“Doom” and Boom

Rob’s out in an interview with Greg Gutfield, so it’s just Peter and James this week. Even so we’ve got a packed podcast-full of wonders and terrors. First up is Niall Ferguson to discuss his brand new book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. He and the hosts explore our fascination with disaster. (Be sure to catch his interview with Peter on Uncommon Knowledge as well!) Then they’re joined by Stephen Meyer, who has a new book of his own: Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal The Mind Behind The Universe. (We’ve got UK episode for that as well!) Also, Peter is shocked to learn Biden’s economy is sputtering and James sets the record straight-on what, you ask? Listen to find out.

Music from this week’s episode: God Only Knows by the Beach Boys.

Subscribe to The Ricochet Podcast in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.

Please Support Our Sponsor!

ExpressVPN

Now become a Ricochet member for only $5.00 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing.

There are 70 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Marythefifth Inactive
    Marythefifth
    @Marythefifth

    I think there should never be debates about the covid vaccines here on Ricochet with no one mentioning the existence of the treatments. Let’s don’t act like they’re not part of the discussion, please!

    • #61
  2. Scott Wilmot Member
    Scott Wilmot
    @ScottWilmot

    Marythefifth (View Comment):

    I think there should never be debates about the covid vaccines here on Ricochet with no one mentioning the existence of the treatments. Let’s don’t act like they’re not part of the discussion, please!

    See comment #28

    • #62
  3. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    Marythefifth (View Comment):

    I think there should never be debates about the covid vaccines here on Ricochet with no one mentioning the existence of the treatments. Let’s don’t act like they’re not part of the discussion, please!

    See comment #28

    If you click on the number – it’ll give you a link to the comment:

    https://ricochet.com/podcast/ricochet-podcast/doom-and-boom/#comment-5445653

     

     

     

    • #63
  4. Gazpacho Grande' Coolidge
    Gazpacho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    I just don’t get the huge push to get vaccinated. I won’t do it. Many reasons: cells from an aborted fetus used in testing, experimental gene therapy, emergency use authorization only (how did this get approve when we have Ivermectin and Hydroxychloriquine?), and idiots like this (see below) telling me to get vaccinated and hoping to censor any information she doesn’t like.

    No thanks.

     

    Her face needs a vaccination.

    • #64
  5. Wolfsheim Member
    Wolfsheim
    @Wolfsheim

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Prof. Meyer seems to show a great lack of faith in God in his approach to science. The realm of science is not really the who, but the how. Even if science proves there is a who there, the materialistic atheists are not going to believe any more than they have to. The question will recurse just as much, who created the “god” who created this universe? What was the “god” that added information to this universe? Can that “god” be observed and analyzed from this universe?

    I also think it’s a very large leap to say, this system shows an encoding system, and other such encoding systems were encoded by intelligence, so the best explanation is an intelligence coded this system. (Yes, I know this is simplifying his argument.) Couldn’t “intelligence” (if there be such a thing) arise from the fact that it is encoded from chemicals? In other words, couldn’t the recursiveness work the other direction that we code because we are encoded? Computer programs came from Jacquard looms. Did Jacquard’s inspirations come from nature? Is our soi disant intelligence real or just patterns built on patterns?

    All of these questions come back to recursion eventually. None are as answered or as cut-and-dried as your guest makes out.

    As a young man I once met in France Mormon missionaries from America. I knew little about their religion and so was surprised to learn that they believe that God is a physical being. Questioning led to a curt response: “Well, of course God has to obey the laws of the universe!” My thought, no doubt regarded as unfair in Mormon theology, was immediately: “This is pantheistic paganism!” C.S. Lewis remarks that pantheism is the natural inclination of the (fallen) human mind…Theism posits non-contingent being, which to the human mind is inconceivable, and so we wind up falling back either on recursiveness or on a vague sort of “causation-less” reality that assumes that things are the way they are simply because that’s the way they are… 

    • #65
  6. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Wolfsheim (View Comment):
    C.S. Lewis remarks that pantheism is the natural inclination of the (fallen) human mind…Theism posits non-contingent being, which to the human mind is inconceivable, and so we wind up falling back either on recursiveness or on a vague sort of “causation-less” reality that assumes that things are the way they are simply because that’s the way they are… 

    I don’t think a limited approach to science’s scope limits beliefs, other than a limited belief in the questions science can answer. Again, one might see it as the “How” versus the “Who” or the “Why.” I think believing in “Science” starts to become a form of nature, Gaia-worshiping pantheism if people are not very careful. And people are seldom very careful. There are things science can determine. There are things that science is limited from determining.

    • #66
  7. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Wolfsheim (View Comment):
    C.S. Lewis remarks that pantheism is the natural inclination of the (fallen) human mind…Theism posits non-contingent being, which to the human mind is inconceivable, and so we wind up falling back either on recursiveness or on a vague sort of “causation-less” reality that assumes that things are the way they are simply because that’s the way they are…

    I don’t think a limited approach to science’s scope limits beliefs, other than a limited belief in the questions science can answer. Again, one might see it as the “How” versus the “Who” or the “Why.” I think believing in “Science” starts to become a form of nature, Gaia-worshiping pantheism if people are not very careful. And people are seldom very careful. There are things science can determine. There are things that science is limited from determining.

    Someone on Twitter recently, after Neil DeGrasse Tyson bestowed some wisdom on us, pointed out that in many cases you can replace the word “science” with the word “the Bible”, or “God”, and not change the meaning of the statement.

     I believe the specific example from Mr. DGT was something along the lines of “The thing about Science is that its true, whether you believe in it or not”.

     

    • #67
  8. ericB Lincoln
    ericB
    @ericB

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):
    I believe the specific example from Mr. DGT was something along the lines of “The thing about Science is that its true, whether you believe in it or not”.

    Of course, there are no theories in science that have an unqualified guarantee to be true (regardless of whether they are believed or not).  It is in the nature of science that theories are held in a tentative way that is always subject to further evidence.  With every major paradigm shift within science, some idea that was the “consensus” before is dropped in favor of something else that fits the evidence better.

    If NdGT really did say “The thing about Science is that its true, whether you believe in it or not”, then that would indicate that he doesn’t understand very well what science (or “Science”??) is.  He has confused the current set of scientific theories with reality itself, as if there is never any difference.  Everyone familiar with the attempts of science to model reality understands that our models are not reality itself.

    Most of my career has been involved with scientific research.  It was while at a collaborating research facility, that I first saw the following bit of humble wisdom.

    In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they’re not.

    • #68
  9. ericB Lincoln
    ericB
    @ericB

    Charlotte (View Comment):
    Okay, I’ve listened to intelligent design proponents George Gilder, David Berlinski, and Stephen Meyer in good faith (so to speak). These gentlemen all use a lot of multisyllabic important-sounding sciencey words but I just cannot take any of it seriously. It all seems to down to, “it must be so because I hate the thought of it not being so.” Sorry.

    Would you take crime scene investigation (CSI) seriously?  CSI methods were actually inspired by the stories about the fictional character Sherlock Holmes.  Now that method of reasoning figures prominently, not only in criminal investigation but in every field where we can study the effects of past events to try to infer…

    “What must have happened in the past that would account for the evidence we see being as it is now?”

    That reasoning from observable effects back to the necessary and sufficient causes is sometimes called abductive reasoning.  It is also referred to as reasoning to the best explanation.  Of all the things that might have happened before, what cause best fits these effects?

    It is an essential part of scientific reasoning about past events.

    For example, the kind of information we see stored in DNA is not like seeing a planet move across a distant sun.  It includes coded information that stores a recipe for constructing the very rare sequence of a functional protein according to a particular coding convention, i.e. the genetic code of that organism.

    There are no coherent ideas about how mindless matter would make functional proteins without stored recipes or adopt a coding convention and use it to store recipes for future proteins that must be implemented by a decoding translation machine (a ribosome).

    It is like trying to imagine mindless matter creating a meaningfully encoded DVD before there is a DVD player for that encoding, or creating the DVD player before there are any DVDs.

    A system that processes meaningful, functional, coded information according to an adopted convention requires intention to implement an imagined system by choice.  All of that requires an intelligent mind as its cause.

    • #69
  10. ericB Lincoln
    ericB
    @ericB

    p.s. About

    Charlotte (View Comment):
    It all seems to down to, “it must be so because I hate the thought of it not being so.” Sorry.

    In the story of Robinson Crusoe on a deserted island, when he first found someone else’s footprint in the sand, he was “terrified to the last degree”.  (People can also hate the thought of something “being so“.)  But since the footprint did not match his own foot and it could not be adequately explained by other causes, he was compelled to conclude that he was not alone.

    Atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel has written:

    “I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

    Nevertheless, credit where credit is due, despite that feeling on the matter, in his book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Nagel writes with appreciation for skeptic David Berlinski and ID proponents such as Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer.

    In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by criticisms of the prevailing scientific world picture… by the defenders of intelligent design. … Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair.

    and

    I believe the defenders of intelligent design deserve our gratitude for challenging a scientific world view that owes some of the passion displayed by its adherents precisely to the fact that it is thought to liberate us from religion. That world view is ripe for displacement….

    The evidence matters more than our preferences.

    • #70
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.