How did life originate? Does Darwin’s theory of evolution have an answer for the origin of life? On a new episode of ID the Future, enjoy the first half of an insightful conversation between philosopher of science Dr. Stephen Meyer and synthetic organic chemist Dr. James Tour as they unravel important issues around the origin of life. Dr. Tour is a professor at Rice University, renowned for his work in nanotechnology and his skepticism toward the current scientific models explaining the origin of life. Dr. Meyer is author of Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design and other books. The pair are interviewed by Peter Robinson, host of Uncommon Knowledge.
In Part 1, Meyer and Tour set the stage by highlighting the distinction between Charles Darwin’s theory of biological evolution and the question Darwin never answered: Where does life come from in the first place? “If, and oh, what a big if,” wrote Darwin in 1871, “we could conceive in some warm little pond that a protein compound was chemically formed…” For decades, many scientists assumed this first question was either trivial or easily solvable, clinging to “primordial soup” models. But what Meyer and Tour take pains to point out here is that the origin of life is anything but a trivial issue. In fact, it’s getting more and more vexing and problematic by the year, as the target for understanding life’s origin moves miles further away with each new discovery of complexity. Meyer and Tour touch on the famous Miller-Urey experiments of the 1950s, the discovery of DNA as digital code by Watson and Crick in 1953, and why modern origin of life research amounts to what Tour calls “a big scam.”
Download the podcast or listen to it here. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 in a separate episode.
We’re grateful to the producers of Uncommon Knowledge for permission to share this conversation here. Uncommon Knowledge is a production of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Dig Deeper
- Dr. Meyer dives into the origin of life in his book Signature in the Cell. If you haven’t read it yet, add it to your list!
- More with Dr. Meyer and Dr. Tour: