In this episode, Brian Auten and Chad Gross interview Dr. Stephen C. Meyer on his latest book Return of the God Hypothesis.

0:43 - Intro to Dr. Stephen Meyer, author of Return of the God Hypothesis, Signature in the Cell, and Darwin’s Doubt.
3:00 - Dr. Meyer’s background, education, and how he got interested in the question of intelligent design.
9:58 - Meyer’s view of science and philosophy of science, the importance for understanding philosophy when doing science.
16:28 - reviewing five centuries of the history of science, the false idea that science and religion have always been at war.
23:49 - The reason for telling the story of the rise of science, the rejection of the God hypothesis, and its subsequent return based on the most recent scientific discoveries.
28:15 - Explaining the methodology of inference to the best explanation. How this fits within theistic apologetics.
36:30 - Is our goal truth, or a pre-commitment to naturalism? What challenges has Meyer faced when arguing for intelligent design?
39:45 - Are there problems with postulating a mind as an intelligent cause? Are certain explanations “out of bounds” when doing science?
43:00 - Shannon information
43:55 - The origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, and the information in the cell. Resistance to change from a materialistic worldview.
47:40 - Huge theistic implications and the corresponding push-back to them.
49:15 - Helpful illustrations to explain the fine-tuning of the universe for life.
53:38 - Douglas Adams’ “puddle objection” to the fine-tuning argument; the response, and a counter-analogy. The weak-anthropic principle.
58:50 - How might these arguments fit into an apologetic for Christianity? The role of natural theology and the need for special revelation. The false dichotomy between evidentialism and presuppositional apologetics.

www.returnofthegodhypothesis.com

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