>> hostile. >>host: stephen meyer author of "darwin's doubt" and the explosive origin of animal life and the case for intelligent design" dr. meyer what was "darwin's doubt"? at. >>guest: great place to start the conversation i tell this story about his own theory and to he has grown up to be what is a major crisis is an evolutionary theory it was about the explosion that the theological presence of most of the groups of animals in a geological period quite a long time ago. 530 million years ago and darwin was aware of this problem in "the origin of species" he address that and

the acknowledged it was a problem the basically he understood life unfolds in the slow and gradual way and depicted life as a branching trees in which the base of the tree or the trunk represented the first one sol organism all the bridges represented all forms of life that we see today and the connecting bridges were the in germany and forums -- and the reforms should have risen he also thought it was slowly because he thought random variation would act very slowly those that he conceived were minute ian small and incremental if they were big that would have a deform the animal that could not survive there for the process of natural selection in variation had to work slowly in and gradually but what he witnessed the first major

groups of complex animals came on the scene fully formed very abruptly at of the sedimentary layers of this is contrary to his history of life in the way his mechanism of natural selection as he conceived it. it was a real puzzle to him that the cambrian explosion was a valid objection to the views the he entertained. so i tell what has become of that doubt. >>host: where did he write that? and. >>guest: in "the origin of species" is what he expressed very modestly with the limitations of his theory. i opened the book when he finished his masterpiece he thought he explained every clue but one in the cambrian explosion was the one he knew that he had not yet explained to. he had an idea that he eventually paleontologist would find that sequence the

of the intervening forms but as i explained in the book subsequent fossil finds have intensified the mystery rather than alleviate kit. >>host: where did the name came real income from? >>guest: one of the names of the geological layers. is a place is in wailes and the earliest locale came from there and the name was given from that location. there are fossil finds all over the world the most famous ising canada and southern china in the shale. >>host: why did you include pictures of that? >> telling the story of "darwin's doubt" to mysteries i address is the one of the fossils that has become more acute because the subsequent fossil finds

that have been made heat we expected to find the missing ancestral players but instead there has been more came period animals a and new forms that were not known each of which in turn black any ancestral forms or any discernible connection to those presumed ancestors. also is more acute because the period of time that the most explosive period has gradually shrunk to 5 million years. there is a us seeing in the stage where between 13 in 16 they come up very suddenly that makes it even more difficult to explain the origin.

the other thing is for a long time people thought maybe we're not finding visa and ancestral forms because they were soft by the creatures instead of hard bodies that were fossilized. so the idea the missing ancestral word the artifacts or the incomplete sampling but in that same location paleontologists have found in the precambrian strata with the appearance of the major in will form they found spinach and real fossils in soft tissue the animals this and that is a mystery showing the environment was suited to preserving the ancestral forms of all the others may yet they were not found so

that puts to rest the idea we did not find them because we were not looking hard enough or the environment was not suitable. >>host: therefore stephen meyer we have this big mystery? >>guest: one other thing i should say the mystery has two parts the pert -- the first is the missing fossil that is what the book explores that is the engineering problem how would you build an animal or in the complex animal that first arrives one of the most famous are the arthropods fate includes little critters in they do have some visuals. one of the amazing things is they have compound eyes ian

you can see the compound structure of the i. paleontologists are aware of this explicit functional integration and complexity from the dawn of the animal life. that raises is the question then where are the missing ancestors? in particular allowed by the fossil record so i examined not just said darwinian mechanism but the one that is a little more emphasizing the natural very high blood dash creation in genetic material the way modern evolution theorist would understand large scale change. what i show there are a bunch of reasons to show that it has powers that have been attributed and one of which is the importance of

information to the maintenance and construction i used to teach a lot of freshmen as a college professor as philosophy of science and i would ask if you want to give your computer a new function would you have to give it? we talk about that at the conference they would immediately second-generation a program, instructions, a software, they're all correct your answers but it turns out with life if you want to generate life in the first place from nonliving chemicals you have to have information coming dna, a protein, if you want to build a new form of life in this is what are would was trying to explain you also have to have reams of digital code tissues, organs , new types of saul's and each type with a protein those in turn

require information so the key reason explosion is not just new age animals but other forms of information but what i show ears prick and dumb mutation is a singularly inept mechanism. we know from our own experience tends to be great not generate that if you start to mutate you will degrade the affirmation and mathematically it will be extremely improbable you could ever file a and proteins in the time allowed by the evolutionary process. >>host: where did you teach? to a russian state at a

liberal larch college, a christian oriented. >>host: where do you get your ph.d.? >>guest: cambridge university with philosophy of science i did my dissertation on the question of the origin of life head-on darwin's method of scientific research is how i get to the idea of intelligent design. >>host: and it says intelligent design. hardy you define that? >>guest: the idea there are certain features of biological systems that are best explained by the intelligence caused rather then the and directed process of natural selection. the best way to understand it by understanding in contrast that particular meaning for related to challenge. there are different meanings we are not challenging all of them.

but indisputable space the challenges that is a long time ago. but the third reading is that the and directed or unindicted process on a random variations imitations is sufficient to give both the new form of structure we see rising but also the appearance of designed the most of biologists recognize >>host: a modern spokesman and foreign you darwinism he says biology is a study of complicated things that give the appearance to give the design for purpose for all classical darwinian sticky word is appearance. they're not really designs because there is a mechanism

that natural selection with random mutation is not self decider guided in any way though to have to decide without a designer suit challenges that idea. in many cases it is real the best explanation best and what we know the evidence is an actual designing intelligence the purpose the process that gave rise to life. >>host: so is intelligent design a theological term? >>guest: it is a center richer with theological implications based on scientific evidence in the established unreasoning even though with larger implications for a there was a debate yesterday both speakers said the reason it is so contentious matter how you view to the question of biological origin you be

giving in the answer that has challenged a world view or somebody else's with the metaphysical question in what is the thing from which ever ready or everything else comes? our ready and said that with that process they seem to have larger materialistic implications but with design it is the purpose of intelligence in the process therefore it has implications to support a morpheus dick but it is not based on theological propositions. >>host: page 381 reason to regard intelligent design a scientific theory, you write many scientists and philosophers of science regard test ability as an

important feature of scientific inquiry in the design is testable in interrelated ways. >>guest: let me back up what is important to a understanding is that in looking at the use to mysteries of how you build an animal i show them the second part the mechanism lacks the creative power that is the critique of neo darwinism. here is where his own method of scientific reasoning is what i was at cambridge i steadied darwin smith is scientific reasoning if he is a great pioneer with a forensic style of reasoning.

if you want to ricks' believe cambrian explosion you cannot go to a lab end then come into existence all over again that is not replicable so you have to think like a forensic scientist with the clues left behind and then in for back to the causes benefit of reasoning is the method of multiple competing hypophysis or increase to the best explanation were the best is one in which you cite is the cause that is known to have the power to produce of what you try to explain what i realize that is what darwin was doing i realize that is tied directly to this critical question of the route the evolutionary biology evolutionary theory trying to explain the origin of the

other biological information but it is not the case there is a cause of which we know that is capable to generate information because that is known from the repeated experience in the president to produce the crucial thing we try to explain if we try to explain information what is the basis of all scientific reasoning about what it takes to generate information? that creationism be chilly associated what we know from experience if we look at people software or a paragraph in a book for a headline in the newspaper and retrace the back we always come into a mind and

not a material process so we immediately and for it played a role but is an explosion of information so why are you using darwin's own principle of reasoning is actually intelligent design it explains that the katchis it causes the adequate explanation for that which is information. >>host: how has intelligent design then portrayed in the media? >> as the advocates it has been portrayed as another forum of creationism and religiously motivated by remember doing an interview on "nightline" and the people came out to tell us how interested they were in

the scientific basis of the work we we're doing and talked about the circuitry involved with the development of animals that after an hour and a half of boys from new york wanted to know who is the designer? who is the designer? i said we can't tell that we can just tell that of mind of some kind was responsible that is where you can tell to realize the evidence based on our experiment. he wanted to know what i thought. i said sure. alternately ice-t died is the explanation. the guideline interview had three words i think it is god. they had a take their way

they wanted to portray it from the beginning that the media tries to portray it as religiously motivated and i understand why they do that sometimes but to make the distinction between the basis of the idea and the possible implication intelligent design is based on evidence code, circuitry the programs responsible for an old development and based on scientific reasoning. having concluded using that evidence that then raises the larger philosophical question about the identity of the designer. is based on size raises the questions to have implications in the media

tries to conflate those in denver in a -- ended for in the with the idea that is biblical behind intelligent design. it is not for religious authority. >>host: we have talked with religious professors are science professors when we asked how long has mankind been on the earth it was 6,000 years is that an accurate answer? >> no to also not with the theory of intelligent design you're asking the difference someone who designs in creationism is to maine difference one is based logically with the starting

point of the interpretation of genesis than a deduction to what we should see in the natural world. also got his idea about the age of the earth that the earth is very recent to the earth is very young and it is not a theory about the age of the earth if the design is real is second the starting point is not a biblical it is the evidence we find in biology is the related fields. it is a different biological evidence not the interpretation. >>host: is intelligent design taught in public schools? >>guest: not very often. we have discouraged people from bringing intelligent design into the public schools at the secondary level because immediately

becomes caught with said jurisprudent issues, we were urging the school district not to get intelligent design into the schools and we got blamed and asking for them not to do it i think we have a terrific scientific argument trying to make that to the highest levels of academia in building a research community. of the public-school debate is a sideshow. we're encouraging people not to get involved. the discovery is due to is a home for their research fed is going on to advance the intelligent design program

spee break-even if you decide other we also cannot assume if we compared jeans and different in animals representing major groups we can make some projections back in time as to when the common ancestor they have lived in the rule is the

greater degree of similarity from different animals the shorter the time they divers from a common ancestor the greater the difference of the gene that was the diversion. fat that it doesn't work either. the first is depending on which you should choose to compare you get conflicting trees different tunes additional cut with a shrewd historical but one that tells us with the unfolding

of life is so they have been to of once. the theater is the investigation that begs the question that the degree of difference between two proteins are genes into animals is in an indication how long ago they diverged from a common ancestor. so that is presuppose reveals some of the investigation with all the algorithms from the gene sequences you cannot use that that opposes the common ancestor i make that argument in the book. >>host: published by harpercollins what is on the cover? >>guest: that is a wonderful trilobite with those of eyeballs of the

beautiful structure for the dawn of animal life that is about 530 million mirs. >>host: we are talking on booktv with the author of this book stephen meyer from the discovery institute. "darwin's doubt". >>guest: great conversation. >>host: when the united states invaded russia a new book, a professor when did the u.s. invade russia? >> 1918 the height of world war i the germans closing in on paris it looked as though the allies would lose the war bombarding shells into paris the french government was packing up papers so

what can we do? the immediate answer was to recreate the russians so the bolsheviks took over it and they pulled russia out of the war so they said we need another russian front to take the troops away from france that is basically why woodrow wilson decided to 7500 american soldiers to siberia. of the idea they will protect sup part of the trans siberian railroad to get a to the anti-bolsheviks' a and as they could overthrow them to do reach. >>host: whose idea was that? >>guest: the allies are pressuring wilson to do this because they were scared. >>host: they were specifically asking the wilson government to go into russia? >>guest: right. with there was a difference

of philosophy because they thought of the massive invasion of russia especially with the japanese troops because japan was the only ally that was not engaged on the western front they thought they could go petra and siberian railway to russia but that was not wilson's idea at all. he said hist the russians will just rise up against that. especially 14 years earlier. the last thing they want is a foreign army to go in there going right into the hands of germany so his idea was a little different that he wanted the troops to keep a low profile, and added dave army and so his