1 00:00:08,810 --> 00:00:11,802 Blair: Well, here we are again, ladies and gentlemen, in the bunker of the secular fox 2 00:00:11,866 --> 00:00:12,538 hole. 3 00:00:12,714 --> 00:00:14,618 Today we have a great guest. 4 00:00:14,794 --> 00:00:20,974 His name is Frederick Seiler, and he has an Ma in the history of science and degrees in 5 00:00:21,012 --> 00:00:26,258 electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon and Rensalar Poly Ethnic Institute. 6 00:00:26,434 --> 00:00:32,390 And he is the author of the book we are here to discuss today, god versus Fred. 7 00:00:33,530 --> 00:00:35,110 Fred: Hi. Hello. 8 00:00:35,180 --> 00:00:37,400 Blair: Fred, you know this book. 9 00:00:38,810 --> 00:00:41,382 In your preface, you point to two historical 10 00:00:41,446 --> 00:00:43,178 works that guided your thinking. 11 00:00:43,344 --> 00:00:45,786 What were they and what was your goal in 12 00:00:45,808 --> 00:00:46,906 writing the book? 13 00:00:47,088 --> 00:00:50,550 Fred: Yeah, first of all, thank you for inviting me. 14 00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:51,600 Blair: Oh, you're welcome. 15 00:00:52,210 --> 00:00:58,174 Fred: Yeah, about 25 years ago, I was at Indiana University studying history of 16 00:00:58,212 --> 00:00:58,650 science. 17 00:00:58,730 --> 00:01:01,614 And in my sort of random explorations at that 18 00:01:01,652 --> 00:01:10,946 time, I discovered two books that were written by Americans in the late 19th century that had 19 00:01:10,968 --> 00:01:13,250 to do with religion and science. 20 00:01:13,830 --> 00:01:17,654 And one of them is John William Draper's book 21 00:01:17,692 --> 00:01:20,578 history of the conflict between Religion and science. 22 00:01:20,754 --> 00:01:24,098 He was a scientist himself, American scientist. 23 00:01:24,194 --> 00:01:28,442 And the other book is by an educator named Andrew Dixon White. 24 00:01:28,496 --> 00:01:34,460 And his book was, if I remember the title, history of Warfare Between. 25 00:01:35,470 --> 00:01:41,486 I can't remember the exact title, but it has to do with warfare of science and religion and 26 00:01:41,508 --> 00:01:42,350 Christendom. 27 00:01:42,930 --> 00:01:46,286 And both of these books were very popular when 28 00:01:46,308 --> 00:01:47,120 they came. 29 00:01:47,810 --> 00:01:50,666 Mean John William Draper's book selled 30 00:01:50,698 --> 00:01:51,610 extraordinarily. 31 00:01:51,690 --> 00:01:55,378 Well, it was translated into at least maybe at 32 00:01:55,384 --> 00:02:01,422 least a dozen different languages, so it was very popular. 33 00:02:01,486 --> 00:02:07,154 And also, Andrew Dixon Dwight came out, like, a little bit later, not as popular, but much 34 00:02:07,192 --> 00:02:08,334 more detailed. 35 00:02:08,462 --> 00:02:11,474 A long book, like at least eight or 900 pages 36 00:02:11,522 --> 00:02:17,058 long, going into lots of detail about science, conflicts between science and religion. 37 00:02:17,234 --> 00:02:23,866 Both of these books the main theme of the book is conflict, conflict between science and 38 00:02:23,888 --> 00:02:25,820 religion throughout history. 39 00:02:26,270 --> 00:02:30,554 And when I discovered the books, I discovered 40 00:02:30,602 --> 00:02:36,030 that there were issues with the books. 41 00:02:37,170 --> 00:02:39,614 Certainly they were written over 100 years 42 00:02:39,652 --> 00:02:41,742 ago, so we've discovered more. 43 00:02:41,796 --> 00:02:43,826 And our understanding of a lot of issues in 44 00:02:43,848 --> 00:02:46,354 history is a lot better in many ways. 45 00:02:46,472 --> 00:02:49,406 But certainly I discovered that modern 46 00:02:49,518 --> 00:02:56,550 professors in history of science and otherwise look at these books with absolute contempt 47 00:02:57,850 --> 00:03:00,870 that these books they consider completely worthless. 48 00:03:02,810 --> 00:03:06,760 I think the main issue is well, there are two issues. 49 00:03:07,210 --> 00:03:13,066 One issue that the issue that they keep bringing up is that, well, they get a lot of 50 00:03:13,088 --> 00:03:14,060 facts wrong. 51 00:03:15,230 --> 00:03:17,750 And, yeah, there are facts. 52 00:03:17,910 --> 00:03:21,374 If you look hard, you can find a number of facts here and there things that at least 53 00:03:21,412 --> 00:03:28,894 things we know, we're confident about, about history that we know today that these guys got 54 00:03:28,932 --> 00:03:29,520 wrong. 55 00:03:31,970 --> 00:03:33,646 And there were certainly issues with these 56 00:03:33,668 --> 00:03:33,910 books. 57 00:03:33,930 --> 00:03:36,210 And both of these authors were inconsistent. 58 00:03:36,550 --> 00:03:39,426 They were philosophically inconsistent in certain ways. 59 00:03:39,528 --> 00:03:44,082 And at various times, they said in their books, they said, oh, I'm not against 60 00:03:44,136 --> 00:03:45,010 religion. 61 00:03:45,910 --> 00:03:47,480 Religion is a good thing. 62 00:03:49,770 --> 00:03:51,094 They would say things like that. 63 00:03:51,132 --> 00:03:53,366 And then they would come out at some point in 64 00:03:53,388 --> 00:03:58,990 a later chapter and they would say faith and religion are absolutely at war and they're 65 00:03:59,010 --> 00:04:03,740 completely opposed to each other, completely in all their forms are opposed to each other. 66 00:04:04,270 --> 00:04:11,758 And so if you just read just on their own terms, they're a bit contradictory sometimes 67 00:04:11,844 --> 00:04:18,026 they just didn't go far enough, in my opinion, in terms of attacking or explaining what's 68 00:04:18,058 --> 00:04:19,066 wrong with religion. 69 00:04:19,178 --> 00:04:22,662 But I think today's historians of science 70 00:04:22,746 --> 00:04:31,214 really unfortunately, they really don't know how to deal with abstract issues like science 71 00:04:31,262 --> 00:04:32,174 versus religion. 72 00:04:32,222 --> 00:04:36,758 That's a very abstract issue in terms of a lot 73 00:04:36,764 --> 00:04:38,200 of these professors of history. 74 00:04:39,130 --> 00:04:41,510 They're comfortable with a lot of very 75 00:04:41,580 --> 00:04:42,950 concrete facts. 76 00:04:43,530 --> 00:04:47,766 So if you ask them about to describe the 77 00:04:47,788 --> 00:04:53,018 relationship between this type of Protestantism and this kind of science within 78 00:04:53,104 --> 00:04:58,666 this decade of the 17th century, they will talk to you for hours and they'll be very 79 00:04:58,688 --> 00:05:00,140 confident what they say. 80 00:05:00,590 --> 00:05:03,850 But if you start talking about, well, science 81 00:05:03,930 --> 00:05:09,882 and religion in general, they will start saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is all abstract 82 00:05:09,946 --> 00:05:10,222 terms. 83 00:05:10,276 --> 00:05:11,760 This is a lot of hot air. 84 00:05:13,910 --> 00:05:20,180 You're just going way beyond what's justified by any kind of rational study of the past. 85 00:05:20,950 --> 00:05:26,774 So in my opinion, there's a lot of concrete bound thought in a lot of historians of 86 00:05:26,812 --> 00:05:31,318 science, okay? And on the other side, there are a number of 87 00:05:31,324 --> 00:05:36,774 historians of science who are just very sympathetic to religion for one reason or 88 00:05:36,812 --> 00:05:37,254 another. 89 00:05:37,372 --> 00:05:41,118 They really don't like some of them religious 90 00:05:41,154 --> 00:05:44,934 raised with religious backgrounds, and they just don't want to attack religion. 91 00:05:45,062 --> 00:05:49,494 So a lot of them will come out and say, well, there's this thing called the conflict thesis. 92 00:05:49,622 --> 00:05:54,734 The conflict thesis is that science and religion are at war throughout history and 93 00:05:54,772 --> 00:05:57,920 they say, well, today we know the conflict thesis is wrong. 94 00:05:59,250 --> 00:06:02,720 And they say, well, then they start. 95 00:06:03,430 --> 00:06:05,218 Tons of books have been written about this in 96 00:06:05,224 --> 00:06:06,740 the last 40 years. 97 00:06:07,430 --> 00:06:09,682 It's amazing how much has been written on this 98 00:06:09,736 --> 00:06:10,910 by academics. 99 00:06:11,070 --> 00:06:15,426 And basically they sort of dance around the 100 00:06:15,448 --> 00:06:19,574 subject and they basically say, well, sometimes science religions seem to work 101 00:06:19,612 --> 00:06:20,200 together. 102 00:06:21,930 --> 00:06:24,182 There are all these scientists in history who 103 00:06:24,236 --> 00:06:29,074 were religious, right? Look at Gregor Mendall and his was the Monk 104 00:06:29,122 --> 00:06:33,786 and he did all this work on Peapods and Isaac Newton believed firmly in God. 105 00:06:33,968 --> 00:06:37,434 And so they give all these examples and then they say, well, yes, there were certain 106 00:06:37,472 --> 00:06:42,814 conflicts and then they said, well, there must be really a complex relationship. 107 00:06:42,932 --> 00:06:48,174 So now they're saying, well, what, we should replace the conflict thesis with what they 108 00:06:48,212 --> 00:06:58,386 call a complexity thesis? In my opinion, they're very confused and I 109 00:06:58,408 --> 00:07:01,940 really just don't know how to deal with abstractions as such. 110 00:07:02,310 --> 00:07:06,998 Blair: This is sort of an off the cuff question, and if you want to delay the answer, 111 00:07:07,084 --> 00:07:07,974 you certainly can. 112 00:07:08,012 --> 00:07:14,166 But I think the core issue what is the 113 00:07:14,188 --> 00:07:17,270 difference between belief and proof. 114 00:07:20,190 --> 00:07:21,514 Does that make any sense? 115 00:07:21,632 --> 00:07:23,210 Fred: Belief and proof. 116 00:07:23,870 --> 00:07:29,754 Blair: If you believe something, even if it's not true, but you believe it and then proof, I 117 00:07:29,792 --> 00:07:31,318 see that this is true. 118 00:07:31,504 --> 00:07:34,986 Fred: There might be different ways of using the word belief. 119 00:07:35,098 --> 00:07:42,480 Sometimes the word belief can imply some sort of religious belief or non rational, right? 120 00:07:44,050 --> 00:07:48,510 But then there's the idea of having a rational conviction or certainty. 121 00:07:48,670 --> 00:07:52,978 So, I don't know, you could quibble about the right definition of the word, the right way to 122 00:07:52,984 --> 00:07:54,290 use the word belief. 123 00:07:55,110 --> 00:07:57,506 You could talk about beliefs in the sense that 124 00:07:57,528 --> 00:08:00,760 a belief could be correct, could be justified or not. 125 00:08:01,290 --> 00:08:08,006 I don't have a firm opinion on that, although I tend to try to avoid the word belief because 126 00:08:08,028 --> 00:08:11,082 it just sounds a little bit too much like a religious view. 127 00:08:11,216 --> 00:08:14,458 Martin: Yeah, and in Swedish it really does that when we say true. 128 00:08:14,544 --> 00:08:19,542 So that's really a belief like faith almost in Swedish language. 129 00:08:19,606 --> 00:08:22,714 So I say the same, but I joke now. 130 00:08:22,752 --> 00:08:24,506 And we come back to your first question that 131 00:08:24,528 --> 00:08:24,906 Blair had. 132 00:08:24,928 --> 00:08:25,934 Why do you write the book? 133 00:08:25,972 --> 00:08:31,742 But we really get it from the big gecko here that it's so important, why it is to write 134 00:08:31,796 --> 00:08:32,830 this kind of book. 135 00:08:32,980 --> 00:08:37,874 But we could say that we believe in reason and 136 00:08:37,912 --> 00:08:42,946 then if people listen to us, then you could not joke about it because it's serious issue. 137 00:08:43,048 --> 00:08:47,682 But again, as Blair said, to understand the concepts and the words meaning and so on. 138 00:08:47,736 --> 00:08:51,638 But on the other hand, as you said, to really get to the point. 139 00:08:51,724 --> 00:08:53,462 So yeah, please continue. 140 00:08:53,596 --> 00:08:59,126 Fred: Sure. I mean, to get back to Blair's question, answering his question, I guess, why 141 00:08:59,148 --> 00:09:01,574 did I write this book? What was my motivation? 142 00:09:01,702 --> 00:09:11,322 And my motivation was basically I thought nobody has come along since Draper and White 143 00:09:11,456 --> 00:09:15,310 and really done a decent job on this subject. 144 00:09:15,650 --> 00:09:19,822 So it's been 130 years probably about since 145 00:09:19,876 --> 00:09:24,498 these books came out and I don't think anybody has really done a decent job. 146 00:09:24,664 --> 00:09:30,098 And I also thought that Ein Rand, in her philosophical work, especially regarding the 147 00:09:30,104 --> 00:09:36,994 nature of reason and her metaphysical view about the nature of reality, I thought that 148 00:09:37,032 --> 00:09:43,494 Einrand had some really important insights that really need to be brought bear on this 149 00:09:43,532 --> 00:09:44,002 subject. 150 00:09:44,066 --> 00:09:46,278 And I think it really helps illuminate the 151 00:09:46,284 --> 00:09:51,062 history of science, the history of the conflict between science and know throughout 152 00:09:51,126 --> 00:09:51,498 history. 153 00:09:51,584 --> 00:09:54,394 So my main goal was sort of come up with an 154 00:09:54,432 --> 00:10:02,894 updated, very readable version of a book like what Draper and White did, just making sure I 155 00:10:02,932 --> 00:10:10,206 get all the facts right and also getting a really good historical perspective and 156 00:10:10,388 --> 00:10:16,160 bringing in some philosophical insights from yes. 157 00:10:16,850 --> 00:10:18,080 Blair: Thank you for that. 158 00:10:19,590 --> 00:10:22,226 And you also mentioned in both the ancient and 159 00:10:22,248 --> 00:10:28,498 modern worlds, where did science take root, like in ancient Greece, what were some of 160 00:10:28,504 --> 00:10:32,840 their achievements? Or was there even science before that? 161 00:10:33,370 --> 00:10:39,090 Fred: Yeah, I mean, historians will debate exactly where the definition of where science 162 00:10:39,170 --> 00:10:44,954 really began and where do you draw the line? Because there is kind of fuzzy places there. 163 00:10:45,072 --> 00:10:49,578 Certainly in ancient Greece there are some fuzzy places where you could arguably draw the 164 00:10:49,584 --> 00:10:51,290 line slightly different places. 165 00:10:55,970 --> 00:10:59,438 The chapter of the book, basically is if I got 166 00:10:59,444 --> 00:11:01,438 it right for the second chapter excuse me. 167 00:11:01,524 --> 00:11:05,026 Of the book is about the birth of science in 168 00:11:05,048 --> 00:11:12,306 ancient Greece, as I argue, and that there were things that were being done before the 169 00:11:12,328 --> 00:11:18,710 Greeks, that Greeks learned from the Mesopotamians, were doing work in a lot of 170 00:11:18,860 --> 00:11:24,120 astronomical work, certainly recording positions of the stars and things like that. 171 00:11:24,490 --> 00:11:29,386 And in Egyptians also, there was a lot of mathematical and other things being done in 172 00:11:29,408 --> 00:11:30,410 those cultures. 173 00:11:30,750 --> 00:11:33,334 But I argue that it was with the ancient 174 00:11:33,382 --> 00:11:39,180 Greeks where a real scientific mindset really started. 175 00:11:39,630 --> 00:11:43,158 And with thinkers like Thales. 176 00:11:43,334 --> 00:11:46,398 Thales is kind of an outline border case, but 177 00:11:46,564 --> 00:11:53,086 you can see it to some extent with was he before him, everybody was really talking about 178 00:11:53,188 --> 00:11:58,882 the gods as causes and they were looking for supernatural type of explanations for things. 179 00:11:59,016 --> 00:12:06,446 And that was pretty much any kind of abstract explanations of anything always went to gods 180 00:12:06,478 --> 00:12:07,254 and things like that. 181 00:12:07,292 --> 00:12:10,822 But with Thales you see evidence at least that 182 00:12:10,876 --> 00:12:14,646 he was trying to get a more naturalistic view of the world. 183 00:12:14,828 --> 00:12:23,674 And I gave one well known example with Thales is he believed that water, everything is made 184 00:12:23,712 --> 00:12:30,300 out of water, is in some sense the universal stuff. 185 00:12:31,950 --> 00:12:34,954 And we can talk about that. 186 00:12:34,992 --> 00:12:36,826 But that's another issue why the ancient 187 00:12:36,858 --> 00:12:41,454 Greeks like to look for one of the fundamental stuffs or reduce everything in the world to 188 00:12:41,492 --> 00:12:43,600 like one or a few different kinds of things. 189 00:12:44,050 --> 00:12:47,634 And he ended up thinking of water, but he 190 00:12:47,672 --> 00:12:52,226 thought people were wondering about earthquakes and where did earthquakes come 191 00:12:52,248 --> 00:12:57,714 from, what was the cause of earthquakes? And Thales said, well, there must be a lot of 192 00:12:57,752 --> 00:13:04,054 water underneath us where the solid earth we're living on is maybe resting on something 193 00:13:04,092 --> 00:13:07,270 which is not so solid, some sort of water that's beneath us. 194 00:13:07,340 --> 00:13:11,858 And so when there are waves in that water that's causing the earthquakes we're 195 00:13:11,874 --> 00:13:12,638 experienced. 196 00:13:12,754 --> 00:13:15,194 And the fact that he came up with that 197 00:13:15,232 --> 00:13:19,946 explanation as opposed to there were some supernaturalistic explanations that were 198 00:13:19,968 --> 00:13:25,786 common at that time, then that sort of points to that naturalistic view. 199 00:13:25,888 --> 00:13:29,726 And if you look at other Greek thinkers, you see a lot of the similar kind of things going 200 00:13:29,748 --> 00:13:29,982 on. 201 00:13:30,036 --> 00:13:32,538 They were really looking for more naturalistic 202 00:13:32,714 --> 00:13:34,242 ways of looking at the world. 203 00:13:34,376 --> 00:13:38,978 Blair: Right? Well, obviously the Greeks, I'm going to say 204 00:13:39,064 --> 00:13:44,340 in my personal view, they were the first philosophers, if you will. 205 00:13:44,790 --> 00:13:46,340 Fred: Yes, definitely. 206 00:13:48,010 --> 00:13:53,046 Blair: That's why they took a more naturalistic view or this worldly view. 207 00:13:53,228 --> 00:13:55,160 Yeah, that's cool. 208 00:13:57,210 --> 00:13:59,098 Now, near the end of the Roman Empire, of 209 00:13:59,104 --> 00:14:01,930 course, sadly, Christianity takes root. 210 00:14:03,230 --> 00:14:05,706 And you have a section titled the Murder of 211 00:14:05,728 --> 00:14:08,406 the Remnants of Pagan Philosophy. 212 00:14:08,598 --> 00:14:10,950 Can you delve into how that happened? 213 00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:12,622 What did happen? 214 00:14:12,756 --> 00:14:14,640 Fred: For a bit, sure. 215 00:14:17,410 --> 00:14:20,046 Throughout the Roman period, there was a 216 00:14:20,068 --> 00:14:25,458 gradual sort of decline in philosophical thought. 217 00:14:25,544 --> 00:14:31,054 It seemed to be more descending, getting more otherworldly in terms of I mean, the ideas 218 00:14:31,102 --> 00:14:41,670 stoicism became really big throughout the Roman period and an element of that was trying 219 00:14:41,740 --> 00:14:44,566 not to worry so much about the physical world. 220 00:14:44,668 --> 00:14:47,942 And the Romans themselves weren't really ever 221 00:14:47,996 --> 00:14:49,610 particularly pro science. 222 00:14:50,590 --> 00:14:52,662 They were very focused on certain practical 223 00:14:52,726 --> 00:14:58,970 issues, but philosophically they really tried to stay away from any kind of abstract ideas. 224 00:15:00,030 --> 00:15:05,806 In the Roman period, figures like people talk about the persecutions of the Christians under 225 00:15:05,828 --> 00:15:11,082 the Romans, and these persecutions did happen, and some of them were horrendous. 226 00:15:11,146 --> 00:15:16,866 And the Diocletian, the Emperor Diocletian is probably the worst of the Roman emperors in 227 00:15:16,888 --> 00:15:21,374 terms of persecuting Christians. 228 00:15:21,502 --> 00:15:25,342 However, they were not that universal in Roman 229 00:15:25,406 --> 00:15:30,674 history and were often long periods of time in which there wasn't any real Christian 230 00:15:30,722 --> 00:15:31,794 persecutions. 231 00:15:31,922 --> 00:15:35,270 And it wasn't until the Emperor Constantine 232 00:15:36,650 --> 00:15:44,714 I'm trying to remember 313, I believe, he basically officially recognized sort of 233 00:15:44,832 --> 00:15:50,794 Christianity as a valid view of the world, a valid religion, and basically decided for 234 00:15:50,832 --> 00:15:54,106 political reasons, basically, he said he was going to accept Christianity. 235 00:15:54,138 --> 00:15:58,234 He needed to unify all of Roman, basically under a single religion. 236 00:15:58,282 --> 00:16:02,110 That's what he decided he wanted to do, and it would be Christianity. 237 00:16:06,950 --> 00:16:15,074 He basically decreed Christianity is correct and it's acceptable, but it turned out to be 238 00:16:15,112 --> 00:16:15,890 more than that. 239 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:17,746 People talk about it was good for religious 240 00:16:17,778 --> 00:16:24,550 freedom, but at that point there are basically more and more steps that the Roman government 241 00:16:24,620 --> 00:16:28,574 took in order to basically give an edge to Christian churches. 242 00:16:28,642 --> 00:16:34,998 And basically there's a lot of government money from Rome went to Christian churches 243 00:16:35,094 --> 00:16:37,386 supporting Christian churches, and nothing else. 244 00:16:37,488 --> 00:16:39,690 Blair: Is this historically documented? 245 00:16:40,350 --> 00:16:49,646 Fred: I'm pretty sure it I reckon the best source that I know of on this is a book by the 246 00:16:49,668 --> 00:16:56,254 British historian Charles Freeman, and he wrote a book called Closing of the Western 247 00:16:56,302 --> 00:16:56,900 Mind. 248 00:16:57,750 --> 00:17:00,626 He's written a number of books on this and on 249 00:17:00,728 --> 00:17:05,460 these types of issues, but that's probably the best on this particular issue. 250 00:17:06,090 --> 00:17:09,160 And he goes into a lot of detail on this. 251 00:17:10,090 --> 00:17:12,294 There were a lot of government resources given 252 00:17:12,332 --> 00:17:15,254 to Christian churches and support to them. 253 00:17:15,372 --> 00:17:19,002 And basically bishops, Christian bishops were 254 00:17:19,056 --> 00:17:20,710 given extra powers. 255 00:17:20,870 --> 00:17:23,094 They were basically made into legal 256 00:17:23,142 --> 00:17:28,762 magistrates and arbitrating legal disputes and things like that. 257 00:17:28,896 --> 00:17:35,934 So this went on for a while and basically gradually the Romans basically started to 258 00:17:35,972 --> 00:17:38,750 stamp out anything that was not Christianity. 259 00:17:40,450 --> 00:17:45,310 And I think it went on gradually, but over 260 00:17:45,380 --> 00:17:52,014 time it became clear that this was the only religion that was acceptable in the Roman 261 00:17:52,062 --> 00:17:52,734 Empire. 262 00:17:52,862 --> 00:17:54,894 And at a certain point, all other Christians 263 00:17:54,942 --> 00:17:56,382 were made illegal. 264 00:17:56,446 --> 00:18:00,406 I think it might have been Theodosius it was a 265 00:18:00,428 --> 00:18:01,442 later Roman Emperor. 266 00:18:01,506 --> 00:18:05,682 He said any views, philosophical or pagan 267 00:18:05,746 --> 00:18:08,866 views outside of Christianity are illegal. 268 00:18:08,898 --> 00:18:10,954 And he actually issued the death penalty for 269 00:18:10,992 --> 00:18:14,106 teaching or promulgating other views like these. 270 00:18:14,288 --> 00:18:16,262 Martin: And then you see the faith and force. 271 00:18:16,326 --> 00:18:19,434 It's very fascinating how you and scary how 272 00:18:19,472 --> 00:18:20,922 you talk about this. 273 00:18:20,976 --> 00:18:24,010 And then fast forward to today's. 274 00:18:25,890 --> 00:18:26,640 Fred: Absolutely. 275 00:18:27,810 --> 00:18:30,414 Martin: It's like a detective work here that you have done. 276 00:18:30,452 --> 00:18:30,794 Fred. 277 00:18:30,842 --> 00:18:34,074 So, yeah, please continue, Fred and Blair, 278 00:18:34,122 --> 00:18:36,018 with questions. 279 00:18:36,104 --> 00:18:36,740 Yeah. 280 00:18:38,310 --> 00:18:48,006 Blair: Now, in the I guess in the early days or certain period of time, they were 281 00:18:48,108 --> 00:18:55,270 Aristotelian, but obviously Islam is no longer associated with Aristotle. 282 00:18:55,930 --> 00:19:02,060 So Islamic Faith Versus Reason and Philosophy is one of your titles, I think, on the. 283 00:19:04,910 --> 00:19:08,454 Fred: Exciting I mean, this is part of a very exciting part of the history of Western 284 00:19:08,502 --> 00:19:15,162 civilization, how Aristotle's ideas and the ideas of ancient Greece and the positive 285 00:19:15,226 --> 00:19:19,920 philosophy of the pro science philosophy of Aristotle, sort of. 286 00:19:21,090 --> 00:19:27,726 It got going in Greece, of course, and then it declined during, basically, the fall of Rome 287 00:19:27,758 --> 00:19:28,750 and the Dark Ages. 288 00:19:28,830 --> 00:19:32,034 But then in the Islamic world, there were 289 00:19:32,072 --> 00:19:37,302 certainly elements of the Islamic world that rediscovered Aristotle and a lot of this other 290 00:19:37,356 --> 00:19:44,806 ancient Greek thought about science especially, and really did exciting work with 291 00:19:44,828 --> 00:19:44,966 it. 292 00:19:44,988 --> 00:19:47,766 And then later that all got there was a 293 00:19:47,788 --> 00:19:53,114 translation movement that was supported by certain people, like in Baghdad, and that got 294 00:19:53,152 --> 00:19:57,302 a lot of translated, a lot of these works from ancient Greek into Arabic. 295 00:19:57,366 --> 00:20:06,906 And then you had these whole schools, a lot of scholars in the Islamic world really studying 296 00:20:06,938 --> 00:20:15,306 this stuff and then actually mastering a lot of the ancient Greek work in astronomy and 297 00:20:15,348 --> 00:20:19,742 medicine and then going beyond it and just extending it further. 298 00:20:19,886 --> 00:20:26,814 And that's part of basically considered the golden age of Islam. 299 00:20:26,942 --> 00:20:27,282 Yeah. 300 00:20:27,336 --> 00:20:28,418 Martin: And that's interesting. 301 00:20:28,504 --> 00:20:32,578 Fred and Blair and that's the know was it 302 00:20:32,584 --> 00:20:34,146 called Aristotle Adventure? 303 00:20:34,258 --> 00:20:34,726 Blair: Yes. 304 00:20:34,828 --> 00:20:39,026 Martin: And I had the poster also, and it's so fascinating to see that. 305 00:20:39,148 --> 00:20:46,186 And this is really important, I think, and maybe that's fast forward again. 306 00:20:46,288 --> 00:20:51,994 But do you know any scholars or any studying that now in this area of the world right now? 307 00:20:52,112 --> 00:20:58,414 Because it's fascinating if you could find the light or the fire or the science and get it, 308 00:20:58,452 --> 00:21:01,070 of course, here in the Western world is really crucial also. 309 00:21:01,140 --> 00:21:03,840 But think about that. 310 00:21:04,450 --> 00:21:13,674 Fred: So is your question people studying how Aristotle influence area in the Middle East. 311 00:21:13,722 --> 00:21:16,946 Martin: Or is it totally locked down, forgotten? 312 00:21:17,058 --> 00:21:18,226 Fred: Oh, in the Middle East? 313 00:21:18,338 --> 00:21:19,000 Blair: Yes. 314 00:21:20,170 --> 00:21:24,886 Fred: Oh, I'm pretty sure it's follow. 315 00:21:24,988 --> 00:21:29,078 I don't really follow that much lately, but I 316 00:21:29,084 --> 00:21:34,886 don't have any reason to think that it's survived there no, not at all in the Islamic 317 00:21:34,918 --> 00:21:38,250 world that I'm aware of in any pockets. 318 00:21:38,590 --> 00:21:43,646 Blair: So, again, staying in the Islamic world, who was Al Ghazali, is that correct? 319 00:21:43,828 --> 00:21:45,982 Fred: Yeah. Al Ghazali yeah. 320 00:21:46,036 --> 00:21:50,286 I mean, he's probably the most famous and 321 00:21:50,308 --> 00:22:01,860 revered Islamic scholar in history, and I understand he's still really revered today. 322 00:22:02,230 --> 00:22:08,934 He came along and wrote about he was very critical about the ideas that had come in from 323 00:22:08,972 --> 00:22:19,786 ancient Greece and ideas of Aristotle and pro reason ideas and talking about causality in 324 00:22:19,808 --> 00:22:20,470 nature. 325 00:22:20,630 --> 00:22:23,514 And he basically came out explicitly and said, 326 00:22:23,712 --> 00:22:25,866 this is all limiting God's power. 327 00:22:26,048 --> 00:22:31,222 This is all antireligious, in a sense, because 328 00:22:31,296 --> 00:22:33,598 what's most important is God's will. 329 00:22:33,684 --> 00:22:37,806 And God's will is everywhere and is beyond, is 330 00:22:37,828 --> 00:22:38,762 the ultimate. 331 00:22:38,906 --> 00:22:41,278 And that is what's important. 332 00:22:41,364 --> 00:22:43,760 And that's the only real explanation of anything. 333 00:22:44,210 --> 00:22:52,258 And he basically came out and said, who are you to say that if you have a match and you 334 00:22:52,264 --> 00:22:56,946 bring a match, a piece of paper, and the paper starts burning, he sort of said, who are you 335 00:22:56,968 --> 00:22:59,910 to say that the match causes the paper to burn? 336 00:23:00,490 --> 00:23:01,462 It's not that. 337 00:23:01,516 --> 00:23:03,558 It's that we see the match, we bring it to the 338 00:23:03,564 --> 00:23:07,080 paper, and of course, it's God doing everything. 339 00:23:07,530 --> 00:23:10,434 God is basically causing the paper to burn. 340 00:23:10,562 --> 00:23:12,858 And we just happen to see these things that 341 00:23:12,864 --> 00:23:16,780 look like they go together, but everything that happens is God's will. 342 00:23:17,390 --> 00:23:19,366 Martin: But that's Blair's questioning. 343 00:23:19,398 --> 00:23:20,810 And how could you prove that then? 344 00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:23,280 How could he prove that that's happened? 345 00:23:24,050 --> 00:23:27,120 Fred: Yeah, proof was not a concept he was interested in. 346 00:23:28,450 --> 00:23:30,240 Blair: It's not really funny, but. 347 00:23:32,930 --> 00:23:40,346 Fred: Al Ghazali was sort of part of a tradition in the Islamic world, the Asha 348 00:23:40,378 --> 00:23:40,886 Rights. 349 00:23:40,938 --> 00:23:44,110 There were sort of philosophers, theologians 350 00:23:44,190 --> 00:23:45,986 who had these ways of thinking. 351 00:23:46,088 --> 00:23:47,746 There was conflicts between the Islamic world, 352 00:23:47,768 --> 00:23:54,518 between the Mutazalites and the Asharites, and where the Mutazalites were slightly better, 353 00:23:54,604 --> 00:24:00,490 were more rational, and they talked about, well, the ultimate cause of everything is God. 354 00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:06,634 But we should also talk about more causes which are more connected to the things we see. 355 00:24:06,672 --> 00:24:10,700 And we can look for kind of scientific laws, in a sense. 356 00:24:11,490 --> 00:24:22,046 But the Asherites basically said they you know, that's really limiting God much too, you 357 00:24:22,068 --> 00:24:25,602 know, al Ghazali, his ideas triumphed in the Islamic world. 358 00:24:25,656 --> 00:24:27,390 So that's the big catastrophe. 359 00:24:27,550 --> 00:24:28,260 Yes. 360 00:24:28,710 --> 00:24:35,380 Although, I mean, scholars also debate about the extent of his influence and at what point, 361 00:24:36,090 --> 00:24:43,298 because the decline of science in the Islamic world was not sudden. 362 00:24:43,474 --> 00:24:44,994 It was very gradual. 363 00:24:45,122 --> 00:24:45,606 Blair: Sure. 364 00:24:45,708 --> 00:24:53,626 Fred: And there were elements of scientific work being done beyond after Al Ghazali, but I 365 00:24:53,648 --> 00:24:59,900 think in terms of the broad trend of what was going on, it's yeah, yeah. 366 00:25:00,270 --> 00:25:07,514 Blair: Now, as objectivists, we know that we certainly give credit to St. Thomas Aquinas, 367 00:25:07,562 --> 00:25:10,030 who reintroduced Aristotle. 368 00:25:10,530 --> 00:25:16,546 And I found interesting, you claimed or you 369 00:25:16,568 --> 00:25:21,810 said that he created a, quote, a protected area for reason unquote. 370 00:25:23,590 --> 00:25:27,400 Can you describe what you meant by that or what he meant by that? 371 00:25:28,490 --> 00:25:36,454 Fred: Yeah, this is idea that I think this is after aristotle's ideas had been to some 372 00:25:36,492 --> 00:25:43,370 extent rediscovered in the European world, and they were getting back thanks to figures like 373 00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:47,754 maybe Abelard and Albert the Great were before. 374 00:25:47,952 --> 00:25:49,930 Blair: Yeah, there are others certainly before others. 375 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:55,818 Fred: But I think Aquinas gets a lot of credit because he's the grand systematizer and he's 376 00:25:55,834 --> 00:26:03,102 the one who really basically tried to synthesize Christianity and Aristotle into one 377 00:26:03,156 --> 00:26:03,902 big system. 378 00:26:04,036 --> 00:26:10,674 And he talks about reason and faith and to he 379 00:26:10,712 --> 00:26:15,170 likes reason, so he's a real defender of reason. 380 00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:20,470 So he argues that they're basically reason and faith are both valid forms of knowledge. 381 00:26:21,610 --> 00:26:26,498 And he argues that there are certain areas, in most areas they do not overlap. 382 00:26:26,674 --> 00:26:33,226 And those places where there's a small area where they do overlap, he basically said 383 00:26:33,328 --> 00:26:35,610 they're going to give us the same knowledge. 384 00:26:36,030 --> 00:26:37,898 And those areas that they do overlap, he 385 00:26:37,904 --> 00:26:39,990 talked about the fact that God exists. 386 00:26:40,070 --> 00:26:42,298 He thought that could be proven by reason. 387 00:26:42,464 --> 00:26:47,530 And some of God's attributes, like that God was all good, or that he was somehow infinite, 388 00:26:47,610 --> 00:26:49,758 he thought that could be proven by reason. 389 00:26:49,924 --> 00:26:52,794 But he was basically saying reason is fully 390 00:26:52,842 --> 00:26:57,630 valid and in the domains for which it applies. 391 00:26:58,050 --> 00:27:01,860 And in that day and age that was a big deal. 392 00:27:02,470 --> 00:27:04,820 And he became very influential for. 393 00:27:07,190 --> 00:27:08,406 Blair: And and thank you. 394 00:27:08,428 --> 00:27:10,760 Thomas yes. 395 00:27:11,850 --> 00:27:16,630 Now of course, in your book, now we come to Galileo and the Church. 396 00:27:20,750 --> 00:27:31,214 Certainly I've heard modern historians say, oh, that's not really what actual what really 397 00:27:31,252 --> 00:27:33,870 did happen between Galileo and the Church. 398 00:27:34,290 --> 00:27:39,502 Fred: Maybe if you gave me like 2 hours you will come back. 399 00:27:39,556 --> 00:27:42,602 Fred, it's very complicated. 400 00:27:42,666 --> 00:27:45,934 There's a lot of history here and the Catholic 401 00:27:45,982 --> 00:27:49,380 Church has saved so much paperwork on this. 402 00:27:50,230 --> 00:27:56,290 So historians had a field day trying to figure 403 00:27:56,360 --> 00:28:03,174 out all of the complexities of what happened and what didn't happen and who did what to so 404 00:28:03,292 --> 00:28:06,034 that's why a lot of books have been written on this subject. 405 00:28:06,162 --> 00:28:13,478 I mean, the bottom line is, I think that Galileo was trying to defend the Copernican 406 00:28:13,494 --> 00:28:23,230 worldview and the Catholic Church basically came along and said, this is contradictory to 407 00:28:23,380 --> 00:28:25,150 certain lines in Scripture. 408 00:28:25,730 --> 00:28:29,166 And at a certain point the first issue, I 409 00:28:29,188 --> 00:28:38,046 think was in 26 excuse me, the year 1616, that Galileo had sort of a conflict with the Church 410 00:28:38,078 --> 00:28:40,798 and somebody denounced Galileo. 411 00:28:40,974 --> 00:28:43,666 And it's been a while since I worked on this, 412 00:28:43,688 --> 00:28:46,786 so I'm a little forget some of the details. 413 00:28:46,898 --> 00:28:53,126 But basically he was told not to defend the 414 00:28:53,148 --> 00:28:57,750 Copernican view anymore, not to formally, not to say the Copernican view was true. 415 00:28:57,900 --> 00:29:00,600 And he promised, he said, okay, I'm not going to do that. 416 00:29:00,990 --> 00:29:02,950 That was in 1616. 417 00:29:03,110 --> 00:29:05,450 But then years later that things started 418 00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:05,846 changing. 419 00:29:05,878 --> 00:29:08,666 The politics of the Catholic Church seemed to 420 00:29:08,688 --> 00:29:11,626 be changing in some ways that could be favorable to him. 421 00:29:11,728 --> 00:29:18,462 There were certain key figures who died and an old person friend. 422 00:29:18,516 --> 00:29:25,666 If somebody, a Pope who had actually seemed to be Galileo's friend and supported him, the 423 00:29:25,688 --> 00:29:29,506 person became Pope who had previously been supportive of Galileo in certain ways. 424 00:29:29,608 --> 00:29:30,690 Blair: I remember this. 425 00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:37,254 Fred: So at this point, Galileo thought maybe it's safer for me to try to promote these 426 00:29:37,292 --> 00:29:39,542 ideas, but just in a careful way. 427 00:29:39,676 --> 00:29:42,646 So he basically wrote this dialogue on two 428 00:29:42,748 --> 00:29:50,118 chief world systems in which he had three people arguing together about these views of 429 00:29:50,124 --> 00:29:55,210 the Copernican view of the world, the old what's called the Ptolemaic view of the world, 430 00:29:55,280 --> 00:30:01,866 which is the view of the earth at the center of the universe that was accepted by the 431 00:30:01,888 --> 00:30:02,570 Church. 432 00:30:02,990 --> 00:30:08,334 And so Galileo probably wasn't quite as 433 00:30:08,372 --> 00:30:14,820 careful as he should have been, and he was just a little too vociferous, basically. 434 00:30:16,150 --> 00:30:24,334 He couldn't help himself, and he had to make the case for the Copernican view stronger seem 435 00:30:24,382 --> 00:30:26,610 stronger than the other cases. 436 00:30:27,190 --> 00:30:29,666 And then certainly at the end of the book, 437 00:30:29,768 --> 00:30:32,646 there were some words that the Church had told him. 438 00:30:32,668 --> 00:30:37,478 You have to put if you're going to say something good about the Copernican view, you 439 00:30:37,484 --> 00:30:42,426 have to say something about well, there was a certain sentence or a set of sentences you had 440 00:30:42,448 --> 00:30:46,662 to say, which sort of had to qualify everything and basically say, well don't 441 00:30:46,726 --> 00:30:49,740 really know anything and God can do anything. 442 00:30:50,190 --> 00:30:52,846 And he basically took those words and he put 443 00:30:52,868 --> 00:31:01,434 them in the voice of the person of the story, who was really kind of a simpleton Simplicius, 444 00:31:01,482 --> 00:31:02,954 I think was Simplicius. 445 00:31:03,002 --> 00:31:03,406 That's it. 446 00:31:03,428 --> 00:31:04,254 Yeah, that's the character. 447 00:31:04,302 --> 00:31:05,330 Simplicius. 448 00:31:05,750 --> 00:31:11,070 So that's what basically led to more denunciations. 449 00:31:11,150 --> 00:31:15,090 And then the Pope getting absolutely furious when he learned what happened. 450 00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:20,614 And then he was dragged before the Inquisition and forced to recant, basically. 451 00:31:20,812 --> 00:31:28,882 And then put under initially was meant to be imprisonment for life, and then it was later 452 00:31:28,956 --> 00:31:33,546 commuted because the many powerful people tried to help Galileo at this point. 453 00:31:33,728 --> 00:31:40,890 And at that later, it was commuted to house arrest in his home know, in Arquetry IBLI. 454 00:31:42,270 --> 00:31:48,634 But I mean, the big conflict, of course know, how much is this Galileo thing, the Galileo 455 00:31:48,682 --> 00:31:51,326 affair? How much does it tell us about if there are 456 00:31:51,348 --> 00:31:55,378 conflict between science and religion? Because a lot of historians today have come 457 00:31:55,384 --> 00:31:59,620 out and said, well, this doesn't say that there's a real conflict between science and 458 00:32:01,910 --> 00:32:02,894 Galileo. 459 00:32:03,022 --> 00:32:04,946 He just didn't know politically what was going 460 00:32:04,968 --> 00:32:05,154 on. 461 00:32:05,192 --> 00:32:07,334 He just overstepped his bounds a little bit. 462 00:32:07,452 --> 00:32:11,240 He could have finessed his way better through this, things like that. 463 00:32:11,690 --> 00:32:16,130 It was a bad political situation for the Church and so forth. 464 00:32:16,290 --> 00:32:23,354 And certainly Galileo, he certainly was very assertive, and he loved to ridicule his 465 00:32:23,392 --> 00:32:27,766 enemies, and so he had made a number of enemies. 466 00:32:27,958 --> 00:32:29,674 There's a lot of debate about that. 467 00:32:29,712 --> 00:32:32,782 But in my mind, this still comes down to 468 00:32:32,836 --> 00:32:41,294 ultimately the fact that he was arguing for the truth of the Copernican system based on 469 00:32:41,332 --> 00:32:44,740 evidence and trying to give rational arguments for it. 470 00:32:45,110 --> 00:32:50,580 And the Church was basically using force against him to censor him. 471 00:32:52,070 --> 00:32:56,946 That is the main issue, and a lot of historians just don't want to. 472 00:32:56,968 --> 00:32:58,950 Blair: See that that's true. 473 00:32:59,020 --> 00:33:01,640 Now, in keeping with the theme of your book, 474 00:33:02,490 --> 00:33:06,434 what was Francis Bacon's warning about not mixing God's? 475 00:33:06,482 --> 00:33:07,080 Two. 476 00:33:09,290 --> 00:33:14,714 Fred: I mean, I thought this was interesting because it don't I don't think I've ever seen 477 00:33:14,752 --> 00:33:18,118 anybody explicitly make this connection. 478 00:33:18,294 --> 00:33:21,674 Blair: Yeah, I never heard clear. 479 00:33:21,792 --> 00:33:24,970 Fred: Francis Bacon and he wrote a lot and in numerous places. 480 00:33:25,050 --> 00:33:30,718 Francis Bacon in his advice, talking about science and how to do science, he basically 481 00:33:30,804 --> 00:33:33,786 says do not mix God's two books. 482 00:33:33,898 --> 00:33:36,666 He said you should study there are two books 483 00:33:36,698 --> 00:33:37,586 from God that we have. 484 00:33:37,608 --> 00:33:39,566 There's the Bible and there's the natural 485 00:33:39,598 --> 00:33:45,698 world around us and we can study he says you should study both, study the Bible and you 486 00:33:45,704 --> 00:33:47,602 should also study the natural world. 487 00:33:47,736 --> 00:33:49,554 So these are God's two books. 488 00:33:49,682 --> 00:33:54,486 And he says but he says whatever you do, do not mix them because you're going to cause all 489 00:33:54,508 --> 00:33:57,080 sorts of problems if you do mix them. 490 00:33:59,070 --> 00:34:02,262 And he said this repeatedly in his writings. 491 00:34:02,326 --> 00:34:08,346 And Bacon was very influential, certainly all the British thinkers after him. 492 00:34:08,528 --> 00:34:17,246 I think Bacon wrote a lot of his work around the year a little after 1600, 1620 was his 493 00:34:17,268 --> 00:34:23,866 book on logic, 16 five, I believe, was one of his books about the grand project of science. 494 00:34:23,978 --> 00:34:29,746 But he was very influential on a lot of people at this time, a lot of people looking into 495 00:34:29,848 --> 00:34:32,820 trying to learn about scientific type things. 496 00:34:33,990 --> 00:34:35,278 But I saw God's. 497 00:34:35,294 --> 00:34:35,726 Two books. 498 00:34:35,758 --> 00:34:37,310 This whole idea of God's two books and you 499 00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:43,266 shouldn't intermingle them struck me as very much as coming from probably very indirectly, 500 00:34:43,298 --> 00:34:48,370 but coming from Aquinas and his idea that there's reason here and that works and there's 501 00:34:48,450 --> 00:34:49,480 faith here. 502 00:34:50,090 --> 00:34:52,662 And there's not much little overlap between 503 00:34:52,716 --> 00:34:53,320 the. 504 00:34:57,530 --> 00:35:05,900 Blair: Talked about or we mentioned Isaac Newton before, so let's jump to evolution now. 505 00:35:06,670 --> 00:35:13,166 I wasn't aware, although this makes sense when I think about it, I wasn't aware that prior to 506 00:35:13,188 --> 00:35:17,090 Darwin there was other theorists looking at evolution. 507 00:35:17,830 --> 00:35:26,322 And so can you delve into a couple of those people and how did Darwin capitalize on that? 508 00:35:26,376 --> 00:35:29,106 If you would, another two hour discussion. 509 00:35:29,298 --> 00:35:36,534 Fred: No, I can try to do it mean, even Darwin's own mean, erasmus Darwin actually 510 00:35:36,572 --> 00:35:41,946 wrote a short work and you sort of speculated about filaments of life and that life had 511 00:35:41,968 --> 00:35:43,526 somehow changed. 512 00:35:43,718 --> 00:35:45,686 In fact, I think even if you go to the ancient 513 00:35:45,718 --> 00:35:51,926 Greeks, there's at least one ancient Greek thinker who actually did some wild speculation 514 00:35:52,118 --> 00:35:57,054 that somehow things gradually life, living things gradually changed over time. 515 00:35:57,092 --> 00:35:59,594 And they originally came out of the water, out of the sea. 516 00:35:59,722 --> 00:36:05,950 But if you look at so there was some here, people who speculated wildly here or there 517 00:36:06,100 --> 00:36:08,458 about the mean. 518 00:36:08,564 --> 00:36:11,906 But the first person who really came up with a 519 00:36:11,928 --> 00:36:16,370 solid theory was Jean Baptiste Lamarck. 520 00:36:16,890 --> 00:36:20,582 And so this was like, I think it was in 1809, 521 00:36:20,716 --> 00:36:29,740 he wrote he published a book, I forget his exact, exact position, but he was within the 522 00:36:31,310 --> 00:36:32,042 French government. 523 00:36:32,096 --> 00:36:34,874 He was supported by the French government in 524 00:36:34,912 --> 00:36:36,806 some way doing his studies. 525 00:36:36,918 --> 00:36:41,146 And he came out with his theory of, I guess 526 00:36:41,168 --> 00:36:47,294 what's now known as Lamarckism or the idea that inherited certain characteristics can be 527 00:36:47,332 --> 00:36:48,026 inherited. 528 00:36:48,138 --> 00:36:51,198 And the famous one we hear in school when. 529 00:36:51,204 --> 00:36:56,942 We learn this is about the giraffes, right? Why do giraffes have such long necks? 530 00:36:57,006 --> 00:37:02,258 Is because at a certain point, trees were getting within a certain area, trees were 531 00:37:02,264 --> 00:37:04,770 getting sparser, and more of the leaves were higher up. 532 00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:09,838 So these animals, the precursors to the giraffes, kept on having to stretch their 533 00:37:09,864 --> 00:37:11,574 necks to get to the food. 534 00:37:11,772 --> 00:37:14,198 And the act of their stretching their necks to 535 00:37:14,204 --> 00:37:18,998 get to their food basically got into their system in such a way that the children of 536 00:37:19,004 --> 00:37:25,034 these giraffes basically had longer necks because of the striving that they had to find 537 00:37:25,072 --> 00:37:26,154 to reach the food. 538 00:37:26,272 --> 00:37:29,866 So anyway, Lamarck did have he thought that 539 00:37:30,048 --> 00:37:36,862 there is a kind of natural must be some natural process by which living things over 540 00:37:36,916 --> 00:37:41,886 long periods of time slowly get more complex and change over time. 541 00:37:42,068 --> 00:37:48,626 He actually thought that living things must have somehow emerged out of nonliving things 542 00:37:48,808 --> 00:37:54,482 and that somehow there's some spontaneous generation that went on and maybe he thought 543 00:37:54,536 --> 00:37:59,480 still goes on, that in the world around us, there's always some. 544 00:38:00,010 --> 00:38:07,142 If you look at pond water and take a piece of pond water, you'll see that there's little 545 00:38:07,196 --> 00:38:10,106 things that start growing in it. 546 00:38:10,208 --> 00:38:12,054 So he saw that as evidence. 547 00:38:12,102 --> 00:38:15,114 Well, there must be things, living things come from non living things. 548 00:38:15,152 --> 00:38:23,386 And then as they get more people were looking also at all the fossils, and that's a fossil 549 00:38:23,418 --> 00:38:23,662 record. 550 00:38:23,716 --> 00:38:26,014 And they could know if you go back much 551 00:38:26,052 --> 00:38:31,310 further in time, the fossils become simpler, the organisms are somehow simpler. 552 00:38:31,810 --> 00:38:35,058 So that's where Lamarck his ideas came from. 553 00:38:35,144 --> 00:38:38,078 So his ideas were not super popular. 554 00:38:38,254 --> 00:38:41,614 And then after Lamarck, there were other figures. 555 00:38:41,662 --> 00:38:47,670 There's a Scotsman named Robert Chambers who wrote a book basically saying that somehow God 556 00:38:47,740 --> 00:38:52,918 created the world so that all living creatures evolve in a certain way. 557 00:38:53,084 --> 00:38:59,122 But his book, while very popular, was also mocked by so many people because Chambers 558 00:38:59,186 --> 00:39:03,100 didn't really have any evidence whatsoever for this idea. 559 00:39:03,870 --> 00:39:09,642 And then Darwin came along and he was doing his research, and it took him I mean, after 560 00:39:09,696 --> 00:39:17,218 doing a lot of research with the certainly he went on this long boat trip with the HNS 561 00:39:17,254 --> 00:39:24,894 beagle and basically did a lot of observations of tons of different animals and similarities 562 00:39:24,942 --> 00:39:26,238 and differences in animals. 563 00:39:26,334 --> 00:39:29,762 So it was basically looking at the kinds of 564 00:39:29,816 --> 00:39:34,980 similarities and differences among animals in different places that could possibly explain 565 00:39:35,750 --> 00:39:40,134 something about more fundamental about where they came from or that they've changed over 566 00:39:40,172 --> 00:39:40,760 time. 567 00:39:42,250 --> 00:39:46,162 But, yeah, he noticed things like he noticed 568 00:39:46,226 --> 00:39:50,922 kinds of similarities and differences between different animals that did not quite make 569 00:39:50,976 --> 00:39:57,722 sense if you would think that God designed every different organism to be perfectly fit, 570 00:39:57,776 --> 00:40:05,626 its exact environment right there, which was the predominant view among a lot of scholars 571 00:40:05,738 --> 00:40:07,520 of scientists at that time. 572 00:40:09,090 --> 00:40:11,822 So that didn't make sense, basically because 573 00:40:11,876 --> 00:40:13,950 of the similarities of different animals. 574 00:40:14,370 --> 00:40:17,774 Things like the fact that Marsupials, you only 575 00:40:17,812 --> 00:40:22,180 find them in certain parts of the world close to where Australia is in that area. 576 00:40:23,510 --> 00:40:29,400 But even though those identical types of environments, if you know, in the new world, 577 00:40:29,770 --> 00:40:34,854 if you look in almost places which have almost exact identical environment, you have 578 00:40:34,892 --> 00:40:36,120 something different. 579 00:40:36,490 --> 00:40:39,386 So it made sense that certain animals might 580 00:40:39,408 --> 00:40:44,406 have migrated nearby to different places and changed in that migration. 581 00:40:44,518 --> 00:40:47,500 And then eventually he came across this idea. 582 00:40:48,750 --> 00:40:52,714 He started thinking about how animals, when 583 00:40:52,752 --> 00:40:58,526 it's difficult for animals to live in a certain environment, a lot of animals die and 584 00:40:58,548 --> 00:40:59,514 there's a lot of variation. 585 00:40:59,562 --> 00:41:01,306 He was also impressed by how much variation 586 00:41:01,338 --> 00:41:04,426 there is among when animals reproduce. 587 00:41:04,458 --> 00:41:07,282 And if you look at the children of a certain 588 00:41:07,416 --> 00:41:12,414 group of animals and if you look at their descendants, how much every little attribute 589 00:41:12,462 --> 00:41:17,714 that they have seems to be a little bit different, and that he was basically by 590 00:41:17,752 --> 00:41:22,246 looking at that fact and looking at the fact that a lot of these don't survive in 591 00:41:22,268 --> 00:41:23,586 challenging environments. 592 00:41:23,778 --> 00:41:26,802 Perhaps most of them don't involve survive. 593 00:41:26,946 --> 00:41:31,862 Then he looked at, well, this must be some sort of natural selection. 594 00:41:32,006 --> 00:41:37,146 And he was aware of what was called artificial selection, that breeders, when they wanted to 595 00:41:37,168 --> 00:41:43,638 treat, get the right kind of dogs to use, they were always selectively deciding which dogs to 596 00:41:43,664 --> 00:41:47,934 breed with which other dogs in order to try to change their dogs in a certain way. 597 00:41:47,972 --> 00:41:49,440 And that clearly worked. 598 00:41:50,050 --> 00:41:53,200 So clearly, the dogs we had somehow people 599 00:41:53,590 --> 00:41:56,606 over thousands of years, we have changed dogs. 600 00:41:56,718 --> 00:41:58,094 The nature of dogs. 601 00:41:58,222 --> 00:41:58,994 Blair: True. 602 00:41:59,192 --> 00:42:00,194 Fred: Significantly so. 603 00:42:00,232 --> 00:42:02,498 He was impressed by that and many other 604 00:42:02,584 --> 00:42:06,238 countless other animals that breeders have changed. 605 00:42:06,334 --> 00:42:09,362 So basically, that's how we came up with natural selection. 606 00:42:09,506 --> 00:42:13,394 Blair: Okay, that was a great summation, frankly. 607 00:42:13,442 --> 00:42:14,518 Fred: Thank you for that. 608 00:42:14,684 --> 00:42:15,446 Thanks. 609 00:42:15,628 --> 00:42:21,494 Blair: And of course, now to counter evolution, we have creationism and intelligent 610 00:42:21,542 --> 00:42:22,454 or intelligent. 611 00:42:22,502 --> 00:42:24,886 Martin: Design, so called intelligence. 612 00:42:24,998 --> 00:42:26,138 Blair: Yes. Right. 613 00:42:26,304 --> 00:42:29,530 Who are the hucksters today promoting that? 614 00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:31,530 And Christianity. 615 00:42:32,270 --> 00:42:34,526 They say that Christianity actually laid the 616 00:42:34,548 --> 00:42:38,730 foundation for the birth of science, and science and faith are compatible. 617 00:42:38,810 --> 00:42:41,774 Fred: Oh, well, that's tying two very different things together. 618 00:42:41,892 --> 00:42:46,222 Let me talk a bit about intelligent design first. 619 00:42:46,356 --> 00:42:47,040 Sure. 620 00:42:49,730 --> 00:42:51,694 The idea of Darwin's theory of evolution, but 621 00:42:51,732 --> 00:42:55,140 first it had a few ups and downs, certainly since he first came out. 622 00:42:55,830 --> 00:43:06,006 In fact, Darwin himself, backpedaled on know, after Lord Kelvin, had basically looked at the 623 00:43:06,028 --> 00:43:09,178 Earth, the nature of the Earth and the heat flow within the Earth and concluded that the 624 00:43:09,184 --> 00:43:16,234 Earth couldn't possibly be that old because assuming Earth was molten anyway, there were 625 00:43:16,272 --> 00:43:17,302 certain ups and downs. 626 00:43:17,366 --> 00:43:20,714 And at a certain point, genetics, the idea of 627 00:43:20,752 --> 00:43:23,654 Mendel's discoveries had to be brought into the fold. 628 00:43:23,782 --> 00:43:25,082 And that didn't happen later. 629 00:43:25,136 --> 00:43:29,166 So there wasn't the clear idea of evolution as 630 00:43:29,188 --> 00:43:29,406 a whole. 631 00:43:29,428 --> 00:43:31,918 And the whole Darwinian was called the 632 00:43:31,924 --> 00:43:37,314 Darwinian, the synthesis of Darwin into a really complete theory of evolution that 633 00:43:37,352 --> 00:43:39,554 probably didn't happen until the 1920s. 634 00:43:39,672 --> 00:43:40,594 Blair: Oh, I see. 635 00:43:40,712 --> 00:43:49,286 Fred: And then at a certain point during the 20th century, people started discovering more 636 00:43:49,308 --> 00:43:54,886 of these ideas about evolution and then you have this reaction against it among a lot of 637 00:43:54,908 --> 00:44:01,434 people against evolution because of course, it certainly challenges the whole biblical view 638 00:44:01,472 --> 00:44:05,130 of the origin of humanity and Adam and Eve and all that. 639 00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:05,834 Blair: Just a bit. 640 00:44:05,872 --> 00:44:06,410 Fred: Just a bit. 641 00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,820 Yes, of course. 642 00:44:10,190 --> 00:44:17,214 The most recent thing which had come back up in the I think it was bigger in the 1990s was 643 00:44:17,252 --> 00:44:20,160 this idea of intelligent design. 644 00:44:23,090 --> 00:44:25,010 Earlier, I guess there was what was called 645 00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:33,326 scientific creationism, which basically tried to portray these views of God creating 646 00:44:33,358 --> 00:44:35,330 everything as somehow being scientific. 647 00:44:35,750 --> 00:44:38,758 The idea of intelligent design was that I 648 00:44:38,764 --> 00:44:44,390 think it comes down to what one scientist called it irreducible complexity. 649 00:44:44,890 --> 00:44:47,094 He said that evolution is good. 650 00:44:47,132 --> 00:44:51,306 It can explain things if you're talking about 651 00:44:51,408 --> 00:44:54,970 small, very small changes over a certain period of time. 652 00:44:55,120 --> 00:45:02,474 But if you look at certain mechanisms, biological mechanisms, and some of them seem 653 00:45:02,522 --> 00:45:09,374 so complicated, there does not seem any conceivable way that very small changes over 654 00:45:09,412 --> 00:45:11,790 time could possibly have led to these changes. 655 00:45:11,860 --> 00:45:14,322 And one of the most famous ones was the 656 00:45:14,376 --> 00:45:16,050 bacteria flagellum. 657 00:45:16,790 --> 00:45:21,474 So this is kind of like a tail on certain 658 00:45:21,512 --> 00:45:26,980 bacteria that can wiggle and propel the bacterial cell, propel it around. 659 00:45:27,750 --> 00:45:32,114 And this thing has kind of a it has kind of a thing which allows it to rotate. 660 00:45:32,162 --> 00:45:36,150 So it's like a little bit amazing little mechanism, kind of a motor. 661 00:45:36,970 --> 00:45:42,890 And so one scientist, I think his name was Michael Behe, if I remember correctly, 662 00:45:43,790 --> 00:45:46,730 promoted this idea and he talks about this. 663 00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:48,714 He said, well, this is obviously too 664 00:45:48,752 --> 00:45:51,260 complicated for evolution to do. 665 00:45:53,090 --> 00:45:55,614 This is an example of there must be some 666 00:45:55,652 --> 00:46:01,422 intelligent designer that designed this to be the way it is now. 667 00:46:01,556 --> 00:46:06,946 Other people after that came along and looked at it and said, well, yes, the flagellum is 668 00:46:06,968 --> 00:46:12,850 pretty complicated in this way, but if you look carefully, look at the pieces. 669 00:46:13,590 --> 00:46:15,918 His famous example also was the mousetrap. 670 00:46:16,014 --> 00:46:18,146 He said if you look at the pieces of a 671 00:46:18,168 --> 00:46:23,862 mousetrap, you have the piece that holds the cheese and you have the piece that the big 672 00:46:23,916 --> 00:46:26,498 spring that flips over all these pieces. 673 00:46:26,674 --> 00:46:29,002 If you had a process which could just change 674 00:46:29,056 --> 00:46:35,386 one piece at a time, there's no way you could actually create something as complicated as a 675 00:46:35,408 --> 00:46:40,886 mousetrap because it's only valuable if it's a complete mousetrap. 676 00:46:40,918 --> 00:46:44,486 If you have half a mousetrap, it's not going to catch any mice. 677 00:46:44,598 --> 00:46:48,314 If you have the pieces, if you have all the pieces except one in a standard mousetrap, 678 00:46:48,362 --> 00:46:50,160 it's not going to work at all. 679 00:46:51,170 --> 00:46:53,722 So this was the idea where the bacterial 680 00:46:53,786 --> 00:46:58,400 flagellum was like was supposed to be kind of like this mousetrap type thing. 681 00:46:59,090 --> 00:47:03,514 But other people, other biologists came around and said, well, wait a minute. 682 00:47:03,642 --> 00:47:12,840 Just because a mechanism seems to let me see how they argued this. 683 00:47:13,930 --> 00:47:27,514 They basically said just because a particular if you look at the bacterial phagellum, it has 684 00:47:27,552 --> 00:47:35,742 a couple of parts, and it turns out some of these parts actually have use for other 685 00:47:35,796 --> 00:47:38,650 purposes for certain bacteria. 686 00:47:38,810 --> 00:47:44,340 So there's actually the piece which is sort of 687 00:47:45,430 --> 00:47:49,250 the rotating motor part is very pointy. 688 00:47:50,150 --> 00:47:52,366 Well, it turns out there are other organisms 689 00:47:52,398 --> 00:47:57,586 which have a piece which is almost just like that, and it doesn't rotate at all, but it's 690 00:47:57,618 --> 00:48:06,146 used to inject itself into a cell of something it's trying to attack, and it's injecting 691 00:48:06,178 --> 00:48:06,806 itself. 692 00:48:06,988 --> 00:48:12,566 So basically the idea is that Beh wasn't 693 00:48:12,598 --> 00:48:17,002 looking hard enough to try to explain where these things came from, where these parts came 694 00:48:17,056 --> 00:48:23,546 from, and that these pieces, even though you might not have had to complete all the pieces 695 00:48:23,578 --> 00:48:29,934 that led to the flagellum that each other pieces could be seen as actually useful and 696 00:48:29,972 --> 00:48:34,320 actually life enhancing for that thing, but not necessarily doing the same thing. 697 00:48:34,850 --> 00:48:36,974 I don't know if I've butchered that. 698 00:48:37,012 --> 00:48:38,160 Does that make sense? 699 00:48:38,530 --> 00:48:40,402 Martin: In a really great sense. 700 00:48:40,456 --> 00:48:42,466 And we definitely have to do follow up. 701 00:48:42,488 --> 00:48:45,330 It's so fascinating to listen to you, Fred. 702 00:48:47,590 --> 00:48:50,246 Fred: I'm sure with some more time, I could explain that a lot better. 703 00:48:50,268 --> 00:48:52,120 Blair: That's fine, but you're doing fine. 704 00:48:53,610 --> 00:48:55,670 You're doing fine, really, honestly. 705 00:48:56,090 --> 00:49:01,514 And so the second part of that question was, who are the hucksters today promoting that 706 00:49:01,552 --> 00:49:06,262 Christianity laid the foundation for science or at the birth of science? 707 00:49:06,326 --> 00:49:13,694 And so, yeah, I think one of them is like is his name Rodney Stark or stark, yes. 708 00:49:13,732 --> 00:49:15,066 Fred: Yeah, rodney Stark. 709 00:49:15,178 --> 00:49:16,830 I think he's one of the worst. 710 00:49:23,090 --> 00:49:24,206 He's an academic. 711 00:49:24,238 --> 00:49:27,906 And others like him have basically tried to 712 00:49:28,088 --> 00:49:35,380 argue that it was Christianity which was necessary for the birth of modern science and 713 00:49:37,990 --> 00:49:42,520 you needed the Christian worldview in order for science to be born at all. 714 00:49:43,610 --> 00:49:48,746 Well, first of all, he says he actually tends to minimize or deny that there was any such 715 00:49:48,768 --> 00:49:50,570 thing as science in ancient Greece. 716 00:49:50,990 --> 00:49:51,882 Blair: Oh, really? 717 00:49:52,016 --> 00:49:52,602 Fred: Yeah. 718 00:49:52,736 --> 00:49:53,322 Blair: Okay. 719 00:49:53,456 --> 00:49:56,810 Fred: And he says, well, basically that doesn't really count as science. 720 00:49:58,350 --> 00:50:04,234 What really was important for science is the modern development of the modern scientific 721 00:50:04,282 --> 00:50:10,654 method, which somehow was based on this idea of a biblical law, or it was based on the idea 722 00:50:10,692 --> 00:50:11,998 of a natural law. 723 00:50:12,084 --> 00:50:15,794 But if you think of a law well, law, what does 724 00:50:15,832 --> 00:50:20,500 the word law come from? Well, it comes from things that people make. 725 00:50:21,270 --> 00:50:24,050 It comes from people write laws. 726 00:50:24,550 --> 00:50:24,962 Right. 727 00:50:25,016 --> 00:50:27,000 That's where the word law comes from. 728 00:50:27,530 --> 00:50:32,582 So he thought the idea of God writing these 729 00:50:32,636 --> 00:50:43,674 laws that the rest of the world must sort of fall in line with is inherent in the whole 730 00:50:43,712 --> 00:50:47,180 idea of a natural law that scientists are trying to find. 731 00:50:48,110 --> 00:50:51,726 And if I think I can find just look, find a quote from him. 732 00:50:51,828 --> 00:50:54,880 Blair: I will find take your time, please. 733 00:50:56,130 --> 00:51:00,970 Fred: Yeah. He writes that he says, Christianity depicted God as a rational, 734 00:51:01,050 --> 00:51:07,774 responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being in the universe as his personal creation, thus 735 00:51:07,822 --> 00:51:13,182 having a rational, lawful, stable structure awaiting human comprehension. 736 00:51:13,326 --> 00:51:16,318 So that's what he writes and he argues. 737 00:51:16,414 --> 00:51:18,930 Blair: But he skipped over the Old Testament. 738 00:51:19,090 --> 00:51:20,200 Fred: Yeah, exactly. 739 00:51:24,250 --> 00:51:25,590 And he also gives example. 740 00:51:25,660 --> 00:51:31,114 He certainly likes to quote certain scientists from the scientific revolution, I mean, 741 00:51:31,152 --> 00:51:39,066 including Isaac Newton or Robert Boyle, the chemist, people like that did like to I'm they 742 00:51:39,168 --> 00:51:45,226 talked about how religious they were and they talked know, they were excited by God's 743 00:51:45,258 --> 00:51:48,426 creation and they were studying God's creation. 744 00:51:48,458 --> 00:51:52,926 And some of them even said studying the natural world is a religious experience. 745 00:51:53,028 --> 00:51:56,322 For me, different people said that. 746 00:51:56,456 --> 00:51:59,700 But if you look at what were they really doing 747 00:52:00,070 --> 00:52:07,174 when they were studying the natural world? They were making observations, they were using 748 00:52:07,212 --> 00:52:10,578 logic to trying to understand these observations. 749 00:52:10,754 --> 00:52:15,240 They were putting together plausible hypotheses and trying to test them. 750 00:52:16,490 --> 00:52:22,054 And if you look at what they're doing, doesn't have any real connection with the religious 751 00:52:22,102 --> 00:52:22,970 worldview. 752 00:52:25,790 --> 00:52:30,006 The Bible presents God as somebody who likes 753 00:52:30,038 --> 00:52:34,750 to act a lot and likes to intervene a lot and does all sorts of things. 754 00:52:34,900 --> 00:52:40,640 And so I think Stark really doesn't have an argument to stand on. 755 00:52:42,130 --> 00:52:43,440 Blair: Agree. I agree. 756 00:52:44,150 --> 00:52:47,774 We're coming up on the hour mark, so let's 757 00:52:47,822 --> 00:52:50,190 end, if we can, with a positive. 758 00:52:50,270 --> 00:52:55,454 Now, of course, Martin and I are both longtime 759 00:52:55,502 --> 00:52:58,502 objectivists and we admire Ms. Rand and Dr. 760 00:52:58,556 --> 00:53:00,040 Peacock and others. 761 00:53:01,130 --> 00:53:06,850 But her identification of the primacy of existence versus the primacy of consciousness, 762 00:53:06,930 --> 00:53:12,410 I think is going to be, if it isn't already, a breakthrough in science. 763 00:53:13,390 --> 00:53:14,780 What do you think of that? 764 00:53:16,190 --> 00:53:17,178 Fred: Oh, absolutely. 765 00:53:17,344 --> 00:53:20,122 In a breakthrough of way that we think about 766 00:53:20,176 --> 00:53:20,780 reason. 767 00:53:21,150 --> 00:53:21,802 True. 768 00:53:21,936 --> 00:53:23,420 And how reason works. 769 00:53:25,390 --> 00:53:30,206 Certainly among my target audience, I think 770 00:53:30,228 --> 00:53:36,466 that is probably the most controversial view of my book, because the main sort of thesis of 771 00:53:36,488 --> 00:53:43,970 my book is that the conflict between science and religion ultimately is well, it's reason 772 00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:47,442 versus faith, which is widely accepted and known. 773 00:53:47,586 --> 00:53:53,746 But I think more fundamentally, it comes down to the primacy of existence versus the primacy 774 00:53:53,778 --> 00:53:54,790 of consciousness. 775 00:53:55,130 --> 00:53:57,814 And that a faith based view of the world is 776 00:53:57,852 --> 00:54:04,074 basically accepting the primacy of consciousness, that God's consciousness, that 777 00:54:04,112 --> 00:54:12,110 some consciousness has created the existing world, whereas the scientific, the reason 778 00:54:12,180 --> 00:54:18,830 based view ultimately is based on what Einran calls the premise of existence. 779 00:54:19,410 --> 00:54:25,618 That existence exists, and it's the starting point for everything. 780 00:54:25,784 --> 00:54:26,402 Blair: Right. 781 00:54:26,536 --> 00:54:34,850 Fred: And that consciousness, it's an awareness of things that exist. 782 00:54:35,190 --> 00:54:40,034 And ultimately consciousness doesn't create things that exist. 783 00:54:40,082 --> 00:54:42,306 I mean, it guides our minds. 784 00:54:42,338 --> 00:54:44,726 Our consciousness guide us in taking action in 785 00:54:44,748 --> 00:54:48,958 the world, which in that sense changes existence. 786 00:54:49,074 --> 00:54:55,500 But it has to start with an acceptance of things as they are, existence itself. 787 00:54:57,550 --> 00:55:07,310 Blair: Yes. I don't know if I want to call it a rebirth, but certainly there's a burgeoning 788 00:55:08,290 --> 00:55:15,060 interest again in Aristotelian ideas in some universities, unfortunately not very many. 789 00:55:15,990 --> 00:55:20,100 But do you see any positive signs of this yourself? 790 00:55:22,390 --> 00:55:23,906 Fred: I'm not personally aware of it. 791 00:55:23,928 --> 00:55:28,006 But I've heard that too, that certainly in 792 00:55:28,028 --> 00:55:37,106 certain philosophy departments, certain scholars have more interest in Aristotelian 793 00:55:37,138 --> 00:55:40,802 approaches and Aristotelian ideas in philosophy. 794 00:55:40,946 --> 00:55:45,142 And I think that's to the extent that is occurring that's wonderful. 795 00:55:45,286 --> 00:55:45,690 Yeah. 796 00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:48,006 I do not know how much of an impact that's 797 00:55:48,038 --> 00:55:52,446 happening anywhere outside of those philosophy departments then. 798 00:55:52,628 --> 00:55:53,680 Blair: That's true. 799 00:55:55,250 --> 00:55:57,086 What do you conclude or what is your 800 00:55:57,108 --> 00:56:04,420 conclusion about science in the 21st century? That'll be my final question as we look ahead. 801 00:56:05,750 --> 00:56:11,314 Fred: Yeah, I'm not sure if I have any firm conclusions about where it's going at this 802 00:56:11,352 --> 00:56:11,940 point. 803 00:56:12,390 --> 00:56:17,334 The good news is that for the last century or 804 00:56:17,372 --> 00:56:22,150 so, most scientific work has in some sense been decoupled from religion. 805 00:56:23,690 --> 00:56:29,734 So there's a lot of scientific work being done which is not being impeded by a religious 806 00:56:29,782 --> 00:56:35,142 approach which has been basically going on for maybe about two centuries. 807 00:56:35,286 --> 00:56:41,706 Although you could certainly argue there are certain sciences which have religious 808 00:56:41,738 --> 00:56:43,054 influences on them. 809 00:56:43,172 --> 00:56:45,390 There are some mystical interpretations of 810 00:56:45,460 --> 00:56:53,182 modern physics that happens, although I don't think many physicists today take any of the 811 00:56:53,236 --> 00:56:55,250 mystical approach very seriously. 812 00:56:55,910 --> 00:56:57,474 So that's good news. 813 00:56:57,672 --> 00:57:03,026 And then certainly in terms of medicine and medical ethics, that's where there's more of a 814 00:57:03,048 --> 00:57:04,510 threat to religion. 815 00:57:04,670 --> 00:57:07,506 The religious approaches are still used a lot 816 00:57:07,528 --> 00:57:11,718 there a lot of people are using religion as their framework for understanding any kind of 817 00:57:11,724 --> 00:57:15,400 issues in medical ethics and of which many more will come up in the future. 818 00:57:16,010 --> 00:57:21,706 And also I have a chapter talking about certain what I call religious like elements of 819 00:57:21,728 --> 00:57:23,210 the environmental movement. 820 00:57:23,550 --> 00:57:25,978 And I think that's probably going forward 821 00:57:26,064 --> 00:57:34,478 that's probably the most of the threat that I see going forward where people are looking at 822 00:57:34,644 --> 00:57:39,470 untouched nature apart from human interaction. 823 00:57:39,890 --> 00:57:42,960 Untouched wilderness, wilderness in itself. 824 00:57:43,590 --> 00:57:44,622 Blair: Environmentalism? 825 00:57:44,686 --> 00:57:50,866 Fred: Yeah, the whole environmental view of intrinsic value, the intrinsic value of an 826 00:57:50,888 --> 00:57:52,580 untouched world. 827 00:57:54,870 --> 00:57:57,682 That seems religious in an important sense. 828 00:57:57,816 --> 00:57:59,780 Blair: It's a major threat, actually. 829 00:58:00,650 --> 00:58:02,982 Fred: I see that as a big threat going forward. 830 00:58:03,116 --> 00:58:03,414 Yeah. 831 00:58:03,452 --> 00:58:06,182 Martin: And I think you definitely have to come back and talk about that. 832 00:58:06,236 --> 00:58:09,606 And as Blair said, we will end on a positive note. 833 00:58:09,638 --> 00:58:17,034 So please, Fred, please say where the listener could find your works and where you are in 834 00:58:17,072 --> 00:58:18,246 cyberspace. 835 00:58:18,438 --> 00:58:19,402 Fred: Yes, sure. 836 00:58:19,536 --> 00:58:24,086 Well, first let me mention I do have a substac 837 00:58:24,198 --> 00:58:27,938 blog just called Sileronscience. 838 00:58:28,134 --> 00:58:28,974 Blair: Very good. 839 00:58:29,092 --> 00:58:34,786 Fred: Substack.com. That's Siler. That's S-E-I-L-E-R. 840 00:58:34,888 --> 00:58:36,626 That's where I'm writing now. 841 00:58:36,728 --> 00:58:38,994 Try to come out with something new at least 842 00:58:39,032 --> 00:58:39,940 once a month. 843 00:58:40,470 --> 00:58:41,890 Don't always succeed. 844 00:58:42,310 --> 00:58:47,974 And my book again is God Versus Nature the conflict between religion and Science and 845 00:58:48,012 --> 00:58:48,600 history. 846 00:58:49,530 --> 00:58:52,934 And it's being sold on Amazon and there are 847 00:58:52,972 --> 00:58:54,274 also electronic copies. 848 00:58:54,322 --> 00:58:55,640 I believe it's available. 849 00:58:57,050 --> 00:59:01,926 It's available, I know, in Kindle and also some other forms of ebooks. 850 00:59:01,958 --> 00:59:06,342 I believe I saw it on books. 851 00:59:06,486 --> 00:59:07,242 Blair: Good, good. 852 00:59:07,296 --> 00:59:10,620 Fred: And so I think there are some other places that's available. 853 00:59:11,710 --> 00:59:15,818 Blair: Well, all right, ladies and gentlemen, today our guest has been fred Seiler, author 854 00:59:15,834 --> 00:59:17,322 of God Versus Nature. 855 00:59:17,466 --> 00:59:20,126 Fred, thanks for manning the Foxhole with us 856 00:59:20,148 --> 00:59:20,720 today. 857 00:59:21,250 --> 00:59:22,894 Fred: Okay, well, thank you for having me on. 858 00:59:22,932 --> 00:59:23,834 It's been a pleasure. 859 00:59:23,962 --> 00:59:24,620 Martin: Thank you very much.