Stephen Meyer, John Lennox, and James Tour: Three Scientists on the Origins of Everything

It is striking that the best minds in Western world once believed that the universe was static, eternal and pointless. A concomitant lazy assumption was that with all that infinite time, the accidental emergence of complex forms could have happened. With enough rolls a pair of dice could yield a thirteen.

An equally lazy assumption was that the Miller-Urey experiment was sufficient to explain the origin of life. In the seven decades since, science has unveiled the complexity and striking order of living cells and no one has come close to abiotic generation of living forms. (Dr. Tour's take from the standpoint of biochemistry was powerful).

A modern paradigm is to see genetics and patterns as forms of information. "Intelligent design" is not a sneaky theocratic conspiracy but a genuinely scientific hypothesis, a way of accounting for what we are increasingly observing. The unscientific rear-guard action to preserve the simpler, pointless, accidental paradigm is more about outmoded sensibilities than science.

The panelists offered much to think about.

A similar topic covered on Uncommon Knowledge (that series is a real treasure, thank you, Peter) provided an insight by David Berlinski that I used to great effect in a recent casual conversation with a smug materialist friend who opined that only things that can be observed and measured are real. I asked about the length and weight of a quadratic equation, the color and chemical composition of pi and how many integers could fit in a gallon jar. A universe permeated with so much math and information is too interesting to be subjected to kneejerk reductionism.

Great stuff. Thanks.

Old Bathos (View Comment):

A similar topic covered on Uncommon Knowledge (that series is a real treasure, thank you, Peter) provided an insight by David Berlinski that I used to great effect in a recent casual conversation with a smug materialist friend who opined that only things that can be observed and measured are real.

If that were true then all knowledge would be verifiable.

But then how could we know that verifying even works? Verifying can't prove itself. It can only prove other stuff.

Old Bathos (View Comment):
A similar topic covered on Uncommon Knowledge (that series is a real treasure, thank you, Peter) provided an insight by David Berlinski that I used to great effect in a recent casual conversation with a smug materialist friend who opined that only things that can be observed and measured are real.

Saint Augustine (View Comment):

If that were true then all knowledge would be verifiable.

But then how could we know that verifying even works? Verifying can’t prove itself. It can only prove other stuff.

Just ask me. I'll tell you.

Old Bathos (View Comment):
A similar topic covered on Uncommon Knowledge (that series is a real treasure, thank you, Peter) provided an insight by David Berlinski that I used to great effect in a recent casual conversation with a smug materialist friend who opined that only things that can be observed and measured are real.

Saint Augustine (View Comment):

If that were true then all knowledge would be verifiable.

But then how could we know that verifying even works? Verifying can’t prove itself. It can only prove other stuff.

"Verifying"? is that like mansplaining or math or some other patriarchal imposition on my truth?

I've watched James Tour speak on other videos, though I have not watched this one yet. He has given the most plausible explanations I have ever seen against the mathematical possibility that life could have occurred by pure chance.