Londoniyyah - Part 29 - Evolution | Subboor Ahmad (2022-04-24) ​

0:00:06 assalamualaikum
0:00:07 welcome to londonia
0:00:09 today we will be covering darwinism we
0:00:12 will start off with the recitation of
0:00:13 the poem and then we will get into the
0:00:16 thick of theism naturalism and darwinism
0:00:26 foreign
0:00:41 foreign
0:00:54 foreign
0:01:10 so there we just heard um some verses
0:01:13 from the poem londoneer in terms of
0:01:16 darwinism in today's session i'm going
0:01:18 to be covering
0:01:20 its relationship with theism and
0:01:22 naturalism now what i want to do
0:01:24 in the beginning is i want to go through
0:01:26 some history right
0:01:28 and it's good to always go over
0:01:31 the popular perception
0:01:33 and then actually look into what it is
0:01:35 academically because that is the major
0:01:37 problem there's a huge difference
0:01:39 between the way that this theory is
0:01:42 actually
0:01:43 promoted in the public the way it's
0:01:44 analyzed the way people understand it
0:01:46 and the academic understanding of this
0:01:48 theory so as a quick sort of question
0:01:51 when was the first time in the public
0:01:54 eye not asking for you guys because you
0:01:56 guys mashallah learn it when was the
0:01:58 first time
0:01:59 that
0:02:00 evolution as a concept
0:02:03 was actually discovered
0:02:05 so if you were to go out and speak to
0:02:07 some random person in here in north
0:02:09 london
0:02:10 what would they say
0:02:12 what sort of timeline would they give
0:02:17 they'd probably say like around the time
0:02:19 of charles darwin around the time of
0:02:20 charles darwin excellent
0:02:22 that's the general idea i think
0:02:24 everybody agrees with that okay
0:02:26 and would there also be an association
0:02:29 between darwin's theory and atheism and
0:02:33 naturalism
0:02:34 naturalism i think it's important to
0:02:36 define so naturalism would be
0:02:38 the
0:02:38 philosophical position
0:02:40 that
0:02:42 explanations have to be using
0:02:46 natural causes and natural properties
0:02:48 and processes and these types of things
0:02:50 denying anything supernatural a god or
0:02:53 soul or anything like that so again the
0:02:56 question
0:02:57 what's the public perception about
0:02:59 evolution and atheism
0:03:03 um the public perception is usually that
0:03:05 evolution proves atheism because it kind
0:03:07 of replaces
0:03:08 god's uh kind of uh creation creative
0:03:11 power or his influence or his
0:03:13 intervention in humanity
0:03:15 excellent excellent what else anybody
0:03:18 want to give some comments about perhaps
0:03:20 the role of the church and the decline
0:03:22 of christianity and
0:03:23 that it's linked to atheism and
0:03:26 darwinism
0:03:27 yes
0:03:29 is the idea that i guess religion in the
0:03:31 form of the church was sort of opposed
0:03:33 to science or definitely prevented the
0:03:35 scientific enterprise from really taking
0:03:37 off and so once science begins to you
0:03:40 know uh you know people begin to look at
0:03:42 world more scientifically and the role
0:03:43 of religion decreases then you have
0:03:45 evolution which provides explanations
0:03:47 for that which was previously explained
0:03:49 by religion excellent
0:03:51 anybody else
0:03:52 was there not
0:03:53 some ancient greek
0:03:55 philosophers who who basically rejected
0:03:58 the supernatural concepts and said
0:04:00 everything was
0:04:02 just a form of naturalism
0:04:05 yeah before socrates and aristotle yeah
0:04:08 so excellent i i think this is a good
0:04:11 segue to actually get into
0:04:13 what was the perception of the ancients
0:04:16 when it came to biological change
0:04:18 so you're you're right on the money
0:04:20 there that
0:04:22 evolution as a basic idea and even
0:04:25 naturalistic evolution
0:04:27 was something that was theorized about
0:04:30 written about discussed by the ancient
0:04:32 world okay
0:04:34 now what's very interesting
0:04:35 is that we usually think
0:04:38 because of the way that this theory is
0:04:40 propagated through the education system
0:04:43 through popular culture through netflix
0:04:45 through all of these types of things
0:04:47 we usually think okay so charles darwin
0:04:50 came up with evolution evolution is
0:04:52 atheistic and that's what led to the
0:04:54 decline of religion
0:04:56 in the western world this was a point of
0:04:58 inflection of course it was on on its
0:05:00 way down anyway and then today today
0:05:02 they would also say this is a kryptonite
0:05:05 right so there's a religious person
0:05:06 they're praying walk up to them with
0:05:08 this kryptonite start waving it in their
0:05:10 face and they'll interfere with their
0:05:12 prayer and they'll become you know
0:05:13 apostate or something right there's this
0:05:15 idea that we have this powerful theory
0:05:17 we can wave in people's faces and you
0:05:20 know it will lead them to basically
0:05:22 disbelief and rejecting god and so on
0:05:25 and so forth okay so here let's start
0:05:27 off the discussion about
0:05:29 evolution itself that the ancients spoke
0:05:32 about
0:05:33 so we have ancient civilizations in the
0:05:36 indus valley civilization
0:05:38 modern day india pakistan bangladesh
0:05:41 that region of the world we also have
0:05:43 the ancient greeks and other parts of
0:05:45 the world where there is a discussion
0:05:47 about biological change over time there
0:05:49 is a discussion about evolution and then
0:05:50 we find this
0:05:52 goi this tradition continuing
0:05:54 um in the middle ages we find this in
0:05:57 the muslim world we find this
0:05:59 in the christian world biological change
0:06:00 over time and then
0:06:02 when we come to say
0:06:04 um around the time of darwin some
0:06:07 about
0:06:08 50 years before darwin we had a french
0:06:11 biologist john bapster lamarck from
0:06:13 which you get the marketing evolution so
0:06:15 again you know he had his ideas on
0:06:17 evolution he had the idea that there
0:06:19 wasn't
0:06:21 one origin
0:06:22 and we're going to get into y1 later
0:06:24 right
0:06:25 he had the idea that there was multiple
0:06:28 origins
0:06:29 and yet parallel lines of evolution
0:06:32 taking place
0:06:33 and he had a mechanism as well so he had
0:06:35 a history which you could call uh a
0:06:37 forest of life right
0:06:39 and he also uh believed them in a
0:06:41 mechanism which we today referred to as
0:06:44 uh neolamarcism so he had he had his you
0:06:47 know inheritance of acquired
0:06:48 characteristics you know the elephant
0:06:50 not the elephant the giraffe uh it's
0:06:52 reaching for leaves and his neck is
0:06:55 getting longer and so on and so forth
0:06:57 however here's something very
0:06:58 interesting
0:07:01 evolution
0:07:02 being something today in the public eye
0:07:05 which is supposed to be linked to
0:07:09 atheism
0:07:10 is an idea
0:07:13 which is new
0:07:15 this is very interesting
0:07:16 it is
0:07:17 new why because
0:07:20 in the past before darwin
0:07:23 john baptic and the ones before him
0:07:25 going all the way back to the indus
0:07:27 valley civilization going back all the
0:07:29 way to the greeks
0:07:31 this idea of biological evolution
0:07:36 being equated to atheism or naturalism
0:07:39 was not there yes you had some theorists
0:07:41 who were naturalists who
0:07:43 did not believe in god and therefore
0:07:44 they had their own sort of
0:07:46 you know if you like atheistic
0:07:48 evolutionary ideas but this idea that
0:07:51 evolution equals atheism that if someone
0:07:54 believes in some form of evolution some
0:07:55 form of biological change that equals
0:07:58 atheism this is a
0:08:00 radical shift
0:08:02 in the history of evolutionary thought
0:08:04 this is very interesting so
0:08:06 quick sort of uh question
0:08:08 who introduced it who came up with this
0:08:11 idea who actually started you know
0:08:14 pushing this out
0:08:16 didn't um sorry i may be mistaken but
0:08:19 didn't darwin's grandfather
0:08:21 um have similar iods erasmus yeah
0:08:25 so erasmus darwin he was also a someone
0:08:29 who contributed to the theory um and uh
0:08:32 again
0:08:33 what we find is interestingly he was a
0:08:35 freemason anyone anyone wants to
0:08:37 look up his history um so you know we
0:08:40 find him speaking about evolution as
0:08:41 well but again this link between
0:08:44 evolution and atheism is not there even
0:08:48 with him
0:08:49 and now what's interesting
0:08:52 is it's not there with darwin either
0:08:54 okay this is very interesting
0:08:56 so when charles darwin
0:08:58 was a christian a creationist he
0:09:01 obviously
0:09:03 you know did not believe in the type of
0:09:05 evolution that he later on believed in
0:09:07 however there was a point
0:09:09 when he left christianity
0:09:12 and he
0:09:14 had these evolutionary ideas floating in
0:09:16 his mind you know like for example that
0:09:18 famous uh tree of life you know that
0:09:22 that picture that we have
0:09:23 next to it in it says i think right and
0:09:26 that's from his notebooks that were
0:09:28 found so he had that idea he had the
0:09:30 idea of
0:09:32 natural selection he had the idea that
0:09:33 you have
0:09:34 a lot of competition
0:09:36 you have a
0:09:38 you know a lot of demand and the supply
0:09:40 is not there so then you get this sort
0:09:41 of competition he got that from the
0:09:43 economist thomas malthus so you know
0:09:46 capitalism gave the idea to darwinism
0:09:49 and darwinism then fuel capitalism so
0:09:51 you have this positive
0:09:53 feedback loop going on what's very
0:09:54 interesting nonetheless is that he
0:09:56 himself
0:09:58 darwin himself
0:10:00 believed in god
0:10:01 when he first presented
0:10:04 the origin of species the main concepts
0:10:06 the main ideas when he first presented
0:10:10 it in 1858
0:10:12 here in london at the royal society
0:10:13 royal society is the oldest scientific
0:10:17 society in the world right it's a very
0:10:18 prestigious society so one year before
0:10:20 before the famous 1859 year that he
0:10:23 published
0:10:24 the uh origin of species
0:10:26 he
0:10:27 presented his ideas in the royal society
0:10:29 and at that time he was a believer in
0:10:32 god
0:10:33 he was a deist
0:10:35 he believed in god but he did not
0:10:36 believe in religion did not believe in
0:10:39 the standard if you like creation
0:10:41 idea but he he did not
0:10:44 accept atheism and
0:10:46 he never accepted atheism this is very
0:10:48 interesting now the next year he
0:10:50 published
0:10:52 the origin of species and when he
0:10:54 published the origin of species
0:10:56 he again
0:10:58 did not become an atheist
0:11:02 there was
0:11:04 clear there's clear-cut evidence that
0:11:06 he actually believed in god throughout
0:11:09 that period which is very interesting
0:11:12 so this idea that darwin himself is an
0:11:15 atheist and darwinism
0:11:17 leads to atheism classical darwinism
0:11:20 leads to atheism
0:11:21 this is
0:11:23 not actually darwin's idea
0:11:24 okay
0:11:26 now
0:11:27 what's interesting
0:11:28 is that
0:11:30 in darwin's time
0:11:33 it wasn't just known as
0:11:35 darwin's theory of evolution
0:11:38 there's another person
0:11:40 who is there
0:11:42 and it was known as darwin and
0:11:45 this person's theory and if you pick up
0:11:48 and we have some really old books here
0:11:49 if you pick up some books from the early
0:11:51 20th century
0:11:53 what you find is it doesn't say darwin's
0:11:55 theory of evolution
0:11:57 it says
0:11:58 darwin and
0:12:00 wallace
0:12:01 who's wallace right
0:12:03 and why is he whitewashed from history
0:12:05 so
0:12:07 alfred russell wallace he was a
0:12:10 independent theorist to darwin they both
0:12:13 came up with this idea around the same
0:12:15 period but they never met each other but
0:12:18 they knew
0:12:19 they knew
0:12:21 of each other's work late into their
0:12:25 development of their ideas
0:12:27 so darwin being the gentleman that he is
0:12:30 you know worked with him and they
0:12:32 together
0:12:33 put this theory forward
0:12:35 now
0:12:36 the question is why do we not hear of
0:12:38 wallace today
0:12:40 what happened to wallace
0:12:42 well interestingly wallace is somebody
0:12:45 who if you like apostated from
0:12:48 traditional darwinism so
0:12:51 like um those books and i'm i'm sure
0:12:54 some of the books uh
0:12:55 there are you know even i think prior to
0:12:57 the victorian era
0:12:59 you will find darwin and wallace's
0:13:01 theory darwin and wallace's theory
0:13:03 darwin and wallace is there in fact the
0:13:05 latest that i found
0:13:07 was a book that was published in the
0:13:10 1990s which is not that long ago some of
0:13:12 you guys were born in that period but
0:13:14 because the person who wrote the book
0:13:16 was quite old
0:13:17 right they were born 60 something years
0:13:21 earlier right so they still were
0:13:22 affected
0:13:23 that's the last reference i found to
0:13:25 darwin and wallace's theory
0:13:28 so up till the 1990s in some places
0:13:31 darwin and wallace's theory now what
0:13:33 happened wallace
0:13:34 wallace basically realized uh that
0:13:37 there's
0:13:38 a problem in his mind at least with the
0:13:41 theory which is that you you know you
0:13:44 get an intelligent person from uh
0:13:47 you get a so-called savage what they
0:13:49 call them
0:13:50 from say south america
0:13:52 and you bring those sort of people to
0:13:55 cambridge or to oxford or to london they
0:13:57 study
0:13:58 and they're just as smart as their
0:14:00 european counterparts now the problem
0:14:03 here is um
0:14:04 your intelligence is linked to your
0:14:07 survival and reproduction and if you're
0:14:09 out there in the bush
0:14:11 and you are you know looking to survive
0:14:13 and mate and you don't need to be that
0:14:15 intelligent as intelligent as you need
0:14:17 to be in cambridge so
0:14:19 there should be a limit to how
0:14:21 intelligent those people are
0:14:23 and if you bring those people to london
0:14:25 or oxford or cambridge they should
0:14:27 obviously have this sort of glass
0:14:28 ceiling but what he realized is actually
0:14:31 it doesn't apply to humans those people
0:14:33 can be just as intelligent and those
0:14:35 people
0:14:37 you know natural selection
0:14:39 has developed their cognitive abilities
0:14:41 way more than what is needed for them to
0:14:43 survive and reproduce so this made him
0:14:45 doubt
0:14:46 the theory right and darwin of course
0:14:49 was not happy at all
0:14:50 about this you know him coming up with
0:14:52 these ideas and also
0:14:54 uh then he started pushing out some
0:14:56 ideas on
0:14:58 basically quasi-creationism type of
0:15:00 ideas intelligent design type of ideas
0:15:02 not the way we understand intelligent
0:15:04 design today but he definitely went away
0:15:06 from the naturalistic uh
0:15:09 type of
0:15:12 commitment that you need to make in
0:15:13 science right he started moving away
0:15:14 from that
0:15:16 famously uh darwin uh you know wrote him
0:15:18 a letter and said said to him
0:15:21 don't murder our child
0:15:23 right because it's quite embarrassing
0:15:24 it's quite embarrassing that someone
0:15:25 that you publish the theory with they
0:15:27 they go on and then they they come up
0:15:29 with these types of things
0:15:31 okay so
0:15:33 again
0:15:34 even darwin's co-author
0:15:36 now he's completely whitewashed because
0:15:38 it it's a bit of an embarrassing thing
0:15:40 for especially if you're a new atheist
0:15:43 and you and someone brings this up uh
0:15:44 you know how how the co-theorist uh you
0:15:47 know left the traditional fold
0:15:49 um
0:15:50 so what actually happened well there
0:15:52 were people around darwin
0:15:55 who were militantly atheistic
0:15:58 and they saw this theory as a golden
0:16:01 opportunity
0:16:02 to promote secularism to promote atheism
0:16:07 and for some of them
0:16:08 it actually became a theory that they
0:16:10 could use so they could enact certain
0:16:13 social policies hence why you get social
0:16:16 darwinism which again by the way is not
0:16:18 endorsed by darwin and we can get into
0:16:21 what social darwinism is in perhaps
0:16:23 another session so
0:16:26 what we find is you have vocal people
0:16:28 like t.h huxley
0:16:30 okay t.h huxley
0:16:32 huxley
0:16:33 was a militant atheist and he wanted to
0:16:36 use this theory
0:16:38 to actually turn people away from
0:16:41 religion turn people into fierce
0:16:44 atheists
0:16:45 so what we find with huxley is
0:16:47 people like him were the main proponents
0:16:50 of trying to link darwinism
0:16:52 to
0:16:53 atheism
0:16:55 he people like this
0:16:57 and he was quite successful because
0:16:59 darwin was a i guess you could call him
0:17:01 an introvert he was not somebody that
0:17:04 you know he was friends with his local
0:17:06 uh church uh pastor you know he's just
0:17:09 living in his country home doing his
0:17:11 stuff and you have t.h huxley going out
0:17:13 there debating religious people he's he
0:17:16 was known as darwin's bulldog now what
0:17:18 actually happened was
0:17:20 darwin was of course not aloof
0:17:23 to what was happening with his theory so
0:17:25 he started writing
0:17:27 he started writing to counterbalance
0:17:30 this perception so he started saying
0:17:32 things like
0:17:34 you know in my uh
0:17:36 it is absurd to think that you cannot be
0:17:39 a theist and believe and be an
0:17:41 evolutionist you know and he was in
0:17:44 contact with asa gray asa gray was a
0:17:48 famous scientist who was also a
0:17:50 subscriber to his theory but asa gray of
0:17:52 course
0:17:54 did not believe in
0:17:56 the traditional
0:17:57 creation story of adam and eve but he
0:17:59 was a believing christian he reconciled
0:18:02 in a theistic way and
0:18:04 with evolution with his his christian
0:18:07 theology
0:18:08 and you know what's very interesting is
0:18:11 uh when darwin when darwin received this
0:18:14 feedback uh from a commentator about his
0:18:18 theory when he published the origin of
0:18:19 species um
0:18:21 a commentator uh wrote words to the
0:18:23 effect of well if god created every
0:18:26 single uh creature every single species
0:18:29 uh individually
0:18:31 or if god created one cell
0:18:33 which evolved
0:18:35 you know the tree of life evolved into
0:18:37 what we have today you know bacteria
0:18:40 glass
0:18:41 so
0:18:41 grass elephants or everything so whether
0:18:44 god created things individually or god
0:18:46 created one cell which evolved into all
0:18:49 forms of life it is just as noble for
0:18:52 god
0:18:53 something like this why it's just as you
0:18:55 know it doesn't it doesn't diminish from
0:18:58 god's majesty if you like right
0:19:00 darwin was so impressed with these words
0:19:01 that he actually put them in the second
0:19:04 edition of the origin of species
0:19:06 right because he had six uh six uh
0:19:09 editions in total right
0:19:11 you know um uh he's still writing at
0:19:13 that point so
0:19:15 what's interesting is that he was not
0:19:19 remaining silent
0:19:20 it wasn't like he was sitting there and
0:19:22 he didn't want to get attacked by
0:19:23 religious people so he's dog whistling
0:19:26 to his friends and saying you're going
0:19:27 to attack these religious people he's
0:19:29 starting to see wait a minute these guys
0:19:30 are doing something i don't agree with
0:19:32 so he starts actively writing it and
0:19:34 what we find is that
0:19:37 they are really poor
0:19:40 really poor
0:19:42 um
0:19:43 attacks from the new atheists when you
0:19:45 push out this narrative
0:19:47 about darwin they would say things like
0:19:49 you know to the effect of well you know
0:19:52 he was afraid you know and that's why he
0:19:54 wanted to sort of pander to the
0:19:56 religious people well
0:19:58 why on earth
0:20:00 was he afraid when he'd already
0:20:02 done such a big thing like challenge the
0:20:05 bible challenge the creation story
0:20:07 secondly
0:20:08 we have letters
0:20:11 written
0:20:12 by him to his friends
0:20:14 which are private which were never
0:20:16 supposed to be public
0:20:18 which were actually rediscovered after
0:20:20 some time and those he's mentioning
0:20:22 these things
0:20:24 for example he's mentioning about um you
0:20:27 know his belief in god and this is
0:20:28 around the time he was uh
0:20:30 he hadn't actually published the book
0:20:32 and we find after publishing the origin
0:20:34 species he's still talking about god and
0:20:37 you know he would say things like i had
0:20:38 no intention to write
0:20:39 atheistically and you know so many times
0:20:42 and one of the things which he writes in
0:20:44 a private letter
0:20:45 is you know like because later on in
0:20:47 life he became an agnostic and became an
0:20:49 agnostic because of the problem of evil
0:20:51 and suffering and that really
0:20:53 affected him
0:20:54 his daughter died young i believe she
0:20:56 was under 10 his son died around the age
0:20:58 of two he himself went through all these
0:21:01 health issues by the way this is this is
0:21:02 phenomenal that
0:21:05 he went through a lot of serious health
0:21:08 issues
0:21:09 and we're talking about even before
0:21:11 writing the book which is why it took
0:21:13 him perhaps so long right
0:21:15 but what we find is that he still
0:21:17 mentions god
0:21:19 and one of the clearest
0:21:21 letters that we have
0:21:22 uh
0:21:23 in the in the latter period of his life
0:21:26 is that he actually
0:21:28 describes himself moving away
0:21:31 from the belief in god and becoming more
0:21:33 agnostic but the wording of the letter
0:21:35 is still kind of like he's not fully
0:21:39 like committed to anything right he's
0:21:41 just kind of like
0:21:42 just flirting with agnosticism
0:21:44 but
0:21:45 he adds
0:21:46 to it
0:21:47 he adds to that uh letter and he says
0:21:50 in my wildest fluctuations i wasn't an
0:21:53 atheist
0:21:54 meaning even if i was spinning around i
0:21:56 wasn't an atheist right and i think
0:21:58 that's very important that's very
0:22:00 important
0:22:01 uh to keep in mind so now i hope you
0:22:05 know we understand that the
0:22:08 atheism
0:22:11 uh
0:22:13 hijacking of the theory was something
0:22:15 that he didn't plan
0:22:16 something he didn't foresee
0:22:19 but he could
0:22:20 try to mitigate it in the way that he
0:22:23 could right so we find that now what we
0:22:25 find in the early 20th century
0:22:28 is that
0:22:29 darwin of course didn't know about
0:22:31 genetics
0:22:33 genetics was was even though mendel uh
0:22:36 actually contacted him and stuff like
0:22:38 this from what we know he didn't read
0:22:40 his paper so
0:22:42 you know genetics was not something that
0:22:43 was fused together with his theory so
0:22:47 what we find in the early 20th century
0:22:49 is that a fusion between
0:22:51 genetics
0:22:52 and the classical darwinian theory they
0:22:55 fuse together and they call this the
0:22:57 modern synthesis
0:22:59 the modern synthesis
0:23:00 and this is also known as neo-darwinism
0:23:05 right so the word neo-darwinism
0:23:08 is
0:23:10 you know something that we get from the
0:23:12 early 20th century it's the infusion of
0:23:14 genetics now someone may say
0:23:17 um you know neo-darwinism is totally
0:23:20 different to say darwinism it's not
0:23:22 really the central idea is still natural
0:23:23 selection so it's working on
0:23:26 random mutations rather than random
0:23:28 variations and you know there isn't a
0:23:31 huge different difference conceptually
0:23:33 but anyway let's look at some of the
0:23:35 interesting characters
0:23:37 that are around in this period right
0:23:41 one character
0:23:42 uh who was very influential and this is
0:23:46 uh somebody who is the direct descendant
0:23:49 of t.h huxley which is julian huxley
0:23:53 so julian huxley
0:23:55 was a important biologist and of course
0:23:59 he was a darwinist
0:24:01 and he was also a philosopher
0:24:04 and he was also somebody who wanted to
0:24:07 impact society he wasn't just interested
0:24:09 in oh let me um let me just speak about
0:24:12 this theory let me just try and modern
0:24:15 modernize it no actually he wanted
0:24:18 people to become atheists
0:24:21 and he actually was very clear
0:24:25 that for
0:24:27 for the modern man
0:24:29 there is a new religion
0:24:31 and that new religion is darwinism
0:24:34 so he actually wrote a book in the
0:24:38 1930s
0:24:40 and the book is called
0:24:41 religion without revelation
0:24:44 religion
0:24:45 without revelation you can still get
0:24:47 this book um in fact i've got it
0:24:49 somewhere in this room and this old uh
0:24:52 copy from
0:24:54 i think just just before world war
0:24:56 two in fact he's mentioning contemporary
0:24:58 events like nazism
0:25:00 in that book as well so what he goes on
0:25:02 to argue in that book and also
0:25:05 um his his later book new bottles for
0:25:08 new wine that
0:25:10 we have this religion which he calls
0:25:13 evolutionary humanism and you know in
0:25:16 the same way that in the future
0:25:18 so in the same way that today uh you
0:25:20 know no
0:25:22 rational sane person believes
0:25:24 uh it
0:25:25 believes that the world is flat likewise
0:25:28 nobody will believe in the future that
0:25:30 god exists right
0:25:32 so he was somebody that was clearly
0:25:35 militantly atheistic
0:25:38 he was a
0:25:39 somebody with uh some philosophical
0:25:42 background as well he wasn't just a
0:25:43 biologist
0:25:45 and he wanted to promote these ideas all
0:25:48 across the world
0:25:50 he actually was the founding member and
0:25:53 the first president of unesco
0:25:56 okay this is very interesting
0:25:59 the united nations educational
0:26:01 scientific and cultural organization
0:26:04 that means his ideas
0:26:07 are global
0:26:09 his ideas
0:26:11 are infused in the united nations
0:26:14 they're infused in
0:26:17 the way that the
0:26:18 structure functions of the u.n and this
0:26:21 is right from the onset this isn't now
0:26:23 this is right remember the league of
0:26:25 nations which we had collapsed then you
0:26:28 had the un and he's right there at the
0:26:30 beginning of unesco and he has these
0:26:33 ideas which are being propagated
0:26:35 then
0:26:36 what we find is that again
0:26:41 you know darwinism being used as a way
0:26:43 to justify atheism
0:26:45 uh we find in the works of people like
0:26:47 richard dawkins in his famous book the
0:26:50 blind watchmaker
0:26:52 so
0:26:53 paley's famous watchmaker analogy i'm
0:26:55 sure everybody here has heard of it so
0:26:58 you know dawkins challenged uh you know
0:27:01 essentially design using the idea of the
0:27:04 blind watchmaker the blind watchmaker
0:27:06 here being nature nature is the blind
0:27:09 watchmaker
0:27:10 so what we find in that book is a very
0:27:13 interesting admission
0:27:15 and
0:27:16 what dawkins essentially says is
0:27:19 darwin allowed us
0:27:21 to be intellectually satisfied atheists
0:27:25 okay
0:27:26 darwin allowed us
0:27:27 to be intellectually satisfied atheists
0:27:31 so
0:27:32 clearly there is an emotional attachment
0:27:35 to this theory
0:27:37 you know imagine a buddhist says string
0:27:39 theory allows me to become an
0:27:41 intellectually satisfied buddhist
0:27:43 you'd be thinking why are you basing
0:27:45 your philosophical position on something
0:27:47 from science and you can ask a whole
0:27:48 host of questions but you again find
0:27:51 this that there's that link that he
0:27:53 makes between
0:27:55 atheism and darwinism and also what we
0:27:58 find
0:28:00 is that in his 2016 book the god
0:28:02 delusion the central argument of the god
0:28:05 delusion uses darwinism as a reason to
0:28:09 deny
0:28:10 god
0:28:11 so we find that right what we also find
0:28:14 in a interesting clip online in which
0:28:17 he's talking
0:28:18 with
0:28:19 lawrence krauss
0:28:21 and you know he makes a very interesting
0:28:23 admission
0:28:25 he says look
0:28:27 you don't have to be an atheist to
0:28:29 believe in evolution
0:28:31 which is the opposite to what he's been
0:28:32 saying all this time
0:28:34 right
0:28:35 you don't have to be an atheist to
0:28:36 believe in evolution however
0:28:39 if people believe
0:28:43 to accept evolution means
0:28:46 they have to accept atheism
0:28:48 then all i need to do
0:28:50 is to convince them of evolution and i
0:28:52 can make them all into atheists
0:28:55 he actually shows his true colors all of
0:28:58 those things that he has been writing
0:29:01 especially in the god delusion
0:29:04 he is saying something that he doesn't
0:29:06 actually believe in
0:29:07 he actually admits in that video that he
0:29:10 knows
0:29:11 evolution doesn't lead to atheism he
0:29:13 knows that there is no necessary link
0:29:15 between the two yet that has been his
0:29:17 main argument because as he says with
0:29:20 his own words if people think if they
0:29:23 actually think to believe in evolution
0:29:26 means you have to become an atheist then
0:29:28 all i have to do is convince them of
0:29:30 evolution
0:29:31 so he's given away that
0:29:33 he has a malicious intent
0:29:35 he is somebody that doesn't actually
0:29:37 believe in what he writes
0:29:40 also i think what's important to
0:29:42 highlight is
0:29:43 the idea of
0:29:46 atheism
0:29:47 being
0:29:48 a atheist hijacking
0:29:51 you know darwinian theory is something
0:29:53 which has been written about by other
0:29:56 academics as well so this is this isn't
0:29:58 just you know a theist saying okay this
0:30:01 has happened or that's happened you will
0:30:02 find on the other side atheist speaking
0:30:05 about this as well
0:30:07 um what's interesting
0:30:09 is
0:30:11 what is their main argument what is
0:30:14 their main argument
0:30:16 these people who are you know
0:30:18 essentially
0:30:19 before before dawkins and even dawkins
0:30:21 himself what is their main
0:30:24 sort of way of linking atheism and
0:30:26 darwinism
0:30:28 well
0:30:30 their basic argument is this
0:30:33 we can explain
0:30:35 design
0:30:36 as an illusion
0:30:38 and
0:30:39 we can give a naturalistic explanation
0:30:43 because we can give a naturalistic
0:30:45 explanation
0:30:46 therefore
0:30:48 there is no god
0:30:49 that's their basic argument
0:30:51 so their basic argument is
0:30:54 we can explain we can explain biological
0:30:58 change over time biodiversity
0:31:00 the origin of body forms you can explain
0:31:02 all of these things without reference to
0:31:04 god therefore there's no god
0:31:08 can anyone guess what's wrong with this
0:31:10 argument
0:31:12 what is the
0:31:13 what are some major flaws with this
0:31:15 argument
0:31:20 it confuses the mechanism of agency
0:31:23 very good but there's something even
0:31:26 more obvious before we get to that
0:31:27 because that's going to be the main
0:31:28 point i'm going to go to next
0:31:31 okay so
0:31:32 maybe i'd maybe i wasn't as lucid as i
0:31:34 should have been
0:31:36 if someone's saying
0:31:38 darwin destroyed the design argument
0:31:41 therefore there's no god
0:31:43 what's the problem with this
0:31:51 um like the
0:31:53 uh the proof for god's existence isn't
0:31:55 like necessarily the design argument
0:31:56 exactly
0:31:58 exactly
0:31:59 it's it's it's such an obvious rebuttal
0:32:03 and you know honestly when you find
0:32:05 these atheists trying to use these
0:32:06 arguments yeah
0:32:08 when you give them a simple rebuttal and
0:32:10 say well you can use a moral argument
0:32:11 you can use contingency we use
0:32:13 cosmological argument we can use the
0:32:16 argument from uh you know personal
0:32:18 experience or whatever you can just say
0:32:20 what we can use whatever argument
0:32:22 you literally catch them like you know
0:32:26 a deer in headlights right they're just
0:32:28 going to be bedazzled they can be like
0:32:30 what like they haven't thought about
0:32:32 this point
0:32:33 if
0:32:34 the design argument is supposedly
0:32:37 disproven by darwin
0:32:40 how on earth does that mean there is no
0:32:42 god
0:32:44 all it simply means is the argument for
0:32:46 god's existence
0:32:48 using the design argument is no longer
0:32:50 valid in fact even if other arguments
0:32:52 did not exist
0:32:54 philosophically you cannot say
0:32:56 that means there's no god i mean you
0:32:58 know from an islamic
0:33:00 viewpoint we believe in the fitra
0:33:02 right we believe it's natural so we
0:33:04 don't even necessarily necessarily need
0:33:06 these arguments
0:33:08 so it's such a poor
0:33:10 viewpoint but there's also something
0:33:12 else that
0:33:14 was being alluded to here which is
0:33:17 the
0:33:19 false
0:33:20 notion that just because you can use
0:33:24 naturalistic explanations in science
0:33:28 in referring to natural properties and
0:33:30 natural causation
0:33:31 natural effects and so on and so forth
0:33:33 therefore there is no supernatural is
0:33:36 conflating two types of naturalism
0:33:39 is conflating
0:33:41 methodological naturalism
0:33:43 and
0:33:45 philosophical naturalism okay
0:33:47 so
0:33:48 philosophical naturalism
0:33:50 we all know what is it it is what's also
0:33:54 known as naturalism which is the idea
0:33:56 the philosophical position that all that
0:33:58 there is is uh you know
0:34:01 physical causes and everything can be
0:34:03 broken down to natural properties
0:34:05 natural processes that's it there's no
0:34:07 god there's no angels there's there's no
0:34:08 soul there's no immaterial mind there's
0:34:10 no objective morality there's no uh
0:34:13 real consciousness none of these things
0:34:15 okay
0:34:15 that's the philosophical position of
0:34:17 naturalism methodological naturalism
0:34:21 is actually a
0:34:24 methodology
0:34:26 is actually a lens that you use when you
0:34:30 are doing science
0:34:31 it is not a philosophical position
0:34:34 it is if you like a lens
0:34:37 that you put on
0:34:39 while you're doing science
0:34:41 now the origins of methodological
0:34:43 naturalism when did it actually when did
0:34:45 this idea come that you can't mention
0:34:46 god in science and all these things that
0:34:49 discussion is
0:34:50 is another thing we won't get into that
0:34:52 however what's important to know is this
0:34:56 imagine if in this room right now
0:35:00 i say to you guys okay so you're all
0:35:02 going to come to this uh londoner class
0:35:04 but no one's allowed to bring in
0:35:07 anything that is red
0:35:09 so
0:35:10 abdulrahman comes in here
0:35:12 and uh he's got that shopping bag and
0:35:14 it's got that red uh i think you're
0:35:15 bringing in some sushi
0:35:17 uh it's got some red stuff on there and
0:35:19 i'm like take it out why is that there i
0:35:21 just kick him out i just kicked out that
0:35:23 red uh
0:35:25 uh sofa no sofa rocking chair thing that
0:35:28 hijab sing on that's red get it out okay
0:35:30 that looks a bit red that vest get it
0:35:33 out i kick out anything red
0:35:35 then what i do
0:35:36 is i ban everybody in the room from
0:35:38 using the word red
0:35:40 okay
0:35:41 now my rule is just for the londoner
0:35:45 class while we're discussing
0:35:48 our usual stuff no one mentions red no
0:35:51 one wears red red is not allowed in here
0:35:55 then while i'm giving the londoner class
0:35:57 i say by the way guys
0:35:59 red does not exist
0:36:01 do you know why it doesn't exist it's
0:36:03 not here where is it
0:36:06 you would say well
0:36:08 that's circular but that doesn't make
0:36:10 any sense
0:36:11 you know you
0:36:12 you can't use that argument
0:36:15 well
0:36:16 in science
0:36:18 methodological naturalism
0:36:21 is the governing paradigm
0:36:23 now people obviously trying to challenge
0:36:25 that philosophically and even sometimes
0:36:27 legally however that is the way that's
0:36:28 operating currently
0:36:30 so
0:36:31 to say
0:36:33 god doesn't exist because we're only
0:36:36 using naturalistic explanations and we
0:36:38 do not mention god
0:36:40 in any of these scientific enterprises
0:36:43 is essentially the same thing
0:36:46 that
0:36:47 god is being barred as a concept at the
0:36:49 door of science and then the conclusion
0:36:52 is made therefore there is no god
0:36:53 now it's very interesting
0:36:56 this
0:36:56 conflation
0:36:59 this
0:37:00 ridiculous idea that there is no god
0:37:04 by confusing methodological naturalism
0:37:06 and philosophical naturalism by
0:37:08 basically saying if you adopt
0:37:09 methodological naturalism you have to be
0:37:11 a philosophical naturalist now if you're
0:37:13 a philosophical naturalist you're of
0:37:14 course going to be a mythological
0:37:15 naturalist
0:37:17 but just because you're a methodological
0:37:19 naturalist doesn't mean
0:37:21 you have to be a philosophical
0:37:22 naturalist now
0:37:24 massimo pigluci he's a philosopher of
0:37:27 science and again he's an atheist
0:37:30 a well-known philosopher of science
0:37:32 he again says the same thing about
0:37:34 richard dawkins he says this fallacy
0:37:38 that this fallacious reasoning that he's
0:37:40 using uh of equating mythological
0:37:42 naturalism and philosophical naturalism
0:37:44 and you know this idea that science
0:37:45 leads to atheism darwinism leads to
0:37:47 atheism you know
0:37:48 he talks about this fallacy being used
0:37:52 by
0:37:52 richard hawkins
0:37:54 so the fact is it's not just theists who
0:37:56 are pointing out this fallacious
0:37:59 reasoning
0:38:00 however
0:38:02 there is some nuance here which i want
0:38:04 i i want to get into right
0:38:08 it's not just the case it's not just the
0:38:10 case that
0:38:12 they're using a fallacious argument
0:38:15 there is
0:38:16 something there which is
0:38:19 uh which can be used so
0:38:21 darwinism can be used to support atheism
0:38:24 but what we're saying is it doesn't
0:38:26 necessarily mean
0:38:28 that there is no god
0:38:29 but here's how darwinism
0:38:31 does make sense from an atheistic
0:38:33 perspective
0:38:34 so say
0:38:36 there's a bunch of us on an island okay
0:38:39 and
0:38:40 one of the people here happens to be an
0:38:42 atheist
0:38:44 and we are bought up on this island we
0:38:47 look at all of the
0:38:50 forests and the you know the fish and
0:38:53 the whatever the wildlife is here we
0:38:55 look at all these things
0:38:57 now imagine none of us have studied and
0:38:59 we don't have any
0:39:01 lit we're not scientifically literate we
0:39:03 don't we don't have any concepts we do
0:39:05 you know big bang theory evolution i
0:39:07 mean nothing
0:39:09 and if the atheist amongst us
0:39:13 had to explain life
0:39:16 had to explain these things
0:39:19 they would have to come up with
0:39:21 something like
0:39:23 a naturalistic evolutionary story they
0:39:26 would have to because you can't just
0:39:28 have these complex things
0:39:31 you have to have
0:39:33 an explanation for them and the first
0:39:35 thing that you do with an explanation
0:39:37 is you make it simpler so you say well
0:39:40 going back life must have been simpler
0:39:42 simpler simpler going back it must have
0:39:44 been one form of life
0:39:46 one cell and where did the cell come
0:39:48 from perhaps some
0:39:50 muddy water or whatever some primordial
0:39:53 soup
0:39:54 and
0:39:54 that's how life evolved now you'll come
0:39:56 up with this and how did this
0:39:58 development happen well it must have
0:40:00 happened through some naturalistic
0:40:01 mechanism so now you can start to see
0:40:03 that if you're an atheist
0:40:05 then something like a proto-darwinian
0:40:07 history of life is necessarily true
0:40:11 so
0:40:12 let me repeat that because i think
0:40:13 that's super important if you are an
0:40:16 atheist then something like a
0:40:18 naturalistic evolutionary story has to
0:40:22 be true because there's no other way of
0:40:23 explaining life
0:40:26 now this is the problem
0:40:29 what's happened is
0:40:32 they
0:40:33 are
0:40:33 starting off with a naturalistic lens
0:40:37 and that colors the data
0:40:39 so if you believe there's no god
0:40:42 then
0:40:43 it
0:40:44 you don't need evidence from genetics
0:40:46 you don't need evidence from
0:40:47 biochemistry anatomy linguistics
0:40:50 psychology anthropology paleontology
0:40:52 bioinformatics you don't need any of
0:40:54 that
0:40:55 conceptually
0:40:57 something like proto-darwinism
0:40:59 has to be true if there's no god
0:41:01 so in a way evidence is irrelevant
0:41:05 so this goes to show firstly
0:41:07 that
0:41:09 when they try and say well
0:41:12 evolution darwinian evolution
0:41:15 shows atheism is correct well we need to
0:41:18 say to them well if you're an atheist
0:41:19 then you have
0:41:21 basically no choice something like a
0:41:22 naturalistic evolutionary history has to
0:41:25 be there
0:41:26 so this is why and i think this is very
0:41:28 important
0:41:31 la mark like i mentioned believed in
0:41:33 multiple origins of life
0:41:35 multiple multiple multiple origins of
0:41:37 life people before lamarck they also had
0:41:39 the same idea
0:41:40 darwin
0:41:43 he believed in one origin
0:41:45 and the darwinist today they believe in
0:41:47 one origin
0:41:50 no one really questions this why one
0:41:53 now
0:41:54 origination probability is something i
0:41:56 want to introduce here right
0:41:58 origination probability is what is the
0:42:00 probability of for the origin of life
0:42:04 now the origination probability if it's
0:42:06 zero
0:42:07 that means
0:42:09 life is what
0:42:11 impossible if it's one what does it mean
0:42:14 it's going to happen all the time okay
0:42:16 if it's 50 what does it mean if it's 0.5
0:42:18 what does it mean
0:42:20 it can happen it's 50 chance whatever
0:42:22 okay
0:42:24 what they've done is they've set
0:42:27 it's a presupposition it's an axiom it's
0:42:30 an assumption
0:42:32 unverified assumption
0:42:34 that the origination probability is
0:42:37 close to zero
0:42:41 that's there
0:42:42 obviously lamarck didn't believe in that
0:42:44 the ancient in in indus valley
0:42:46 civilization theorists didn't believe in
0:42:48 that others didn't believe in that the
0:42:49 greeks didn't believe in that
0:42:51 yes
0:42:52 you know with the original
0:42:55 probability
0:42:56 is
0:42:58 in order for for the probability to be
0:43:01 to be assessed
0:43:02 does it that do they have to be the
0:43:03 initial conditions
0:43:05 so for example when when they say that
0:43:07 genesis happened and the first uh
0:43:10 life happened
0:43:11 uh surely they had some idea of some
0:43:13 kind of initial condition so
0:43:15 whatever it was that they're saying so
0:43:17 are we assessing
0:43:18 the
0:43:20 um origination probability based on the
0:43:22 initial condition or are we saying
0:43:24 uh this is the probability
0:43:26 um
0:43:28 assessment and this could be at any time
0:43:30 even now
0:43:31 yep okay good that's an excellent
0:43:33 question so i think uh there's two two
0:43:36 different things you've asked there
0:43:37 about whether it can happen now and one
0:43:39 is about how did they assess that based
0:43:42 on initial conditions and the first
0:43:43 thing to note is
0:43:45 this
0:43:47 first cell that they propose happened
0:43:50 about four billion years ago
0:43:52 so the initial conditions
0:43:55 and especially at the time of darwin
0:43:57 didn't even know how old the earth
0:43:59 actually was you know the dates were
0:44:01 still off by a huge margin so it wasn't
0:44:04 to do with them coming up with the
0:44:06 um initia them coming up with the
0:44:08 origination probability based upon
0:44:11 uh the initial conditions because they
0:44:12 don't know what the initial conditions
0:44:13 are and even today we actually don't
0:44:17 so they assumed that the conditions are
0:44:21 very
0:44:22 rare because
0:44:25 if something comes into being
0:44:28 and that thing is
0:44:30 like for example darwin believed that
0:44:33 this first
0:44:34 cell must have been very simple
0:44:36 but what we discovered was actually you
0:44:39 know the
0:44:40 francis crick and watson and you know
0:44:44 the double helix dna all that good stuff
0:44:47 what we found throughout the 20th
0:44:49 century as we looked deeper and deeper
0:44:51 and deeper
0:44:53 is that there was immense
0:44:56 complexity
0:44:57 you know you could describe
0:44:59 the first cell
0:45:00 right not as flagellum as what darwin
0:45:04 thought it was
0:45:05 you could describe the first cell
0:45:07 as london
0:45:09 at 908 pm
0:45:11 right
0:45:12 so you'll have trains
0:45:14 buses
0:45:16 businesses people going out and
0:45:18 takeaways people moving around people
0:45:20 holding classes some guy getting shanked
0:45:23 yeah
0:45:24 that you'll get a buzzing lively london
0:45:28 rather than flagellum you'll get that so
0:45:31 the first cell is immensely complex and
0:45:35 that doesn't obviously fit that doesn't
0:45:38 obviously fit their ideas so
0:45:41 what we find is that
0:45:44 if the origination probability
0:45:48 is
0:45:49 higher
0:45:51 there's a few problems
0:45:53 number one
0:45:55 this for them reeks
0:45:57 reeks of creationism
0:45:59 this for them
0:46:01 is something which is going to
0:46:02 reintroduce god wait if we're getting
0:46:05 these things popping up these cell there
0:46:08 might be a god there might be this there
0:46:09 might be that so they have to
0:46:11 and in dawkins word what he calls it in
0:46:13 the um
0:46:15 in the god delusion we just need the
0:46:18 first stroke of luck
0:46:21 the first stroke of luck
0:46:23 and then we'll explain the rest the way
0:46:25 that one
0:46:27 theorist put it and i found this
0:46:29 hilarious i tried it i tried it with
0:46:31 this
0:46:34 this atheist who's having a debate with
0:46:36 i said essentially look
0:46:39 their argument is
0:46:40 give us one miracle and we'll explain
0:46:43 the rest
0:46:44 that's essentially what they're saying
0:46:45 just give us that one miracle we'll
0:46:47 explain the rest but we're saying no
0:46:49 we're not going to give you the first
0:46:50 miracle
0:46:51 so the origination probability
0:46:54 being close to
0:46:56 zero
0:46:57 is very problematic
0:46:59 now what they tried to do
0:47:01 some decades ago
0:47:03 is they tried to
0:47:05 actually
0:47:06 reverse engineer
0:47:08 the conclusion and say we're going to
0:47:11 show
0:47:12 we're going to show that the initial
0:47:14 conditions
0:47:15 uh were so and so so therefore this this
0:47:18 in this initial
0:47:20 uh self-replicating molecule could
0:47:22 actually come
0:47:23 so this is the famous miller yuri
0:47:26 experiment which i'm sure some of us
0:47:28 have here heard of maybe even if we're
0:47:30 old enough actually studied in school
0:47:32 and that's been totally debunked
0:47:34 right so even that feeble
0:47:37 attempt to try and
0:47:39 you know
0:47:40 retrospectively come up with what
0:47:42 happened four billion years ago uh
0:47:44 turned out to be uh you know
0:47:46 not not that
0:47:48 not empirically sound let's just leave
0:47:50 it that's that's being charitable to be
0:47:52 uh
0:47:53 to be blunt so
0:47:56 they don't have evidence for this
0:47:58 they do not have evidence for this
0:48:01 now the other thing is
0:48:03 you have origination probability of
0:48:05 being close to zero
0:48:07 but there's a second probability so we
0:48:09 have the tree of life we have the origin
0:48:10 and then we have the entire tree so you
0:48:12 go into these different branches
0:48:15 so you'll get um you know
0:48:17 one line evolving another line evolving
0:48:20 you'll get different domains families
0:48:21 genres uh you know all these all this
0:48:23 type of good stuff so
0:48:26 this all came from the first cell
0:48:30 so
0:48:32 there has to be a transition probability
0:48:38 why can't for example
0:48:40 we have something as simple as bacteria
0:48:43 okay now how do bacteria
0:48:46 uh
0:48:47 you know have offspring let's put it
0:48:49 that way right how does it happen
0:48:54 do they find uh mrs
0:48:56 bacteria mr bacteria asexual asexual
0:49:00 reproduction
0:49:02 the most effective right
0:49:05 now
0:49:06 you're trying to trying to get married
0:49:08 and some of the young men here yeah you
0:49:09 have to you know go find a sister you
0:49:11 know do this do that you know make make
0:49:14 this person happy make that person happy
0:49:16 they're asking you you know do you have
0:49:17 a job or yes i have a job what how
0:49:19 grades did you get this this so
0:49:21 complicated then you try and get married
0:49:23 and you know she's secretly using
0:49:24 contraception
0:49:25 whatever whatever right whatever
0:49:28 anything it's a complicated world
0:49:32 yeah
0:49:33 but with bacteria
0:49:35 asexual reproduction
0:49:37 right
0:49:38 the thing is
0:49:44 for the benefit of the tape all right so
0:49:47 what we have
0:49:48 is
0:49:49 they have to make
0:49:51 assumptions about
0:49:52 transition probabilities
0:49:55 so
0:49:56 we have homo sapiens them evolving from
0:50:01 an ape-like creature going back all the
0:50:04 way to you know reptiles fish and so on
0:50:06 and so forth but you could if you have a
0:50:08 transition
0:50:10 probability
0:50:11 of zero or close to zero what does that
0:50:13 mean
0:50:14 it means it stays the same means it
0:50:16 stays the same or if we have different
0:50:18 forms of life today they didn't
0:50:20 originate from something else
0:50:22 if you make the transition
0:50:24 probability one or close to one what
0:50:27 does it mean
0:50:30 you can have evolution
0:50:32 you can have changes
0:50:34 now
0:50:35 they set again it's a presupposition
0:50:38 it's an axiom is an
0:50:39 unverified claim
0:50:42 they say the transition probability is
0:50:44 close to one
0:50:46 so coupling the origination probability
0:50:49 being close to zero and the transition
0:50:52 probability being close to one
0:50:55 you automatically get the tree of life
0:50:57 because all of life
0:50:59 can only have one last universal common
0:51:01 ancestor they call luca and transitions
0:51:04 can happen
0:51:05 so in a way
0:51:06 anything they try and pull out from
0:51:08 genetics or you know biochemistry
0:51:10 whatever is irrelevant the conclusion is
0:51:12 already there
0:51:14 which is why if you find the for example
0:51:17 critics of darwinism especially
0:51:19 intelligent design proponents and even
0:51:22 not even intelligent design proponents
0:51:24 you get people like thomas nagle who's
0:51:26 an atheist philosopher or uh jerry
0:51:28 folder or
0:51:30 james shapiro or lynn margulis who are
0:51:32 atheists and agnostics you'll find them
0:51:35 pointing out these types of issues that
0:51:37 look um you know uh darwinism is
0:51:41 essentially like lynne margulis calls it
0:51:43 an anglo-saxon religion uh thomas nagel
0:51:45 basically says it's it's it's not that
0:51:48 this idea that life evolved
0:51:50 in his famous book mind and cosmos um he
0:51:53 he basically says it's not just that
0:51:55 life evolved from this simple cell
0:51:57 without without uh god a designer and
0:52:00 into all these forms of life this is an
0:52:02 assumption governing the scientific
0:52:04 enterprise not a conclusion and he's an
0:52:08 atheist he's an atheist philosophy
0:52:10 saying because
0:52:11 he is abundantly clear when anybody
0:52:14 looks at the presuppositions
0:52:16 at the presuppositions that if you give
0:52:20 yourself those
0:52:21 claim if those claims go unchecked then
0:52:24 your tree of life is already there
0:52:26 your entire story is
0:52:28 uh you know fitting in well now there's
0:52:31 still some gaps
0:52:33 there's still some gaps in when they
0:52:36 make their entire history so one of the
0:52:38 gaps
0:52:39 is obviously
0:52:41 that when we have this tree of life and
0:52:43 they evolved
0:52:45 these uh creatures
0:52:48 the problem is
0:52:50 we have something here in the tree of
0:52:52 life and something here in the tree of
0:52:54 life
0:52:56 and uh they both seem to have the
0:52:58 identical
0:53:00 biochemical markings they both seem to
0:53:03 have
0:53:04 a similar dna sequence they both seem to
0:53:06 have a
0:53:07 similar anatomy but they can't possibly
0:53:10 be have a recent common ancestor because
0:53:12 they're on different branches so then
0:53:14 they'll come up with things like
0:53:15 homoplasy or what they call convergent
0:53:17 evolution which is natural selection hit
0:53:19 upon the same conclusion so you have
0:53:21 independently the human eye or not human
0:53:24 eye the eye evolved independently in all
0:53:26 these creatures
0:53:27 but then there's
0:53:28 the residual problem and the initial
0:53:30 problem which is well where did this
0:53:33 first cell come from
0:53:35 this immensely
0:53:37 complicated cell which i referred to
0:53:39 earlier as london as busiest time right
0:53:42 where did that come from
0:53:44 well this is where
0:53:46 when francis crick
0:53:48 who um is i would say
0:53:51 a very honest
0:53:53 a very um
0:53:55 you know frank darwinist he realized
0:53:58 this is a huge problem a huge problem
0:54:00 for them
0:54:01 you know if they're going to try and
0:54:03 make everything simple and you go to the
0:54:04 first cell and it's immensely complex
0:54:08 you've got some explanation to do so
0:54:11 he didn't have a problem uh
0:54:13 in a designer he didn't have a problem
0:54:15 uh with something greater than human
0:54:18 beings which he actually referred to as
0:54:21 his theory of panspermia
0:54:24 panspermia now remember this isn't just
0:54:27 some random scientists working in their
0:54:28 mom's basement this is a nobel winning
0:54:32 scientist
0:54:33 who discovered the structure of dna
0:54:36 that famous story you know you you're
0:54:39 studying in cambridge martial you know
0:54:40 you have that thing where these guys
0:54:42 were in the power ben you know they were
0:54:43 doing they came and made the
0:54:45 announcement and they discovered the
0:54:46 double helix and all that famous stuff
0:54:48 this francis crick
0:54:50 basically says that initial life was
0:54:54 seeded on earth
0:54:56 by aliens who sent it down on rockets
0:55:02 like this is
0:55:03 absolutely bizarre
0:55:04 so you have you know anything but god
0:55:07 hypothesis right anything but god is
0:55:09 fine
0:55:10 and you know interestingly when richard
0:55:12 dawkins uh when someone cornered him
0:55:14 there's a famous uh documentary online
0:55:16 called no intelligence allowed no
0:55:18 intelligence allowed it's about how
0:55:20 academic freedom is curtailed in um you
0:55:23 know darwinian uh circles and how people
0:55:26 are basically persecuted and cancelled
0:55:29 and you know all this stuff and i've
0:55:31 directly spoken to people who
0:55:35 um you know they're publishing something
0:55:37 benign like they're just publishing in
0:55:39 some scientific journal and the journal
0:55:42 finds out that they are linked
0:55:44 to the intelligent design movement and
0:55:46 their paper doesn't get published even
0:55:47 though their paper has nothing to do
0:55:48 with intelligent design
0:55:50 like i've spot and these aren't stories
0:55:51 like on the internet or the documentary
0:55:53 these people have spoken to
0:55:56 like this direct cancellation but anyway
0:55:58 in that no intelligence allowed
0:56:00 uh forgotten the name of the american uh
0:56:02 guy who goes and interviews dawkins
0:56:04 right near the end and he asks him
0:56:06 he asks him about this right
0:56:09 and dawkins says perhaps
0:56:11 life was you know sent down
0:56:15 to earth from these extraterrestrial
0:56:18 uh beings which uh you know are in
0:56:21 another part of the universe and um
0:56:23 what's interesting is when he's pushed
0:56:25 on that when he's actually asked well
0:56:28 you know where did they come from so if
0:56:30 life came to earth via these
0:56:32 extraterrestrial beings these aliens
0:56:34 where did they come from and dawkins
0:56:36 gives the most splendid reply you can
0:56:39 imagine well they must have evolved via
0:56:41 some darwinian mechanism
0:56:43 right
0:56:44 so
0:56:45 what we find is that when we look at the
0:56:47 entire story
0:56:49 that they come up with
0:56:51 they
0:56:52 already
0:56:53 have the conclusions and it's about
0:56:56 finding the evidence it's similar to how
0:56:58 if we're to play cludo and i'm to
0:57:02 um
0:57:03 you know just decide from the beginning
0:57:05 that the butler committed the murder
0:57:08 and that's it and everybody else's view
0:57:10 or evidence i'll say is i'm going to
0:57:12 reverse engineer it for that conclusion
0:57:15 that's essentially
0:57:17 the way that the field is working at the
0:57:18 moment
0:57:19 that we have this huge issue where even
0:57:23 the scientists who are working within
0:57:24 the field they wouldn't be aware of
0:57:27 these presuppositions
0:57:28 they wouldn't be aware of the link
0:57:31 between naturalism and darwinism they
0:57:34 wouldn't know
0:57:36 how these things are linked they
0:57:37 wouldn't even know about the fallacy of
0:57:38 equification they wouldn't even know
0:57:39 about methodological naturalism and
0:57:40 philosophical naturalism they don't know
0:57:42 about any of these things
0:57:44 and what we find is that
0:57:47 most of the discussions that are
0:57:49 happening in terms of
0:57:51 darwinian theory
0:57:53 is to do with science
0:57:55 but the reason why i wanted to do this
0:57:57 session was to show that you can't just
0:57:59 start off with the science you have to
0:58:01 get into the philosophy first
0:58:03 because
0:58:04 it's the presuppositions that they hold
0:58:08 that will help you see
0:58:10 what is actually going on if the
0:58:12 scientists are staring at bacteria
0:58:15 then it's the job of the philosophers to
0:58:18 observe the scientists and look at how
0:58:19 they're coming to conclusions and once
0:58:22 we see how they come into conclusions we
0:58:24 can actually start to see
0:58:26 the entire story unfold
0:58:29 what is the role of origination
0:58:30 probabilities transition probabilities
0:58:33 how do they come up with these things
0:58:35 why is it the case that if you are a
0:58:38 naturalist then something like a
0:58:40 darwinian history of life
0:58:42 fair enough you can replace it with
0:58:43 something else but something like a
0:58:44 naturalistic evolutionary history of
0:58:46 life in which you simply
0:58:48 have natural selection the survival of
0:58:52 the fittest amongst an offspring
0:58:54 random
0:58:56 mistakes in the
0:58:58 dna copying mechanism and voila you have
0:59:01 all of life
0:59:02 and it's honestly guys honestly when you
0:59:05 study this stuff and you look at the
0:59:07 claims being made about natural
0:59:08 selection and the actual
0:59:11 evidence that they actually have it is
0:59:14 underwhelming it is actually
0:59:16 underwhelming now i wanted to end upon
0:59:21 a quotation by
0:59:23 richard lewinton richard lumenton was a
0:59:26 he just passed away recently he was a
0:59:28 harvard
0:59:30 evolutionary scientist an atheist
0:59:34 uh very well respected in fact um i you
0:59:38 should be able to find some stuff by
0:59:39 there you go steven j gould is one of
0:59:42 the p one of the people who um
0:59:44 co-authored with him um and he he's a
0:59:46 big name he's a big name
0:59:48 within the field and he captures
0:59:51 captures this link between darwinism and
0:59:55 naturalism and it's the quote's a little
0:59:57 bit long but um it's definitely worth
0:59:59 reading
1:00:01 our willingness to accept scientific
1:00:03 claims that are against common sense is
1:00:06 the key to understanding of the real
1:00:08 struggle between
1:00:10 science and the supernatural
1:00:13 we take the side of science in spite of
1:00:16 the patent absurdity of some of its
1:00:19 constructs
1:00:21 in spite of its failure to fulfill many
1:00:23 of its extravagant promises of health
1:00:26 and life
1:00:27 in spite of the tolerance of the
1:00:29 scientific community for
1:00:31 unsubstantiated just soul stories
1:00:34 because we have a a priory commitment a
1:00:38 commitment to materialism
1:00:40 it is not that the methods and
1:00:42 institutions of science somehow compel
1:00:45 us to accept a material explanation of
1:00:48 the phenomenal world
1:00:49 but on the contrary that we are forced
1:00:52 by our a priori adherence to material
1:00:55 causes to create an apparatus of
1:00:58 investigation and a set of concepts that
1:01:01 produce material explanations
1:01:03 no matter how counterintuitive no matter
1:01:06 how mystifying to the uninitiated
1:01:09 moreover that materialism is absolute
1:01:12 for we cannot allow a divine for in the
1:01:16 door
1:01:17 so
1:01:18 what we find here
1:01:20 is that
1:01:21 there is a clear
1:01:23 understanding this is richard lewinton
1:01:25 there is a clear understanding
1:01:28 on the part of
1:01:30 well-versed scientists who are looking
1:01:34 at the field not just as scientists but
1:01:37 as observers who look out a bit further
1:01:40 that actually
1:01:42 there is a direct correlation between
1:01:44 naturalism
1:01:45 and darwinism and this positive feedback
1:01:48 loop
1:01:49 this
1:01:50 conclusion which is essentially reverse
1:01:52 engineered
1:01:54 because if you believe in naturalism
1:01:55 like i've been mentioning all night
1:01:57 you would have to believe in some sort
1:01:59 of proto-evolutionary
1:02:01 story
1:02:02 this thing is accepted
1:02:05 and if you point this out if you
1:02:07 actually point this out this is not
1:02:09 something that they can
1:02:12 deny i just want to go over one last
1:02:14 resource which i think is very important
1:02:16 for this
1:02:17 which is in 2016 which is uh not that
1:02:21 long ago
1:02:22 we had michael roos michael roos is
1:02:25 a very important authority in the
1:02:28 history of evolutionary thought
1:02:30 in fact
1:02:32 he has written more books on this topic
1:02:35 than anybody else he's an atheist there
1:02:37 so he has no truck with us
1:02:39 and he's a darwinist as well so he
1:02:40 definitely is not going to be agreeing
1:02:42 with us in terms of our
1:02:45 theology
1:02:46 now what does he say
1:02:49 he says darwinism is a religion
1:02:53 in fact that is the name of his book
1:02:56 darwinism as religion and this is not
1:02:59 just
1:03:00 a
1:03:01 you know a book that was uh that went
1:03:03 unnoticed in academia he published this
1:03:06 book with oxford university press
1:03:09 which is
1:03:11 phenomenal if you think about it that is
1:03:13 a you know ha
1:03:15 you can't get better than that and in
1:03:16 that book he argues that from the
1:03:19 beginning till today
1:03:22 darwinism is not just science he accepts
1:03:24 his science
1:03:26 he accepts that it's valid science he
1:03:27 accepts it's a valid theory model
1:03:29 paradigm but he says it's something more
1:03:32 than that
1:03:33 it is a secular religious perspective
1:03:37 it is in fact
1:03:39 a religion
1:03:41 and it is just like julian huxley said a
1:03:44 competitor to islam christianity and
1:03:47 traditional belief systems so i hope in
1:03:50 this uh
1:03:51 short
1:03:53 session
1:03:54 that you have been
1:03:56 enlightened by the history of darwinism
1:04:00 and its link to naturalism and the
1:04:02 problems
1:04:04 that actually exist
1:04:05 uh within this field which are not being
1:04:08 highlighted at a popular level so until
1:04:11 next time assalamu alaikum rahmatullahi