.
55:16>> did a great job with that with the
55:17production values. There's 400 visual
55:19effects in the film.
55:21Um there's gorgeous cinema-
55:22cinematography that takes you deep out
55:24into galactic space. And then uh and
55:27then the animations take people deep
55:29inside the cell where you can actually
55:30see these amazing processes. And that's
55:33where I would really commend the film
55:35because one picture If one picture's
55:37worth a thousand words, 400 moving
55:40visual effects really are are worth a
55:43lot more than we can convey in an
55:45interview because it's it just you see
55:47the evidence of design in front of you.
55:50And and I think that's what is for many
55:52people has given them an an epiphany
55:53watching the the film.
55:57I mean, this is
55:59this has been quite some time in the
56:01making for you. I mean, you've written
56:03quite a number of books.
56:05You know, that all kind of all point in
56:07this direction, right? And to and now
56:09it's the story of
56:11everything.
56:12>> Everything. Well, it's a bit of a we
56:14admit it's a little bit pretentious
56:15title, but that but by every but but
56:18it's literally true. We're talking about
56:19the universe, right? It's the story of
56:21where the universe came from, where it's
56:23fine-tuning structure came from, how
56:24that arose, and then how life arose
56:27within the universe. And those are the
56:28three big questions we look at. And in
56:30each case, the scientist the scientific
56:32discoveries of the last 100 years and
56:35right up to the present are pointing in
56:37a very different direction than people
56:39thought in the late 19th century.
56:41Uh not towards
56:42uh the the idea of a
56:44a self-existing, self-creating,
56:47self-organizing
56:48universe that can account for everything
56:51as a consequence of of uh
56:54of uh
56:55slow, gradual, undirected processes, but
56:58rather something that
56:59bears the hallmarks of of of a mind. And
57:03uh but information is a hallmark of
57:05mind. Um
57:06that kind of tight func- functional
57:08integration that we see in circuits or
57:11in in the eye. If we find the kinds of
57:13features that we find in living systems
57:15or in the fine-tuning of the universe in
57:17any other realm of experience, we would
57:19immediately conclude that they were the
57:21product of a creative intelligence. And
57:23yet we're finding them in parts of
57:24nature that we know we did not create.
57:26So, that implies that there was a
57:28creative intelligence that preceded us.
57:31So, what an amazing film you've put
57:32together? Again, I want to encourage
57:34everyone to go see it and uh you know,
57:36especially the kind of this another one
57:38of the parts that we didn't talk at all
57:40about is the kind of you know, the
57:42unique
57:43set of variables that you call it the
57:45fine-tuning of the universe to get the
57:47very specific elements. This is
57:49something I almost knew nothing about
57:51and you know, the fascinating compelling
57:53arguments you make in the film.
57:55Um yeah, a a final thought as we finish
57:58up?
57:59Well, uh
58:00I appreciated the deep dive that you've
58:03elicited on biology. I forgot that you
58:05had such an extensive biology
58:06background. So, we talked quite a bit
58:08more about the uh even the the question
58:11of biological evolution than than
58:14uh we went probably deeper on that here
58:15in the conversation that we do in the
58:16film.
58:17Uh in the film we do a a quite a bit on
58:19the question of the origin of the first
58:21life and and then the uh the I'll tell
58:25I'll tell you what I like about the film
58:26uh because it's an adaptation of my my
58:29the third of my three books, the Return
58:32of the God Hypothesis.
58:33And I think the producers did a fabulous
58:35job. It weaves together
58:37um a very compelling argument and it
58:39weaves into that argument stories of the
58:42discoveries of these these uh three
58:44different classes of evidence that we
58:46think have theistic implications, the
58:48evidence that the universe had a
58:49beginning, that it was as you say finely
58:51tuned from the beginning to make life
58:53possible, and then the discoveries about
58:55the inner complexity and the the the
58:58informational complexity of the cell.
59:01But it additionally it tells some really
59:02great stories. The stories of the
59:04scientists who who have disco- who
59:06discovered that those different those
59:08different things, but also how those
59:10discoveries affected them at not just a
59:12scientific level, but it at a at a
59:14deeper personal level. How many of them
59:16shifted their their overall worldview
59:20away from the strict materialism that
59:21they had started with to something that
59:24was uh
59:25uh, sympathetic to the idea that there
59:27was a designing intelligence behind the
59:29universe. Some even had full-blown
59:30religious conversions. And we So, we
59:32tell the stories of the scientists. And
59:34then the And then the the film is, uh,
59:36it's it's it's visually very beautiful
59:39with the the animations, the
59:41cinematography. So, it's the for for
59:43people who are believers in God, I think
59:45this is one of those films you can you
59:47can bring friends to without feeling
59:48you're going to be embarrassed, just the
59:50opposite. I think it will inspire some
59:52really great, uh, after-party
59:54discussions. So, uh, um,
59:56>> Absolutely. You know, I I do have one
59:57more question. And that is when you as
1:00:00you're, um,
1:00:04framing out, for example, these, you
1:00:05know, developmental pathways, the
1:00:07protein developmental pathways, and so
1:00:09forth.
1:00:10Um, I was and the integrated circuit
1:00:12analogy, I was thinking to myself, the
1:00:13people that believe that we live in a
1:00:15simulation, this probably all makes a
1:00:18lot of sense to them. So, so is that the
1:00:21Is this Is this really your argument?
1:00:22>> We have We have a little nod to the
1:00:24simulation theory. And the The first
1:00:26thing to say about the simulation
1:00:28theory, which has become very popular
1:00:29with a lot of tech people, is that
1:00:31that's a theory of intelligent design.
1:00:33It implies that there was a master
1:00:34programmer, but it also it goes beyond
1:00:37that to suggest that somehow our reality
1:00:39is is
1:00:41simulative of of real reality, that
1:00:43we're we're not really There's something
1:00:44illusory about what we're experiencing.
1:00:47And there I repair to one of the, uh,
1:00:50classical arguments in philosophy with
1:00:52from Descartes, where he also dealt with
1:00:54his idea that maybe we were the product
1:00:56of some kind of evil demon that was
1:00:59that was deceiving us into thinking that
1:01:00we existed. But then he argued, "Well,
1:01:03if we've been deceived into thinking we
1:01:05exist, and we're thinking conscious
1:01:08agents thinking that we exist, um,
1:01:11having this this false thought, the very
1:01:14fact that we're having thought and that
1:01:15we're consciously aware of something,
1:01:17even if it's allegedly deceptive, means
1:01:20that we're actually alive and aware and
1:01:22and and therefore
1:01:24uh, um, we do exist. I think therefore I
1:01:26am. So I kind of think that this
1:01:28simulation idea it's it's a it's a way
1:01:31of talking about intelligent design
1:01:33without going all the way to thinking
1:01:35about a God, but it does imply a master
1:01:37programmer and I think the idea that
1:01:39that our our experience is in some way
1:01:42an illusion is itself a self-defeating
1:01:45proposition. So uh Um we we we refute it
1:01:49much more simply in the film with David
1:01:51Berlinski saying something very
1:01:53dismissive and quite funny about it. So
1:01:55for people who are fans of Berlinski,
1:01:56you'll definitely want to see that.
1:01:59Well, Stephen Meyer, it's such a
1:02:00pleasure to have had you on. It's been a
1:02:02great conversation, Yanni. Thank you
1:02:03very much.
1:02:05Thank you all for joining Stephen Meyer
1:02:06and me on this episode of American
1:02:08Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Yanni
1:02:10Yacoub.
1:02:12Has the universe always been here or
1:02:15is it finite? Here is evidence for what
1:02:18can only be described as a supernatural
1:02:21event.
1:02:22The universe, it bears everywhere
1:02:24[music]
1:02:25the fingerprints of its creator.
1:02:27>> Surprisingly, it is science that has
1:02:29revealed this.
1:02:31We are dealing with a system of manifold
1:02:34complex [music] design.
1:02:36>> The concept of life as a cosmic
1:02:38phenomenon should have many
1:02:39consequences. [music]
1:02:44The question then was what does one do
1:02:47about it?

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