>> i love my daddy so much. >> this is just too much, this is just too much. >> michael is one of the 36 children in the area to be adopted this way, congrats to all those kids and their new parents. and that's how fox reports this saturday december 7th see her tomorrow. >> hello america i mark levan and this is life liberty and levin. it's an honor to have doctor david with us. how are you. >> i'm just fine thank you for having me. >> thank you for coming away from parikh paris to our little place. i want to talk today with you, your uniquely qualified to do this.

about evolution, science, and progressivism. because there's a link. you've written about this and spoken about this many, many times. he received her phd in philosophy from princeton university, later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at columbia university. gladden taken a those courses. senior fellow in the discovery institute for science and culture. you've taught philosophy, mathematics, english at stamford and in paris and many other places. and you are now the editor at the review of science. let's get started. he wrote a book about a decade ago that i read about a decade ago, and in doing this program i started to think about it. and i said i think it's important we have this discussion about science and evolution, and progressivism. and i want to start restarted.

let me read you one paragraph. i am a secular. my religious education did not take. i can barely remember a word of the hebrew and cannot pray. i've spent more years studying mathematics and writing about the sciences. yet as you wrote the preface of this book, the book that follows is in some sense a defense of religious sentiment. biblical verses are the least of it. a defense is needed because none has been forthcoming. the discussion has been seeded to men who regard religious belief with frivolous contempt. the books have in recent years poured from every press, although differing widely in the style. they are identical in their message because scientific theories are true, religious beliefs must be false. from your book the devil's delusion, atheism and his scientific pretension. and that is the thesis, that is

the foundational points of your book. can you expand on that? >> well, something -- something particular and peculiar has come over america, anglo-americans lives. perhaps 20 years ago in the 1950s and 1960s the positions that was academically tolerated was a kind of cheerful agnosticism with respect to their religious tradition of mankind. could be to respect god's existence. maybe maybe not. but this isn't an issue that vexes us profoundly as members of the scientific community. that is all changed. and that is very, very dogmatic that atheism has become obligatory in the scientific community. there are exceptions, there will always be exceptions. for all i know, some distinguished physicists assist may be plotting geon. but by and large, atheism has

replaced any kind of tolerance and forbearing agnosticism as the de facto standard in anglo-american scientific intellectual life. and as a result, the religious tradition is a very, very long 5,000 year-old tradition has been made into an object among sophisticated men and women. much to the consternation of people who deeply deeply admire that tradition. and that's i think it is a change in the diapason of life that we need to pay attention to. it's a relatively new, i think it started around 19801985. but it has become an accelerants and force of intellectual life. if you are minded to be a serious christian, or an extremely devout orthodox jew, or even the serious muslim.

better not go into the scientific community and tell your fraternity brothers that that is what you are. best to keep your mouth closed. and i think that's generally true. it's among the various topics about which it is not a particularly good idea to make broadcast your views. >> and then you add following up on your points. no scientific theory touches on the mysteries that the religious tradition addresses. a man asking why his days are short is not disposed to turn to algebra break quantum theory for the answers. the answers that prominent scientific figures have offered are remarkable in their shallowness. a hypothesis that we are nothing more than cosmic accidents have been widely accepted by the scientific community. and you say basically science has nothing to say about life, love, death, and meaning.

hardly a controversial.is it? if i am asking certain kinds of questions, look around you. there's something there. open your eyes, you are struck by the existence of the universe. why is that there? look at the answers forthcoming from the physics community, they can be described as one of two ways. while what you expect, were here. therefore there something there. or it's kind of an accident, these are not the kind of act answers intelligent men and women are searching for. they correspond to know deep, deep intellectual need. they are frivolous. physics really has nothing to tell us, for example about the origins and appearance of the universe. it has a lot of interesting things to say about cosmology but not the same question. the most radical question you can ask is why is there

something, anything rather than what nothing? why is that? it's perfectly possible to propose there could have been nothing whatsoever, i don't mean some pre-existing stuff, i mean nothing. well that's not the world we live in, how come. that's a good question which answer? when you actually look at the physicist or the biologist, or the physicist, their answer is we know how it happened. we open our eyes to, there is something. and we can explain the origin of all of that by appealing to some pre-existing something. are you satisfied with that? if not will then you are not scientifically literate. well the reason the universe popped into existent was preexistent quantum field from which it arose by a probability. >> and they have no real solid idea do they? >> none whatsoever. >> and yet they continue to push

their theories out as if they are science. >> will let's be fair, wouldn't you do the same thing if you are a leading physicist? if i had a theory that deep down i knew is no good, but they were all thoughts of emollients and richness, awards, procedures, i push it for ellsworth too. >> what about all these things about climate change were the same scientist can't tell you,. >> i'm talking about the top physicist. you have to go all the way down that letter to the bottom. >> and yet for a lot of us, it's just a mush out there. in other words you say the top physicist and what i'm saying is when we take a look at climate change, we have a community that can't tell us the temperature in a week. within 10 degrees. but they can tells the temperature in a hundred years within 1 degree. and what i'm saying is, you're saying these top physicist, but

isn't that pervasive? is this a pervasive problem throughout science? >> to a certain extent. look science is an and norma's enterprise. how many guys, how many men and women affirm themselves as scientists worldwide today? do you happen to have the number? it's 7 million, 7 million people are engaged in the scientific enterprise. then of course you're going to find very repetitive sociological patterns when there is something as important as the environment or climate. you're going to find groups forming factions splitting off, tremendous amounts of propaganda. elaborate approaches to government resources, there's a great deal of money to be had that's not coming from the private sector, coming for the federal government. when i talk about fundamental questions about the origins, the universe. who are we appealing to? the very top of the intellectual latter. when i talk about climate

change, were talking about some competent people, not many. some competent people was not really conflicting views, both about the origins of climate change, yes the world is getting warmer. the nature of climate change, the reliability of the climactic models than the theories that go into them. and prognostications of the future. it's not entirely clear. it's not entirely clear exactly who has the most overwhelming and persuasive evidence. >> let's talk about the tamp top. if we talk about darwin, there is a lot of theories there's a lot of arguments is a lot of science so to speak. what is darwinian is him? >> will darwin comes in the mid- 19th century, 1859 he published what is arguably his masterpiece. and the question that darwin asked himself as a question that

all the 19th century biologists are asking, what is the nature of life? what is the origin of individual species? how did life emerge from inorganic matter? and what are the dynamic laws that change one species into another if there is such a thing as a change of species. it was promoted a very similar thesis that said base metals could be transmuted into gold. it's an argument of transmutation of elements. wild darwin gave it out can make said species could be transformed into other species. how does that come about we don't see it every day. comes about because there are small variations within each species. and these variations are seized upon by this mechanism of natural selection. which simply means some survive and some don't survive over vast periods of time these small

variations accumulates. they converge on a different structure and various structures converge on a new body with a new organism and a new species. a new entry in the vast life. that's darwinism and that's a position which is being increasingly held as a secular doctrine. comparable to the book of genesis. >> was he right? >> i have a lot of doubts and so do other people. there are many, many places when one looks at darwinism and says hey look, this just isn't the scientific theory it's a collection of antidotes. why did the giraffe develop such a long neck? well he wanted to reach the trees of the top. well how come other animals didn't develop the long neck, they didn't want to reach the trees of the top. how come certain kinds of

european eagles have to swim across the atlantic to mates where other types of eels fornicate close to home. well? it worked for one seal didn't work for the other. why aren't women born with tails like cats? while women don't seem to need the tales even though it would make them even more alluring than they are. why don't cats rule the world? considering they have every reason and every opportunity to do so. while they are content being our domestic masters. the antidotes pie a lot interminably. and there's no fundamental leading principle. >> do you find that most atheists, more prominent atheists embrace darwinism? >> every last one. >> where they doing that. >> because as a secular myth. even atheist need us compelling

myths. what's our purpose, how did we get here? what are we doing here we have no idea. what is our purpose? it's reputation fornication and replication. that's about it. but it's a very, very viable method people believe it, the act according to it. >> and also, doesn't tolerate much you're right. as people experience it doesn't tolerate much religion and people of faith. i want to continue with this in just a moment with you. don't forget, every weeknight you can watch live mtv on crt via conservative tv. join our community gives a call at 84411 tva 4411 tv

so, atheism, darwinism, they can't really tolerate religion can they? >> not with any degree. everyone will say religion as a matter of what we do in the privacy, and therefore the confines of your own home. as long as it doesn't come into the academic world and pollute the stream of vigorous science. you can do whatever you want.

that is the way of maintaining the fiction of certain kinds of constitutional protections at the same time upholding the values. which are frankly antireligious and there's no question about that. what's the title of that book, religion poisons everything. >> i look at this and then i look at our declaration of independence, natural rights, natural law, god-given, unalienable rights, how can this notion of darwinism, atheism and really progressivism, which i want to get into with you in a moment. they really don't work with constitutionalism do they? >> we hold these truths to be self evident. that men are endowed by their creator, wait a second, that has nothing to do and is flatly

inconsistent with the darwinism hypothesis. all men are not endowed by their creator. all men are not there is quite a different scenario playing out in the biological word worlds. if you want a comparison look to her nearest neighbors and you wouldn't say all chimpanzees are brothers endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. why should we say that about us. but we do. that's crucial. we tolerate the inconsistency because we are forced to. >> we tolerate the inconsistency but when it comes to actual governance, the inconsistency is this not even tolerated. what i mean by that is at the.of propaganda. it's a.of emotion. but there are parties, there are

efforts that adopt this notion of progressivism. they are all progressives. they take their arguments from hegel and marx, were drove wilson, all of these other fellows are doing. they would attack the declaration. they would attack the constitution they would attack the constitution. if this is old seventh time to move along. >> but it's holy and profane mark says. >> and so in america today, do you think this notion of darwinian is him that were talking about. this push towards, i would argue public atheism. taking religion out of the public square, the parks, the schools, rid of it wherever it is. doesn't this undermine the foundational principles of the united states? >> probably. probably. but look let me put the.see you

in a slightly different way. suppose you were coming from outer space, you are biologist and you come to the earth. and you listen to a long lecture of darwinism and the importance of that biology, but then you open your own eyes what are the two things that would most strike you about living systems on the face of the earth? not the darwinian rhetoric. but the evidence of your own eyes. one of them is all life is related, there's no question about that. biochemistry is the same throughout life. all life has very, very many of its properties in common. and the one living system on the face of the planet, not a multitude of species one living system. the second thing you would notice, if you're honest, is that there is a vast inseparable

distinction between two kinds of living systems. human beings and all the rest. that is something that's rarely notice, rarely emphasized. the distance between a human being and our nearest chimpanzee -like ancestors, common ancestors, is much much much greater then the difference between the chimpanzee and a flower. were talking about a bifurcation of the manifold of biology. human beings on one side, the rest of the animal kingdom or the plant kingdom on the other. these are facts that i think any untroubled observer, and by untroubled i would say someone who is not previously adhered to any kind of ideologies such as darwinism. once it's recognized that life is connected and in some sense one living system. but profoundly divided between human beings and all the rest.

that's the first step toward some sort of system of reconciliation because it prompts the inevitable question, hey, how come. why are human being so different? why did they organize himself? why did they do mathematics and literature? why did they speak to each other? why did they have creative thoughts? the jim's pansy is probably a lovable animal but no one ever asked the chimpanzee if it's possible for the chimpanzee to answer. so these are, i would say a five and old to the main axis of ideology. >> but in public schools today, colleges and universities today, a broad stroke, even engaging that kind of discussion is forbidden. and so, what we are really talking about is we are supposed to accept, i think it's the

final ends. we are supposed to accept the absolutes, the un- equivalent is how we get there. and so when we have people teaching like that. pressing that type of darwinism. it makes it much more difficult to have that discussion than what were having right now. >> it becomes very difficult and that's part of the problem. all secular societies face. the minute the society become secular, we embrace a certain kind of ideological system which largely replaces religious tradition. once that ideological system is in place, of course the natural self protective mechanism clicks into place and effort is made to eradicate any form of dissent. >> did you expect anything else, i hope so, but no. when this country was founded they did something very unique

in the declaration of independence. they wrote this down which other countries did not. >> what's the date. >> 1776 and they set up this constitution. 1781 and thereafter. 1787. why did they do that? in order to preserve the principles of the declaration of independence. which rage it raises an interesting.now. in response to your question. >> asked me. >> can there ever be a lasting society that embraces anything other than this notion of darwinian is him which might live lead to progressivism forms of marxism? your answer right after the break.

live from america's news headquarters john scott. new information of the saudi national who opened fire in the base in florida killing three people according to report the shooter hosted a dinner party to watch videos the night before the attack. he also reportedly hosted a manifesto online that fox news is not independently confirmed. all this is one of the victims is hailed as a hero. joshua watson's family recounted today how watson led first responders to the active shooter, he was just 23 years

old and it just from the u.s. naval academy. an american graduate student soon will return to american soil after being released from prison are exchanged with a run. you a long was doing research in taira on when he was arrested in 2016 on espionage charges. his releases are example is the rare example of cooperation. i'm john scott. >> welcome back. so, is darwinian is him and its political tributaries really in many respects forms of tyranny, in my view. because governments replaces the central safe, replaces these other traditions and customs. is that inevitable? >> yes. >> yes it's inevitable. >> i think you're looking at the wrong focal length.

darwinism is a particular kind of scientific doctrine it's largely anecdotal. it's very far removed from physics and mathematics. and it plays a certain role with ceremonies that democratics like. it has played that role for half a century or so. but of course it's like everything else. it's changing. it's undergoing change because of the intense intellectual pressures being brought on any scientific theory dealing with these profound questions. for example, we know perfectly well that questions about the origins of life from the standpoint of 2,018 or hopeless. we do not understand how life to emerge from whatever market did emerge. we are simply unable to make a coherent chemical account. jim tour, very good synthetic chemist has written about this in a journal on editing. he says it's time to call for moratorium. it's not going anywhere, that's

one thing. and then as inevitably happens, darwinian is him biologist by calling attention to themselves so flamboyantly, have called in to question the very structure of the theories there defending because the physicists have said hey you know, that's interesting the guy kind of claims that you guys are making but we physicists can handle it a lot better. she get somebody for example fisher at stanford. a top-notch physicist. and of seeing a preprint of hinn and he said darwinism very interesting theory, but it has no quantitative properties. as celica theory in physics. it's kind of a collective heart attack among the buyer when the end biologist. not like physics? 's not like gravity? say it isn't so. but it isn't so. so the physicists are subtly changing the profile wasn't

inevitable? >> what i'm trying to get at is that science that's being applied by the progressives, by the communists, political science, behavioral science social science. and among others darwinism. are they as amenable to rethinking these scientific theories from which they borrowed to organize man? i don't think so. >> science progresses one funeral at a time. it's true, certain generations are good and die out, the next generation is going to be very careful about the kinds of claims they are making. darwinism is a movement, it's an ideology, it's a position of thought. it's a triumphant creation, it is like any other movement.

it has its ups and it's down, and it's clearly on the.of a radical dissolution right now. what's going to replace it, whether it will evoke the same clamorous contingent of supporters that darwinism has evoked? i don't know. we'll see. a lot of sinister developments happening. big data is itself a response of a kind to the absence of theory in biology and psychology. >> big data, you mean the collection of health record social information. >> hundreds of data put together a social media. if you don't understand is going on and psychology, if you don't nurse and was going on in biology, you might as well heap to gather a ton of data and start looking at it. that's a response, that something different, that was not expected. >> i think a lot of our viewers

hearing what you've talked about on atheism darwinism and so forth, and i read your secular job. do you reject the idea that there is a supernatural? that there is a god? or how do you deal with that? >> do you reject that personally? god forbid i would reject that personally. there's a vast difference between being a believer and having a commitment and obeying a certain set of religious prescriptions. there's a vast terms between that and the fence fundamental rejection. no i don't reject it. i can't live with it, i admit that. >> and what is that mean. >> i'm like everyone else's, secular, individual. i like to think that i am better than i am. i like to think there are certain forms of conscience, certain impaired tenants that i

respects which are religious in nature. but i know i'm kidding myself. i'm a secular human being who tries to do for the most part pretty much what he feels like doing. have a good time, all the time. it's a secular model, right? >> you have a good time all the time? >> it's hard. any form of faith is difficult. >> now when we return i want to get back to this idea of progressivism and its relationship to these sciences, or what you would call pseudoscience is in some respect. they're all the same. you can catch me every week night on the venn tv on cr tv. all you have to do is join us on our toll-free number 84411 tv.

you get into these debates with atheists, you defend not in your view that there is necessarily a god or the right religion and so forth, but that you don't know. and what you seem to be saying is the scientists don't know what they don't know. and yet they insist, not all, and talk about certain specific ones the atheist. and that they insist there is no gone and religion is bad and so forth and so on. how do you struggle with this? or do you struggle with this? >> the struggle begins by making a.of distinction. i can say i believe there is no god.

that's one kind of commitment. that's essentially an atheist position. i believe for whatever reason that god does not exist. but i can say and a much more sense that i don't believe that god exists. quite different. i withdraw some form of dissent. i believe that god does not exist is not the case i believe it doesn't exist. i believe the proposition that god does not exist. i can defend that. that's the atheist speaking. i would say i don't have an intense belief with respect to god's existence. it hasn't been vouched to me. it's not the case, it's not the case that i believe that god exists, but i'm not tempted to say that he does not exist. i'm tempted only to temporize. and i think that is fundamentally most people in the

secular society think. >> and yet you aggressively, from an intellectual.of view, battle the atheist. which is your.who insist that god does not exist and what you seem to be saying is look i don't know. but i can't reject it out of hand, and i can't embrace what you're selling as a replacement. is that about right? >> that's absently the way i feel. i do battle with the atheists it's a wonderfully vivid image. chiefly because i think they are windbags. and if they were arguing another position i would do battle with them. jerry coyne, shallots, harris, kristen haitians was different he was a very assistive sophisticated guy and he knew a lot of what he was saying was absurd. i mean he would get up and say

never believe anything about evidence, and i would say yeah but what about what you just said fern evidence of not believing anything without evidence. which was literally what he was saying. but yes, i think dogmatic atheism, the movement of atheism it is in them bears meant to contemporary thought. and i think i'm pretty much alone in thinking that. it's not a very popular effervescent movement. their whole society is consecrated to upholding atheism. of course the first thing they do and they gathered together an ecumenical devotion is felt factions and start hurling atheism atheism m when they stop hurling they discover the they're sexually impressed by the men. and they spend endless amounts of time denouncing sexual harassment in the atheist

movement. if course or someone like me that's a joy to watch. >> the atheist movement is seems to be a movement of the left. >> yes. >> i don't know many conservatives or so-called conservatives, some are. but most are not who are atheists. why is that? >> well, to the extent that marx office as a substitute for religion, you would not expect dogmatic or an orthodox taught communist to say yes, the scientific system is what marx is giving us as a tool of analysis. but it is all contingent upon the whims of a deity. that doesn't sit very well with communism or with marxism. it seems and or relevant postulate. but there are plenty of rotten guys on the conservative side for example the nazis. you don't think of the nazis in terms of conservatives.

they were pretty lousy. but so what. with respect to the nazis even if the ss executioners took communion after murdering a lot of elderly jewish women, who cares. >> when we come back, what i'm trying to expose, and you may disagree, is that heckel marks her so this whole collective philosophy with their differences and so forth, they have to reject religion. they have to reject tradition. they have to reject customs or their philosophies don't make any sense. we'll discuss that more broadly when we come back.

we have these various philosophers their progeny, their intellectuals on the turn of last century pushing this agenda of human sciences they call them. behavioral sciences political sciences. and there built on this notion of science and yet they also

embrace hegel marks the sort of thing. who really do insist that basically they destroy the existing society to get to the problems land. >> we've heard that before. >> the modern incarnation of this, of this attitude and belief system, the progressives. this so-called democratic socialist, isn't this where they're dragging countries, are not dragging them where people want to go in these various countries. >> sure everybody was to go there provided they can go there without any personal inconvenience. me too. i'm not objecting to universal healthcare. >> it wouldn't work. >> it would work for me that's all i care about. and if you have 30 million other people is exactly same thing you will have a system exactly like the socialist system of france. which i must say did a great job on me.

gave me a new aortic valve. >> for the next guy might not. >> but i don't care but there you've touched on the crucial. these destroy the bonds of solidarity don't they? you cannot end us leslie profit from a state subsidized system and spend a lot of time worrying about your obligations to other people in the same situation. you can spend less time talking about it but worrying about them that's quite different. >> and you said i'm doing well, this guy may not. i've got no complaints, but isn't that the points when you're on more from these principles. when you're unmarred from the values and belief systems and faith, where everyone believes they come from. that's what it comes down to. i got what i want, he didn't get it, that's his problem. aren't societies developing more

and more in that direction unfortunately? >> secular societies tend to atomize very frequently. they dissolve into individual constituents. the social sciences that used to be called method of logical individualism. the unit of analysis is always the individual but the unitive agency is also the individual. and i think that is a feature of the secular society and it seems to be a feature of secular society that's deeply desired by the inhabitants of the city secular society. one thing we have to understand and accept however, is something like the second law thermodynamics. >> that's a mouthful. we'll be right back.

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>> things go from bad to worse and they go in only one direction. mark: there ought to be another law. >> as far as i know, that's it. look at us. it goes in one direction. young ones are getting old. i speak truth to power. and the second law embodies ancient wisdom, things go from bad to worse. mark: how about societies? >> every human birth is an achievement of violating the second law. every time a flower buds we have a violation. it's not all bad. societies do change and they probably change in one way. mark: i want to thank you. i could have done this for five

hours with you. >> thank you for having me. mark: we'll see you next time object "life, liberty & levin." thank you. [♪] jesse: welcome to. "watters' world," i'm jesse watters. trump is driving the left crazy. the economy is posting blowout numbers. isis is dade and americans are at peace. you would think the liberals would be happy. but they are freaking because impeachment isn't working. >> do you hate the president, madame speaker? >> i don't hate anybody. i was raised in a catholic house and you don't hate anybody. not anybody in the world. don't accuse she. >> i