A Guide to the Stephen Meyer Podcast Episode

Meyer: If we think of the term evolution, in fact, I’ve written an article with an historian of science, Michael Keas about the different meanings of evolution, but there are at least three, and those three can be helpfully distinguished from one another. The first would be the concept of change over time. In the biological realm, that typically refers to things like the peppered moths or changing their coloration over time, it can refer to small scale micro evolutionary variation. Or the simple fact that life on the planet today is different than it was quite a long time ago. So that’s evolution, number one—change over time. No one in the Intelligent Design network of folks rejects that that’s a pretty standard understanding. (17:32)

Meyer: I think the theory of intelligent design is a properly scientific hypothesis. It is developed. And I developed it self-consciously using the same method of scientific reasoning that Darwin used in the Origin of Species, that is to say, I employ a method known as multiple competing hypotheses or inference to the best explanation. And it’s a standard method of reasoning used in a number of disciplines, but especially in historical scientific disciplines that are concerned to establish a causal explanation for events in the remote past. And so when we’re dealing with origins questions, there are two basic possibilities either undirected material processes produced the events, or structures that we want to explain, or the creative intelligence played a role. And I think a fully rational scientific discourse should be open to hypotheses of both types. And what has happened is that since Darwin, the rule of methodological naturalism has come to predominate or to ascend to the established as normative. And that has limited the intellectual freedom of scientists to consider the possibility that what they’re looking at is actually the product of a designing intelligence. (42:04)

Meyer: I wrote a whole book, as you know, about the Cambrian Explosion, which is an event in the history of life in which most of the major animal body plans emerge abruptly in the fossil record, within windows of time that are far too short for the mutation selection mechanism or any other evolutionary mechanism on offer to to account for the amount of innovation morphological innovation that arises. (21:00)

Meyer: I see profound evidence of discontinuity particularly in what are called orphan genes, genes that have no known sequence similarity to any other organism in the phylogenetic landscape, and in, especially at higher taxonomic categories. Orphan genes are turning out to be quite prevalent across the landscape. (22:49)

Meyer: For example, when we look at the Cambrian Explosion, one of the deep puzzles, one which our mutual colleague, Darrell Falk, acknowledged in his review of my last book, is the role of what are called gene regulatory networks—development, developmental gene regulatory networks. These are essentially networks that are– they’re functioning like integrated circuits that control the flow of information and the and the differentiation of cells and cell types during animal development. And what we’ve learned in studying these in the laboratory in model systems in developmental biology, is that they cannot be altered or altered very much at all without deleterious and indeed lethal effects to the organisms that possess them. And yet to build a new form of animal life you need an absolutely new developmental gene regulatory network. It’s not one size fits all. So it raises this deep puzzle in evolutionary developmental biology. How do you generate innovation in the form of new body plans, when what is needed are new developmental gene regulatory networks, when pre-existing developmental gene regulatory networks cannot be altered, without lethal consequences. And so this, this, to me suggests the need for a novel innovation for a separate origin for these animals, they do not look to be capable of arising by a series of gradual steps from something simpler. (24:23)

Meyer: I think there’s a very strong design argument to be made about the origin of the photosynthetic process. It’s an irreducibly complex system with multiple interacting components. Setting that up in the beginning, would be very difficult to accomplish by any known natural process. (58:14)

Meyer’s Response: I think God created the universe, I think he had something very specific to do with setting up our planetary system with all the fine tuning localized fine tuning parameters. But but one of the parts of, I think, an appropriate natural, a biblical natural theology, one that I would subscribe to, and one that I think most intelligent design advocates subscribe to is the idea that there are intelligent causes. There can be evidence of discrete activity of intelligent agency. But there are also what are what used to be called secondary causes that natural natural entities have causal powers and properties associated with them that can be studied and learned. And so explaining our world may require only an appeal to secondary causes, or might appeal require an appeal to intelligent causes and might require an appeal to both depending on the types of signatures or the types of effects that we’re looking at. And I hold the latter position. (50:26)