Darwinist Professor Agrees with Muslim (2019-08-04) ​

0:00:00 I like to start by giving everybody a
0:00:03 form of prayer may God's peace and
0:00:06 blessings be upon every single one of
0:00:08 you and welcome to tonight's discussion
0:00:11 and I think it's a very important topic
0:00:13 it's an important topic between
0:00:15 believers atheists skeptics and those in
0:00:20 between the discussion tonight will
0:00:23 examine whether the belief in evolution
0:00:25 disproves the existence of a creator and
0:00:29 how Darwin's theory of evolution is
0:00:32 utilized understood and conveyed in
0:00:36 contemporary society the structure is
0:00:39 going to be very simple we're gonna have
0:00:41 approximately 20 minutes each from each
0:00:44 of the speakers then there'll be a
0:00:47 discussion between the speakers followed
0:00:50 by a question-and-answer session
0:00:54 everyone is mature everyone is polite
0:00:59 everyone is tolerant everyone is
0:01:00 compassionate everyone is a decent human
0:01:03 being we've all evolved to become get
0:01:07 the drunk milk alright so basically let
0:01:11 me introduce our respected speakers we
0:01:13 have on my right professor Jeremy
0:01:18 Pritchard he's an active biologist and a
0:01:21 senior lecturer in the school of
0:01:23 Biosciences at the University of
0:01:26 Birmingham his research career started
0:01:29 in Wales and currently he focused
0:01:31 focuses on aphids in Birmingham with
0:01:34 stops in the USA New Zealand and Europe
0:01:37 he has published in many prominent
0:01:40 journals including the Journal of
0:01:42 Experimental Biology global change
0:01:45 biology and biotechnology Letters his
0:01:48 expertise is in how plants grow and are
0:01:52 affected by changes in environment the
0:01:55 stress including insect pests his
0:02:00 expertise is also in evolution and
0:02:03 creationism and he teaches and in
0:02:05 teaching and learning strategies at the
0:02:07 school and university he's a
0:02:10 card-carrying Darwinist I don't know
0:02:13 what that
0:02:13 maybe we'll find out today and is
0:02:15 involved in teaching evolution on all
0:02:17 levels from primary school to university
0:02:21 of the Third Age please give him a warm
0:02:26 welcome also to my right we have support
0:02:37 Ahmed he is a well-known public speaker
0:02:40 and writer who has debated prominent
0:02:43 academics on philosophy and science
0:02:46 he is currently pursuing postgraduate
0:02:49 studies and philosophy and has a
0:02:51 particular interest in the philosophy of
0:02:53 biology and is specializing in this
0:02:56 field he is also the co-author of a
0:02:59 forthcoming book called failed
0:03:01 hypothesis essays on the philosophy of
0:03:04 science
0:03:05 atheism consciousness Darwinism and
0:03:08 Islam so I don't know who's going first
0:03:13 I do apologize professor professor if
0:03:16 you don't mind please the audience thank
0:03:19 you thank you
0:03:22 [Music]
0:03:23 ok so nice to be here nice to talk to
0:03:28 you about this the question wasn't quite
0:03:30 as specific as you just had as opposed
0:03:33 to me was does evolution undermined God
0:03:38 and in my philosophy no it doesn't so
0:03:44 you know we can all go home now and I
0:03:51 have beliefs and not beliefs and I have
0:03:54 a view of the world but I thought what
0:03:57 would be useful is to briefly if we're
0:04:00 talking about the relationship between
0:04:01 religion and science I thought it would
0:04:05 be useful to briefly give an overview of
0:04:08 how I see science is coming to where it
0:04:11 is now from say the ancient Greeks okay
0:04:14 because I think I'm picking an
0:04:16 understanding where we are now and how
0:04:18 we look back helps us understand that
0:04:20 the type of question that you're posing
0:04:22 tonight so Darwin's great in
0:04:27 site from my view is that he provides us
0:04:31 with the so-called Tree of Life he
0:04:34 provides us with a coherent view of how
0:04:37 organisms are related how they've
0:04:39 changed through time and importantly and
0:04:42 people often overlook this how all
0:04:44 organisms are equal at sea for ends of
0:04:47 the branches of these trees of this tree
0:04:49 before Darwin people tended to think
0:04:53 about the organizing the world the
0:04:55 living world and then the inanimate
0:04:57 world as a hierarchy with some things
0:05:00 higher than others and and better than
0:05:03 others
0:05:05 Darwin's theory joins ideas that we
0:05:08 largely accept today are a mechanism of
0:05:12 biological change over the history of
0:05:16 how we came to the position that we
0:05:20 accept largely today the history of this
0:05:25 is not the history of how the mechanism
0:05:28 developed the ideas that Darwin had but
0:05:32 whether change had happened at all
0:05:35 biologically or even in the geological
0:05:38 world what I'm going to argue is in fact
0:05:44 that the development of those ideas of
0:05:46 change was dangerous to society and that
0:05:51 to some extent that was encapsulated in
0:05:53 the relationship and the developing
0:05:55 relationship and to some extent the
0:05:57 existing relationship between science
0:05:59 and religion science and God so the
0:06:02 Greeks for example would look at the
0:06:03 world and see the world like we do
0:06:05 organisms all around them they would see
0:06:08 stones beetles worms people maybe even
0:06:13 the gods and they would organize them
0:06:15 they would see that there was some
0:06:17 things were simple some things were
0:06:19 complicated and they would organize them
0:06:20 into a hierarchy like a ladder it's
0:06:23 simple things at the bottom and
0:06:24 complicated things at the top important
0:06:28 thing about this ladder is it's static
0:06:30 you can't move up it okay it's not like
0:06:33 a escalator and you Street Station
0:06:35 although they're often static these days
0:06:37 as you may well well know if you take
0:06:39 the train through new Street
0:06:40 however the important thing about this
0:06:43 is did this disconnected the living
0:06:46 world it was what we've referred to as
0:06:49 the Guru preached referred to as the
0:06:51 great chain of being and it gives us an
0:06:53 organization it means that things are
0:06:55 not random but it gives us some things
0:06:58 that we carry through today often in
0:07:01 error for example that complex things
0:07:03 are better which isn't necessarily true
0:07:05 and it gives us this idea of progress
0:07:07 that we should strive to move upwards
0:07:09 even though this this ladder does not
0:07:13 move so there's some concepts there that
0:07:15 are subsequently picked up in
0:07:18 particularly in Western medival society
0:07:22 and in Western society at that time in a
0:07:27 medieval time it was a feudal society
0:07:30 and you had all the money or the power
0:07:33 at the top of that hierarchy with the
0:07:36 slaves the serfs that workers at the
0:07:38 bottom with very little money it's in
0:07:40 the interest of a society like that that
0:07:43 nothing changes because if things change
0:07:45 the people in power lose some of that
0:07:48 power that influence and this you can
0:07:51 argue is encapsulated in in the Bible
0:07:55 story in the creation story and
0:07:58 Christian thought in which the world is
0:08:01 created in six days and then remains
0:08:04 like that subsequently things are
0:08:07 constant things do not change things are
0:08:11 always apt as they have been and to the
0:08:14 people at the bottom of the pile you
0:08:15 will receive your reward in heaven
0:08:18 so change is dangerous if you want some
0:08:24 evidence that that that is the case of
0:08:27 course at this time it was the
0:08:30 burgeoning of the of the the Islamic
0:08:33 science Golden Age and there were people
0:08:37 working like Philosopher's al-biruni
0:08:40 working on lots of things very famous in
0:08:43 fact it's got a crater named after him
0:08:45 on the moon Dark Side of the Moon so you
0:08:46 have to go around the moon in a
0:08:48 spacecraft to see it but he was thinking
0:08:51 about lots of things including simple
0:08:53 things what we might
0:08:54 nice is simple that rivers erode valleys
0:08:58 and carry the silt down the mountain and
0:09:01 deposited in a delta at the bottom
0:09:04 rivers changed the environment gradually
0:09:07 very simple idea and through a
0:09:10 convoluted series of because of the
0:09:14 library Alexandria burning down and the
0:09:18 Moors and the Christians in southern
0:09:20 Spain and libraries in Granada and so on
0:09:22 these ideas came to be picked up in the
0:09:24 West and developed and that they've been
0:09:26 picked up been used from the Greeks
0:09:28 through our balloons back to the West
0:09:30 and these are picked up in 1200 s by the
0:09:35 Pope and these were recognized as
0:09:37 dangerous ideas because they were ideas
0:09:39 about change
0:09:40 very simple we might think and they were
0:09:42 banned because the logical conclusion of
0:09:45 that if you follow it through is change
0:09:48 has happened and that what it says in
0:09:50 the Bible is not in fact true so ideas
0:09:54 have changed dangerous even in the West
0:09:57 at that time there was people studied
0:10:01 nature but they didn't study net and
0:10:03 it's the basis of modern science what we
0:10:05 would they refer to as natural theology
0:10:07 that we study the living world to study
0:10:10 the creation and therefore get to know
0:10:12 God better and in this we have people
0:10:15 like Linnaeus phil ozz scientists like
0:10:18 Linnaeus who give us the definition of a
0:10:21 species they look at the world and they
0:10:24 see that there are some things that are
0:10:26 pigeons there are some things that are
0:10:28 Eagles there are some things L donkeys
0:10:31 and there they're different they're
0:10:33 definable and they're always the same
0:10:35 and we can say we can therefore give it
0:10:38 a Latin name Homo sapiens whatever
0:10:40 because we can define that thing and it
0:10:43 remains the same so he gives us this
0:10:47 idea that species are fixed and he gives
0:10:49 us clear species descriptions so it well
0:10:52 defines that that were and that is the
0:10:56 framework into which natural theology
0:10:59 the study of the natural world comes
0:11:01 along indeed it gives us even the
0:11:07 the idea of that we can natural theology
0:11:12 can can be used to almost argue for the
0:11:16 existence of God say the idea that
0:11:17 watchmaker argument that if we look at a
0:11:21 watch we would deduce that a watchmaker
0:11:23 had designed it because of its
0:11:25 complexity and its function and we have
0:11:28 we can have the same that the natural
0:11:30 theologist would argue the same about
0:11:32 observing something complex like an eye
0:11:34 that has clearly been apparently
0:11:37 designed in order to see in a complex
0:11:39 way and the designer therefore is God so
0:11:43 intelligent design was one of the
0:11:45 consequences of that but we're not there
0:11:51 at the moment now things have changed in
0:11:55 in the way that we view the world and in
0:11:59 a sense the seeds of that change was
0:12:01 sowed in a way by Linnaeus because by
0:12:04 describing species very clearly people
0:12:08 started to be able to see that the world
0:12:10 wasn't random but that there were if you
0:12:13 looked at these species and organized
0:12:15 and some species were more similar to
0:12:17 each other than others so the Eagle is
0:12:20 more similar than it is to to the pigeon
0:12:23 than it is to the donkey and so an
0:12:26 organization starts to emerge and so
0:12:30 what people start to say well why are
0:12:32 some things more similar to each other
0:12:34 than others and one of the answers was
0:12:39 descent with modification from a common
0:12:42 ancestor so there was a common ancestor
0:12:43 and there were changes to this ancestor
0:12:45 there was a split between our two
0:12:47 species and so on down them so that
0:12:50 diversity comes from descent with
0:12:52 modification from a common ancestor it
0:12:53 was not at that mechanism for that
0:12:57 necessarily it was just a description of
0:13:00 a potential phenomena I know the things
0:13:04 happened
0:13:04 Galileo removes the world from the
0:13:07 center of the perfect universe the
0:13:09 perfect spheres the microscope sees new
0:13:12 worlds in drops of water voyages of
0:13:15 discovery to the other side of the world
0:13:17 sea by sea organisms animals not
0:13:19 mentioned in the Bible
0:13:21 and so on and within society we started
0:13:25 particularly in Birmingham with the
0:13:26 Lunar Society we started to get ideas
0:13:29 about change in society the Lunar
0:13:31 Society a group of people used to meet
0:13:33 in Birmingham discuss ideas ideas about
0:13:35 change in machinery ideas of that change
0:13:38 in society anti-slavery campaigners for
0:13:42 example in the Lunar Society which ties
0:13:45 into Darwin's ideas about equality of
0:13:48 organisms direct links there but these
0:13:53 ideas again we're still seen as
0:13:54 dangerous
0:13:55 so the Lunar Society for example some of
0:13:57 the Lunar Society their houses were
0:13:59 attacked by mobs and they were burnt
0:14:01 down in hansworth because they were
0:14:04 thinking about change of people
0:14:05 particularly in England saw change is
0:14:08 dangerous because in France there was
0:14:10 revolution going on one of the most
0:14:12 serious sorts of or of change changes
0:14:16 dangerous so at this point we had then a
0:14:22 world in which either the world had been
0:14:25 created and then things like volcanoes
0:14:27 and earthquakes happened catastrophes
0:14:30 and so the world was pop it is but then
0:14:33 pockmarked by these catastrophes people
0:14:35 could see volcanoes people could see
0:14:37 earthquake but then people were also
0:14:40 picking up those ideas about gradual
0:14:42 change to think sort of things that
0:14:43 al-biruni had talked about that the
0:14:46 gradual change happened and we had a
0:14:48 phenomena called uniformitarianism in
0:14:51 that the world that we see about it with
0:14:53 the processes that operate in the world
0:14:55 in both the geological and potentially
0:14:57 the biological world
0:14:58 are the same processes that have always
0:15:00 operated there is a consistency there
0:15:03 isn't this big bang and it's changing
0:15:05 and we wait for the next earthquake
0:15:06 things change gradually over time so on
0:15:13 I'm obviously skating very quickly over
0:15:16 this but once that changed particularly
0:15:19 in the biological world has been
0:15:20 established as a fact then you have to
0:15:24 think as a scientist about well how do
0:15:26 we how does that work we describe
0:15:27 something and it what's the mechanism by
0:15:29 which which that change occurs and there
0:15:32 were lots of suggestions about this
0:15:35 and Darwin himself comes up with the
0:15:37 theory that we now uses the baseline
0:15:39 today and it's very simple Darwin noted
0:15:44 that more individuals were that produced
0:15:47 by most organisms than can possibly
0:15:49 survive and so there's a lot of them
0:15:51 died he noted that individuals have
0:15:55 different from each other the
0:15:57 individuals vary and he also noted that
0:16:03 those variations are inherited the key
0:16:07 thing is that he suggested that the
0:16:11 possession of a certain variation might
0:16:14 allow you to survive rather than another
0:16:17 ones so the chance of survival of those
0:16:21 overproduced individuals is not a random
0:16:23 process it's a process if you like in
0:16:26 inverted commas of selection some of
0:16:29 them are selected by the environment to
0:16:31 survive and so on so if it was cold and
0:16:34 you had a set of organisms some who
0:16:36 randomly had furry coats and some of
0:16:38 them who didn't the ones with furry
0:16:41 coats would survive because they can
0:16:43 keep warmer their survival is not random
0:16:45 they just said that because they can
0:16:47 keep warm because randomly they have a
0:16:49 coat so at the time Darwin was writing
0:17:01 the Victorians viewed the world as a if
0:17:06 you like one view of it as a pastoral
0:17:08 it'll it was a beautiful place
0:17:10 nature was lovely we had lambs gambling
0:17:13 in the fields trees we had grass and
0:17:16 waterfalls
0:17:17 birds singing beautiful place to be a
0:17:21 lot of the reaction to these mechanistic
0:17:26 ideas about biological change come from
0:17:30 a reaction against that how can beauty
0:17:33 be created by death and destruction and
0:17:36 so this is why you may be familiar you
0:17:40 may be familiar with the phrase but if
0:17:42 not the poem but the phrase nature red
0:17:45 in tooth and claw by Tennyson and it's
0:17:48 essentially
0:17:49 the a diatribe 42 strong word but a cry
0:17:55 of despair from a man who feels that his
0:18:00 religion has been taken away that God
0:18:02 has been taken out of the equation
0:18:04 because God has now been separated from
0:18:08 the from the physical world and it's
0:18:11 interesting actually and I didn't
0:18:13 realize this until quite late because I
0:18:15 thought Tennyson's poem and this tribe
0:18:18 reflected this debate that was going on
0:18:21 in society at the time I thought it was
0:18:23 post Darwin's publication that Darwin
0:18:26 published in 1859
0:18:27 but that poem by Tennyson was published
0:18:30 in 1842 so it wasn't just Darwin who
0:18:33 came up with it these ideas have been
0:18:35 developing and recurrent and people's
0:18:38 thoughts for a while so I think that the
0:18:47 idea I think what just in that brief
0:18:49 overview and obviously it's late
0:18:51 information I think my colleague
0:18:53 probably knows a lot more about it than
0:18:54 I do but I think it's interesting to see
0:18:57 how we move from or the development of
0:19:01 science comes out of that natural
0:19:03 theology that religious view of the
0:19:05 world and that there's a separation
0:19:08 there potentially depends on how you
0:19:11 want to live your life what your
0:19:13 philosophy is and I think people like
0:19:17 Thomas Aquinas the Christian philosopher
0:19:20 actually articulated that quite well
0:19:23 that you can only come to know your God
0:19:27 by a revelation whereas the net you
0:19:30 can't come to me to understand that
0:19:32 through observation of the natural world
0:19:35 these two things were separated and I
0:19:39 have Christian friends that I speak to
0:19:41 about this and that is their view that
0:19:43 is their view of their world that they
0:19:45 study evolution they're comfortable with
0:19:47 it the processes that we may talk about
0:19:49 later but they're there their religion
0:19:53 is a personal internal thing and their
0:19:55 God is is not physically in the world
0:19:59 like that not my not my words the words
0:20:03 of
0:20:03 other people anyway I hope that is an
0:20:07 interesting overview of where I see some
0:20:10 of these ideas come from interested in
0:20:13 people's thoughts and follow up thank
0:20:15 you for listening
0:20:20 when Esaias Muslims do assalamu alaykum
0:20:23 peace be upon you
0:20:25 first I'd like to thank professor Jeremy
0:20:27 Pritchard for taking part of this
0:20:30 dialogue and also the Prophet Muhammad
0:20:33 peace be upon him said whoever doesn't
0:20:35 thank the people does not thank God so
0:20:38 alongside him the Birmingham I sock and
0:20:41 also beacons of sanctity and all of you
0:20:43 tonight for attending so he star in the
0:20:46 name of God the Lord of mercy the giver
0:20:48 of mercy so I'm gonna pretty much of
0:20:52 course I'm gonna agree with Professor
0:20:54 Jeremy Pritchard here that Darwinian
0:20:57 evolution does not undermine God but
0:20:59 maybe for different reasons which we can
0:21:01 discuss now my case is the following
0:21:04 Darwinian evolution does not undermine
0:21:06 God evolutionary biology works in a
0:21:10 neutral framework in a metaphysically
0:21:12 neutral framework what does that mean
0:21:14 that means they are dealing with
0:21:17 real-life problems which impact every
0:21:20 single person in this room and every
0:21:22 single person in the world which is anti
0:21:24 biotic resistance they are not involved
0:21:28 in trying to spread atheism
0:21:30 they're trying to stop the spread of
0:21:31 bacteria humbler not humbler greater
0:21:35 goals and to when we actually speak my
0:21:38 evolution what are we actually referring
0:21:40 to because evolution can mean many
0:21:41 different things in many different
0:21:42 contexts so we're actually speaking
0:21:44 about Darwinian evolution which is the
0:21:47 twin claim that all of life bacteria
0:21:51 human-beings leopards
0:21:53 Lady gaga everything going back goes
0:21:56 back to a single common ancestor
0:21:58 alongside that how did this change
0:22:00 happen how did we get how do we get from
0:22:02 bacteria to elephants how do we how do
0:22:06 we have a link between philosophers and
0:22:08 primates is actually through the
0:22:10 mechanism of natural selection now I'm
0:22:13 just going to be a frank about my
0:22:15 position I believe Darwin
0:22:17 evolution to be a valid scientific model
0:22:20 theory and paradigm I do not believe
0:22:23 intelligent design or creation science
0:22:26 or anything like that is a valid
0:22:28 scientific theory now that's what this
0:22:32 debate is what this debate is actually
0:22:34 about is about the PR problem that is
0:22:37 associated with Darwinian evolution now
0:22:40 the problem is there is a difference
0:22:41 between the public understanding which
0:22:43 some of us have and the academic
0:22:46 understanding now the public
0:22:48 understanding this looks like a pretty
0:22:51 much atheistic theory for example in the
0:22:55 very popular book sapiens written by the
0:22:58 Atheist biologist Yuval Noah Hariri this
0:23:02 is what he says there are no gods in the
0:23:04 universe no nations no money no human
0:23:07 rights no laws and no justice outside
0:23:09 the common imagination of human beings
0:23:13 now that is a statement written in a
0:23:16 science book by a scientist but clearly
0:23:19 that's not a scientific statement or
0:23:21 take the late evolutionary biologist and
0:23:24 atheist philosopher Julian Huxley not to
0:23:27 be confused not to be confused with th
0:23:29 Huxley by he was his grandson this is
0:23:31 what he wrote in his book religion
0:23:34 without revelation this was published in
0:23:36 1927 a long time ago but this particular
0:23:41 statement I believe is very important
0:23:44 for reasons which you might mention
0:23:45 later on it will soon be impossible for
0:23:49 an intelligent educated man or woman to
0:23:53 believe in a God as it is now to believe
0:23:55 that the earth is flat so again we have
0:23:58 a evolutionary biologist writing for the
0:24:01 public and the statement obviously is
0:24:03 not a scientific statement and take the
0:24:06 most popular atheist manual if you like
0:24:09 or book that we have in the world The
0:24:11 God Delusion the central argument of The
0:24:14 God Delusion is based upon Darwinian
0:24:16 evolution and Richard Dawkins he's a
0:24:19 great writer and one of his most I I
0:24:22 think it's his best work the blind
0:24:23 watchmaker which is actually what made
0:24:25 him famous he actually has this
0:24:26 statement Darwin made it possible
0:24:30 to be an intellectually satisfied
0:24:32 atheist now again this is a book about
0:24:36 science written by a scientist from
0:24:38 Oxford but it is not exactly a
0:24:40 scientific statement and why this is
0:24:43 important is because this is the view
0:24:45 that I'm going to be challenging today I
0:24:47 do not think this is a view which is
0:24:49 even shared by Darwin because Darwin was
0:24:52 never an intellectually satisfied
0:24:54 atheist in fact Darwin said it seems to
0:24:58 me absurd to doubt that a man may be an
0:25:00 ardent theist and an evolutionist now
0:25:03 Darwin had a very complex so
0:25:06 relationship with God and we need to
0:25:08 take into account the words of John
0:25:09 Headley from Oxford University a
0:25:11 professor of science and religion there
0:25:13 we should be careful about pigeon holing
0:25:16 a man who wouldn't pigeonhole pigeons so
0:25:19 I'm just going to be pigeon holing him
0:25:21 for sake of brevity but we can go into
0:25:24 details about why he went through those
0:25:27 transitional changes later he first off
0:25:29 started off as a Christian now as a
0:25:31 Christian he actually wanted to have one
0:25:34 point as Professor Pritchard knows or
0:25:36 you may have briefly spoken about he
0:25:38 actually wanted to become a priest later
0:25:42 on he became a dis now what is it deist
0:25:44 a deist is somebody who believes in God
0:25:48 but does not believe in religion he just
0:25:51 believes in God later on in life he
0:25:54 became an agnostic because of the
0:25:56 problem of evil so nothing to do with
0:25:59 science what's really interesting is
0:26:02 Darwin actually said in my most extreme
0:26:06 fluctuations I have never been an
0:26:08 atheist in the sense of denying the
0:26:11 existence of God in fact this is a very
0:26:13 interesting incident when a reviewer
0:26:16 wrote a review about Darwin's book
0:26:20 Origin of Species and he said this
0:26:22 conception that the Creator makes the
0:26:25 initial creation which then evolves
0:26:27 naturally into all the forms of life
0:26:28 that we have today is just as noble of a
0:26:31 thing for God to do as for God to create
0:26:34 every species individually Darwin was so
0:26:37 impressed by these words he actually
0:26:38 included it in his second edition of the
0:26:40 Origin of Species
0:26:41 so clearly he was not an intellectually
0:26:43 beside atheist and I don't think he
0:26:45 would agree with this sort of taking his
0:26:49 theory and making it into a atheistic
0:26:51 type of thing in fact he explicitly
0:26:52 we're oh and this is in a book a very
0:26:56 important book I think written by Nick
0:26:58 Spencer Darwin and God darn particularly
0:27:01 wrote I had no intention or writing
0:27:03 atheistic Lee now I believe Darwin is
0:27:06 correct and the popularizers like
0:27:08 Richard Dawkins and Julian Huxley and
0:27:10 others are incorrect in regards to
0:27:12 theology in terms of undermining
0:27:14 evolution undermining the existence of
0:27:16 God because of the conflation of two
0:27:18 types of naturalism there is
0:27:20 methodological naturalism and
0:27:22 philosophical naturalism now
0:27:24 methodological naturalism very simple
0:27:26 we're all scientists we walk into this
0:27:28 science room and we all have a working
0:27:31 assumption whenever we look at nature
0:27:33 we're going to use natural effects being
0:27:36 explained by natural causes very simple
0:27:39 thing so we're not going to refer to
0:27:40 that in an immaterial mind the sole god
0:27:43 anything like that the second type of
0:27:45 naturalism is philosophical naturalism
0:27:48 which is outside of this room as a
0:27:50 belief system we only believe that
0:27:53 nature exists and there is no God there
0:27:55 is no soul there is no objective morals
0:27:56 or anything like that
0:27:57 obviously these are two different things
0:27:59 one is a working assumption in science
0:28:01 and to philosophical naturalism is
0:28:05 actually a belief now methodological
0:28:07 naturalism is actually very
0:28:09 controversial well it's not
0:28:10 controversial it's been made to appear
0:28:12 controversial but this is the very
0:28:14 reason why I mentioned earlier that I do
0:28:16 not believe intelligent design as a
0:28:17 theory to be science because it's not in
0:28:20 line with methodological naturalism
0:28:22 now what Elias sobah an atheist
0:28:24 prominent philosopher of biology where
0:28:26 he explains about this particular
0:28:27 conflation as this evolutionary theory
0:28:30 is neutral in regards to the second
0:28:33 definition of naturalism which is
0:28:36 philosophical naturalism he only adopts
0:28:38 the first he also has a very important
0:28:41 statement about this the theory of
0:28:44 evolution does not read us not rule out
0:28:46 deism the thesis that God starts the
0:28:49 universe in motion and forever after
0:28:50 declines to intervene but the theory
0:28:53 does not also rule out a more active God
0:28:56 whose intervention
0:28:57 into nature fly under the radar of
0:29:00 evolutionary biology so this is very
0:29:02 important to understand what whenever a
0:29:05 scientist is working within his field a
0:29:07 reference to God or anything
0:29:10 metaphysical is something that they
0:29:12 obviously cannot do and Scott todd has
0:29:14 he's another evolutionary biologist and
0:29:16 he explains this and I think in a bit
0:29:18 more clearer terms even if all the data
0:29:21 points to an intelligent designer such a
0:29:24 hypothesis is excluded from science
0:29:26 because it is not naturalistic so that's
0:29:28 methodological naturalism of course the
0:29:31 scientist as an individual is free to
0:29:33 embrace a reality that transcends
0:29:35 naturalism so just to give you a brief
0:29:37 example Darwin was against slavery he
0:29:40 actually hated slavery he considered it
0:29:43 one of the great evils now obviously
0:29:45 that is not something which is based on
0:29:49 science that is his philosophy that is
0:29:50 you know a view that he owns doesn't
0:29:54 nothing to do with methodological
0:29:55 naturalism because from a methodological
0:29:58 naturalism point of view evolution has
0:30:01 made us be moral purely as a collective
0:30:04 fiction to help us survive now obviously
0:30:07 you can have moral views outside of
0:30:09 holding methodological naturalistic
0:30:12 views now the idea that evolution
0:30:15 undermines God that's obviously been
0:30:18 cleared but I want to do in my last
0:30:20 couple of minutes is focus upon I think
0:30:24 a more important question which is does
0:30:29 evolution undermine the Abrahamic God
0:30:32 because obviously as we mentioned
0:30:34 earlier it doesn't undermine the deistic
0:30:37 concept of God it doesn't undermine the
0:30:40 theistic concept of God but does we
0:30:42 undermine the Abrahamic conception of
0:30:45 God and the answer is very simple yes
0:30:48 and no it's yes if somebody has a
0:30:53 misunderstanding about what science can
0:30:55 achieve and if somebody thinks that
0:30:57 science gives us absolute results which
0:30:59 do not change no if they have an
0:31:02 academic understanding of science if
0:31:05 they actually understand the philosophy
0:31:06 of science which is that science gives
0:31:09 us working model
0:31:10 about the world which are then replaced
0:31:13 by other models and science has a
0:31:16 working assumption of methodological
0:31:17 naturalism and it also has many other
0:31:19 multiple assumptions in the theories
0:31:21 they actually proposes this is explained
0:31:24 well in philosophy of science a new
0:31:26 introduction by Oxford University this
0:31:28 is all mainstream stuff by the
0:31:29 philosopher Gillian Barker and Phillip
0:31:31 Geeta Sciences revisable hence to talk
0:31:35 of scientific proof is dangerous because
0:31:38 the term Foster's the idea of
0:31:40 conclusions that are graven in stone so
0:31:43 whether you I'm gonna do some
0:31:44 complicated language I can explain a bit
0:31:46 later whether you hold the view of
0:31:47 scientific realism or what's known as
0:31:50 scientific anti-realism both camps and
0:31:52 this is a pretty much consensus in the
0:31:55 philosophy of science that science
0:31:57 doesn't give you absolute results which
0:32:00 are written in stone theories can be
0:32:03 revised theories can be changed and if
0:32:05 you look at the history of science if we
0:32:07 look at chemistry physics and biology we
0:32:09 have this constant evolution we have
0:32:11 this constant change like the professor
0:32:13 was highlighting this is even
0:32:15 highlighted by the oxford professor
0:32:18 Richard Dawkins in his book a devil's
0:32:20 chaplain we must acknowledge the
0:32:23 possibility that new facts may come to
0:32:25 light which will force our successes of
0:32:27 the 21st century to abandon Darwinism or
0:32:31 modify beyond recognition that's the
0:32:33 first time I mentioned the word
0:32:34 Darwinism so if you we need to separate
0:32:39 out some things evolution simply means
0:32:41 biological change over time and Darwin
0:32:45 proposed the idea of universal common
0:32:47 ancestry along with natural selection
0:32:50 being the main driving force but as the
0:32:51 professor pointed out the idea of common
0:32:55 ancestor for your universal common
0:32:57 ancestry was known before Darwin in fact
0:33:00 professor Monier
0:33:01 Williams from Oxford University a
0:33:04 professor of Sanskrit at the time of
0:33:06 Darwin he actually said the ancient
0:33:08 hindus were Darwinist three thousand
0:33:11 years before Darwin so the idea of
0:33:14 universal common ancestry goes back
0:33:15 obviously before but Darwin proposed the
0:33:18 actual mechanism which is sometimes
0:33:20 referred to as doorman ISM sometimes
0:33:21 referred to as neo-darwinism
0:33:25 so we should not neglect the philosophy
0:33:28 or biology in the philosophy of science
0:33:29 when we are trying to understand these
0:33:32 issues so Darwinian evolution does not
0:33:34 undermine three ism deism or even the
0:33:37 Abrahamic God you can be somebody who
0:33:40 believes and I actually know of Muslims
0:33:42 who are working within the field of
0:33:43 evolutionary biology they're working
0:33:45 with the Quranic paradigm which is that
0:33:47 if you save a life you save the lives of
0:33:49 all where the evolutionary biologists
0:33:52 are working across the world they're
0:33:53 trying to save lives they're not
0:33:54 involved in these sort of theological
0:33:55 disputes so you can say yes common
0:33:58 ancestry in some aspects in terms of the
0:34:00 tree of life not all obviously when some
0:34:03 aspects may conflict with my personal
0:34:04 belief but I can accept it as a valid
0:34:07 scientific model and contribute to this
0:34:09 field now Darwinian evolution according
0:34:13 to a mainstream understanding of the
0:34:15 philosophy of biology is a framework
0:34:18 which is based on a probabilistic
0:34:20 framework which has assumptions and they
0:34:23 are valid disputes are conceptual and a
0:34:26 scientific level now philosopher of
0:34:30 science philosophy of biology sorry
0:34:32 Elias sobah he explains this in his book
0:34:34 evidence and evolution published by
0:34:37 Cambridge University again a mainstream
0:34:40 textbook on this issue the philosophy
0:34:42 herbology and he explains the tree of
0:34:44 life is based on a probabilistic
0:34:46 framework so like the professor was
0:34:48 mentioning earlier things we should look
0:34:50 similar there's the assumption that they
0:34:52 have a common ancestor which is known as
0:34:53 homology but that assumption of homology
0:34:56 is something which has a which has not
0:35:01 arrival but there's a complexity in
0:35:03 there there is a challenge in there
0:35:05 which is homo crazy that we have
0:35:07 similarities a biochemical level a
0:35:09 genetic level at a anatomical level and
0:35:12 linguistic level even at psychological
0:35:14 level which are not due to common
0:35:16 ancestry so what he says in regards to
0:35:19 this is both of the following thoughts
0:35:22 are therefore naive humans and chimps
0:35:25 must share a common ancestor because
0:35:27 they're so similar and humans and
0:35:29 mushrooms must have arisen independently
0:35:32 because they are so different
0:35:34 there is no must within a probabilistic
0:35:36 framework now
0:35:37 not to take his words our context he
0:35:39 does believe in human chain ancestry and
0:35:42 he does believe it to be true in the
0:35:44 literal sense what he's saying here is
0:35:46 from a scientific point of view from a
0:35:48 philosopher from a philosophy or biology
0:35:50 point of view what science can lead you
0:35:53 to is it's based on a probabilistic
0:35:55 framework there are also assumptions
0:35:57 within the theory it is based upon the
0:35:59 assumption of gradualism and also that
0:36:02 natural selection is the main mechanism
0:36:04 but obviously there are other things at
0:36:06 play like genetic drift and that
0:36:08 mutations are random there it was a
0:36:12 conference in 2016 in November in the
0:36:15 world with the Royal Society members
0:36:17 where they came together the oldest and
0:36:18 the most prestigious Society in the
0:36:20 world and the central question that they
0:36:22 were discussing was was Darwin right
0:36:24 into the natural selection now some of
0:36:26 the biologists were saying yes yes some
0:36:28 of them were saying no right now as it
0:36:30 stands I would say the vast majority of
0:36:32 biologists across the world believe
0:36:34 Darwinian evolution is the correct
0:36:36 mechanism the reason why I'm
0:36:37 highlighting these changes in these
0:36:39 differences is to show that that's just
0:36:41 the way that science actually works and
0:36:44 till today we still have biologists like
0:36:48 Masatoshi nye and like Eva Joe Blanca
0:36:51 who are trying to put forth mechanisms
0:36:53 which they believe are alternative to
0:36:56 Darwin such as neo mutation ISM and neo
0:36:59 Lamarckism now I am not endorsing any of
0:37:02 them I am only highlighting that they
0:37:04 exist this is to show that that's the
0:37:07 way that science actually works now the
0:37:09 view that somebody can actually hold as
0:37:11 I mentioned earlier is the view that you
0:37:14 can accept Darwinian evolution to be a
0:37:16 working model Theory paradigm you can
0:37:19 accept that this particular theory is
0:37:20 based on a probabilistic framework which
0:37:22 has assumptions and there's disputes our
0:37:24 conceptual and a scientific level but
0:37:26 you can accept it as the best thing that
0:37:28 we have currently in science but not to
0:37:31 be absolutely true so you don't have to
0:37:32 accept it theologically now the lay a
0:37:35 theist philosopher of science
0:37:37 David stove he was an atheist and
0:37:39 eminent philosopher in his book
0:37:40 Darwinian fairytales he was a critic of
0:37:43 Darwinian evolution but he mentioned
0:37:46 something which I think we can agree
0:37:48 with whether we agree with Darwin we
0:37:49 don't
0:37:51 always explanation of evolution even
0:37:53 though it is still the best one
0:37:55 available is not true
0:37:58 so what's he basically saying here like
0:38:01 I mentioned previously there's two
0:38:02 particular ideas here there's universal
0:38:05 common ancestry which is pre-darwinian
0:38:07 but Darwin also endorsed a and there's
0:38:09 the Darwinian mechanism so he's
0:38:11 referring to the Darwinian mechanism he
0:38:13 thinks it's the best one available but
0:38:15 it is not true in the absolute sense so
0:38:19 just to summarize evolution does not
0:38:22 undermine God this is based on a
0:38:25 conflation of two types of naturalism
0:38:27 methodological and philosophical
0:38:30 naturalism evolution does not undermine
0:38:32 a deistic concept of God a theistic
0:38:34 concept of God and nor does it undermine
0:38:37 an Abrahamic concept of God this is
0:38:41 based on the misunderstanding that
0:38:44 science gives absolute truth science is
0:38:47 based upon what is known as the problem
0:38:50 is based upon induction where you take a
0:38:53 set of observations and you make a
0:38:55 general conclusion now you can always
0:38:58 have a new data which can challenge your
0:39:02 previous data and you can always have a
0:39:04 new interpretation which can challenge
0:39:06 your previous interpretation so the
0:39:09 problem of induction is a reason why
0:39:12 science can never give you absolutely
0:39:15 absolutely certain results which never
0:39:17 change in fact there was an interesting
0:39:20 discussion with the philosopher Stephen
0:39:23 law and Richard Dawkins which you can
0:39:25 watch on YouTube and a questioner asked
0:39:27 Richard Dawkins how can we read certain
0:39:29 in science when is based upon induction
0:39:32 and he said well science works the
0:39:36 problem with that is that induction so
0:39:38 you can't use induction to you prove
0:39:40 induction that circular reasoning David
0:39:42 Hume who highlighted the problem of
0:39:44 induction still took science as a
0:39:46 working model we still have the problem
0:39:48 of induction in science today but it
0:39:51 doesn't mean we throw out the baby with
0:39:52 the bathwater we go where the science
0:39:54 leads us but we don't have to accept the
0:39:56 results are absolutely certain now what
0:40:00 I'd like to end upon is a statement of
0:40:02 Darwin from like like I mentioned
0:40:04 earlier the book
0:40:05 by an expense that Darwin in God now
0:40:07 Darwin had a very complex relationship
0:40:11 with God and he had some very
0:40:13 interesting philosophical ideas about
0:40:14 freewill and predestination and so on
0:40:16 and so forth but there's one aspect
0:40:18 which I really want you to highlight
0:40:20 because when I read this in that book I
0:40:22 just thought okay this I I can resonate
0:40:24 with Darwin here because this is the
0:40:26 type of all attack of all when a person
0:40:29 looks into nature as God says in the
0:40:31 Quran in the creation of the heavens and
0:40:33 the earth and the alternation of night
0:40:35 and day there are signs for those with
0:40:36 intelligence so when someone looks into
0:40:38 nature it should be something which
0:40:40 brings them closer to God so Darwin said
0:40:43 a statement which I really felt close to
0:40:45 I cannot persuade myself that
0:40:48 electricity acts that the tree grows
0:40:51 that man aspires to the loftiest
0:40:54 conceptions all from blind brute force
0:40:58 everything good I have said is from God
0:41:00 every mistake is my own thank you very
0:41:02 much okay ladies and gentlemen brothers
0:41:05 and sisters and Friends I learned a lot
0:41:09 I've been writing notes I know a lot
0:41:11 from professor no not from brother sabor
0:41:14 thank you for that one
0:41:16 so now is the time for us to have a
0:41:19 brief discussion I'm gonna slightly move
0:41:21 my check my check I don't have a check
0:41:24 my chair rather backwards and if you
0:41:28 could just slightly turn here professor
0:41:29 so I think the way to start this off is
0:41:32 with the question from yourself
0:41:34 professor to suborn and just have a
0:41:35 discussion and if there's if there's any
0:41:38 swords drawn I'm in the middle so I'm
0:41:41 going to be a silent spectator for now
0:41:42 so professor think of anything
0:41:50 specifically I don't I think the ideas
0:41:55 about Darwin that you talk about a right
0:41:58 I mean I I think I think he he didn't
0:42:01 want to be a clergyman I think he was
0:42:04 part of a society in which the people of
0:42:06 that class had to look for a I think he
0:42:10 studied medicine in in Edinburgh and
0:42:12 couldn't stand the sight of blood and
0:42:15 when his father found out that he wasn't
0:42:17 going to be a
0:42:17 - anymore he pulled his money and
0:42:19 brought him home and for somebody of his
0:42:21 class I think being a cleric was the
0:42:25 next thing he could go shooting and
0:42:27 collect beetles which was one of his
0:42:28 things and so he did actually qualify
0:42:32 because it's a religion religion but
0:42:36 just before he had to go back to
0:42:38 Shrewsbury and find a church he managed
0:42:40 to get himself a berth on the Beagle and
0:42:42 the whole course of his life changed - I
0:42:45 haven't got any specific rapier-like
0:42:48 questions sure to defend against I mean
0:42:50 there's a discussion yeah but so no I
0:42:53 mean I admire Darwin for being a
0:42:55 scientist and being somebody who III did
0:42:58 some work and putting together an idea
0:43:00 about these ideas of how change came
0:43:03 about and I'm quite fascinated by the
0:43:05 ideas that these ideas have changed
0:43:07 dangerous and and they influence what we
0:43:09 the way we interpret these things now
0:43:12 but I tried to trace it through and look
0:43:15 at people writing about this stuff and
0:43:18 you know through the 1700s and and and
0:43:21 looking at where did Darwin's ideas
0:43:23 actually come from and they you may
0:43:26 disagree but I can't see anywhere where
0:43:29 they just they're part of a sequence he
0:43:32 seems to have had that inside himself
0:43:34 building on the stuff of others but he
0:43:37 builds something new from what was lying
0:43:39 around and this idea that before even
0:43:42 Lamarck
0:43:43 for example talked about hierarchies and
0:43:46 ladders and things he made the ladder
0:43:48 move yeah but he still got a hierarchy
0:43:52 and I think I think I think so Darwin
0:43:55 does does come up with this this new
0:43:57 stuff with the tree and I like the idea
0:43:59 that you talked about about slavery that
0:44:01 was very important to do and there are
0:44:02 some new biographies about him where
0:44:05 that's a drive that idea of equality if
0:44:07 you look into the Origin of Species the
0:44:09 only picture is that of a tree but it's
0:44:11 not a tree like we would have with the
0:44:13 branches all around it's flat and I
0:44:15 think that's deliberate that everything
0:44:17 on the end of those branches is equal
0:44:20 because at Darwin's time there were
0:44:21 philosophies around that there were 27
0:44:23 different species of human which of
0:44:25 course was promulgated by the West as
0:44:27 part of their
0:44:28 in predominant imperialist exactly yeah
0:44:31 yeah I mean it's interesting you
0:44:33 speaking about Darwin's belief his
0:44:36 disability not disbelief because he
0:44:38 never became an atheist but his doubts
0:44:40 about God started with the death of his
0:44:43 basically daughter and also his son
0:44:46 passed away two days before he actually
0:44:48 gave his paper to like the Royal Society
0:44:50 and what's really interesting is that
0:44:52 throughout near the end of his life he
0:44:54 became an agnostic because of the
0:44:55 problem of evil but he was constantly
0:44:57 going back and forth and what's
0:44:59 interesting is that Elias sobah writes
0:45:01 about him that he was a methodological
0:45:02 naturalist so he said okay that's like
0:45:04 nature I can't like I'm not going to
0:45:06 assume that God intervenes but he was
0:45:09 never settled with the idea that this is
0:45:12 all purposeless that is that there's the
0:45:15 universe is all the product of some sort
0:45:18 of blind brute force right what I'm
0:45:22 really interested in is why he became a
0:45:25 beacon for the sort of secular atheistic
0:45:28 sore crusade against religion and
0:45:29 Christianity in particular and today
0:45:32 when you mentioned Darwin's personal
0:45:33 beliefs people are very surprised
0:45:35 they're like okay so he's no longer you
0:45:37 know pigeon-holed healthy the head of
0:45:41 this sort of movement and when I read
0:45:43 works like if you consider it works The
0:45:47 God Delusion
0:45:47 and you just find dominant Darwin so
0:45:50 prominent in there and I think Darwin
0:45:52 would not be happy with that with his
0:45:54 name being used in such a manner yeah I
0:45:56 think that's right I mean I think Darwin
0:45:58 has become this cipher that we defend
0:46:02 and you know you can't say that because
0:46:03 Darwin said it in an almost you know
0:46:05 religious fervor sort of way it's worth
0:46:08 remembering Darwin was wrong about a lot
0:46:10 of things the 6th edition of the Origin
0:46:13 of Species actually
0:46:16 Darwin was which is the last one that
0:46:18 Darwin contributed to Darwin was
0:46:21 searching for a mechanism because you
0:46:23 mentioned neo-darwinism which is the the
0:46:25 synthesis of modern genetics with
0:46:27 Darwin's ideas about differential
0:46:29 survival he didn't really like the
0:46:31 phrase natural selection because it
0:46:34 implied a selector whereas it's actually
0:46:36 life or death depending on the the
0:46:39 environment and Darwin Darwin was
0:46:42 looking
0:46:42 for a mechanism by which this variation
0:46:45 is inherited and Lamarck's ideas which
0:46:48 were obviously wrong about inheritance
0:46:50 of acquired characteristics the classic
0:46:52 thing of a giraffe stretching its neck
0:46:54 to reach some leaves and therefore then
0:46:56 having an offspring with a longer neck
0:46:58 had been disproved before if you cut the
0:47:01 tail off a mouse it doesn't have a baby
0:47:03 with no tail if you lose your finger you
0:47:06 don't have children with no fingers this
0:47:08 inheritance of quite characteristic
0:47:10 isn't true but Darwin came up with an
0:47:12 idea and puts it's called germ Ewell's
0:47:14 and and pan-pan genesis and it's in it's
0:47:17 in the Origin of Species
0:47:19 it's been disproven yeah and it's it
0:47:20 although it's interesting I I used to
0:47:24 think that and I'd still do broadly but
0:47:27 I set my first two students an essay
0:47:28 called is Lamar is epigenetics the new
0:47:31 Lamarckism yeah because there is
0:47:34 therefore it those of you know about
0:47:35 genetics that your genes could be
0:47:37 switched on or off because it's cold or
0:47:39 warm and it helps you adapt to the
0:47:41 environment and people of now finding
0:47:43 out that some organisms their offspring
0:47:45 be they plants or people have unaltered
0:47:49 those genes are still switched off so
0:47:51 the environment they've acquired a
0:47:53 characteristic because of the
0:47:56 environment and then they passed that on
0:47:57 to their offspring and my some
0:47:59 definitions that's Lamarckism yeah of
0:48:01 course it doesn't cascade down the
0:48:02 generations in the same way and it
0:48:04 doesn't change the genetic code it's
0:48:06 definitely not progressive because
0:48:07 that's one of the ideas of Lamarque
0:48:08 which yeah we don't have evidence for
0:48:10 that things are getting more and
0:48:13 complexity's obviously confusing but
0:48:16 what's really interesting is when it
0:48:18 comes to actually Lamarck's ideas and
0:48:21 and you know the way he was ridiculed
0:48:23 for almost 200 years if you read Darwin
0:48:25 Darwin actually flirts with the idea of
0:48:27 quiet characteristics he's finding it
0:48:30 difficult to understand the inheritance
0:48:32 yellow says because there was no
0:48:34 mechanism as the time Dan was writing
0:48:36 Mendel had done his genetics so the
0:48:39 genetics was there but nobody'd realized
0:48:42 the significance partly because Mendel
0:48:43 was talking about round and wrinkly Peas
0:48:46 so you you were either this or you were
0:48:49 this whereas as you said in your
0:48:51 presentation we're talking about
0:48:53 gradualism and that you can't be a
0:48:55 little bit more
0:48:56 so the genetics was wrong it was
0:48:58 qualitative changes rather than
0:49:00 quantitative changes and it wasn't until
0:49:02 later that we came to understand that
0:49:04 genes can have many effects and many
0:49:05 genes can have single affects so many
0:49:08 genes affect your height for example you
0:49:10 wouldn't be this tall or digital there's
0:49:12 a whole gradation and when that came
0:49:15 people realized in the 20s and 30s that
0:49:18 that was it could be combined with that
0:49:21 that was the mechanism then we get the
0:49:24 neo-darwinism days as you say the
0:49:26 paradigm today you know what's I think
0:49:30 very important for people to take away
0:49:32 as well is the distinction between
0:49:33 methodological and philosophical
0:49:35 naturalism because that is I think
0:49:38 central to the whole confusion between
0:49:42 science undermining God Darwinian
0:49:45 evolution undermining God and this is
0:49:47 why I think it's very important to bring
0:49:49 in philosophy of science within science
0:49:50 this will narrow the gap as you know
0:49:55 between the popular understanding and
0:49:57 the academic understanding and also that
0:50:00 it'll help people to appreciate that
0:50:02 there's different ways of looking at the
0:50:04 world it's not just you know let me just
0:50:06 put on these lenses of science right
0:50:08 there's other ways of actually acquiring
0:50:09 a truth I remember a few years ago I had
0:50:11 a conversation with someone and I said
0:50:14 do you believe in God and he said I
0:50:16 believe in science he said in a
0:50:18 religious way but you know can science
0:50:20 pay your bills can science tell you
0:50:22 what's right and wrong can science tell
0:50:23 you if you had if Plato existed you know
0:50:25 that's testimony so there's many
0:50:27 different roots of knowledge and I think
0:50:28 this is why it's science has done so
0:50:31 many great things in our contemporary
0:50:32 society that you know we we just put all
0:50:37 our eggs in that one basket so how do
0:50:39 you see that sort of playing out in the
0:50:41 next couple of years and the way people
0:50:42 think well I I think I think the key
0:50:44 point is the one that you made when you
0:50:46 spoke about about uncertainty and
0:50:49 science and and proof we can never prove
0:50:53 anything in science because we work with
0:50:55 statistics we work with probability so
0:50:58 you know and that's why scientists don't
0:51:00 come over very well on a radio when
0:51:01 they're against some politician you know
0:51:03 and say well if I eat this food will it
0:51:07 give me cancer and somebody might say
0:51:09 yes
0:51:10 because it happened to my child and the
0:51:12 scientists will say well and the
0:51:13 interviewer will say well does it cause
0:51:16 cancer well it might do and you might be
0:51:20 one in a hundred chance of it ah so you
0:51:22 can't say it doesn't you know and I
0:51:23 think that that understanding of
0:51:25 Sciences as a way of dealing with
0:51:27 uncertainty and I'm trying to in a way
0:51:30 Sciences is is a way of understanding
0:51:34 how uncertain we are yeah in in
0:51:37 something that we observe and and and
0:51:41 that that's how we reorganize the world
0:51:44 I think I think I think the thing the
0:51:46 thing of the interesting we haven't
0:51:48 really touched on it on some of these
0:51:49 ideas but I mean you mentioned a bit
0:51:51 about morality for example so as an
0:51:54 evolutionist I would I would want to be
0:51:58 able to what we call reverse engineer
0:52:01 any characteristic okay so you you would
0:52:05 say and I I don't like using the word
0:52:08 why in in an evolutionary context I try
0:52:11 and persuade people that evolutionists
0:52:13 should be saying how does something
0:52:15 improve the fitness of an organism what
0:52:17 is the selective advantage of that not
0:52:19 why does a bird have wings right but we
0:52:22 use it as shorthand why is a
0:52:24 philosophical question
0:52:25 but why does a bird have wish he says
0:52:28 happening you explained himself the bird
0:52:30 has wings because if it has wings it can
0:52:31 fly away and not be eaten and the genes
0:52:33 for having wings will be maintained in
0:52:36 the population that's a reverse
0:52:37 engineering idea that sets up a
0:52:39 hypothesis but we can also set up we can
0:52:45 reverse engineer anything it doesn't
0:52:47 mean that that thing has a function so
0:52:50 you could say what's the point of a chin
0:52:52 right well see that is but that was a
0:52:55 function of a chin well he might have no
0:52:57 function you could think of a function
0:52:59 you could probably ask you all and you
0:53:00 could come up with different ideas it
0:53:02 sets about but a chin may be just the
0:53:04 result of development in a way our teeth
0:53:06 are and how our jaw has to be so not
0:53:09 everything as you said has to be have an
0:53:12 eeveelution Airy explanation I mean we
0:53:14 also have like Stephen Jay Gould wrote
0:53:17 about this extensively we have these
0:53:20 so-called Maillard mal adaptations that
0:53:23 we
0:53:24 this evolution byproducts and you know
0:53:27 the chin may be a by-product or this or
0:53:30 whatever the actual hypothesis is but
0:53:32 this is why it gets very dangerous when
0:53:33 someone takes scientific ideas and then
0:53:36 tries to understand morality through
0:53:38 them like the philosopher Michael ruse
0:53:40 he says about morality that this is an
0:53:44 illusion created by the genes now this
0:53:47 is actually quite dangerous territory
0:53:48 because imagine telling a
0:53:50 fifteen-year-old
0:53:50 you know in inner-city Birmingham that
0:53:53 your morality is the illusion of your
0:53:55 genes I mean that is not going to go
0:53:57 down too well yeah so we should be
0:53:59 careful about what science to take its
0:54:02 conclusions and then use that as a sort
0:54:04 of asset to burn away theological ideas
0:54:05 yeah you know there's many different
0:54:07 ways of looking at the world yeah and I
0:54:09 think it's very very important to
0:54:11 separate those out and one thing that we
0:54:14 should you know try and do is as
0:54:16 educators as people who want to narrow
0:54:19 the gap between the public and the
0:54:20 public and academic understanding is get
0:54:23 people to start reading because we just
0:54:25 listen all the time you know you hear
0:54:26 someone say I mean how many times have
0:54:29 you heard this is the gene for X but
0:54:32 you'll never find a credible scientific
0:54:35 journal saying okay that is the gene for
0:54:37 you know bad behavior so we need to
0:54:40 educate ourselves in that and we need to
0:54:42 understand that for us to actually just
0:54:46 to benefit from Sciences not enough if
0:54:47 you really do want to be grateful to
0:54:49 science then we should understand how it
0:54:50 works and also the philosophy side of it
0:54:52 and what the philosophers actually say
0:54:55 about what is based upon where you can
0:54:58 achieve and what it can't actually is
0:54:59 you know I think that's right I mean I
0:55:01 think I think it's an interesting
0:55:02 discussion to have about morality and
0:55:05 and free will is you touched on because
0:55:09 our brains give us a much more nuanced
0:55:13 view of the world and we have a view of
0:55:16 the future we have view of the cell of
0:55:18 ourselves we have empathy which most
0:55:22 organisms don't have and it's important
0:55:24 for society and our previous evolution
0:55:27 in groups and to be successful in the
0:55:28 environment which we came through as a
0:55:30 group where we could share tasks but
0:55:34 that also gives us a responsibility and
0:55:37 an opportunity and if there was a gene
0:55:40 that meant that you didn't have empathy
0:55:42 I know right there are people who lack
0:55:44 empathy psychopaths I know there may
0:55:48 well be a genetic basis to that it isn't
0:55:50 a single gene it will be like your hai a
0:55:51 combination of genes but you know does
0:55:54 that make that person evil or not evil
0:55:56 because it's not their fault and and
0:55:59 that that is immoral Jo and there's also
0:56:00 a legal distinction if you have a gene
0:56:03 that makes you do something and you and
0:56:05 you kill somebody are you guilty of
0:56:06 murder or is it not your fault because
0:56:08 of your genetics and that that because
0:56:11 of where we are in our evolutionary
0:56:13 trajectory in a way it's a curse it's a
0:56:16 responsibility because you have to
0:56:18 develop a philosophical moral view that
0:56:22 takes that biology into account but
0:56:25 because we are more complicated not not
0:56:28 only that I mean that's a bit less very
0:56:29 interesting insight but also that when
0:56:32 there are scientific ideas those
0:56:36 scientific ideas have a basis and that
0:56:39 basis if you give someone that
0:56:40 scientific idea without giving them that
0:56:42 actual basis then they can use those to
0:56:45 actually run away and come up with
0:56:46 conclusions which don't make any sense
0:56:48 like when with the the famous Selfish
0:56:52 Gene book came out some people
0:56:54 misinterpreted that as a type of
0:56:58 vindicate vinification of morality right
0:57:02 you it was like okay we we can be
0:57:04 selfish greed is good
0:57:05 but anybody who understands the
0:57:08 philosophy side of things will
0:57:09 understand okay wait hang on a second
0:57:10 that's based on the idea of The Selfish
0:57:13 Gene which is that gene is the unit of
0:57:16 selection and that basically that's just
0:57:19 a model that we have within population
0:57:22 genetics and you cannot get a ort from n
0:57:26 is even the stern naturalistic fallacy
0:57:28 people don't get that people don't get
0:57:29 what it's based upon what the framework
0:57:31 is what you can't do and what you can't
0:57:34 do you just get you know we even have
0:57:37 this joke in the office sometimes when
0:57:38 someone's doing something very selfish
0:57:39 we say oh it's The Selfish Gene right
0:57:41 and that's why it's it's very very
0:57:44 important it's very very important to
0:57:45 have these sort of discussions where
0:57:47 people from a
0:57:48 background of science and philosophy can
0:57:50 come together and say okay let's try and
0:57:53 mitigate the difference between the
0:57:55 public and the academic the idea of
0:57:58 altruism is something that I think that
0:58:00 was a big problem in the development of
0:58:02 evolutionary theory because you say that
0:58:04 you get your genes through to the next
0:58:06 generation is the objective of evolution
0:58:09 if I can give it a face but we see
0:58:12 altruistic behavior where an organism my
0:58:15 sacrifice itself or spend energy that it
0:58:18 could have spent on itself helping
0:58:21 somebody else to reproduce right so I
0:58:23 mean you know a bird my it's been
0:58:27 observed that birds are bringing up
0:58:30 fledglings in a nest that another bird
0:58:33 might help them why would that bird help
0:58:36 them when it could go away and have its
0:58:38 own nest and get its own through genes
0:58:40 to the next generation so it looks like
0:58:43 altruistic non selfish behavior but of
0:58:45 course the reason is that bird is
0:58:47 related to the other birds and while it
0:58:50 might not be in a position to have a
0:58:51 nest itself maybe it was too late than
0:58:53 getting a food or a nesting site by
0:58:56 helping its parents have more success
0:58:59 with its own eggs it's getting more of
0:59:01 its own genes through to the next
0:59:02 generation even if they're not in the
0:59:05 bird itself and I think that's some of
0:59:08 the selfish gene just about the selfish
0:59:10 you know you say just genes the unit of
0:59:12 selection one of the things that Dawkins
0:59:14 gets wrong there is the gene isn't the
0:59:16 obvious selection because the
0:59:18 consequences of all the genes working
0:59:20 together to make a body that's what the
0:59:23 environment seized with a woolly coat or
0:59:24 not would eco and that's what lives or
0:59:26 dies not the individual gene yeah and
0:59:29 this is also very important because the
0:59:32 selfish gene idea was WD Hammond hammer
0:59:35 Hamilton he popularized it and it's been
0:59:38 dominating in evolutionary biology for
0:59:41 decades and when you're Wilson's book
0:59:44 came out the social conquest of Earth
0:59:46 and he challenged that with his
0:59:48 alternative group selection there was a
0:59:49 big online spat which I I'm sure you're
0:59:52 aware of with the Richard Dawkins and
0:59:53 Elliot so Wilson so they're having this
0:59:58 old dispute and I'm only sort of
1:00:01 interested in this
1:00:02 philosophy side of things here so we're
1:00:03 having a shift according to some in
1:00:06 evolutionary biology about the unit
1:00:08 selection is it selfish or is it is it
1:00:12 the gene or is it group now what's
1:00:14 interesting is that when they were going
1:00:16 back and forth Sir Richard Dawkins
1:00:17 obviously is very upset you have The
1:00:19 Selfish Gene idea and he's he's got the
1:00:21 social conquest honor of the earth group
1:00:24 selection idea when they're going back
1:00:26 and forth on line this is when a
1:00:27 philosopher can watch ok what's going on
1:00:29 so there's two scientists having this
1:00:30 ought to be and the interesting thing
1:00:32 about the debate was he was about not
1:00:35 accepting a paradigm change because
1:00:37 that's sometimes hard for scientists to
1:00:39 do when when they stuck within a
1:00:40 paradigm they're looking at the world
1:00:41 throughout their paradigm now
1:00:43 yo Wilson got very upset because of
1:00:46 Richard Dawkins challenging him on that
1:00:48 particular issue and Richard Dawkins
1:00:51 says you know you shouldn't read his
1:00:52 book and yo Wilson replied back saying
1:00:56 well you know if science worked in this
1:00:57 particular way where you know it was all
1:01:00 about votes right because you know
1:01:01 Dawkins got all these people saying
1:01:02 these are people who actually support me
1:01:04 he said we would still be burning things
1:01:06 believing in phlogiston and using
1:01:08 geocentric maps so sometimes scientists
1:01:10 and an incredible scientist can get
1:01:13 involved in discussions because they get
1:01:15 stuck within a paradigm and Thomas Kuhn
1:01:18 wrote a very important book about the
1:01:21 scientific structure of revolutions is
1:01:24 that sometimes scientists can get
1:01:26 involved in what's known as normal
1:01:27 science so they're getting involved in
1:01:28 this process and they're looking at the
1:01:30 world through a paradigm and then Bic
1:01:32 when a new paradigm comes like say
1:01:34 Darwinian evolution is being as a
1:01:36 mechanism is being challenged by neo
1:01:39 Lamarckian evolution or Masatoshi knives
1:01:42 and new mutation ism or or evolution by
1:01:45 self by genetic engineering by I forgot
1:01:49 his name so any of those paradigms it's
1:01:53 actually according to Thomas Kuhn a
1:01:54 almost impossible religious experience
1:01:57 right to change from one paradigm to
1:02:00 another because it's been working so
1:02:01 well and we saw this at the beginning of
1:02:02 the 20th century with quantum theory and
1:02:06 classical mechanics Newtonian mechanics
1:02:07 that some of the scientists just did not
1:02:10 want to accept and plate tectonics so I
1:02:12 will have to do
1:02:15 paradigm shift right now and I think
1:02:18 it's time we have about seven minutes
1:02:19 for question answers that was an amazing
1:02:22 discussion nothing around a pause for
1:02:23 that so we're gonna take it from the
1:02:31 floor we're gonna start with questions
1:02:34 for professor and then we'll move on to
1:02:38 questions force aboard or if you have
1:02:40 questions that apply to both they could
1:02:41 both answer as well so first question
1:02:45 yes the gentleman at the back with the
1:02:49 hand the you yes okay good for the sake
1:03:01 of the orders you didn't hear that if
1:03:03 science doesn't undermine God why do
1:03:05 people like me and you refer to Dawkins
1:03:07 and others why did it continue to you
1:03:09 basically push this narrative so
1:03:11 professor you'd have to was talking I
1:03:14 mean I mean I think I think he's put
1:03:20 himself in a very radical position yeah
1:03:22 I'll come clean right I'm an atheist
1:03:24 right I I had an experience when I was
1:03:28 very young in school being told by the
1:03:32 priest you have to believe this or
1:03:34 you'll go to hell a nice to lie awake at
1:03:37 night forcing myself to believe and I
1:03:41 couldn't and it wasn't until I was
1:03:43 fifteen that I result on this I don't
1:03:45 have to do this so for me I don't it
1:03:50 doesn't it doesn't worry me for Dawkins
1:03:53 I don't know maybe he's got some issue I
1:03:56 don't know okay
1:03:57 I mean he doesn't I like him a lot
1:04:00 and I like I don't know the man but I
1:04:02 mean I like what he writes and I think
1:04:03 it's provocative and it stimulates
1:04:05 debate and that's helpful but I think
1:04:07 the position and we were talking about
1:04:09 it earlier I think the position that you
1:04:12 can know everything for certain is not
1:04:14 my experience of science it's about
1:04:16 dealing with uncertainty and you could
1:04:19 push everything back naturalistic
1:04:21 processes all the way to the Big Bang if
1:04:23 you wanted to you could make those
1:04:24 arguments what's before that I don't
1:04:26 know I know I think they're not
1:04:29 processes that we don't understand it
1:04:30 may never understand it could be God but
1:04:33 I don't think it is but it could be so I
1:04:36 think you you can't know that you can
1:04:39 know it by faith but you can't know it
1:04:42 by study question for support yes sir
1:04:57 good question so as I mentioned earlier
1:05:00 this evolution doesn't obviously
1:05:02 undermine the the deistic concept of God
1:05:04 the theistic concept of God does it
1:05:07 undermine the Abrahamic concept of God
1:05:09 now evolution can mean many different
1:05:11 things so for example in sub-saharan
1:05:12 Africa you we have people with certain
1:05:15 mutations which can actually in they
1:05:18 become immune to malaria that's the type
1:05:21 of evolution if you like human evolution
1:05:23 so what you're actually particularly
1:05:25 talking by is human chimp ancestry which
1:05:27 if you look at the tree of life as a
1:05:29 whole as a Muslim looking at the Quran
1:05:31 you can't say much about the tree of
1:05:33 life in general so though the you know
1:05:38 the whale may have had him a a mammal
1:05:42 like a common ancestor right we can't
1:05:45 say how many origins right Darwinian
1:05:48 theory at the moment says one but in
1:05:50 terms of the human chimp ancestry and
1:05:53 the Quran Quranic scholars say that's
1:05:56 not possible
1:05:57 now you know wherever you know relate
1:05:58 this species that species that's not
1:06:00 possible
1:06:00 so how do you reconcile that because
1:06:02 that is obviously a direct conflict in
1:06:04 one particular area now the way I see is
1:06:07 it's not conflict it's a conflict if you
1:06:10 believe science gives you absolute
1:06:11 certainties because you have two
1:06:12 different ways of looking at the world
1:06:13 so one way of looking at the world is
1:06:15 this okay I'm only going to use science
1:06:17 now what does science actually say about
1:06:19 human chimpanzee story regardless of
1:06:21 what you hear on you know YouTube videos
1:06:24 refuting evolution there's this
1:06:26 scientist who disagrees a scientist
1:06:28 disagrees it's actually a complete
1:06:29 consensus amongst eeveelution biologists
1:06:31 at human chain ancestry is it's true
1:06:35 from a like I mentioned earlier based
1:06:38 upon the assumption of homology their
1:06:39 similarities are due to common descent
1:06:42 that's there it is there's no skirting
1:06:45 them so how do you reconcile that well
1:06:47 if you believe that that's based on a
1:06:49 probabilistic framework right and that's
1:06:51 based upon the assumption of homology
1:06:53 that similarities are due to common
1:06:54 descent and like I mentioned previously
1:06:56 we also have the problem of homo lazy
1:06:58 that we have similarities at biochemical
1:07:01 genetic and anatomical level which are
1:07:03 not due to common ancestry and there's
1:07:05 lots of evolutionary biologists have
1:07:07 written about this so you'd actually
1:07:09 have to do a self epistemic Wang right
1:07:11 so we have science which is based which
1:07:14 is giving us one particular idea which
1:07:16 as Elliot Sauber mentioned is based on a
1:07:18 probabilistic framework which is based
1:07:20 upon the assumption of homology which is
1:07:22 also based upon the assumption of
1:07:24 methodological naturalism which is also
1:07:26 based upon the assumption and natural
1:07:27 selection is the driving force which is
1:07:29 also based upon the assumption that
1:07:30 random mutations is the fodder for that
1:07:32 natural selection and so on and so forth
1:07:34 I'm not knocking that I'm just saying
1:07:37 that's just the way it is and you have
1:07:38 the Quran okay so which one do you go
1:07:40 with do you say okay let me throw out
1:07:42 the baby with the bathwater reject
1:07:43 science completely you could just say
1:07:45 well okay I'm a Muslim I believe the
1:07:47 Quran is true I believe is personally
1:07:49 true because of these particular reasons
1:07:51 I believe it because of this particular
1:07:53 miracle of the Quran oh this particular
1:07:54 prophecy of the Prophet Muhammad peace
1:07:56 be upon him or whatever so you have that
1:07:58 sort of thing there and you have this so
1:08:00 you can say you know what I'm just going
1:08:01 to accept it as a working model I'm
1:08:04 going to accept this as valid a valid
1:08:07 scientific theory model paradigm I'm
1:08:09 gonna work within that field and
1:08:11 contribute to that field and I'm gonna
1:08:13 do what God wants us to do which is to
1:08:15 save lives what's very important is not
1:08:18 to do what actually happened in I'm not
1:08:20 gonna mention name of the University in
1:08:21 London where there was an evolutionary a
1:08:24 a class on human evolution and the
1:08:26 Muslim students walked up because they
1:08:28 said this conflicts with our faith now
1:08:29 how are you gonna live in the world if
1:08:32 if there's is something and science
1:08:34 which conflicts with your worldview and
1:08:35 you decide right because this scientific
1:08:38 idea conflicts with my personable
1:08:40 worldview I'm just gonna work out walk
1:08:42 out you're obviously not going to get
1:08:44 where you fall so the simple thing is
1:08:46 accept it as a working paradigm accept
1:08:48 it as valid science do not you don't
1:08:50 need to get rid of your theological
1:08:52 beliefs and also understand that human
1:08:55 chimp ancestry
1:08:55 to be honest in terms of science is a
1:08:57 very small discrepancy in terms of the
1:09:01 quran and science there's a much bigger
1:09:02 discrepancy which existed in the 50s in
1:09:05 the 50s the vast majority of biologists
1:09:08 sorry physicists in fact all of them
1:09:10 believed in the static state model they
1:09:12 believed the universe is eternal it
1:09:14 always existed and always will exist
1:09:16 even Einstein Niels Bohr all these great
1:09:18 guys right now the static state model
1:09:20 says the universe has no beginning and
1:09:22 they obviously had scientific predictive
1:09:25 model their predictions which came true
1:09:27 and so on and so forth now that
1:09:29 contradicts the Quran which says the
1:09:31 universe has a beginning now what would
1:09:33 you do if you're a scientist in the 50s
1:09:35 reject the science refuse to do physics
1:09:36 no you'd carry on you'd say okay let's
1:09:39 let's see where this goes
1:09:40 later on the Big Bang came and that's
1:09:42 more in line with the Quran fifty years
1:09:44 from now the Big Bang may be replaced by
1:09:46 the static state model so what do you do
1:09:48 you simply do an epistemic weighing you
1:09:50 don't throw out the baby with the
1:09:52 bathwater what we shouldn't do and I
1:09:54 believe and I'm gonna be very frank
1:09:55 about this
1:09:55 I don't believe Muslims should be
1:09:57 supporting intelligent design I see a
1:09:59 lot of them do I don't believe we should
1:10:01 be supporting creation science or any of
1:10:03 those things and I don't believe that
1:10:05 those discussions which happen like
1:10:07 dov'è in America and so on and so forth
1:10:09 where they've made the universities and
1:10:11 the schools into a battleground of
1:10:12 religion versus science and they've even
1:10:15 taken this at a level where even the
1:10:17 vice president of in America Mike Pence
1:10:22 you can watch a video of him actually
1:10:24 trying to get rid of Darwinian evolution
1:10:26 and replace it with creation science
1:10:29 just google it this is a few years ago
1:10:31 we don't want Muslims to get involved in
1:10:33 those or discussions we just want them
1:10:34 to get involved in science do science
1:10:38 try to save lives do what you can and
1:10:40 understand that something which you know
1:10:44 is made up in terms of okay this is what
1:10:47 we believe that happened
1:10:48 billions of years ago millions of years
1:10:50 ago 67 million years ago there was a
1:10:55 split between human beings and
1:10:57 chimpanzees or whatever how is that
1:10:59 going to stop you on a day-to-day level
1:11:01 to not get involved in things like
1:11:03 antibiotic resistance which if we don't
1:11:05 solve will actually take us back to a
1:11:08 new Dark Ages
1:11:09 and just a few months ago I had a
1:11:11 meeting with a prominent and one of the
1:11:14 most prominent people working in this
1:11:17 field at the moment doctor Farid Hahn
1:11:18 and he's an evolutionary biologist who's
1:11:20 a Muslim who's working on this
1:11:21 particular issue of antibiotic
1:11:22 resistance he's dedicated his life to
1:11:25 the field of evolutionary biology
1:11:27 because he believes and he said this
1:11:29 himself the Quran says saving one life
1:11:31 is like saving all imagine if he said
1:11:34 right I'm not gonna get involved in this
1:11:35 field because this contradicts my belief
1:11:36 you get knowing so we're trying to give
1:11:39 people a pragmatic approach where they
1:11:42 can contribute and they can actually
1:11:45 understand that it's not their role to
1:11:47 get involved in those theological
1:11:49 discussions they can just take this
1:11:51 practical solution and apply in their
1:11:53 lives okay we have time for one final
1:11:56 question it's gonna be a question for
1:11:57 both
1:11:58 has anyone got a question that could be
1:12:00 applied to both this is Professor and
1:12:02 sabor except for both sister that's fine
1:12:08 oh you have one for both okay one for
1:12:12 both sorry I do apologize maybe you
1:12:13 could ask him off sorry
1:12:38 question I think there's two aspects to
1:12:42 that I think firstly his family
1:12:45 background I mentioned the Lunar Society
1:12:46 he's both his grandfather's Josiah
1:12:48 Wedgwood and Erasmus Darwin we're
1:12:50 members of the Lunar Society so he had a
1:12:53 history of understanding change and and
1:12:55 what the impact of these would be as you
1:12:58 said he trained as a cleric so he knew
1:13:00 the current paradigm of what those ideas
1:13:03 of change would do when he was on the
1:13:05 Beagle Captain Fitzroy he was a
1:13:10 creationist who Darwin sat across the
1:13:13 table from and heard the consequences
1:13:15 Darwin's own wife Emma was effectively
1:13:19 what we would recognize as a born-again
1:13:20 Christian today so he was exposed to
1:13:23 those ideas and you could argue that you
1:13:26 know some of the reluctance but some
1:13:29 people do some people disagree the
1:13:30 reluctance to publish the way that he
1:13:33 exposed individual bits of the theory to
1:13:36 the scientific community community
1:13:38 without revealing the whole can
1:13:39 partially be explained by that
1:13:41 understanding rumor he's writing in the
1:13:43 time around the 1840s where people in in
1:13:47 in Ireland a dying of famine for
1:13:49 biological reasons so the biological
1:13:51 impact of that the death of people who
1:13:54 were riots in London it's you know and
1:13:56 so that change and this idea the stories
1:13:59 that are coming from his grandfather
1:14:00 about the lunar society and their
1:14:02 burning of the house others that but I
1:14:05 also think you can flip it and and
1:14:07 talked about the slavery and things and
1:14:09 and the fact that he's thinking about
1:14:12 his biology and his ideas of change and
1:14:16 how things are and we touched on the
1:14:20 morality a little bit and the way that
1:14:22 organisms are equal and that humans are
1:14:27 equal I think he was very aware of that
1:14:29 and to a certain extent that was one of
1:14:33 his the things that he wanted he
1:14:35 science to say and I think he would have
1:14:37 been very disappointed with the way that
1:14:39 there was a there was a direct
1:14:41 relationship with the waves of his ideas
1:14:43 of superiority and strength was used all
1:14:47 the way through to the Nazis and the
1:14:49 final solution which can be directly
1:14:51 traced back through philosophers like
1:14:52 Nietzsche
1:14:53 I mean that would have really upset him
1:14:56 so it's a very very important question
1:15:00 and I'm sure you know more than me on
1:15:02 this topic but he was reading thomas
1:15:04 malthus's book on you know essentially
1:15:09 economy how it works and about demand
1:15:12 and supply and how you always have a lot
1:15:14 more demand than there is supply and
1:15:16 that's actually what some historians say
1:15:19 how he developed his ideas of natural
1:15:22 selection that you have this this huge
1:15:25 huge amount of demand and very little
1:15:27 supply and which creates competition and
1:15:29 then the majority have to basically fall
1:15:31 by the wayside so he was impacted by
1:15:33 those ideas and interestingly he was
1:15:35 also impacted by the general idea within
1:15:38 society which was that they were moving
1:15:42 away from this type of well they were
1:15:46 moving towards this this this or belief
1:15:48 about the world about progress right the
1:15:51 things get progressively better and like
1:15:53 professor Jeremy Pritchard explains in
1:15:56 his he explained today but also he's got
1:15:57 really important TED talk on this where
1:16:01 he explains about how everything is on
1:16:03 the same level from a from a Darwinian
1:16:05 point of view that you don't have this
1:16:07 is better than that interestingly enough
1:16:09 there there's some academics have
1:16:12 interpreted that he had some of the old
1:16:15 remnants of the ideas of the great chain
1:16:17 of being he still believed in these sort
1:16:19 of ideas of progress and today Darwin in
1:16:22 neo-darwinism would totally reject the
1:16:25 whole idea of progress so he was
1:16:26 definitely a product of his own times
1:16:29 though I want to focus on more in just
1:16:32 to summarize is is on his theology his
1:16:35 theology if you actually look at some of
1:16:37 the and there isn't really much much
1:16:39 work on this but if you look at the
1:16:41 letters that he wrote personally to
1:16:43 people like ASA gray and and others
1:16:45 he actually said my theology is muddled
1:16:49 because he wasn't happy with the idea
1:16:50 there is nothing like the total
1:16:53 philosophical naturalism he wasn't happy
1:16:55 with that
1:16:55 but then at the same time he just
1:16:57 couldn't understand why there was so
1:16:58 much suffering and he had gone through
1:17:00 personal suffering in terms of his own
1:17:02 illness and in terms of the the death of
1:17:04 his daughter Emma Wedgwood who she would
1:17:06 and not Emma Wedgwood Emma don't Darwin
1:17:09 and that was his wife wasn't it so she's
1:17:15 buried in Malvern so that really hit him
1:17:20 in in fact you know that you could
1:17:23 because it's quite hard to read
1:17:25 you know reverse-engineer what basically
1:17:26 happened but the problem of evil is a
1:17:28 big problem for him and I just like to
1:17:31 just highlight there that the problem of
1:17:34 evil I think is it's something that you
1:17:37 know we should look into the views of
1:17:39 Darwin and also consider as Muslims that
1:17:42 the Quran gives us an answer about the
1:17:44 problem of evil in chapter 18 about God
1:17:47 being their wise it's not just about you
1:17:51 know God being all-powerful all-loving
1:17:52 and in fact Darwin just keeps bringing
1:17:54 up this issue again and again he just
1:17:56 keeps saying I just do not understand
1:17:58 how God can be all loving when this
1:18:01 particular suffering is taking place now
1:18:04 interestingly enough he was reading a
1:18:06 lot about philosophy he was actually
1:18:08 reading about what's the name of that
1:18:11 philosopher Kant he was reading about
1:18:13 corn and reading about others and
1:18:15 reading about free will and
1:18:16 predestination and so you know he was a
1:18:18 product of his time definitely and I
1:18:21 believe that if he was here today
1:18:22 then on the minimum he'd want to I
1:18:26 believe read the Quran simply because he
1:18:28 wasn't afraid of reading other people's
1:18:31 worldviews in order to sort of get a
1:18:35 more broader picture and which is
1:18:37 actually one of the things which you can
1:18:39 say about Darwin was that he was a
1:18:41 compiler in a synthesizer because he
1:18:43 took his ideas from people like Charles
1:18:46 Lyell which was about plate tectonics
1:18:49 essentially how old the earth is he took
1:18:52 ideas from theories about economics
1:18:55 that's how you got to be of natural
1:18:56 selection
1:18:57 he took certain ideas for about language
1:19:00 and he applied that to evolution and he
1:19:02 a comparison between the evolution of
1:19:04 language and the evolution of species so
1:19:08 here's a synthesizer and I believe that
1:19:10 we should we should all in that way
1:19:12 be open to read the works of other
1:19:15 people so we can actually gain more
1:19:16 knowledge that's a really good note to
1:19:18 end I think it was an amazing discussion
1:19:21 these are the type of discussions that
1:19:22 we all should be having a special on
1:19:24 campus and I'd like to thank professor
1:19:26 Pritchard and sabor Ahmed for being very
1:19:30 polite and courteous and it was an
1:19:34 amazing discussion I've learned a lot
1:19:35 thank you very much for your time we're
1:19:37 slightly over time I do apologize but I
1:19:41 think we they both deserve another round
1:19:43 of applause so have a great evening
1:19:51 thank you for coming