Details: (from evil NPR web site)

About one third of Americans believe in intelligent design, according to a recent Gallup poll. That’s the idea that humans evolved over time from lesser life forms – with the process guided by God. It’s added a new dimension to the old debate over where humans come from and raised serious concern in the scientific world about mixing faith with science.

• Stephen C. Meyer, author of Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design
• Michael Ruse, Director of the History and Philosophy of Science Program at Florida State University

The MP3 file is here. (28 minutes)

The following summary is rated S for Slightly Snarky. Reader discretion is advised.

Topics:

• Moderator: (to Meyer) define creationism, evolution, and intelligent design
• Meyer: creationism is based on an interpretation of the Bible
• Meyer: evolution is an unguided process of mutation and selection that produces organisms
• Meyer: intelligent design is the idea that the best explanation for certain features of life
• Moderator: (to Ruse) Where do you disagree?
• Ruse: Intelligent design is similar to creationism, but I won’t say how exactly
• Meyer: ID is a good explanation for the sudden origin of animal body plans in the Cambrian era
• Moderator: (to Meyer) Is the designer God? Is the designer the Christian God?
• Meyer: No, ID theory is an inference that is rooted in scientific evidence, not in a religious text
• Meyer: ID can be inferred from the origin of biological information and from molecular machines
• Moderator: (to Ruse) Where do you disagree?
• Ruse: Meyer is disingenuous because ID requires the designer to be God
• Meyer: The biological evidence for intelligent design by itself does not implicate God
• Meyer: The fine-tuning of the cosmos is intelligent design in physics, and that *would* require God
• Moderator: (to Meyer) Explain what the Cambrian explosion is
• Meyer: sudden origin of 36 body plans in 10 million years 530 million years ago
• Moderator: So you think that 36 body plans in 10 million years is too sudden for Darwinian mechanisms to produce?
• Meyer: Yes, for two reasons. One, there are no precursors prior to the start of the explosion in complexity
• Meyer: And two, the complexity of animal life includes code, circuitry, hierarchies – best explained by a designer
• Moderator: (to Ruse) Is it a problem for you?
• Ruse: There is no peer-reviewed paper that denies that the Ediacaran fauna are precursors to the Cambrian animals
• Ruse: There is no peer-reviewed paper that denies that microfossils are precursors to the Cambrian animals
• Ruse: There is no peer-reviewed paper that denies that animal complexity goes from simple to complex in the fossil record
• Ruse: There is no peer-reviewed paper that shows that the Cambrian explosion took place over a few million years
• Ruse: There is no peer-reviewed paper that shows that there were complex organ types at the start of the Cambrian explosion
• Ruse: There is no peer-reviewed paper that denies that we already have a materialist explanation for the Cambrian explosion
• Ruse: everything is solved! nothing to see here! (folds arms and beams) I trust that my unsupported assertions have relieved your doubts, yes?
• Moderator: Is intelligent design undermined by more recent science?
• Meyer: no, there is an absence of precursor fossils in the period before the Cambrian explosion
• Meyer: there are other things that make the problem even worse for naturalism, like information from epigenetics
• Moderator: (to Ruse) Answer that
• Ruse: He is just pulling out passages out of context because he is a creationist!
• Moderator: The leftist New Yorker reviewer Gareth Cook says that the Cambrian explosion took tens of millions of years
• Meyer: Actually, the peer-reviewed science is clear that the standard date is at most 10 million nears
• Moderator: (to Ruse) Deny the mainstream date
• Ruse: Well, Prothero says no! Ho ho ho! (folds arms) He just says it. No it’s not published in peer-reviewed research
• Ruse: We know so much more than Darwin did, how could the progress of science disprove my materialist pre-supposition? It’s unpossible!
• Moderator: (to Meyer) Isn’t ID pseudo-science?
• Meyer: If we limit ourselves to materialist explanations only, then we cannot infer intelligence when we see artifacts like the Rosetta Stone
• Meyer: wind and erosion is not an adequate explanation for certain systems – systems that are rich in information
• Meyer: the best explanation is the explanation that relies on known causes – we know that intelligence produces information
• Moderator: (to Meyer) so the intelligence is the best explanation of systems that have information?
• Meyer: yes, think about software code – the best explanation of new computer instructions is an intelligence
• Meyer: we have uniform and repeated experience of intelligence bringing new information into being, and new animals need new information
• Moderator: (to Ruse) must science only work with natural explanations?
• Ruse: intelligent design is religion! Ho ho ho ho! (folds arms)
• Ruse: there is no a priori way of ruling out supernatural causes in order to explain nature
• Ruse: We don’t need to introduce supernatural causes to explain information in living systems or in software code
• Ruse: Steve is asking me to explain the Cambrian explosion, but why does he want me to explain that?
• Ruse: How did anything start to fly? How did whales come? There, those questions explain the Cambrian explosion naturalistically
• Ruse: Steve’s answer to explain new information is to bring in miracles, like when he said that new computer code requires God
• Ruse: inferring intelligence as an explanation for information like the computer code is religion! God! Creationism! Prayer in schools!
• Ruse: we have to keep looking for naturalistic explanations for the Big Bang, the DNA, the fine-tuning, the Cambrian fossils, etc.
• Ruse: we are never justified in inferring an intelligence to explain information, because that would deny my religion of materialism
• Moderator: (to Ruse) what are the requirements for a theory to be scientific?
• Ruse: any explanation has to be naturalistic, because I am an atheist and that’s my religion, and we can’t go against my religion
• Ruse: it’s “really stupid” to infer God as the explanation of the creation of the entire physical universe or the cosmic fine-tuning
• Moderator: (to Meyer) why is intelligent design so popular when we have court cases saying it is not science?
• Meyer: the Discovery Institute does not have an agenda to teach intelligent design in public schools
• Meyer: intelligent design is about inferring intelligence as a causal explanation for information in living systems, and elsewhere
• Moderator: (to Ruse) are evolutionists unwilling to entertain the possibility of intelligence being the best explanation?
• Ruse: scientists have to make sure that that all their explanations don’t go outside of the materialist reservation
• Ruse: intelligent design is evangelical Christianity dressed up to look like science, the Dover judge said so
• Ruse: Meyer is disingenuous! Ho ho ho ho ho! (folds arms contentedly)
• Meyer: first, judges don’t decide science, evidence decides science
• Meyer: the Dover people made a mistake by trying to go to the courts to get things into the schools
• Meyer: intelligent design is about research, writing books and papers based on what we learn from science
• Moderator: (to Ruse) is intelligent design dangerous?
• Ruse: yes, intelligent design is not about cosmic fine-tuning, origin of life, molecular machines or Cambrian explosion
• Ruse: intelligent design is about abstinence, prayer in schools, pro-life and man-woman marriage
• Ruse: my reason for opposing ID is the socially conservate agenda which emerges from protein folding calculations
• Ruse: I don’t want to be drafted to fight in Vietnam, I don’t want them to take away my drugs, etc. so that’s why I believe Darwinism
• Moderator: (to Meyer) why do you want to take abortion away, you meany?
• Meyer: actually, intelligent design is about science, and in any case National Review gave my book a bad review
• Moderator: (to Ruse) are science and religion in conflict?
• Ruse: well religion can just abstain from making any claims about the physical world, and just stick to subjective nonsense – that’s fair
• Moderator: (to Meyer) isn’t all opposition to evolution rooted in fundamentalist religion?
• Meyer: you can believe in Darwinism and be a theist, but the real reason for doubting Darwinism is scientific evidence, not religion

Tell me how you think Dr. Meyer did in the comments. I think that Ruse is a bloviating boffin – a buffoon who blows smoke and has no idea what the science shows. He admits his motivations are political in the debate. And that’s as far as it goes. Evolution, because I don’t like that my girlfriend is making me wait for sex until we’re married. That’s the whole breadth of his opposition to the science. All the science was cited by Meyer, and Ruse had nothing to say in response. No evidence, certainly. But he’s a nice guy, and I appreciate him debating the issue. Things are tough right now for his side.