this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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Actually, that was the video that really gave me a bad feeling about him after watching his videos for a long time. The way he ends the video saying "there is an active discussion on how something so complex could have developed because of its irreducible complexity" just seem like religious, creationist dog whistling and sowing doubt about evolution. He seems to be implying that such a structure could not have been produced by evolution and that there must be an intelligent designer. The book he recommends is also written by an religious, creationist philosopher.
Okay here’s my full transcript of what he said on this.
“This is fascinating stuff. It also opens up a huge debate. People say ‘how can something this complex come to be out of nothing?’ Well, the logic goes like this. If this motor system is composed of complex individual parts and al these parts work together to perform the overall function of rotating, then how did the individual parts come to be?”
“Did it all have to happen at the same time? Or is there some evolutionary advantage to the cell for every intermediate stage of development? Is 15% of this motor advantageous to the cell? What function would 50% of the structure perform? What were the steps these components took to assemble into such a complex molecular machine in the first place?”
“Scientists are trying to figure this out, and I encourage you to read their papers. Many seem to be focusing on the type 3 secretion system which works like a hypodermic needle that a cell can use to inject other things. This device looks similar but it’s quite different in its protein structure. The complexity and origin of the bacterial flagellar motor is a really interesting conundrum.”
“As I was a younger man and I would read things on the internet and find people saying ‘hey, you gotta believe all this over here.’ People say ‘hey, you gotta believe all this over here.’ There’s a big war going on between science and faith and you’re either in one camp or the other. Get your flag and figure out where you’re going to put your flag.”
“And the more I have matured and started to not really care about defending where my flag is, the more I’ve been able to learn from people no matter where they are. I’m still working on this.”
“There’s a really interesting book I’m reading. I can’t speak for everything in the book, I’m not done with it. It’s called Where the Conflict Reall Lies. And it talks about this interplay between science, religion, naturalism. It’s very interesting. It goes into more into the areas of philosophy and I love it because it challenges me and it’s fantastic. And this is what I would encourage you. If you have your flag in a camp somewhere, I would encourage you not to defend your flag. I would encourage you to look at a flagellar motor and just think about it. Think about how it is and what it be. It’s a fantastic thing to think about. How did this get here? You have intelligence and you get to make up your mind. And I love that about consciousness and I love that about life.”
“And so for me, the flagellar motor makes me happy. I feel joy. You know how when you go outside at night and you look up at the stars and you see all these stars and you feel small and you feel wonder. Thats what this makes me feel like, even though it is small. I feel awe and reverence toward this thing.”
(Okay so far so good, really. I mean it depends a lot on if that book really is just a defense of creationism. But there’s nothing here I can disagree with. And then…)
“And as a Christian, this makes me want to thank God that it exists. I feel compelled with gratitude that this thing is so awesome. So that’s just where I’m at. But what I would encourage you to do is just think critically. You have a brain. Don’t defend a flag. Just think about how things are. And I hope you are happy and experience the same joy I feel about this no matter what you think about it. So anyway, enough about that.”
Okay you’re right. He absolutely turns it to god at the end. It was a really intricately balanced little speech he was making there, and for 90% of it I thought he might be talking to Christians and helping them open their minds to possibilities. He talked about not getting dogmatic. And then he proclaimed “I’m a Christian and I thank god for this!” Which was a pretty idiotic 180 after everything he had just said about not planting flags. And that made me flip and think he was talking to atheists and trying to tickle us into being open to possibilities.
It makes me sad because he’s clearly very intelligent, but if you’re raised on religion it can be extremely hard to ever shed. It’s like getting someone to forget the language they used until they were 10. You can teach them any number of new languages but it’s unlikely they will forget that one.
Ah well. The book frankly does look like a fuck toy for Christians. One of those long winded philosophy gasbags that aims to make religion sound epistemologically exactly like science. Whatever.
Yeah, I also recently unsubscribed when I recognized the creationist bullshit seeping in. Glad I'm not the only one who noticed it.
@SPAUZPiMP @scarabic Oh wow, did he literally say "irreducible complexity?" That is SO blatant lol.
Not sure if he used the actual words but he was definitely making the point that it is extremely complex and any less complex version of it could not function. Which is exactly the concept of irreducible complexity
Edit: see @scarabic 's comment for a transcript of that part of the video
He asked if the complexity could be reduced or not, so he raised the topic. But he didn’t imply that the thing is too complex and can’t be reduced therefore god. He stopped short of that.
And it is a fair topic for anyone to think about. I’m an “atoms bouncing around” guy and I too want to know if the complexity can be reduced because if not, that means we must have waited a long long time for some of these assemblies to appear.
Maybe I am too paranoid from people "just asking questions" all the time but actually pushing something they are too afraid to say out loud, but to me it seemed like exactly that behaviour. If he was actually interested in providing information on that "debate" he could have talked about it with the actual experts in his video but he just leaves it as an open question. To my understanding this openness is a strong misrepresentation of the scientific consensus because this exact motor has been used by creationist for a while and their arguments have been debunked by scientist for years.
I think you’re right to be skeptical. And I think he’s at least a half step more honestly curious than most of the “just asking questions” douchebags. But there is a lot more to talk about on this subject that’s more interesting than whether or not “god did it.”
Ultimately I think of him as an engineer, and not a scientist. I think engineering is much more compatible with religion, because they cover orthogonal material. Engineering is all about “how” and religion is “why.” And the image of the great-engineer-in-the-sky is tempting to them, I think.
don't forget the whole "designed weapons" thing
Ah I didn’t catch that part. I’m going to go watch again.