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Why Stephen Meyer Thinks DNA Points to a Mind — Transcript

by Stephen Meyer · 2,394 words · 353 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Now maybe the most exciting of all the
0:01discovery stories for for Cambridge is
0:03the dis is the Watson and Crick story
0:05and the whole story of what's called the
0:07molecular biological revolution. And
0:09this is the third big discovery that I
0:11talk about that's not compatible with
0:13the scientific materialism of Richard
0:15Dawkins. The fine-tuning isn't by the
0:17way as well. It's not a property you
0:18would expect if you were trying to
0:20explain the universe by reference to
0:22blind pitiles indifference. Um the the
0:26go-to atheistic explanation now is that
0:28there's a gabillion other universes out
0:30there and we just happen to be in the
0:31lucky one where all the fine-tuning
0:33parameters got just right. Um we can
0:35talk about that in the Q&A if you like.
0:38In any case, the big discovery that
0:40perhaps the most famous of all the
0:41discoveries with god-friendly
0:42implications was the the discovery of
0:45DNA and not just this the structure of
0:48DNA which was first discovered here in
0:491953 but also the discovery that DNA
0:52contains digital information in uh an
0:57alphabetic or digital form. The
0:59discovery was first made by Watson and
1:01Crick. The elucidation of the of the DNA
1:05structure was first made by Watson and
1:06Crick in 1953. And their famous model
1:10involved uh what was called a sugar
1:12phosphate backbone and then what were
1:16called bases that were carrying
1:18information along the inside of the of
1:19of the molecule. In in on February 28th,
1:241953,
1:26they walked into a pub, the Eagle Pub.
1:28Some of us have been talking about ma of
1:31going there and having a pint to
1:33celebrate. It's pretty it's this was
1:35also the watering hole of William
1:36William Wilburforce by the way. Um and
1:39it's just it's just steps away from that
1:41Caendish door which I think is is lovely
1:44because inside the Caendish laboratory
1:46you can look in the window where Watson
1:48and Crick were doing their modeling. And
1:51so if you find the door, look in the
1:52window to the right and you'll see where
1:54they were working out the structure of
1:56the DNA molecule. The day they they they
1:59figured it out and it clic all the
2:00pieces clicked into place, Crick stood
2:03back and said, "It's so beautiful. It's
2:06got to be right." And so they walked
2:09down the street just a few hundred steps
2:10to the Eagle Pub and announced to the
2:13people there drinking that they had
2:16discovered the secret of life. I don't
2:18know if it was drinks on the house or
2:20not, but it was a, you know, quite quite
2:22an atmosphere. And today you'll right
2:24outside the pub you'll see a plaque uh
2:27and you can see that if you go on the
2:30well this this this these pictures are
2:31in your self-guided walking tour. Now I
2:35think an even more significant discovery
2:37was made by by Francis Crick 5 years
2:41later in in 1958. He formulated
2:44something called the sequence
2:46hypothesis.
2:47And what he realized was that along the
2:51interior of that twisting double helix
2:54were chemical subunits of the molecule
2:58that were functioning like alphabetic
3:01characters in a written language or
3:03digital characters, zeros and ones in a
3:05section of m machine code. You may know
3:07that Bill Gates has said the DNA is like
3:09a software program but much more complex
3:11than any we've ever written. It's pretty
3:14suggestive remark. We'll come back to
3:15that. And Crick uh was the first to
3:18realize that DNA is containing
3:21information in a digital form. And what
3:23he thought the information was doing was
3:25providing instructions for building the
3:28big protein molecules that are crucial
3:31to keeping living cells alive. You may
3:34have seen some of my my uh visual aids
3:37on this, but proteins are made of
3:38smaller subunits called amino acids. And
3:41if they're arranged just right, then the
3:44forces between them will c cause these
3:46long chain-like molecules to fold into
3:48very specific shapes. And then those
3:51shapes will perform uh if the if the
3:54shapes are right, then they have a hand
3:55and gloves fit with other molecules in
3:58the cell. And uh and then they'll do a
4:01job and they do lots of jobs. They do
4:03all the important jobs. You can think of
4:04proteins as like the toolbox of the
4:06cell. just as in the toolbox we have a
4:08hammer and a and a and a and and a
4:10wrench and a saw and they do jobs in
4:12virtue of their their their
4:14three-dimensional shape and structure.
4:16Well, the same thing is true in the
4:17proteins. Some of them catalyze
4:19reactions. Some of them um express the
4:22information on DNA. Others of them form
4:24the parts of miniature machines that
4:26cells need to stay alive. So there's all
4:28this intricate machinery in cells and
4:30it's all made from and and and the
4:33machines are made of the proteins and
4:35the proteins are constructed as a result
4:37of the information on the DNA molecule.
4:41So good analogy would be um something
4:44like are people familiar with digital
4:46printers? Do you are you familiar with
4:48those the way now we can yeah we can use
4:50digital code and the printers will print
4:52they don't print out paper they print
4:53out you know pieces of garage doors or
4:56or you physical objects that do things
5:00or engineers here will be familiar with
5:02the CAD CAM technology computer assisted
5:04design and engineering in Seattle we
5:06have Boeing and at Boeing the the uh the
5:09the engineers will write code the code
5:11will go down a wire it will be converted
5:13into another machine language that can
5:15be read at a manufacturing apparatus And
5:17then the manufacturing apparatus will
5:20put the the for example the rivets on
5:22the airplane wing in just the right
5:24place in accord with the specifications
5:26of the code written by the engineer. So
5:29we use we do this all the time now. We
5:30have digital information directing the
5:33construction of mechanical parts and
5:34systems. That's what's going on inside
5:37cells. And that's what Crick first
5:41realized and it was later confirmed by a
5:43whole series of really fascinating exper
5:44experiments. Now, one of the other
5:46scientists who was here at Cambridge was
5:48the guy who figured out what the
5:50proteins were doing. And so, you have
5:52the DNA guys and the protein guys right
5:54here at the same time figuring it all
5:56out. And now there's a a laboratory that
5:59and the guy, one of the key guys here
6:01was named Max Perutes. He got the Nobel
6:03Prize in 1962 for his work on protein
6:06structure. Watson Crick got their Nobel
6:08Prize about the same time. and they now
6:10this this period of immense scientific
6:13creativity which was almost all
6:15happening here although Rockefeller
6:17Institute got into it some people in
6:19France as well but it was it's an
6:20amazing story how they how they
6:22uncracked this what's really fun is that
6:25Francis Crick was a codereaker in World
6:28War II and he ended up breaking the
6:30ultimate code the irony is that Crick
6:33and Watson were also strict scientific
6:36materialists they were atheists and they
6:38were looking for the material basis is
6:40for life. And they thought they found it
6:43in 1953
6:45until Crick realized it's not just a
6:47molecule.
6:49It's a molecule that contains code.
6:52And that discovery ends up being
6:55foundational. It provides evidence of
6:57what we're going to call intelligent
6:59design. And it it's it has created a
7:01complete impass in evolutionary theory.
7:03people cannot account for the origin of
7:05the information needed to build the
7:07first life or subsequent forms of life.
7:09I don't know if if Doug is here in the
7:11room. Uh we'll hear a little bit later
7:13in the week from Doug. He's another
7:16great Cambridge scientist and I don't
7:18say that just because he's my friend. He
7:21did an amazing bit of work here for 14
7:23years and he interacted with Max
7:25Perutes. He was in the laboratory that
7:26Watson Crick and Perutes and others
7:28founded called the LL uh uh the
7:31laboratory for molecular biology. right
7:33here. And so we'll hear a bit more of
7:34Doug's story later in the week. But in
7:37any case, even though Watson and Crick
7:39were looking for the material foundation
7:41for life, what they actually found was
7:43something more like software. And and
7:46Bill Gates has said the DNA is like a
7:48computer program, but far more advanced
7:50than ever any we've ever created. And
7:52this is where
7:55sort of this part of the story
7:57intersects with my story. I was I
8:00attended this conference that I
8:01mentioned in Dallas in 1985. I heard the
8:03cosmologists talking about the evidence
8:05for a creation event. But I also heard
8:08scientists talking about the question of
8:09the origin of life and how the new
8:11discoveries in molecular biology about
8:13the informationbearing properties of DNA
8:17had completely changed the terms of
8:19debate.
8:20Turns out by the mid80s no one could
8:23understand where this information had
8:24come from. That was the thing they
8:27couldn't explain. If you want to explain
8:28the origin of the first life from
8:29simpler non-living chemicals, well,
8:32that's all great. You can imagine the
8:33chemicals knocking into each other, but
8:35how are chemical undirected chemical
8:37reactions going to get you code? That
8:40didn't seem very plausible. And one of
8:43the scientists at this conference had
8:45just written a book called The Mystery
8:46of Life's Origin. And in the epilogue to
8:48that book, he suggested that the
8:51information that was proving so
8:53perplexing to everyone trying to explain
8:55the origin of life was not evidence of
8:58an undirected chemical process, but
9:01rather
9:03possibly the product of what he called
9:05an intelligent cause. And this was Dr.
9:08Charles Thaxton who is in in Dallas. And
9:11his his reasoning was very
9:13straightforward. He said in our
9:14experience information is a mind
9:17product. Software comes from programmers
9:20after all. So maybe you we've been
9:23working for two decades trying to
9:24explain the origin of the information in
9:26DNA as a result of chemical reactions.
9:28And the chemistry doesn't want to do
9:29that. The chemistry is Jim Tour you may
9:32have seen him online says chemistry
9:34doesn't care about life. It doesn't want
9:35to move in a life- friendly direction.
9:38And so Thaxton suggested, well, maybe
9:40what we're seeing is evidence of an
9:42intelligent cause. Well, I attended the
9:44conference, friends introduced me
9:46afterwards, and I started going to his
9:48office late at night. And over the
9:50ensuing year, I received some very, very
9:54uh consequential mentoring. And by the
9:58time I got to applying for a Rotary
10:02scholarship to come to Cambridge, I
10:03already knew what I wanted to work on. I
10:05wanted to work on this origin of life
10:07question specifically with the with
10:09wondering whether there might be
10:11evidence of actual intelligent design.
10:14Was it possible I was wondering that you
10:16could formulate a scientific theory or
10:19scientific argument for intelligent
10:21design? Now arguably the person that
10:23helped me think this through most was
10:26another Cambridge person again Charles
10:28Darwin. And even though I disagreed with
10:31his his theory about the origin of the
10:34origin of new forms of life is he had
10:36developed a method of reasoning that
10:39directly applied to this origin
10:41question. It was a method of historical
10:43scientific reasoning rather than sitting
10:45at the at at the laboratory bench and
10:48trying to get some process to uh occur
10:51under controlled laboratory conditions.
10:53What historical scientists tried to do
10:54is look at clues and reason back to what
10:57might have caused those clues to emerge.
11:00My PhD thesis ended up being called of
11:02clues and causes. And so how do you get
11:05from the clues back to the causes? And
11:07Darwin said, "Well, there's a way. What
11:09you want to do is you want to infer the
11:13best explanation. We don't get to see
11:15what happened, but we know something
11:17about cause and effect. And so we can
11:18figure out what is the most likely cause
11:21of a given effect that we're looking at
11:22in the in the present if we know how
11:25cause and effect works. And while I was
11:27working at that uh there at that there
11:30was a young professor from the United
11:31States who came to do a a job talk here
11:34to candidate for a position in my
11:36department the department of philosophy
11:37of science here at Cambridge. He ended
11:39up getting the job and he left behind a
11:41manuscript for me called inference to
11:43the best explanation
11:45and he later came and actually rose to
11:47the to become the the head of the
11:49department and um what Lip Peter Lipton
11:53was his name and what he highlighted was
11:54a question philosophers were asking.
11:56Yes, we see the scientists are doing
11:58this inferring to the best explanation
12:00method.
12:02But what makes him an explanation best
12:05and as I got deeper into his work and
12:07some of the work of the 19th century uh
12:10philosophers and scientists I found a
12:13consensus was actually already present
12:15that the best explanation is the one
12:17that posits a cause which is known to
12:20produce the effect in question. I found
12:22this in the work of H William Hule for
12:25whom we're naming our center and also in
12:27the work of Charles Lyel a famous
12:29geologist whose work Darwin read on the
12:32beagle and when I saw the title page of
12:37of Lyel's book a light went on for me.
12:39Here's here's a long Victorian title. It
12:42says the principles of geology being an
12:44attempt to explain the former changes of
12:46the earth's surface by reference to
12:48causes now in operation.
12:51I got to causes now and oh we explain
12:54what's what we see today by reference to
12:56causes that we know produce that thing
12:57causes we see at work today so I asked
12:59myself a question what is the cause now
13:02in operation that produces digital code
13:06and I realized there was only one was a
13:08mind it was an intelligence whenever we
13:10see information especially if it's an
13:13alphabetic or digital form whether it's
13:16in a hieroglyphic inscription like the
13:18Rosetta Stone at the British Museum or a
13:21newspaper headline or a section of
13:23software code or information embedded in
13:25a radio signal.

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