Part 6: The Good Fight

If you’ve ever been bullied into accepting Darwinism at face value — or made to feel intellectually unqualified to question its claims — this is the episode you’ve been waiting for. Join me as we break free from the carnival of smoke and mirrors that has obscured the line between science and Scientism. Together, we’ll shield our minds from the gaslighting, equivocation, and institutional pressure that have led to the hijacking of honest scientific inquiry. This isn’t denialism. It’s resistance — and the beginning of a long-overdue reckoning.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Welcome to the religion of scientism.We're regardless of whatever obvious conclusions the evidence
bears out, we will train youto ignore all illusion of design in nature
and recognize that these systems have beencobbled together, as it were, by
a process that couldn't conceivably see orcontemplate what it was trying to make,

(00:26):
not that it was trying to makeanything in the first place. Why trying
implies intent and therefore purpose, whichis vehemently prohibited by methodological naturalism. And
remember, we all come from nothing, and once we are dead there is
nothing but oblivion. Well, thebetter not be anything else. Otherwise,

(00:47):
whoops, sous familiar, Fasten yourseat belt. It's going to be a
bumpy fight. The Danicious Theory ofReincarnation, Part six, The Good Fight.

(01:27):
No, seriously, tell us whatyou really think. In his April
ninth, nineteen eighty nine New YorkTimes book review of Blueprints Solving the Mystery
of Evolution, Richard Dawkins writes,quote, it is absolutely safe to say
that if you meet somebody who claimsnot to believe in evolution, that person

(01:48):
is ignorant, stupid, or insane, and between parentheses or wicked, but
I'd rather not consider that end quote. You know, when I set off
on this journey, I figured thebiggest obstacle I would have to scale would
be earning the trust of disillusioned believerson the brink of forsaking their faith in
God, given the apparent lack ofjustice in the universe in which bad things

(02:13):
always seem to happen to good people. And so I was hoping to communicate
the good news that reincarnation, whichis rejected by all three Abrahamic religions,
is worthy of consideration. Little didI imagine that, insofar as its purported
role in macro revolution, I wouldbe labeled a Young Earth creationist by Darwinian

(02:34):
apologists for expressing doubt in the generativepower of the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection
acting on random mutations by quoting thelikes of Gerd Mueller, who gave a
presentation called the Explanatory Deficits of theModern Synthesis at the November twenty sixteen conference
at the Royal Society of London.No less, I mean talk about it

(02:54):
being brutal out there, listen.I was even chided for using terms such
as macro and microevolution, which I'llbe addressing a little later in the presentation
in the meantime challenge accepted. Beforewe start, though, I'd like to
go over a couple of housekeeping itemsfirst, and for the purposes of projecting
a modicum of objectivity during the followingpresentation, Especially that I cannot recuse myself,

(03:19):
so this will have to do.I will set aside the nacious perspective,
which, in the interest of fulldisclosure, I consider to be the
best current framework for reality, inwhich the physical and metaphysical, though apparently
discontinuous, are part of a continuum. So, for example, even though
I believe chance is an illusion endemicto our earthly realm, hence even the

(03:40):
throw of a die is subject toa framework ultimately shaped by causality, I
will, even though I'm no statistician, speak as though I play one on
TV, and I say that knowingfull well that to many entitled rational thinkers,
invoking the metaphysical or transcendent, thatis, anything extending or lying beyond

(04:02):
the limits of ordinary experience, wouldbe synonymous with looney tunes. Despite the
irony that some areas of theoretical physics, they themselves champion or tend to favor,
such as the multiverse, which isthe mathematical consequence of string theory,
are metaphysical guesses. To borrow anexpression from the late doctor John Polkinghorn,
who held two doctorates, one inquantum field theory and the other in elementary

(04:26):
particle physics, because quote they gobeyond what as well established scientific understanding and
results end quote that being said,Dashism is not a new age movement,
and doctor dash was not the newage prophet of Lebanon. Anybody who claims
that is either deluding themselves or lyingto you again, whether one believes it
or not, And by definition,Dahishism is a spiritually revealed doctrine whose tenets

(04:51):
are built around the belief in adeeply mysterious, non anthropomorphic, ever present
and watchful God. Dashism teaches thatall the major prophets, including the Buddha,
emanated from the same source known asthe Christ. Therefore, Dashism believes
in the intrinsic correlation between all themajor religions. Incidentally, it is worthwhile

(05:15):
to note what doctor Desch told Egyptianjournalist Lutfi Atwan, author of the nineteen
seventy nine book the miracles and prodigiesof doctor Deash. When the latter asked
him how come he was an avidreader of the Qoran despite his being a
Christian. In part, doctor Deshsaid, quote, I believe that the
religions have one source and that theyall and their pure state pertain to tolerance

(05:40):
and reject fanaticism. Lastly, Dashismis at its core an Abrahamic religion,
with the component of reincarnation, notmerely added in as a clever marketing gimmick,
which it couldn't have been on accountof reincarnation being anathema in the Middle
East still to this day as amatter of fact, but rather restored to

(06:00):
its rightful place as the expression ofdivine mercy in our earthly realm. So
to be sure, by invoking reincarnation, doctor Desh wasn't gunning for popularity.
In fact, he was rendering himselfa target. Furthermore, doctor Desh rejected
anything having to do with astrology andpsychics. That alone disqualifies Dasism from being

(06:23):
considered a new age movement or religion. And I'm still planning on sharing with
you the story of why desh Baywould become doctor Desh in nineteen thirty and
how he used in order to outfoxthe fox, as it were, the
doctorate awarded to him by the SageInstitute in Paris, which had ties to
an organization headquartered in Rochester, NewYork, which peddled in pseudoscience and preyed

(06:46):
upon the gullible worldwide through its correspondencecourses. However, back then in Beirut,
having a doctorate from lestitusage to Tariyou kidding, that was a big
deal. I mean, talk aboutula la, and so people flocked to
see him, initially for the wrongreasons. Let me just say that many
who originally went to see doctor Dashianbe Ruth, thinking that he would teach

(07:09):
them to harness amazing powers, cameaway deep programmed and liberated from the yoke
of the misguided belief in black magicand any other such nonsense. As for
reincarnation, it is sacrosanct because itis the mechanism through which heavenly justice meets
out reward and punishment. In anycase, there's nothing new age about Dashism,

(07:30):
or for that matter, knew anything, considering that everything that Dashism refers
to in specific literal terms had alreadybeen expressed through fables, parables, and
allegories courtesy of the ancient prophets andspiritual guides, all of whom had been
sent from the same divine redemption bureau. If you will so for sure,

(07:50):
Dashism is not a new age religion. One day it will have temples and
priests and human beings being human,It's conceivable that dash priests of the future
will stray from both the spirit andletter of Doctor Dash's original teachings and instructions,
thus necessitating the materialization of lofty spiritualfluids yet again, to undergo the

(08:13):
thankless task of cleaning up as itwere, there mess pure speculation bordering on
blasphemy on my part. Perhaps,then again, consider the last line of
doctor Dash's prose poem called My Will, penned on February nine, nineteen forty
five, and in which doctor Deshwrote, quote and after my death,

(08:33):
other people who come from that magicalworld whither I will go will land after
me end quote. Here's the bottomline. Based on everything I've read that
Doctor Dash had given me to read, no lofty spiritual fluid seems to materialize
in the threshold of the first levelof hell, that is planet Earth and
assumes the role of prophet for anyother reason than to volunteer and try to

(08:56):
redeem humanity, and might I amI suffer greatly in the process. Therefore,
and more than likely, and aslong as this realm exists by virtue
of the energy we collectively feed it, history is doomed to repeat itself.
But until then, one does whatthey can to set the record straight.
And while nothing would please me morethan to see someone out of the blue

(09:18):
publicly announced they have become a dashes, which I have seen, I wouldn't
want them to do so because ofa misunderstanding of what dashism stands for.
For me, And this is myopinion, what ultimately matters is instilling faith
in that there is a creator,life has objective meaning, and our suffering
is not in vain. The restis gravy. Having said that, let

(09:41):
me share with you a couple ofstories from my catalog of interesting encounters which
have played a part in shaping mymotivations for this here project. In the
summer of twenty eighteen, during thatperiod of convalescence I spoke of in Part
five, I walked into Books andstruck up a conversation with the manager about

(10:03):
the intelligent design movement, which,if you remember, I had originally dismissed
in the early two thousands due towhat I would later recognize to be the
undue influence of a biased and unfairsmear campaign on the part of the mass
media, which still to this dayprovides a prominent platform not just for zealous
evangelists of Darwin's theory of evolution,but for anyone deriding intelligent design, including

(10:28):
late night show hosts like Stephen Colbertand Yes, I know that, according
to US District Judge John E.Jones, ideas not science quote unquote,
and that it uses, according tohim, quote flawed and a logical end
quote arguments and its attacks on evolutionquote have been refuted by the scientific community
end quote. A scientific community,might i add, run by Darwinists who

(10:54):
had pledged allegiance to that Richard C. Lewington manifesto I spoke about in episode
five, you know, the onein which he wrote about scientists and their
quote prior commitment to materialism end quote. How ironic is it that this quote
unquote scientific community, which in myopinion, is contributing to people's growing distrust
in science and pushing many to commitsuicide because hey, life has no objective

(11:16):
meaning. Right, managed to putthe fear of God, as it were
in those sworn to protect the USConstitution by creating the illusion that intelligent design
was creationism masquerading as science, allthe while misdirecting attention away from their blatantly
atheistic agenda, whose framework is ahouse of guards of pseudoscience. Yes,

(11:37):
I know, not all Darwinians areatheists. Whoop you do. Hey,
they're promoting bad science, and I'lltalk about them in a future episode,
so please stay tuned. In themeantime, the First Amendment says nothing about
separation of church and state or awall of separation between church and state.
I mean, since everybody seems tobe quoting the Constitution, let's take a

(12:00):
look. Oh guess what. Whilethe first clause in the Bill of Rights
states that, quote Congress shall makeno law respecting an establishment of religion and
quote the quote separation of church andstate, and quote metaphor is an interpretation
of the Constitution. But you know, the Constitution is not perfect. At
one point, it even protected theinstitution of slavery. That's why we have

(12:22):
amendments. In any case, ifwe want to make this a constitutional matter
or crisis under the guise of upholdingthe separation of church and state metaphor,
then we should forbid the teaching ofDarwinism and science class on the grounds that
it masquerades as science in order toteach atheism, which last I checked,

(12:43):
falls within the purview of religious studiesor philosophy, not science. Again,
remove Darwinism from the curriculum, andscience will be none the worse for wear.
Anyway, and back at the bookstore, as the manager and I were
talking about the topic of it Outand Design, her colleague softly and almost
apologetically interjected unsolicited information by saying,I'm an atheist. There was this pregnant

(13:11):
pause, after which both the bookstoremanager and I tried to put her at
ease. But I didn't want toleave things hanging in the air, so
I said, I hope you don'tmind my asking, but do you know
why you're an atheist, to whichher reply was a pensive no. Have
you read any of Richard Dawkins's books? I then asked again, no,

(13:31):
she said at that point, andwhat better place to suggest she read a
few books than in a real bookstore? I recommended she familiarized herself with Dawkins's
work to at least acquaint herself withthe roots of her perhaps received atheism,
and so I recommended she read TheBlind Watchmaker and The God Delusion, the

(13:52):
two that immediately came to mind.Then I said, once you've read and
studied carefully what Dawkins has written,here are a couple of books you owe
it to yourself to read next.And with that I gave her very short
list consisting of the books I wasstudying at the time, David Berlinsky's The
Deniable Darwin, then Stephen Meyer's Signaturein the Cell and Darwin's Doubt, and

(14:13):
for the sheer fun of it,Berlinsky's The Devil's Delusion Atheism and its Scientific
Pretensions, which was his response toDawkins's The God Delusion. For the record,
unlike creationism, the aforementioned books areagnostic as regards the source of design
and have no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible, or any other sacred

(14:35):
text. To paraphrase doctor John G. West, former chair of the Department
of Political Science and Geography at SeattlePacific University, quote, Intelligent design theory
is an effort to empirically detect whetherthe quote un quote apparent designed in nature
observed by biologists is genuine design betweenparentheses, the product of an organizing intelligence,

(15:00):
or as simply a product of chantsand mechanical natural laws end quote.
Furthermore, and according to doctor West, quote, creationists know that intelligent design
theory is not creationism. The twomost prominent creationist groups, Answers in Genesis
Ministries AIG and Institute for Creation ResearchICR, have criticized the Intelligent Design movement

(15:28):
IDM because design theory, unlike creationism, does not seek to defend the Biblical
account of creation end quote. Indeed, according to AIG, by the way
you can tell, I'm an architectbecause I love initialisms quote, many prominent
figures in the IDM reject or arehostile to biblical creation, especially the notion

(15:52):
of recent creation end quote. Likewise, ICR has criticized IDM for not an
employing quote unquote the biblical method,concluding that quote design is not enough exclamation
point end quote. The upshot isthis, Creationist groups like AIG and ICR

(16:12):
clearly understand that intelligent design is notthe same thing as creationism. Now you're
probably thinking oh, come on,who's kidding whom? We all know that
quote unquote the designer is God.Ah. But this is an implication that
transcends anything scientific that is being discussed. I mean, think about it.
If I presented you with a sciencebased argument that threatens to weaken what you

(16:37):
absolutely believe has to be true,which is that molecules can, without guidance,
self organized into not just biological cells, which in of itself is a
tall order considering how maddingly complex thebiological cell is, but branch out into
everything that has ever lived. Itis only logical that the overarching and resulting
implication be non atheistic. Like Darwinism, the intelligent design theory may have implications

(17:03):
for religion, but these implications aredistinct from its scientific program. Doctor West
explains. Therefore, as he putit, quote, in this matter,
intelligent design theory is no different thanthe theory of evolution, leading Darwinists routinely
try to draw out theological and culturalimplications from the theory of evolution end quote.

(17:23):
And then doctor West adds that Oxford'sRichard Dawkins, for example, claims
that Darwin quote made it possible tobe an intellectually fulfilled atheist end quote.
And to paraphrase what David Berlinski wrotein The Devil's Delusion, not only is
Dawkins an intellectually fulfilled atheist, heis quote determined that others should be as

(17:45):
full as he end quote. Oh, unless I forget, nothing says that
those who conclude, by using thetheory of intelligent design as their starting point,
that the designer is the Judeo ChristianGod will necessarily accept the Dashist worldview.
Therefore, it is very important toremember that my defense of the intelligent
design movement is purely based on whatI believed to be the merits of its

(18:08):
science based arguments against Neo Darwinism.It is not predicated on reciprocity. And
again, being that doctor dash issadly no longer with us, and therefore
there is no way for anyone toexperience firsthand the miracles thousands of witnesses had
seen at its hands, the Dashistsnow must solely rely on their argumentation skills

(18:30):
in order to persuade those who maysolicit their advice that their suffering is not
in vain. Or one day anhonest seeker might pose the kind of question
you thought you could handle humility.One oh one. In the early two
thousands, I was invited for dinnerby a young husband and wife who had

(18:52):
grown up and what at the timewas Communist Czechoslovakia. I knew them very
well. The lady of the house, who was training to become a midwife,
was a retired fashion and figure modelwhom I had hired for several of
my projects, and her husband abrilliant computer scientist who would often ask me
questions pertaining to the creative process,to which I would provide answers that were
nebulous at best, and in turn, whatever he would tell me about information

(19:17):
science and artificial intelligence would go rightover my head. We got along famously,
despite the fact we each had accessto knowledge, neither of us knew
how to transfer to the other.Regardless, our relationship was uncomplicated and there
were no hot button topics discussed likereligion. But then during our dinner,
the husband said, in a hesitanttone, Mario, can I ask you

(19:37):
a personal question? Uh? Sure, what's on your mind? I said.
He briefly looked at his wife andshe gave him a nod of approval,
then looked at me and asked,how can we acquire faith. I'm
sorry, I blurted out, howdo you acquire faith? No? No,
no, I heard you accept that. I'm just surprised. Sorry,
So what brought this on? Iasked, all the while wondering whether the

(19:59):
husband might pulling my leg, whichwould have been uncharacteristic of him, But
apparently he was dead serious. Hewent on to explain that because he and
his wife grew up under a communistregime, they both happened to be atheists,
which is fine under normal circumstances,except that now that they've found themselves
living, practically speaking and the BibleBelt of the United States with a recently

(20:21):
born daughter, that probably meant theywill need more than ever to fit in
with the rest of the church goingcommunity. Oh, I commiserated, you
see, having been labeled an apostateand an agent of the devil for expressing
faith and reincarnation, I've tasted intolerance'sfirst hand in the United States, but
this was bush Lea compared to howthings had been back in Lebanon. Now,

(20:42):
you might remember my telling you inepisode five that I was instrumental in
arranging a meeting between doctor Desesh andmy eighth grade French lit teacher. This
was no small feat, considering thefact he taught at a private Catholic school,
the College mon Lassalle, where thename Dehesh was synonymous with the devil
or the anti Christ. But thenthis teacher, in nineteen seventy four amazed

(21:04):
me one day by mentioning to thewhole class that he had read a book
written by an author who had becomea Dashist. He glossed over the salient
themes of the book, and Iwas agape at the fact this was happening
in enemy territory, so to speak. Never before in all my years of
attending Catholic school had I heard anyonesay anything positive, let alone practically promote

(21:25):
Dashism to their students. Following theBattle of the Hotels in October nineteen seventy
five, and here I'm skipping overseveral key events, I would be marooned
in a remote village perched high inMount Lebanon following the grim events of Black
Saturday, which occurred on December sixth, nineteen seventy five, and which ultimately
made it impossible for my parents andme to ever return to our home on

(21:48):
London Street and West Bay Route.All we had left in the world in
terms of physical belongings were the sizeableamount of cash little more than thirty thousand
dollars hidden in a red toad,which my father had withdrawn from the bank
as a preemptive measure, and whichwould become and remained for the subsequent four
years. Our only lifeline, ourcar nineteen sixty seven Mercedes bends to fifty

(22:12):
s series, our proverbial lifeboat,and the clothes on our backs. But
all of that paled in comparison withthe fact that we were now stranded on
the anti Dahsh side of the tracks, on the upside. And this hearkens
back to what I recounted an episodefour. I finally got to see and
live in snow country, although thistime around I quite nearly killed myself running

(22:37):
out of the car. I wasblinded by the excitement and the bright sunlight,
come to think of it, butmostly the excitement of finally finally walking
on snow. One would think Ijust landed on the moon. I mean,
the only thing missing was a speech. Just as well, because the
next thing I remember is sliding intoa maneuver I like to call the backflip,
takeoff and transition into an airborne downsideof variable geoprity formation, followed by

(23:00):
very hard spread eagle landing, onethat catapults your lungs out of your chest
cavity, like something out of aTextavery cartoon. Unlike Odysseus, I had
literally fallen for the sirens, beguilingsongs that enchant all those who come near
them, talk about beauty kills.Apparently all this alluring snow had previously melted

(23:21):
and then transformed into a picture perfect, extremely hazardous, iridescent, smooth sheet
of frozen lacquer. I suppose therewas still an unpaid debt I owed the
universe from back when my life wasspared almost a year prior. Or maybe
snow just had it in for me. But like I was saying, we're
definitely an anti Dash country, thereI would witness many a knee jerk,

(23:44):
ill informed assertion labeling doctor Dash asan evil wizard or malevolent sorcerer, including
and to my shock and dismay,the one made by my favorite tenth grade
wait for it, French teacher.Seriously, what is it about French literature?
Anyway, One day, during alecture on Voltaire, that veer temporarily
off topic, someone in class askedhim what about Dash Wow? In an

(24:07):
about face, the otherwise calm collectedculture teacher went off on a demon themed
conspiracy theory tirade. Exasperated, hemoaned, Dash is the devil. He
is scary. I don't know howhe does the things he does. He's
just bad news. At that point, I stole his thunder by asking,
have you read any of his books? Oh? Boy, talk about deploying
the emergency break. I mean,he practically screeched a halt. I suppose,

(24:33):
having been his favorite student, thedisappointment must have been mutual, and
I can only imagine the cacophony ofemotions that must have tripped all over themselves
within him. And so, withhis upper torso pancaked over the desk next
stretched out, had tilted, eyewide open, eyebrow raised high, and
like a gun turret, he swunghis pointed fist and locked it right at

(24:56):
me, pause for an instant thatfelt like an eternity, and said,
what book? In any case,and back to our interesting dinner exchange with
my two friends. I totally understoodwhere they were coming from. Plus they
genuinely seemed to be intrigued by thenotion of faith, and for the husband
especially it was also a matter ofscientific curiosity, and so he asked me

(25:17):
if I believed in God, andif so, why I was utterly unable
to provide a satisfactory answer, thatis, one matching the profile and expectations
of my interlocutor. Not to implyhe was conceited or self aggrandizing. In
fact, both husband and wife werethe picture of humility and kindness. Is
just that he naturally expected an answerrooted in science and rational thinking, that

(25:41):
is something he could relate to,whereas miracles, for all intents and purposes,
and on the face of it,break the laws of nature, thus
defy logic and rational thinking. Whateverthat really means, Ah, you don't
agree with me, but it'll beour secret. In any case, I'm
not saying that had I known whatI know today, I could have convinced
them to believe in God. However, I might have been able to give

(26:03):
them food for thought instead of elicitinggenuine empathy in the form of more dessert
for at least trying to help.I mean, it wasn't a total loss.
And as regards this business of suspendingthe dashes perspective, at least temporarily,
I will stick to what I know, notwithstanding what I believe, such
as matter is endowed with a relativedegree of consciousness, as I've explained in

(26:25):
Part five, and that ultimately nothingis random. It just appears to be
that way. And this brings usto my third and last housekeeping item.
Richard Dawkins spent a lot of inkin his nineteen eighty six book The Blind
Watchmaker reminding us that chance, whichrepresents random genetic variations, only plays a

(26:45):
very minor role in evolution. Howminor we don't know, because he didn't
provide any metrics to that effect,and that on the whole, it would
be a mistake to call it atheory of chance, being that natural selection,
which is purportedly not random, determinesblindly, mind you, that is,
without hindsight or foresight, which variationswill become fixed in the species.
To give an example, and thisis my own take on the matter,

(27:07):
we can all agree that a whitemouse will stand a better chance at survival
than a brown mouse in the deadof winter because the ground is covered with
snow. And while we can't argueagain from a non dacious perspective that which
brown mouse will be picked off bya bird of prey is an event whose
degree of randomness may vary. SafeFor example, one brown mouse deliberately shoves

(27:29):
a fellow mouse into the path ofa hawk, effectively rendering that quote unquote
selection event a lot less random.Overall, the total number of brown mice
will surely dwindle, and of coursea reversal of fortune will more than likely
occur come spring and summer, becauseagain, natural selection, according to Darwinian
rules, does not play favorites andis therefore impartial and blind. Now,

(27:53):
as I said, as far asDawkins and all dur Winian evolutionists, atheists,
or otherwise are concerned, chance absolutelycould not have played a major part
because of the insanely huge odds involvedin creating any new biological form that way,
which would require that new DNA informationbe somehow assembled in one fell swoop

(28:18):
without guidance. That's why we endedup with a thesis such as directed pan
spermia if you remember from episode five, which posits that it must have been
aliens who else that gave us DNA. By the way, I'm not knocking
the idea. I'm just playing devil'sadvocate anyway. That's why. Parallel to
that, they tell us that theevolution of DNA from the moment it appeared

(28:38):
somehow on the scene can only happenprogressively. Why because obviously mindless nature knows
what missing parts to wait for tofinally appear in order for it to complete
whatever biological form it never planned tobuild in the first place. Now,
if you know anything about how howdifficult it is to successfully conduct a series

(29:02):
of complex chemical reactions using raw materialspurchased and delivered to your clean laboratory,
you can imagine how much time wouldbe required for any sequence of coordinated reactions
to yield any viable product out therein a dirty, warm pond. And
trust me, I'm dedicating a wholeepisode on the problem of the origin of

(29:23):
the first cell. In the meantime, don't just tell me well it happened,
Show me how, show me themath, the equations. You know
what, On second thought, cancelthat last order, because you'd be smothering
me with a cascade of intellectually stimulatingyet absolutely useless differential equations that distract from
the fact you still can't tell expectingparents whether they should paint their nursery pink

(29:44):
or blue. And enough with thenineteen fifty three Miller Ui experiment. Already
it was a failure in so faras testing the chemical origin of life under
the condition's thought at the time tobe present on the early Earth. The
fact is is that evidence of apreponderance of primitive free oxygen in the early
Earth continues to mount, and forthe Miller Yurie hypothesis to work, we

(30:07):
need a reducing atmosphere, in otherwords, an atmospheric condition in which oxidation
is prevented. In any case,all repeats of the experiment proved was that
amino acids, the building blocks oflife, could be formed under primitive Earth
conditions. That is, again assumingone faithfully reproduces early Earth's atmosphere. But

(30:30):
as Douglas Fox reports in his Marchtwenty eight, two thousand seven Scientific American
article called Primordial soups on, scientistsrepeat evolution's most famous experiment quote, James
Ferris, a prebiotic chemist at RensilarPolytechnic Institute in Troy, New York,
doubts that atmospheric electricity could have beenthe only source of organic molecules. You

(30:55):
get a fair amount of amino acids. He says, what you don't quote
get are things like building blocks ofnucleic acids end quote. And of course,
without nucleic acids, we don't haveDNA. In March twenty four,
twenty nineteen, on camera conversation withBen Shapiro, Stephen Meyer, who is
a geophysicist, said, in referenceto the miller Euri experiment, quote,

(31:21):
amino acids do not a protein makeand proteins by themselves do not make life.
They were really quite a long waysaway from demonstrating anything like a spontaneous
chemical origin of life end quote.Is it me or has all the Darwinian
apologists at the National Center for ScienceEducation, who my extension, are responsible

(31:42):
for the fact most textbooks tout theMilleruri experiment as evidence of chemical evolution missed
the obvious fact that quote the originof life is not a field of research
within evolutionary biology end quote. Accordingto Massimo Pigliucci, author of Denying Evolution
again, and even Richard Dawkin saidit nobody knows how life began. Meanwhile,

(32:05):
the Miliuri experiment addresses the problem ofthe origin of life and not that
of its evolution. After the fact, and speaking of throwing a red herring
or utterly missing the point. Onepopular argument against an quote unquote intelligent designer
is that a careful examination of thecomplex biological systems reveals errors that no intelligent

(32:28):
designer would have ever committed. Designshaming. In the last episode, I
intimated that any theory challenging Darwinism,even one that is empericly based, is
summarily condemned with prejudice as pseudoscience,if it's so much as leads one to
draw an inference to any kind ofdesigner their aptitude. Notwithstanding, speaking of

(32:51):
which, the argument from bad designaims to persuade anyone on the fence,
particularly those whose purview is design andengineering, to smother whatever descending murmurs of
incredulity they may be prone to asa result of intuition and, as the
case may be, professional experience informingtheir opinion about the origin of biological machines.

(33:13):
Sure call it gaslighting if you want. And so the argument from bad
design claims that it would be arookie mistake to conclude that any sort of
intelligent agent played a hand in buildingthese complex, integrated mechanical and electrical body
systems that must interact and work togetheralgorithmically, mind you, given that the

(33:35):
brain processes all the inputs from thesenses in order to make predictions about the
world and compares them to what actuallyhappens. Thus and on a good day,
adjusting the algorithm in order to ata minimum survive as part of an
ecosystem shaped, among others, bymicro and macro climates. Incidentally, I
will delve into more detail about whatan algorithm is and why anyone should care

(34:00):
in a future installment. In themeantime, here's a condensed version. An
algorithm is essentially a process involving afinite series of steps to accomplish a task.
There are two criteria it must meet. One correctness in other words,
that it fundamentally lead to the desiredoutcome, and two that it be efficient.

(34:21):
That's it. Really. The punchline, of course, is that it
requires a degree of intelligence. Inany case, and back to the topic
at hand. We're told that ifwe analyzed these biological systems up close,
we would or should, arrive atthe conclusion that they possess the kind of
flaws that no intelligent designer in theirright mind would dare make and if not

(34:45):
incompetent, said designer must then beeither malevolent or oblivious. On account of
all the bad things that happen togood people. I mean, you name
it, from cancer to birth,defects to death and misery, all of
it should call into question the designer'smotives. Again, so goes the argument.
All right, First, as regardsbad design, I will be discussing

(35:08):
how the supposed flaw in the humaneye is a clever, ingenious, even
design feature in a future installment.Now, as regards the question of the
designer's motives, as I mentioned inthe last episode, the Vatican would sooner
accept Darwin's theory of evolution minus ofcourse it's unequivocal inference to atheism, than

(35:30):
accept intelligent design as a legitimate scientificendeavor despite its theistic implications, which is
why, incidentally, and as I'veexplained moments ago, it freaks some people
out. In other words, andthis bears repeating. While there's nothing in
the theory of intelligent design that hasanything to do with theology, it is

(35:52):
perceived as being dangerous because and bydefault, any time you challenge materialists with
a mix of mathematics and empirical evidence. You implicitly opened the door to the
alternative worldview that is theism. Butthat's apparently not good enough for the Catholic
Church. And the reason for that, as the argument goes, is because

(36:15):
anything less than a perfect creator whocreates perfect beings is a deal breaker,
if not a non starter. I'llbe discussing theistic evolution in earnest And episode
eight. In the meantime, justknow that the Catholic Church would rather embrace
the notion that God created the universeand placed the first life form, which

(36:37):
was left to its own devices tomutate and evolve according to what Darwinians are
claiming, that is, blindly andwithout any interference from God, than to
accept the idea of a creator whowould allow defective, for that matter,
malevolent design. Now there are,of course Catholics who are sympathetic to intelligent

(36:58):
design, but perhaps reject the notionof reincarnation despite the fact it addresses the
question of why there is evil,pain, and suffering in the world.
Theodicy as a theological construct, theodicyattempts to reconcile the idea of an omnipotent,
omniscient, and omnipresent deity with amanifestation of evil in the world.

(37:22):
Theodicy can be traced back to alogical argument from evil that the ancient Greek
philosopher Epicurus put forward well over twothousand years ago, and which goes like
this, Is God willing to preventevil but not able? Then he is
not omnipotent. Is he able butnot willing, then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing,then whence cometh evil? Is he neither

(37:45):
able nor willing? Then why callhim God? And so this has come
to be known as the epicurean paradoxor riddle eth Epicurus, and is viewed
by many as evidence disproving the existenceof God, a conclusion ie inconsistent with
the notion that if God transcends timeand space, then he most certainly must

(38:06):
be other than the sum of hisparts. Enter Dahitcism. It resolves,
albeit asymptotically, that paradox, withoutdiminishing any of the characteristics of God by
introducing the mechanism of reincarnation into theequation. Consequently, and on a parallel
track, Dacism also resolves an ageold conflict that has polarized two great Abrahamic

(38:28):
religions for centuries and counting, namelythe conflict between Christianity and Islam, the
details of which I will have totable for a later episode. In the
meantime, the reason I say theresolution of the problem will be asymptotic is
due to such inherent cognitive limitations that, among others, render the human mind

(38:49):
incapable of visualizing four dimensional physical space, let alone comprehending infinity, and which,
perhaps the delight of philosophers, oftenlead to infinite regress arguments, particular
as regards the origin of the universe. That is why, and in the
interest of full disclosure, dashism canbring us only this much closer to an
answer that it contends could never befully revealed, much less fully understood,

(39:13):
as long as one is bound tothis earthly realm. Hence, it is
the best humanly possible approximation of acomplete and perfect answer, if ever there
was one. So why is reincarnationthe boogeyman? Apparently, belief in reincarnation
was widespread among the early Christians andwas built upon the belief in the concept

(39:34):
of divine justice and the direct relationshipwith one's creator. In other words,
because it effectively democratizes the process byeliminating the role of the priest as the
only possible mediator between people and God. Reincarnation would be deemed so dangerous that
Giordano Bruno, who among other things, championed the cosmological position known as cosmic

(39:55):
pluralism, would be tried for heresyby the Roman Inquisition for denying many core
Catholic doctrines such as the divinity ofJesus Christ and the virgin birth. But
what reata would get him burnt atthe stake in sixteen hundred was that he
promoted the belief in reincarnation. Toput it simply, reincarnation removes the middleman.

(40:16):
For no human being, let alonea member of the clergy, could
act as the interface with the Creatorto save their life, and they certainly
cannot absolve others from their sins,and anyone who believes that is doing so
at their own spiritual peril. Icannot stress this enough. Please keep in
mind that while our motivations, thoughts, and actions might legally speaking slip under

(40:40):
the vicarious liability radar, and I'mloath to freak you out, everything is
accounted for by the cosmic divine justicesystem. And as someone who was born
and brought up Catholic and received communion, I might as well tell you that
from a dashist perspective, no amountof if priestly absolution can wipe the slate

(41:02):
clean. In other words, sooneror later, in this life cycle or
another, the debt will be paid. The laws of divine justice are just
like the laws of physics. Theyshall be obeyed. The best thing to
do is make amends and pray toGod that we pay back the debt and
small installments instead of a big lumpsum. Furthermore, the mere fact of

(41:28):
coming in contact with a person atany level or in any form, spiritual
fluids are potentially exchanged, which canhave both positive as well as disastrous consequences.
And I will table this for later. I mean, don't look now,
but there's a real reason we quoteunquote inherit other people's problems as it
were. Anyway, as I've sharedwith you before, divine mercy has made

(41:52):
it so that no human being canever remember anything pertaining to their former incarnations.
Therefore, to be clear, Ibelieve in reincarnation is freeing only to
the extent that it makes us realizethere is a just reason for the circumstances
we were born into, as wellas the physical, mental, and emotional

(42:12):
characteristics we have been endowed or burdenedwith. Dashism informs us that the road
towards exalting one's spiritual fluid starts withacceptance, while at the same time fighting,
as it were, the good fight. It's never merely about quantity,
but about how much one has beenable to achieve with what they had from

(42:32):
the outset. Furthermore, dashism alsoteaches us that our thoughts and actions can
very well alter our fate, andthat's what makes it all feel liberating,
provided we give the process half achance and not just throw in the towel.
I know it's hard, hence thetest with that planet Earth, which
sits on the threshold of paradise andhell. We're immune to the temptations of

(42:57):
our lowly spiritual fluids to which weare tethered and for which we are responsible.
But as I've explained in Part threeThe Dynamics of Life, these spiritual
fluids are determined to lure us intosending them more and more of our energy,
both for the sake of their survivaland to exact revenge on us,
given that we are the cause behindtheir predicament. And once again, these

(43:21):
spiritual fluids exist in parallel universes orparallel dimensions. You might remember my telling
you that the Moon, for example, which looks like a barren planet to
us, is teeming with life thatis imperceptible to our senses. The solution
is simple, assume we have amultiverse. So the real irony within an

(43:43):
irony here is that the multiverse,which as I intimated earlier, is now
the darling and mainstay of strength theoristswho incidentally first rejected it was initially proposed
by Australian physicist Brandon Carter, whocoined the term the Anthropic print. Now,
and until I go into it inmore detail in an upcoming episode,

(44:04):
just know that the concept of themultiverse is an integral component of the anthropic
principle. Brandon Carter coined that termat a conference in Crackou, Poland,
in nineteen seventy three, and thenin the nineteen seventy four paper from that
conference titled Large Number Coincidences and theAnthropic Principle and Cosmology. Oh goody,
now we're back to cosmology. Nowlisten, Seriously, it's all interrelated,

(44:28):
I promise you. See. Carterinitially proposed the idea of the multiverse as
a way to explain why the universeappears to be human friendly to us humans.
Now you're probably thinking, Okay,first, this is a totology,
and second, if the universe weren'tmade for us, we wouldn't be here
in the first place. Right.Ah, But the Copernican principle doesn't want

(44:49):
you to think that you are privilegedin any way, which doesn't really square
with the fact that the universe doeslook fine tuned. But was it purposely
fine tuned for our arrival? Ordo we just happen to live in one
of the billions upon billions of universeswhere one of them ours just happens to
have the right combination of the fundamentalphysical constants to allow not only the arrival

(45:14):
of life, but its evolution.And that is how the Darwinian theory of
evolution and cosmology are related. Huhfascinating. But wait a second, back
up a little. Why is theCopernican principle saying we shouldn't think of ourselves
as anything special? And why isCopernicus being so mean? First? And
For the record, Copernicus was adevout Catholic. Second to answer that question

(45:37):
fully, we need some historical context. In the sixteenth century, a revolutionary
idea was proposed by the Polish astronomerNicolaus Copernicus that would fast replace the model
of the Earth's centered universe of Aristotleand Ptolemy, which greatly influenced Western thinking
for almost two thousand years. Andas a consequence, the Copernican of a

(46:00):
sun centered solar system known as theheliocentric system meant that it was the Sun
and not the Earth that was thecenter of the universe. Just try to
imagine how revolutionary an idea that wasstill in According to University of Rochester Professor
of Physics in Astronomy, doctor EricG. Blackman, quote, Copernicus was

(46:21):
an unlikely revolutionary. It is believedby many that his book on the Revolutions
of Heavenly Spheres was only published atthe end of his life because he feared
ridicule and disfavor by his fears andby the Church, which had elevated the
ideas of Aristotle to the level ofreligious dogma. Professor Blackman continues, however,
this reluctant revolutionary set in motion achain of events that would eventually,

(46:45):
long after his lifetime, produce thegreatest revolution in thinking that Western civilization has
seen end quote by the way,and for those who love trivia. According
to doctor Blackman, a sun centeredsolar system had been proposed as early as
two hundred BC by Aristarchus of Seymos. In any case, the Copernican Revolution

(47:05):
would eventually give us the Copernican principle, which states that the Earth is not
the center of the universe, andthat as observers, we don't occupy a
special place. Thank you. Inany case, the Copernican principle is a
cornerstone of most of astronomy, hencethe cosmological principle, which basically says that
we neither live in a special partof the universe, nor are there any

(47:29):
special parts of the universe. Inother words, everything is pretty much the
same everywhere. But then scientists beganto notice that there was something odd about
what was otherwise thought to be atypical run of the mill boring universe,
in which celestial bodies obey identical physicallaws of nature which are fundamental, Although,

(47:51):
and to paraphrase doctor David Berlinski,no one really knows why these physical
laws are true. In any case, these physical laws, by the virtue
of their properties, would inevitably opena proverbial Pandora's box, thus challenging the
Copernican principle. I mean, considerthat Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous British
astrophysicists who discovered all the fine tuningparameters that were necessary to make it possible

(48:16):
for carbon and by extension, lifeto exist in the universe, was so
flabberg acid by the precision of thesefine tuning parameters that he said, quote
a common sense interpretation of the datasuggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with
physics as well as chemistry and biologyto make life possible. End quote.

(48:37):
Now, in the interest of fulldisclosure, please know that Fred Hoyle was
a devout atheist, and I'll betalking more about him in episode eight.
In the meantime, one result ofall of this mounting evidence challenging the Copernican
principle was that Brandon Carter acknowledged theproblems arising from extending that is, exaggerating
what he referred to as the quoteunquote sound lesson taught to us by Copernicus,

(49:00):
which is again that quote, wemust not assume gratuitously that we occupy
a privileged central position in the universeend quote, which is what a true
disinterested pursuit of knowledge sounds like,and allow it to degenerate into what he
characterized as quote a most questionable dogmaend quote, which summarily asserts that our

(49:22):
situation in the universe cannot be privilegedin any sense, anyway, in any
form period. To Carter, thatdogmatic position was clearly untenable. Hence his
attempt at finding a happy medium,as it were, to explain the apparent
tuning of the universe as an alternative. There, I say, to a

(49:43):
teleological perspective, that is, theuniverse appears to be fine tuned for us.
Now, I will have to tablethe discussion about how the anthropic principle
is supposed to be applied in thecontext of scientific inquiry for episode eight.
For now, I'll just briefly goover so what makes the whole thing ironic?
First, this idea of the multiversedidn't originally sit well with the string

(50:07):
theorists who initially rejected it. Yousee, they were trying to realize Einstein's
dream of a unified theory of physics, that is, providing the framework that
would be able to describe all theforces at work in the universe, and
that required a lot of hard workand complicated mathematics. And as though it

(50:29):
wasn't bad enough, string theory wasderided and treated as metaphysics. The multiverse,
that is the mother of all metaphysicalsolutions, shows up and unwittingly threatens
to undermine the efforts of the stringtheorists, potentially rendering them superfluous. Well,
that was until their mathematical equations beganto reveal the need for extra dimensions

(50:53):
and ultimately, wait for it,a multiverse. Oh well, that's changes
everything then, and that is howstring theory and the multiverse also known as
the landscape lived happily ever after.Now, as regards Brandon Carter's initial proposal,
it backfired, being that the termanthropic principle by virtue of its name

(51:17):
and the fact that well, theuniverse kindness saw it looks like it's been
fine tuned for our arrival, naturallyinspired on the one hand, telellogical musings,
and on the other attempts at falsifyingand debunking them. Seriously, though,
consider that the Greek word anthropos literallymeans man or human being, whereas
Brandon Carter was really talking about somethingknown as observer selection effects relaxed. That's

(51:43):
for a later episode, but untilthen, let me just say that he
was addressing observer bias any kind ofobserver, may they be human or alien,
But that aside. This is proofthat scientists should not be entrusted with
the task of branding, especially thatthe term anthropic principle has since been co
opted and repurposed and reformulated by thosewho believe the universe was purposely designed for

(52:07):
us, thus pushing Brandon Carter tolater regret ever having used the term anthropic
principle when he initially proposed the ideaof the multiverse in the meantime, an
aside from the inherent flaw in thattheory being that it conveniently overlooks prerequisite fine
tuning, which then once again begsthe question of and who or what is

(52:30):
that fine tuner? The real ironyhere is that the multiverse does in fact
exist, but I cannot offer anytangible proof. Would that Vulcan mind melds
were a real thing. I couldhave at least made you see what I
had seen. However, and asa reminder, science is all about facts
learned through experiments and observation, andnot an institutionalized system of dogma, beliefs,

(52:54):
attitudes, and practices about some scientificconclusions held to with and faith,
you know, scientism or the religionof science. As I discussed in Part
five. According to Richard C.Lewinon scientists must make in a priori commitment
to scientific materialism or more precisely,methodological naturalism, which happens to be the

(53:19):
philosophy of science Charles Darwin adhered to, and which posits a materialistic explanation for
everything. Again, according to Lewinton, quote that materialism is absolute, for
we cannot allow a divine foot inthe door end quote. I think doctor
David Bolinsky, who last I checkedwas still devoutly agnostic, put it best

(53:40):
in his book The Devil's Delusion,Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions, when he
wrote the following passage in response toLewington's manifesto quote, if one is obliged
to accept absurdities for fear of adivine foot, imagine what prodigies of effort
would be required where the rest ofthe divine tors found wedge at the door

(54:00):
and with some justifiable irritation demanding tobe let in end quote. As a
case in point, consider that realityis far stranger than we've been led to
believe. For example, nothing isnot nothing anymore. During his February fifteen,
twenty seventeen Royal Institutional lecture titled QuantumFields The Real building Blocks of the

(54:25):
Universe, Cambridge University Professor of theoreticalphysics, doctor David Tong revealed to his
audience that the very nice, verycomforting picture which is taught to children in
college undergraduates alike, in which everythingthat exists is said to be made of
the following three particles, that is, the electron, the upquark and down

(54:45):
quark, slightly rearranged and repeated overand over again, just like lego bricks,
is a white lie, you know, the kind we quote tell our
children because we don't want to exposethem to the difficult and horrible truth too
early on end quote. Incidentally,and for the purists out there, I
feel compelled to mention the other nineparticles, the electron, neutrino, the

(55:08):
muon, the tower particle, themuon neutrino, the town neutrino, the
strange quark, the charm quark,the bottom quark. Incidentally, these names
are completely arbitrary, and lastly thetop quark, all yet again testament to
the fact physicists should not be entrustedwith naming stuff charm quark. Really,

(55:30):
so, everything we are made ofboils down to just the following three particles,
the electron, the upquark, andthe downquark. For example, protons
consist of two up quarks and onedown quark. Neutrons consist of one upquark
and two down quarks. As forthe other particles, we need them when

(55:50):
quote exotic situations such as particle acceleratorsare involved end quote. However, everything
we've been ultimately able to see ordetect involves all twelve of these aforementioned particles.
But and here's the kicker, theseparticles are not really particles, which
brings us to that white lie Imentioned earlier. According to David Tong,

(56:13):
it makes it easier to learn ifwe believed these particles are the fundamental building
blocks of the universe. But accordingto him, it's simply not true,
and the very best theories that wehave of physics do not rely on particles
at all, rather on something quotemuch more nebulous and abstract end quote.

(56:34):
Doctor Tong explains that the fundamental buildingblocks of nature are quote fluid like substances
which are spread throughout the entire universeand ripple in strange and interesting ways end
quote. Therefore, the particles aren'tfundamental, Rather, the quantum fields that
underlie them are Addressing a riveted audience, David Tong says, quote unch line

(57:00):
is that you're all made of quantumfields, and I don't understand them.
At least I don't understand them aswell as I think I should and quote,
and that's not the half of it. Apparently the simplest thing in the
universe. In other words, nothingis actually vastly complicated, and the smallest
possible vacuum is bubbling with field activity. And this refers to the quantum fluctuations

(57:25):
I alluded to and part one themulti dimensional universe. And so those aforementioned
twelve fields are the fundamental building blocksof our universe. They are, as
he describes it, fluid like thinkoceans. Sometimes these oceans are calm and
smooth, and at other times stormyand rough. These fields interact, not

(57:49):
only with one another, but withthe four forces in nature as well,
which are gravity, electromagnetism, thestrong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force.
Now, in turn, each ofthe forces of nature is associated to
field. For example, electromagnetism isassociated to the electromagnetic field, while the

(58:12):
field associated to gravity is, inthe words of David Tong, space and
time itself. In other words,space time. So, all told,
there are twelve matter fields that giveus matter, and four other fields that
are the forces. And the universein which we live is the result of

(58:35):
all these sixteen fields quote, allinteracting together in interesting ways end quote.
So here's how to wrap our mindsaround what fields actually do. Take the
familiar properties of mass and electric chargeof particles. Now, the property known
as the electric charge of an electronis the electron field interacting with the electromagnet

(59:00):
field. As for the mass ofthe electron, it is a statement of
how it interacts with the Higgs field. I know yet another field. Anyway,
Please hold that thought in the meantimethat gives us the Higgs boson particle,
which I talked about in part one. Now, just how many fundamental
fields are there in this theory calledquantum field theory, well, that depends

(59:22):
on how we look at the theory. According to Forbes Magazine senior contributor Ethan
Siegel in a November seventeen, twentyeighteen article titled quote ask Ethan, are
quantum fields real? End? Quote? All told, there are twenty four
unique fundamental excitations of quantum fields possiblethat describe our physical reality. Simply put,

(59:47):
and if we think of the fieldsas oceans, the ripples of the
waves of these fields get tied intolittle bundles of energy according to the rules
of quantum mechanics. Please hold thatthought, and those bundles of energies are
what we call the particles. Infact, as doctor Tong explains, one

(01:00:07):
of the punchlines of quantum mechanics isthat energy in the world is not continuous,
always parceled up into some little discretelump, which is what quantum means
discrete or lumpy in quantum mechanics,where things are quantized in discrete bundles rather
than being continuous. David Tong says, quote, The real fun starts when

(01:00:29):
you try to take the ideas ofquantum mechanics, which say things should be
discrete, and try to combine themwith Michael Faraday's ideas of fields which are
very much continuous smooth objects which arewaving and oscillating in space. End quote.
Combining both theories together gives us quantumfield theory, whose implications as follows.

(01:00:51):
When we apply quantum mechanics to wavesof the electromagnetic field, which gives
us visible light, we find thatthese light waves are not as smooth and
continuous as they appear to be.Hence, when we closely observe light waves,
we find they're made of little particlesof light we call photons, and
amazingly, we can apply that sameprinciple to every single other particle in the

(01:01:15):
universe. Therefore, all the electronsin our bodies are not fundamental, David
Tong explains, quote, all theelectrons in our body are waves of the
same underlying field. We are allinterconnected to each other, and the same
goes for every particle. And whatwe think of as particles aren't really particles

(01:01:37):
at all. They're waves of thesefields tied into little bundles of energy.
End quote. Now, as tothe theory that underlies all of this,
David Tong describes it as quote,the pinnacle of science. It's the greatest
theory we've ever come up with,and his words, not mine, We've

(01:01:59):
given it the most astonishingly rubbish nameyou've ever heard of. End quote.
Of course, he's referring to thetheory known as the Standard Model, whose
sprawling equation predicts the result of everysingle experiment that has ever been conducted in
science, and which contains parts hesays, no one on the planet understands,

(01:02:21):
apparently, unlike Einstein's general theory ofrelativity, which has inspired physicists,
including Einstein himself to search for agrand, unifying theory of everything, or
Newton's laws of gravity, which beganwith a simple observation. All the particles
of the Standard Model and their propertieswere discovered via lab experiments, meaning there

(01:02:43):
doesn't seem to be any mathematical reasonfor them to be the way they are,
or any underlying, deep reason forthem to exist. And yet the
Standard Model is the most fundamental descriptionof life that is tweak even by the
tiniest bit. The constants of nature, the universe as we know it will
not exist. But it's a realmess. I mean, just look at

(01:03:04):
the mass of every particle expressed interms of its electron mass, you get
values that are all over the place. To illustrate what that means in practical
terms, imagine stumbling onto a buildingwhose columns look wrong in terms of their
sizes, shapes, and placement,and its roof is riddled with holes.
But yet for some mysterious reason,that building is somehow structurally sound and is

(01:03:28):
leakproof, and there's no way todescribe why that is using first principles.
In a Big Think video lecture calledthe Universe in a Nutshell, theoretical physicist
and City University of New York professorMichio Kaku refers to the Standard Model as
the particle zoo. He describes itas a jigsaw puzzle, having quote,

(01:03:51):
no rhyme and no reason end quote, despite being the most fundamental basis of
reality that physicists have been able toconstruct, he says, quote billions of
dollars twenty Nobel prizes have gone intothe creation of the Standard Model, and
it is the ugliest theory known toscience. But it works end quote.

(01:04:14):
And it's not just because the mathematicsthat physicists employ in order to describe everything
we're made of in terms of quantumfields can eat whatever other mathematics that are
used in any other area of physicsfor lunch, I mean it's really complex
math. Rather, it's because noone understands, again from first principles,

(01:04:35):
the patterns that emerge within the aforementionedquantum fluctuations, Thus the mathematical underpinnings of
what has been verified by experiment,but whose reason for existing is a mystery.
So what do we understand? Puttingthe dashest notion of spiritual fluids aside,

(01:04:58):
what does the fact we're not madeof particles but rather from fields mean?
What are we supposed to do withthis revelation? Set tight? For
things are about to get really weird. Apparently, if you take a box
and remove everything that exists out ofit, hence leaving nothing in it but
a pure vacuum. That is,you remove every single quote unquote particle out

(01:05:21):
of it, guess what the fieldwill still persist. Not only can't you
get rid of that field, itobeys the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which doctor
Tonge defines as being a principle thatsays, quote you're not allowed to sit
still end quote. Consequently, evenwhen there's nothing else there that is no

(01:05:43):
thing at all. The field isconstantly bubbling and fluctuating in a very complicated
way. Physicists call these quantum vacuumfluctuations. Clearly, Aristotle was not kidding
when he coined the phrase nature abhorsa vacuum, because us these quantum vacuum
fluctuations are not merely abstract or theoretical. In fact, they can be measured.

(01:06:06):
And though these fields are the simplestthings we can imagine in the entire
universe, they are quote unquote astonishinglycomplicated. How astonishingly complicated you ask well
enough that back in twenty seventeen,David Tong didn't know of one single person
working on the problem for one thing. Quote. We don't even know how

(01:06:29):
to begin to start understanding these kindsof ideas in quantum field theory. End
quote, And you thought predicting theweather was hard. In his book Darwin
Devolves, biochemist Michael Bhee draws acomparison between evolution and economics in chapter one,
called quote the Pretense of knowledge enquote, the title paying homage to

(01:06:53):
the nineteen seventy four Nobel Prize lectureand Economics by Friedrich von Hayek in which
the latter lamented quote quote as aprofession, we and by we he means
economists have made a mess of thingsend quote. According to be He,
quote, the problem wasn't that economistsweren't smart. The problem, thought Hayek,

(01:07:13):
was physics envy. Physics envy isthe always disappointed yearnings by those in
authority complex field to imitate those ina comparatively simple, wildly successful one.
As difficult as physics seems to undergraduates, it deals mostly with inanimate matter and
can focus on single variables and splendidisolation. Economics, on the other hand,

(01:07:34):
must consider many interacting factors, includingpeople. It is effectively impossible to
rigorously isolate one of the myriad influencesfor study away from all others. So
too for the study of evolution endquote. Now, this issue of physics
envy seems to be a recurring themewhenever a critique of evolutionary biologists is invoked.

(01:07:57):
In a November twenty nineteen conversation withBen Shapiro, Shapiro asks doctor David
Berlinsky, quote, so what's theagenda that is connected to the attempt to
dominate the field and prevent anyone elsefrom asking questions end quote, and before
I share with you Berlinsky's response.And just in case anyone is wondering why
no one is challenging the Darwinian theoryof evolution in any peer reviewed scientific papers,

(01:08:23):
please know that there are those whoselives have been ruined for daring to
mention intelligent design. According to thedocumentary Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed, starring
Ben Stein, evolutionary biologist doctor RichardSternberg's life was nearly ruined when he quote
strayed from the party line end quoteand questioned the powers that be at the

(01:08:47):
time. Doctor Sternberg's credentials included twodoctorates, one PhD in biology and another
PhD in system science, and morethan thirty articles in peer reviewed scientific book
books and publications. He served asan editor of a scientific journal affiliated with
a prestigious Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. On August four, two thousand four,

(01:09:11):
he published an article by doctor StephenMeyer, whom he had never met,
titled quote the Origin of Biological Informationand the Higher Taxonomic Categories end quote.
Despite having been peer reviewed by threebiologists before its publication, the result
was quote a firestorm of controversy asit suggested that intelligent design might explain how

(01:09:38):
life began. Doctor Sternberg lost hisoffice, his political and religious beliefs were
investigated, and he was pressured toresign end quote incidentally, for anyone who
might be thinking, well he mentionedintelligent design, what do you expect?
Remember that Carl Sagan celebrated Krick andArgyle's directed pan Spermia once again, which

(01:09:58):
I talked about exc intensively in episodefive. In any case, when doctor
Sternberg didn't resign, he was demotedand assigned to a hostile supervisor. He
was viewed as quote unquote an intellectualterrorist. We also learn about doctor Caroline
Crocker, who dared mention intelligent designin her cell biology class at George Mason

(01:10:23):
University using a couple of slides.She was accused of teaching creationism, lost
her job, was blacklisted, andwas unable to get a job anywhere else.
Doctor Michael Egnoor, a neurosurgeon agraduate of Columbia University, also quote
felt the wrath of the Darwinists whenhe wrote an essay to high school students

(01:10:44):
saying that doctors didn't need to studyevolution in order to practice medicine and quote.
According to doctor Egnore, there's nothingto be learned in neurosurgery by assuming
an accidental origin for the parts ofthe brain that we work on. Baylor
University forced its tenured professor of Engineering, Robert Marx to return grant money once

(01:11:06):
a link between his work and intelligentdesign was discovered, but not before shutting
down his website. Astronomer doctor GuillermoGonzalez, following the publication of his book
The Privileged Planet, in which heargued that the universe was intelligently designed,
and despite a stellar research record thatincludes the discovery of several planets, would

(01:11:28):
see his application for tenure denied.And to any scientist thinking about following his
example, doctor Gonzalez offered the followingadvice quote, If they value their careers,
they should keep quiet about their intelligentdesign views end quote. And so.
In response to Shapiro's question, Berlinskiexplains that there's a status ranking in
the academic world. At the verytop, he says, are the mathematicians

(01:11:53):
and just slightly below the physicists,though admittedly the physicists will argue that assertion.
The evolutionary biologists are way below themolecular biologists who and I quote at
least they go into the lab anddo something end quote. Then Berlinsky pauses
that there is a quote strenuous desirefor an enhancement of prestige that runs through

(01:12:15):
evolutionary biology end quote. And soan objection to evolutionary thought is quote an
infringement on prerogatives end quote. Andthe paraphrase mathematician and philosopher doctor William Dempsky,
what the Darwinians have done is tohide behind the complexity of living systems,
so complex they don't have a cluehow they could have formed by gradual,

(01:12:41):
detailed, step by step Darwinian pathways. We'll be hearing more from doctor
Dempsky later. Incidentally, PBS's evolutionwebsite says that quote evolution studies, like
other sciences, are founded on agrowing body of observable, reproducible evidence in
a natural world, whereas quote unquotecreation science is based on accounts written in

(01:13:03):
the Bible, and quote intelligent designis not yet supported by scientific evidence end
quote. And as I mentioned inPart three, the dynamics of life,
and so, at the risk ofsounding like Captain obvious, major funding for
pbs is often provided by the NationalCenter for Science Education. In other words,

(01:13:25):
the Darwinian lobby. All right,first and once more, And I
know I keep harping on this,but this is really important. Creationism and
intelligent design are two distinct approaches.The former assumes the existence of God.
The latter draws inference to a designer, perhaps a flawed intelligent designer, from
empirical evidence. Second to what sortof growing body of quote unquote observable and

(01:13:51):
reproducible evidence is PBS referring, Isure hope it's not referring to such monumental
achievements as genetic engineering or the Genieown project. These do not vindicate Darwin.
We still can't create DNA from scratch, let alone a biological cell.
Instead, whatever scientists have been usingto incorporate in their experiments can only be

(01:14:12):
vouchsafed by quote unquote Mother Nature.In any case, none of that proves
Darwin's principal thesis, which is thateverything we see in the natural world evolved
from one single organism, gradually,progressively and adaptively blindly. No less.
Now, aside from the issue ofthe fossils, which we'll be looking at

(01:14:33):
in great depth in episode seven,the most famous living, breathing natural laboratory
that has supposedly vindicated Darwin is forthe birds. Darwin's Finches Welcome to Daphne
Major, the volcanic island in theheart of the Galapicus Archipelago, where Darwin

(01:14:54):
would come up with a new understandingfor life itself. In eighteen thirty five,
Charles Darwin, which spend a fewweeks in the Galopicus islands, went
on board the HMS Beagle, andwhile he did bring finch specimens home to
England, he did not show muchinterest in them. In nineteen forty seven,
more than one hundred years later,ornithologist David Lack would publish Darwin's Finches,

(01:15:16):
proposing that different beak sizes on thedifferent islands were adaptations caused by natural
selection. According to David Lack,the finches quote started a train of thought
which culminated in the origin of speciesend quote. In his nineteen ninety four
book The Beak of the Finch,which won the Pulitzer Prize, Jonathan Wiener

(01:15:38):
describes in detail the key Galopicus researchconducted by two scientists, Peter and Rosemary
Grant, who, starting in nineteenseventy three, spent twenty years proving basically
that the finches of the Galopicas islandsevolve and those finches that, as a
result of this microevolution are better adaptedto their environment survive whereas the others don't.

(01:16:00):
So far, and based on whatwe know, the Galopagus finches are
distinguished mainly by the size of theirbeaks. Furthermore, some of them end
up with large beaks and others withsmaller beaks, and depending on environmental factors,
not the least of which is quantityand size of seeds these birds must
crack open. Sometimes the finches withthe larger beaks survive and at other times
the ones with the smaller beaks do. That's really it. So. For

(01:16:25):
example, when in nineteen seventy seventhere was a drought due to rainfall being
a fraction of normal, small seedsbecame scarce, while larger seeds, which
require larger beak to crack open,were more abundant. As a result,
the finches with the larger beaks prevailed. In what was described as quote unquote
a selection event by Peter and RosemaryGrant, the large beaked survivors left more

(01:16:47):
offspring, and then by the nextgeneration, the average beak size increased by
ten percent, which is a staggeringrate of evolutionary change when compared to anything
we see in the fossil record.Now, let me state for the record
that invoking the Darwinian mechanism of naturalselection acting on random variation in the case

(01:17:08):
of the galopogus finches is scientifically sound. Did you just say that, yes?
I did. The problem, asI have mentioned in prior episodes,
is one of extrapolation. You seePeter and Rosemary Grant extrapolated based on the
assumption that quote increases in beak sizeare cumulative from one drought to the next

(01:17:30):
end quote, that only about twentysuch events would be needed to transform an
average galopogus finch into an entirely differentspecies. However, this evolutionary oscillation between
larger and smaller beaks, and itscorollary in terms of which finches survived due
to climatic fluctuations, has been goingon for as long as the birds have

(01:17:50):
appeared on Earth. Just like virusesare still viruses despite the untold number of
mutations they've undergone, Galopogus finches areill galopagus finches and not on their way
to becoming the galopogus whatever else,at least not to the best of our
knowledge. And before anyone jumps tothe inference that it is the stress of

(01:18:10):
the environment that somehow induces evolution,remember that this microevolution is the result of
random variation. Yes, I know, Richard Dawkins said that randomness plays only
a minor part. We're getting thatshortly. In the meantime, I don't
care how long I flap my arms. If I ever find myself stuck in
a tall tree, I'm not gonnagrow wings. Well I could, and

(01:18:34):
for that to happen, according toDarwinian rules, first I would need a
date. Hey, how you doing, tadah offspring, and they in turn
would need to have offspring, andso on and so forth, until finally,
after millions of years have passed.But who's counting, one of my
non mongrel horrifically disfigured descendants who isable to reproduce, will have been born

(01:18:57):
with the ability to fly instinctively,that is, without taking flying lessons.
And this assumes that blind, undirectednature has a mind which it doesn't,
and can remember which it can't,that it is working towards the goal of
turning me into a flying creature,which it is not. Again, according

(01:19:18):
to Darwinian rules, of course,a Darwinian believes that anything that has a
non zero chance of happening will eventuallyhappen. Please hold that thought, as
will eventually go over Why this isdeeply problematic and tantamount to believing in miracles.
And just in case you missed it, allow me to point out that,

(01:19:39):
according to the Darwinian or neo Darwiniantheory of evolution or the New synthesis,
which are essentially the same thing,not only is microevolution the gateway to
macro evolution, evolution is the showthat never ends. In other words,
we're inevitably on our way to becomingsomething other than Homo sapiens. And before

(01:20:00):
you freak out and rush to callyour neighborhood evolutionary biologists, I should tell
you that. In an interview calledin Defense of Evolution, conducted on April
nineteen, two thousand and seven,by Joe McMaster, producer of Judgment Day
Intelligent Design on Trial, Kenneth Millerstarts off by contradicting what I just told
you when asked what is evolution?Exactly. Kenneth Miller says, quote,

(01:20:25):
well, everyone knows that evolution ina sense is change over time. But
what few people understand is how straightforwardthe nature of this change is. It's
important to understand, first of all, that individuals don't evolve. I'm not
evolving into something else, and mydog isn't evolving into something else. I'm
going to remain a human being.He's going to remain a dog. That's
the way things are going to work. End quote. Oh really, well,

(01:20:48):
I guess that settles that. Butthen Miller adds, quote what changes
over time are populations of individuals forvery straightforward reason end quote, and he
proceeds to enumerate the factors that clearlydescribe micro evolution, making sure we understand

(01:21:09):
that quote. What Darwin appreciated isthat nature herself selects from variance in the
population for those that are best ableto succeed in this race for differential reproductive
success. End quote. By theway, and just to show you what
a good sport I am, I'lladd a clarification on behalf of Miller.
When he says, quote nature herselfselects end quote. He's not suggesting that

(01:21:33):
nature has a mind Rather, it'sthe result of a confluence of many factors,
not the least of which are thephysical laws of nature and probability.
Anyway, fair enough, and onceagain we're talking small changes. People will
remain people, and dogs will remaindogs. Everything is under control, and
there's no reason to doubt that Darwinsuccessfully explained the small adjustments by which an

(01:21:57):
organism adapts to local circumstance, andsays whether through fur density, wing size,
or beak shape. And at thispoint you're probably wondering why I'm arguing
for the other side. Hold on, we're getting to the good part.
Van Miller says something that completely undermineshis attempt to allay people's fears. Or
maybe it was a clever misdirection.I honestly don't know. But anyway,

(01:22:20):
first he says, quote, overtime and given a steady input of new
variation into the population, that canchange the average characteristics of a species,
and it can split one species intotwo end quote. Okay, so far,
nothing to worry about. We're justtalking about the average characteristics of a

(01:22:43):
species. But then he says,quote those species, those two groups can
then go on changing in different directions. That's what leads to the formation of
yet more new species end quote.He said new species. So basically,
all these changes accumulate and new speciesare formed. Right, How is that

(01:23:06):
not macro evolution? And how isthat not gaslighting wrapped in equivocation? Could
this get any weirder? Sure ifone considers that perhaps my earliest subliminal introduction
to Darwinism was through in nineteen fiftyone Looney Tunes short written by Michael Maltese
and directed by Chuck Jones, titledRabbit Fire. It starts off with Elmer

(01:23:30):
Fudd hunting and tracking rabbit footprints,which we soon realize are the handiwork or
footwork rather of Daffy Duck, who, come to find out, has been
luring Elmer to bugs Bunny's burrow.He's a few steps ahead of Elmer,
so he's got time once he's reachedthe burrow to remove his rabbit boots and
to attempt to trick bugs by announcingthat a quote unquote friend was there to

(01:23:51):
see him. The first part ofhis fiendish plan completed, Daffy hurriedly tiptoes
away to hide behind a bullet.Midway, he looks into the camera and
proudly declares, quote, survival ofthe fittest, and besides, it's fun.
End quote. Did he just quoteDaffy Duck? What can I say?

(01:24:12):
It's rabbit season. In his twothousand and nine book The Greatest Show
on Earth, Richard Dawkins reiterated theDarwinian position about setting limits to variation,
which he called quote unquote essentialist,something that Plato would have embraced. He
used rabbits as an example. Ofcourse, he could have just as well
used duck'st illustratus point, though,come to think of it, he may

(01:24:33):
still have run a foul of basiclogic and common sense. Anyway. He
writes, quote, the Platonist regardsany change in rabbits as a messy departure
from the essential rabbit, and therewill always be resistance to change. End
quote. Then he writes, quote, the evolutionary view of life is radically
opposite. Descendants can depart indefinitely fromthe ancestral form, and each departure becomes

(01:24:58):
a potential answer to future variants.End quote. Therefore, according to Dawkins,
all is fluid quote unquote. Ohand by the way, please notice
how convenient it is that because Darwinianevolution takes millions of years purportedly, we'll
never be able to falsify that claim. What about the fossils, you ask,
As I said earlier, don't youworry. I'll be talking about that

(01:25:19):
in episode seven. It's just thatwe've got to get a couple of things
out of the way first. Anyway, and without giving an example or telling
us what preceded the rabbit, Dawkinsasserts that there may gradually come a point
not clearly defined, when the normof what we call rabbits will have departed
so far as to deserve a differentname. There is no permanent rabbit iness,

(01:25:43):
no essence of rabbit hanging in thesky. Quote after one hundred million
years, it may be hard tobelieve that the descendant animals ever had rabbits
for ancestors end quote. In otherwords, there are no archetypes in Darwinian
evolution, because archetypes imply intent andtherefore purpose, therefore a mind behind it

(01:26:03):
all. Again by macro evolution,think a land dwelling, grass eating animal
undergoing slow cumulative changes to become anocean roaming krill eating balen whale, and
so and back to doctor Demski,Darwinian's gesture at various intermediate systems that might

(01:26:24):
have existed and say, prove mewrong, show me that it didn't happen
that way. And as I intimatedin Part three The Dynamics of Life,
they might as well throw in aproof that unicorns don't exist challenge while they're
at it. Is it any wonderthat for all the power, prestige and
influence it holds in the academic setting, Darwinism is laden with may, haves,
might have, and could haves?I mean, what kind of scientific

(01:26:45):
theory uses so many modal verbs?Just for fun? The next time you
hear someone assert that this or thatorganism, organ or animal evolved the ability
to perform this or that function,ask them how so. For example,
when an evolutionary biologist declares that,quote, salmon evolved the amazing ability to
adjust from fresh water to salt waterand back again and just at the right

(01:27:08):
moment and quote, tell them,fair enough, how exactly did the salmon
evolve this ability to do that?Is it me? Or has the word
evolved? Become a convenient catshall thatconveniently explains away the emergence of biological systems
by providing superficial often misleading, ifnot condescending, answers to problems we have

(01:27:29):
not yet successfully expressed given their levelof complexity. Instead, let's try this
salmon has the ability to adjust fromfresh water to salt water and back again,
and just at the right moment.I don't know about you, but
I cannot wait until a multi volumedescription of how salmon purportedly evolved this ability
to prepare for life in the saltyocean, which starts with drinking a lot

(01:27:51):
of water. Then its kidneys haveto drop their urine production dramatically, and
lastly, the molecular pumps and thecells of the gills have to shift into
reverse pumping sodium out instead of in. Then all these physiological changes have to
change back when the now mature fishre enters the fresh water is finally peer

(01:28:12):
reviewed and published. If that whereverto happen, I'd be like, shut
up and take my money. Untilthen, nothing is lost by removing the
word evolved from the equation. Andbefore anyone says what's the big deal,
consider that yielding only one functional proteinof modest length, that is, using
only one hundred and fifty amino acids, let alone a more complex molecular pump

(01:28:36):
by chance from a prebiotic soup isno better than a one chance in ten
to one hundred and sixty fourth power. I will tell you more about that
in the future episode. In themeantime, talk about finding a needle in
a haystack, except that now imagineA not knowing you are looking for a
needle, because that implies purpose andgoal. B. You don't know what

(01:28:58):
a needle is. See, thehaystack is ginormous and d earth is only
four point five billion years old.So to have a realistic chance of finding
that proverbial needle by sheer dumb luck, we will need to search for more
than four point five billion years.And to add insult to injury, consider,
according to what Steven C. Meyerwrote in his two thousand and nine

(01:29:23):
book Signature in the Cell, thatthere are only ten to the eightieth power
protons, neutrons, and electrons inthe observable universe. Meyer writes, quote,
Thus, if the odds of findinga functional protein by chance on the
first attempt had been one in tento the eightieth power, we could have
said that's like finding a marked particleproton, neutron, electron, A much

(01:29:46):
smaller needle among all the particles inuniverse, a much larger haystack. Unfortunately,
the problem is much worse than that. With odds standing at one chance
in ten to one hundred and sixtyfourth power of finding a functional protein among
the possible one hundred and fifty aminoacid compounds, the probability is eighty four
orders of magnitude or powers of ten, smaller than the probability of finding the

(01:30:09):
marked particle in the whole universe.Another way to say that is, the
probability of finding a functional protein bychance alone is a trillion trillion trillion,
trillion trillion trillion trillion times smaller thanthe odds of finding a single specified particle
among all the particles in the universe. End quote. And for those who

(01:30:33):
say, who cares how hard itwas, the point is it happened.
Consider the adage the house always wins, and therefore winning just once against such
unimageable odds is not enough. Onceagain, no one can deny that Darwin
was onto something when he described aquote unquote local theory of change, to
paraphrase doctor David Berlinsky. But canthe primitive mechanism we see in local variation

(01:30:56):
primitive, that is, when comparedto the degree of almost unfathomable labyrinthine complexity
we see in living systems be turnedinto a global theory of change when we
can't even characterize what the process ofevolution is aiming for, being that Darwinian
evolution is blind to the future.By the way, when Berlinsky says labyrinthine
complexity, he's not kidding. Ikid you not. Just wait until we

(01:31:19):
get into such things as interactomes,that is, the whole set of molecular
interactions of a particular cell. Inthe meantime, let's keep things relatively simple
and ponder the fact that every timewe express ourselves using the simplest of sentences,
we are essentially solving a problem thatis far harder than finding a needle
in a haystack. Take a sentencelike methinks it is like a weasel.

(01:31:42):
I know what you're thinking. Shakespeareis simple. Okay, Listen, That
line from Hamlet consists of six wordsand five spaces, that is twenty eight
characters in total, which if itwere a password, it would literally take
an infinite amount of time to crack. And if you said nothing like that
is possible, in one felt whoop, you'd be absolutely right. Richard Dawkins

(01:32:02):
certainly recognizes that, which is whyhe keeps insisting and reminding us that the
process has to happen in gradual steps. Otherwise we might as well be talking
about miracles, which would of courseimply a creator. And yet Richard Dawkins
will affirm that the Darwinian theory ofevolution has nothing to do with chance,

(01:32:24):
the fine art of speaking and sayingabsolutely nothing. In December twenty fifteen,
during the televised Covelan show, Norwegianjournalist Frederic Skavlan asked Dawkins, quote,
what is the most common misconception aboutevolution end quote. Dawkins's response was,
quote, oh, probably that it'sa theory of random chance. I mean,

(01:32:46):
it obviously can be a theory ofrandom chance. If it was a
theory of random chance, it couldn'tpossibly explain why all animals and plants are
so beautifully well designed. Birds,fly fish, swim, moles, dig
gibbons, swing through the tree tops. They're all beautifully designed. And if
it were random chance, of coursethat couldn't happen. So obviously, what

(01:33:10):
Darwin did was to discover the alternativeto random chance, the only known alternative
to random chance, which is naturalselection end quote. Okay, so Darwin
discovered the alternative to random chance.How interesting because in nineteen eighty two Dawkins
wrote the following in the Necessity ofDarwinism, which appeared in The New Scientist.

(01:33:31):
Quote. Darwin showed how it ispossible for blind physical forces to mimic
the effects of conscious design, andby operating as a cumulative filter of chance
variations, to lead eventually to organizeand adaptive complexity to mosquitoes and mammoths,
to humans, and therefore indirectly tobooks and computers. End quote. Okay,
I know that was a lot ofwords, but somewhere in there he

(01:33:55):
did say blind physical forces and ohyeah, chance variations, right, just
checking and please hold that thought.Okay. So that was in nineteen eighty
two. But then early on,in his nineteen eighty six book The Blind
Watchmaker, Why the Evidence of Evolutionreveals a Universe without Design, Richard Dawkins

(01:34:15):
drove the following point home, Darwinismis not a theory of chance. In
the preface, Dawkins writes, quote, it is almost as if the human
brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinismand to find it hard to believe.
Take for instance, the issue ofchance, often dramatized as blind chance.

(01:34:36):
The great majority of people that attackDarwinism leap with almost unseemly eagerness to the
mistaken idea that there is nothing otherthan random chance in it. Since living
complexity embodies the very antithesis of chance. If you think that Darwinism is tantamount
to chance, you'll obviously find iteasy to refute Darwinism. And then Dawkins

(01:34:56):
ends with the following declaration, oneof my time will be to destroy this
eagerly believed myth that Darwinism is atheory of quote unquote chance. In chapter
two, titled Good Design, hereminds us not to confuse natural selection with
randomness. He says, quote,mutation is random. Natural selection is the

(01:35:18):
very opposite of random. End quote. Yeah, but it's those random mutations
that can kill you or severely messyou up before natural selection gets to play
a role. Talk about an understatement. Then, in chapter three, titled
Accumulating Small Change, Dawkins goes togreat lengths to describe two computer simulations that

(01:35:41):
will, in his mind, atleast unequivocally support the premise that quote chance
is a minor ingredient in the Darwinianrecipe, but the most important ingredient is
cumulative selection, which is quintessentially nonrandom. Endquote. And before we review
Dawkins's computer simulation, let's clear theair first. Dawkins appears to be conflicted

(01:36:03):
about the issue of random chance.One minute, he's being categorical and wants
us to banish the idea from ourminds, and the next he's saying that
chance plays some part in the process, which is a humdinger of an understatement,
considering that even the tiniest bit ofdeliterious chance mutation can be disastrous.
But to be clear, no onehere is saying that evolution is nothing but

(01:36:26):
random chance. The problem is morenuanced than that for starters, and unlike
chair or table, randomness can onlybe defined in terms of whether an event
is more or less random than another. In any case, buyer beware,
Prominent journalists who write about science oftenperpetuate this type of equivocation about darwin evolution

(01:36:47):
not being random, except for whenit is. In his April sixteen,
two thousand and eight New Scientist articlecalled evolution myths. Evolution is m Michael
Lepage starts off with quote no andyes. Natural selection is a rigorous testing
process that filters out what works fromwhat doesn't, driving organisms to evolve in

(01:37:12):
particular directions. However, chance eventsplay a big role too. End quote.
In his March twenty ten The Guardianarticle called why everything You've been told
about evolution is wrong, Oliver Berkmanwrites, quote from two elementary notions,
random mutation and the filtering power ofthe environment have emerged over millennia, such

(01:37:33):
marvels as eyes, the wings ofbirds, and the human brain end quote.
Now in his book whose complete titleis on the Origin of Species by
means of natural Selection or the Preservationof faviord Races, in The Struggles for
Life, Charles Darwin writes the followingright at the beginning of chapter five,
titled Laws of variation. Quote,I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the

(01:37:58):
variations so common and multiform and organicbeings under domestication, and an unlesser degree
in those in a state of nature, had been due to chance. This,
of course is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly
our ignorance of the cause of eachparticular variation end quote. So Darwin used

(01:38:20):
the term chance because he didn't knowwhat other word to use, given that
he clearly didn't know what was causingthe quote unquote variation, which today is
called mutation. But let us deferto Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
Laureate Jacques Lucien Muneau, a Frenchbiochemist who, according to the New Oxford

(01:38:41):
American Dictionary, and along with FrancoiseJacub, formulated a theory to explain how
genes are activated, and in nineteensixty one proposed the existence of Messenger RNA.
In his nineteen seventy two book Chanceand Necessity, Muneau writes, quote
it necessar barely follows that chance aloneis at the source of every innovation and

(01:39:03):
of all creation in the biosphere.Pure chance, absolutely free but blind,
at the very root of the stupendousedifice of evolution end quote. Therefore,
we must disabuse ourselves from the claimthat randomness does not play a starring role
in the Darwinian theory of evolution,or that chance is a quote minor ingredient

(01:39:29):
in the Darwinian recipe end quote.Remember what I said in Part five regarding
the genome of humans being ninety sixpercent similar to that of the great ape
species. A measly couple of percentdifference in the genetic code, when converted
into actual letters or base pairs asthey are called, comes out to millions
of characters that would need to berandomly altered without any deliterious effect. Try

(01:39:53):
telling that to a computer software developerwith a straight face. Speaking of computer
scientists an artificial int diligence experts,meet doctor David Galernter in this article giving
Up Darwin A fond Farewell to abrilliant and beautiful theory, which was published
in the Spring twenty nineteen issue ofthe Claremont Review of Books. Yale University
computer science professor and author, doctorDavid Galernter, whom I would like to

(01:40:16):
recognize as a brave survivor of oneof the Unibomber's horrific attacks, describes Darwinian
evolution as a brilliant and beautiful scientifictheory. He describes it as being quote
basic to the creedor that defines themodern worldview end quote. He confirms that
quote, accepting the theory as settledtruth, no more subject to debate than

(01:40:38):
the Earth being round, or thesky blue, or force being mass.
Times acceleration certifies that you are devoutlyorthodox in your scientific views, which in
turn is an essential first step towardsbeing taken seriously in any part of modern
intellectual life. End quote. ThenGalernter asks, quote, but what if
Darwin was wrong? End quote.We learned that, like many others,

(01:41:00):
go Learnter grew up with Darwin's theoryand had always believed it was true.
But then he read a couple ofbooks, and so with a heavy heart
he announced his descent, as itwere, from Darwinism. Golernter, who
among others, authored the book Judaism, A Way of Being rights quote.
This is sad. It is novictory of any sort for religion. It

(01:41:23):
is a defeat for human ingenuity.It means one less beautiful idea in our
world and one more hugely difficult andimportant problem back on mankind's to do list.
But we each need to make ourpeace with the facts and not try
to make life on Earth simpler thanit really is. End quote. Now
this is how Professor golearn To definedDarwin's theory of evolution quote Charles Darwin explained

(01:41:46):
monumental change by making one basic assumptionall life forms descent from a common ancestor,
and adding two simple processes anyone canunderstand random, heritable variation and natural
selection. Out of these simple andgreens conceived to be operating blindly over hundreds
of millions of years, he conjuredup changed. It seems like the deliberate
unfolding of a grand plan designed andcarried out with superhuman genius. End quote.

(01:42:13):
So and again, random variation andnatural selection operating blindly. Then,
in a section titled Demolishing a worldview, he writes, quote, there's no
reason to doubt that Darwin successfully explainedthe small adjustments by which an organism adapts
to local circumstances, changes to ferdensity or wingstyle or beak shape. Yet
there are many reasons to doubt whetherhe can answer the hard questions and explain

(01:42:38):
the big picture, not the finetuning of existing species, but the emergence
of new ones. The origin ofspecies is exactly what Darwin cannot explain.
End quote. Remind me again whatDarwin called his book. Oh that's right
on the origin of species. Onthat front, and in an upcoming episode,
we will be exploring the alleged creativeor generative power of the Darwinian mechanism

(01:43:02):
in greater depth. Then, Goalernterreveals the reason or reasons that convinced him
that Darwin had failed. Quote StephenMeyer's thoughtful and meticulous Darwin's Doubt twenty thirteen.
Convinced me that Darwin has failed.He cannot answer the big question.
Two other books are also essential,The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays two thousand

(01:43:24):
and nine by David Berlinsky and DebatingDarwin's Doubt tw thousand fifteen, an anthology
edited by David Klinghoffer, which collectssome of the arguments Meyer's books stirred up.
These three form a fateful battle groupthat most people would rather ignore.
Now and once again, as regardsthis aforementioned business of chance being a minor

(01:43:45):
ingredient in the Darwinian recipe and ameasly couple of percent difference in the genetic
code being equivalent to millions of charactersthat would need to be randomly altered without
any littleterious effect, Doctor Goelernter writesthe passes that masterfully somezes the problem with
Darwinism. Quote to help create abrand new form of organism. A mutation
must affect a gene that does itsjob early and controls the expression of other

(01:44:11):
genes that come into play later onas the organism grows. But mutations to
these early acting quote unquote strategic geneswhich create the body plan changes required by
macro evolution seem to be invariably fatal. They kill off the organism long before
it can reproduce. This is commonsense. Severely deformed creatures don't ever seem

(01:44:34):
faded to lead the way to gloriousnew forms of life. Instead, they
die young. Evidently, there area total of no examples in the literature
of mutations that affect early development andthe body plan as a whole and are
not fatal end quote. In otherwords, imagine you want to mutate a

(01:44:55):
sheep into a Shetland pony. Don'tgive me that. Look, this is
what macroevolution is. Oh and beforeanyone says microevolution slash macroevolution is a distinction
that no actual scientist makes. Theonly difference between the two is time.
And that's a direct quote. Bythe way, you should know that Berkeley
University, on its understanding evolution webpage has one page titled what is microevolution

(01:45:16):
and another called what is macroevolution?Plus there are many other reputable, reliable
sources, including textbooks you can findon archive dot org that falsify the claim
that microevolution and macroevolution are part ofa creationist attempt at obfiscation to undermine Darwinism.
And while I'm at it, andfor the sake of efficiency, let

(01:45:39):
me preemptively say that the term neoDarwinism is not pejorative, as Lawrence Kraus
claimed during the March nineteen, twentysixteen debate in Toronto titled quote Kraus Mayer
lemurue what's behind it all? God? Science in the universe? End quote.
There is a wealth of information thatthis proves this claim, for example,

(01:45:59):
Universe. The College and London professorof Genetics RJ. Berry's nineteen eighty
two book is titled Neo Darwinism.In chapter one titled darwin Darwinism and Neo
Darwinism, and right at the beginningin paragraph one point one titled Closet Biology,
Professor Barry, after defining the wordbiology as literally meaning the study of

(01:46:20):
living things, points out the problemsthat arise as the result of the fragile
and often broken link between the fieldnaturalists working with quote the formidable complexity of
real animals and plants end quote,and what he calls quote the closet biologist
end quote. That is, onewho confines him herself to dead organisms in

(01:46:44):
the comfort of the laboratory or museum, and who quote expounds his wisdom from
an indoor sanctum, basing himself onan extensive acquaintance with a restricted body of
facts end quote. Professor Barry givesthe reader a detailed history of the neo
Darwinists, who, unlike Darwin,understood the role of genes and heredity practically

(01:47:09):
saved Darwinism from oblivion because Darwin knewnothing about genes, so his mechanism of
natural selection acting on random variation wasabout to become obsolete when the neo Darwinists
came along and upgraded their theory bysaying, well, actually, the variation
is a mutation, and they appliedthe Darwinian mechanism to the level of genes.

(01:47:31):
Hence we end up having natural selectionacting on random genetic mutation. See
problem solved or is it that's whywe're here? Of course I skipped over
many key events and caricatured the players. Anyway, with that grossly vulgarized version
of history out of the way,let's go back to doctor Berry. In
his list of quote unquote five episodesof doubt about Darwinism, he cites the

(01:47:55):
quote rift between the paleontologists and geneticistsin the nineteen ten, twenties and nineteen
thirties, which led to the generalconsensus usually known as the neo Darwinian synthesis
end quote. These days, ofcourse you'll hear someone refer to the new
synthesis in lieu of Darwinism or neoDarwinism. Basically, the new synthesis,
the Neodarwinian synthesis, or just Neodarwinismis a reminder of the aforementioned quote unquote

(01:48:21):
broken link, which, in thewords of Professor Barry, is quote particularly
important in understanding the arguments that occurabout evolution for the simple reason that evolution
is not a subject in its ownright, but a synthesis of disciplines as
why does biology itself? End quote, and I suppose these different terms suggest

(01:48:45):
that Darwinism was never perfect in thefirst place, and is still undergoing an
evolution, as evolutionary biologists attempt toshow, without cheating, that is,
using synthetic selection, how nature canblindly despite among others, entropy and unimaginable
odds, induce macro evolution. Anyway, I'll defer again to what Galernter said,

(01:49:06):
this time during a June six,twenty nineteen episode of Uncommon Knowledge titled
Mathematical Challenges to Darwin's Theory of Evolution, during which host Peter Robinson posed several
salient questions to his three guests,doctors Stephen Meyer, David Berlinsky, and
last but not least, doctor DavidGlernter, who's aforementioned essay titled giving up

(01:49:30):
Darwin of font Frewell to a brilliantand beautiful theory had clearly been the impetus
for the interview, and which Ihighly recommend you read. Glernter says,
quote, there may be a mutationthat makes me order purple wool, or
the wrong color hoofs, or astomach that won't quite fit. But a
mutation that is going to recreate thecreature in such a way that it's a

(01:49:54):
different creature is biologists tell me,and farmers tell me. Almost certainly likely
to be fake. End quote.Galernter goes on to explain that a mutation
that makes a slip and causes anenormous difference at the all important early stage.
So, for example, it startsto put the head on backwards and
gives the creature seventeen tails or toomany internal organs, or forgets the blood

(01:50:15):
or something along those lines. Heexplains that because this is right early on,
that the mutation is doing tremendously importantthings, it's not quote gonna make
a little error and the density ofthe fur. It's gonna be a big
error in the design of the internalsand the externals of what makes this creature
what it is. End quote.Okay, I believe this illustrates to what

(01:50:36):
degree Dawkins underplayed, and for goodreason, being that it's the crux of
the matter, this business of randomchance. Second, I said earlier that
the problem of randomness is nuanced accordingto what William Demsky wrote in chapter nine
of his book The Design Revolution.Quote, the scientific community understands natural causes

(01:50:57):
in terms of chances and their combinationend quote. Note that he did not
mention design as in the action ofan intelligent agent right off the bat,
and according to doctor Demski, formany in the natural sciences, design is
not a fundamental creative force in nature. Instead, line natural forces shaped by

(01:51:18):
once again, chants and necessity areall that is needed to quote unquote do
all of nature's creating. Whenever scientistsor philosophers of science refer to necessity,
they are invariably speaking about the naturallaws. For example, it's necessary that
water cooled below zero degrees freeze,Or if you punch in two plus two

(01:51:41):
on a calculator, the answer isnecessarily four and not twenty two. Therefore,
and the context of science, tosay that something is necessary is equivalent
to saying that a it has tohappen, and b it can only happen
in one and only one way.Now, the flip side of necessity is
contingency, which implies a range ofpossibilities to which mathematicians and scientists assign probabilities.

(01:52:08):
So, for example, even ifwe begin with the premise that an
outcome is possible in theory, thereal question we should be asking is how
probable would it be given the constraintof time and resources. And so when
we say something is contingent, asopposed to necessary, we mean that there
are many ways for it to happen. Consider the roulette wheel with its thirty

(01:52:31):
eight slots. When we spin aroulette wheel, and theoretically speaking, that
is discounting cheating such as rigging,and the myriad physical variables that come into
play such as location, momentum,air, friction, and gravity, for
all intents and purposes, each slothas the same probability of the ball landing

(01:52:55):
in it. As a result,we call that pure chance or randomness.
Therefore, and according to doctor Dempsky, pure chance or randomness being the exception
rather than the rule. Please holdthat thought is what characterizes the outcome at
the roulette wheel. However, moreoften than not, whenever natural causes are

(01:53:15):
involved, chants and necessity act togetherrather than in isolation. Dempsky writes,
quote probabilities still apply, but thingsare not as straightforward as when all possibilities
have the same probability end quote theparadox of the trained monkey. In the
early part of the twentieth century,French mathematician Immiitboil developed a metaphor to make

(01:53:41):
a point about probability as it appliesto statistical mechanics and so he imagined that
a million trained monkeys, typing awayten hours per day under the watchful eyes
of illiterate supervisors tasked with assembling theirtype pages into volumes, would within a
year fail i fully recreate every bookin existence, including the full works of

(01:54:04):
Shakespeare. Therefore, according to theparadox of the trained monkey, also known
as the infinite monkey theorem, whichfirst appeared in print in Borel's January first,
nineteen thirteen Journal of Physics paper titleStatistical Mechanics and Irreversibility, a monkey
that types indefinitely and randomly could almostsurely write something intelligible. Now, in

(01:54:28):
mathematics, the notion of quote unquotealmost surely means a non zero value,
in other words, not quite impossible. In fact, statistically speaking, monkeys
filling the entire observable universe might beable to produce something to write home about
if you afforded them a time spanequal to hundreds of thousands of orders of

(01:54:49):
magnitude longer than the age of theuniverse. The infinite monkey theorem and to
quote Wikipedia, can be generalized tostate that any sequence of events which has
a non zero probability of happening atleast as long as it hasn't occurred,
will almost certainly eventually occur. However, just in terms of typing the following

(01:55:11):
line from Hamlet, methinks it islike a weasel. And according to what
Richard Dawkins wrote in his nineteen eightysix book The Blind Watchmaker, the chance
of getting the first letter m rightis one in twenty seven. Now,
given that our trained monkey, whichis a standard for a randomizing device,
has to correctly type the first twoletters in one discrete attempt, the odds

(01:55:32):
of that happening would be one intwenty seven multiplied by one in twenty seven,
which equals one in seven hundred andtwenty nine. And in order to
get the first word methinks right inone discrete attempt, the odds are one
in twenty seven multiplied by itself eighttimes. That means three point five four
to one multiplied by ten to thenegative twelve, And the chance of getting

(01:55:54):
the whole sentence methinks it is likea weasel in one discrete attempt simulating a
single step selection of random variation,according to Dawkins, is one and ten
thousand million, million, million,million, million million. At this point
it is safe to say and toquote John Maynard Smith, no biologist imagines
that complex structures arise in a singlestep. Indeed, Dawkins writes, quote,

(01:56:17):
to put it mildly, the phrasewe seek would be a long time
coming, to say nothing of thecomplete works of Shakespeare end quote. Dawkins
continues, quote, so much forsingle step selection of random variation? What
about cumulative selection? How much moreeffective? Should this be? Very,

(01:56:38):
very much more effective? Perhaps moreso than we at first realize, although
it is almost obvious when we reflectfurther. We again use our computer monkey,
but with a crucial difference in itsprogram end quote. Dawkins therefore pauses
that if the evolutionary progress had hadto rely on single step selection, it
would never have gotten off the ground. Since macroevolution happened somehow, he writes,

(01:57:02):
quote, if, however, therewas any way in which the necessary
conditions for cumulative selection could have beenset up by the blind forces of nature,
strange and wonderful might have been theconsequences end quote. And he goes
on to say that that's exactly whathappened on this planet. And he proceeds
to excoriate those who believe that Darwinianevolution is quote unquote random. He then

(01:57:27):
affirms that quote chance is a minoringredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the
most important ingredient is cumulative selection,which is quintessentially non random end quote.
And once again, doctors can't eventell us whether fetus is male or female
without the benefit of medical sonography.So much for chance being a quote unquote

(01:57:48):
minor ingredient. Now, I'm goingto table the in depth discussion of the
mathematical challenges to Darwin's theory of evolutionfor a future episode. As to his
computer simulation Surprise Surprise, Richard Dawkinswrites the following quote. Although the monkey
slash Shakespeare model is useful for explainingthe distinction between single step selection and cumulative

(01:58:12):
selection, it is misleading in importantways. One of these is that in
each generation of selective quote unquote breeding, the mutant quote unquote progeny phrases were
judged according to the criterion of resemblanceto a distant ideal target. The phrase
methinks it is like a weasel.Life isn't like that. Evolution has no

(01:58:35):
long term goal. There is nolong distance target, no final perfection.
To serve as a criterion for selection, although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion
that our species is the final goalof evolution, In real life, the
criterion for selection is always short term, either simple survival or more generally,

(01:58:57):
reproductive success. If after the whatlooks like progress towards some distant goal seems
with hindsight to have been achieved,this is always an incidental consequence of many
generations of short term selection. Thequote unquote watchmaker that is cumulative natural selection
is blind to the future and hasno long term goal end quote. Is

(01:59:20):
it me or is Richard Dawkins intotal agreement with what I said in episode
five, which is, forget computersimulations. They are not Darwinian because they
involve things like goals or targets andmemory or push down storage. Oh and
the programmer that's behind it all againjust wondering anyway. Then a determined Dawkins

(01:59:43):
modifies his computer model to take accountof the fact that quote the watchmaker that
is cumulative natural selection is blind tothe future and has no long term goal
end quote. Letters and words areparticularly human manifestations. Let's make the computer
draw pictures in instead, he writes, because of course, pictures, even
stick figures, are not particularly humanmanifestations. Ha ha, yeah, I

(02:00:05):
know. Listen, this matters becausespoiler alert, he'll be using his human
eyes and human brain to do theselecting. He says it right there.
Quote. The human eye has anactive role to play in the story.
It is the selecting agent. Itsurveys the litter of progeny and chooses one
for breeding. End quote. Remindme again what the eye is connected to.

(02:00:29):
Oh yeah, that's right, abrain. Again, those computer simulations
are not Darwinian in any case.He writes that maybe we shall see animal
like shapes evolving in the computer bya cumulative selection of mutant forms, or
maybe we won't recognize the shapes.Again, recognize the shapes, but let's
overlook the fact that there's a humanbrain behind the selecting. He says.

(02:00:51):
What is important is that these shapesemerge quote solely as a result of cumulative
selection of random mutation and quot quoteWait he did say random, right,
just checking. Oh but of coursechance only plays a minor part. My
bad anyway, And again, theidea being that these small changes that are
the result of microevolution accumulate and weend up with a whole new body plan.

(02:01:14):
Hence the argument that the Darwinian mechanismhas creative power or generative power,
the power to create new body plansand blueprints that weren't available before. And
Dawkins have the consummate pedagogue, andI do mean that sincerely explains that quote
In real life, the form ofeach individual animal is produced by embryonic development

(02:01:34):
end quote. And that quote evolutionoccurs because and successive generations, there are
slight differences in embryonic development. Endquote. Why pray tell because quote these
differences come about because of changes inthe genes end quote. And how does
he define quote unquote changes as quoteunquote mutations, of course, and what

(02:01:58):
are mutations? They are wait forit, quote the small random element in
the process end quote. Of course, he never mentions that one minor small
deleterious mutation would either kill or severelycompromise the embryo, thus giving natural selection
random or not nothing to select from, that is, determine which variations will

(02:02:20):
become fixed in the species. Anyway, Putting aside this perhaps unintended attempt at
misdirection, Dawkins explains that quote inour computer model therefore, we must have
something equivalent to genes that mutate endquote. Dawkins explains that there are many
ways in which we can meet thesespecifications in a computer model, and he

(02:02:42):
reminds the reader and again remember thisis nineteen eighty six, that quote.
If you don't know anything about computers, just remember that there are machines that
do exactly what you tell them,but often surprise you in the result.
A list of instructions for a computeris called a program end quote. And
ultimately end up with computer generated shapesthat evolved, so to speak, inside

(02:03:03):
the computer. And putting aside onceagain that a human being wrote the program,
the human eye in this particular exercisewas the one doing the selecting,
which brings us to Richard Dawkins writingthat quote, the biomorph model is still
deficient. It shows us the powerof cumulative selection to generate an almost endless
variety of quasi biological form, butit uses artificial selection, not natural selection.

(02:03:30):
End quote. So basically the proceedingwas a purely academic exercise in science
fiction. According to doctor David Berlinsky, we're able to build a simple sentence
like quote John brought the book backhome end quote. Because we knew what
we were looking for, and thereason we knew what we were looking for
is because we had a thought.Speaking to Peter Robinson during an episode of

(02:03:55):
Uncommon Knowledge which was recorded on Julythird, twenty nineteen, Lensky affirms that
no one knows how a thought translatesinto a grammatical sentence, and that we
do it all the time by lookingahead. Therefore, quote, it is
very reasonable to suggest life must havesome forward looking capacity to construct the fiercely

(02:04:15):
complicated structures that we see everywhere,like the human eye end quote. The
bottom line hears as follows, justwhat is intelligence? Indeed, that is
the question, and that brings usto the end of the Dash's Theory of

(02:04:43):
Reincarnation, Part six, The GoodFight. For a transcript, please visit
doctor dash dot com. That's doC T O R. Dash dot Com.
May also visit dash dot org ordash dot Tv. This is Mario

(02:05:05):
Henry Shakour saying goodbye until next time.