"Atheists can't answer this question!" ...But We Can

[Music] for that I came across a clip on Christian apologist Frank Turks YouTube channel recently and it impressed me now with how well done it was but with how many fallacies and misdirections it contained in just three minutes it's a work of mastery really Turek is a professional apologist and in my opinion he represents his ilk very well he's articulate charismatic rather ignorant of basic science and above all loyal to defending his narrative regardless of what dishonesty that necessitates this clip revolves around what Turek thinks of Douglas Adams Puddle analogy as a response to arguments for intelligent design like the teleological argument eventually Turek poses a question and says that if atheists can answer it it'll do away with his own argument for good if you don't know what the puddle analogy is don't worry we'll get to that for context though let's play a little bit of the clip first sometimes I run into this all question or this argument against the teleological argument which would be the puddle argument yeah which claims that the teleological argument even though as specifications that that ultimately lead up to human life it seems that through this the Puddle arguments it's more like it's just an appeal to pathos than it really is to explain what you mean by the puddle argument to be clear this guy doesn't explain the puddle analogy well it's also hard to tell whether he's saying that the puddle analogy implies that teleological argument is it appealed to pathos or emotion or that the puddle analogy itself is an appeal to pathos I'll explain my thoughts on both ideas with one statement I don't think the puddle analogy implies that about the teleological argument or appeals to pay those itself it simply proposes another possible solution to the question of why our environment suits us and appears finely-tuned for us we'll get to a full explanation of the analogy hang with me I just want you to hear Toric's explanation and Douglas Adams explanation side-by-side well I think if I understand the puddle argument they're saying that the reason there's a puddle there is there's a hole in the ground and it filled with water and that's just the way it is and we're kind of the same way yeah so Turek explained this pretty poorly already essentially misrepresenting the analogy as simplistic and thoughtless there's much more to be said of the analogy of enteric allows so here's Douglas Adams delivering it himself a puddle wakes up one morning and thinks this is a very interesting world I find myself in it fits me very neatly in fact it fits me so neatly I mean really precise isn't it [Laughter] it must have been made to have me in it pretty different when explained properly huh it would have been respectable if Turek actually correctly represented the analogy but as you'll see honesty is not exactly easy for Turek work it's kind of like what we're doing is we see a target we see it an arrow in the wall and we go up and draw a bull's-eye around it yeah actually yes I would say that's a good way to describe what Turk and the intelligent design crowd do as he continues I think you'll see why okay well I don't think that works for a number of reasons one reason obviously is the universe at a beginning and secondly a fine-tuned beginning and you can't make any Puddle argument for that because nothing exists until the universe exists nothing nothing made of molecules anyway and it's precisely fine-tuned if it were changed anyway slightly any one of those factors slightly nothing would exist or nothing livable would exist so what Turk did here is just say that's not what I'm doing and then just restate the teleological argument he doesn't even contend with the Puddle analogy in case you're wondering this statement that the universe had a beginning or that the nature of the cosmos is such that it allows for life as we know it to exist is no problem for the Puddle analogy the analogy just shifts perspectives presenting the possibility that the universe existed first and that we in our evolution came to exist as a creature which fits its pre-existing environment very simply put it entertain the thought that we are a result of adaptation to our environment rather than asserting that the environment was built specifically to accommodate the capabilities and limitations of humans given that the fossil record demonstrates that modern humans have been around for a couple hundred thousand years at most and radiometric dating of ancient rock formations like zircon crystals show earth to be over four billion years old I think it's worth entertaining the idea that we adapted to what was already here getting back to Turek it's pretty obvious that he's heard all this before so what I have to conclude is that Turek has either heard this repeatedly and still doesn't understand it or that he understands this argument can't properly refute it and chooses to restate his previous argument in hopes of distracting everyone away from the point he can't refute now I highly doubt that Turek is actually unintelligent enough to not understand the Puddle analogy so that leaves the other possibility that Turek is dishonest okay so there appears to be intelligence behind the universe Turek can state this all he wants but the universe's intuitive appearance to anyone means nothing until they can demonstrate that there is intelligence behind the universe again Turk just restates a talking point that doesn't contend with the Puddle analogy because he can't contend with the Puddle analogy the analogy directly acknowledges that the universe appears designed and it poses an explanation for why that appearance is deceiving secondly the genome that we mentioned earlier the 3.2 billion letter genome is like a software program you could compare genetic sequences to binary code sure there are certainly similarities there does that demonstrate that there is intelligence behind genetic sequences though no this point is intuitive and that may be convincing to some but it ultimately proves nothing show me the supernatural design process of its creation show me its creator directly if you can't asserting that it was designed is unjustifiable if you're walking along the beach and you see in the sand john loves Mary you don't go gee the waves made that where the crabs came out of the water and made that message in the sand right you know immediately that that message must be the product of a mind I can't believe that people are still unaccounted a lease centuries-old watchmaker analogy in short this argument is flawed because it's a false analogy it implies that because two things the letters in the sand and DNA share one quality complexity that they must share another quality design this is logically fallacious they don't have to share another quality I've linked a video from rationality rules in the description which debunks this further what Turek doesn't state here is that while letters in the sand have been proven to be products of human creation DNA has been shown to grow and change naturally without any observed creator Oh in all our prior experience messages always come from minds messages are a product of the mind but not in the way Turek thinks things which are perceived as messages don't require an intelligent creator they only require an intelligent interpreter an event a sound physical object does not have to be intended as a message to be perceived as one more on that later now that's just a few letters long or a couple of words long but imagine a message 3.2 billion letters long and every one of our cells if john loves Mary requires a message a messenger a mine then a software program 3.2 billion letters long also seems to require a mind a great mind to create again this argument from complexity is fallacious I've done all I need to do to refute it in this video already but seriously if you want to hear it taken down and even greater depth go watch the rationality rules video I've linked in the description and look a theist can get rid of the argument from information in DNA by simply answering this question what natural laws can create messages this is really easy actually again messages require only an interpreter to exist if I gave an example of a perceived message existing but then being shown to be caused by natural forces would that satisfy this question it would right ok then all cite multiple examples in 1976 NASA's making one spacecraft orbited Mars and took a photo of its surface which revealed a rock structure that appeared just like a humanoid face nASA released the photo to the public and many saw it as an intelligently created structure meant to convey some artistic meaning or a signal to humans on behalf of Martians when Mars Global Surveyor photographed the same structure again in 1998 with a much better camera the formation was shown to be a natural formation with no features of a face the appearance of a face was the result of shadowing and a low resolution camera nature communicated a message without intent on May 28th 585 BC the Medes and Lydians battled in what is now Turkey the battle ended and both sides agreed to a truce when the soldiers saw a solar eclipse they interpreted the event as an omen from the gods a sign that the gods did not condone the battle now we know that eclipses are natural phenomena easily forecasted by the predictable orbits of the moon and Earth nature communicated a message without intent in July 1967 astronomer Jocelyn Bell noticed regular well-defined pulses of radio waves coming from a small patch of the sky no natural source had ever been shown to produce such a signal as it bore striking resemblance to man-made radio broadcasts Bell humorously called the source of the pulses little green men one or lgm1 as it appeared to be an attempt at communication from alien life-forms in other words a message people buzz with excitement about receiving a message from extraterrestrials with further study though Bell found several more sources of similar radio pulses in the sky astrophysicist Thomas gold then found that the pulses were just a result of rapidly rotating neutron stars they were given the name pulsars nature communicated a message without intent I could keep going but do you see my point those occurrences were all taken as messages by large numbers of people at some point their existence has been explained however by natural forces now that I've answered that question will Turk get rid of the argument from DNA as he calls it I hope so because it's awful there's only four known natural forces gravity the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism light which one of those four or combination thereof can create a software program well just for good measure let's dive into the science that explained how the laws of nature create DNA keep in mind this stuff is a simple Google search away Turek however has been trying to answer the question of where DNA came from with nothing but theology when the answer has been within the field of biology all along DNA naturally replicates in the production of a new life-form in this process most of its structure is copied perfectly but they're often mistakes made such as imperfect duplicate copies of certain base pairs imperfect copies of previous organisms DNA can lead to differences in gene expression within the larger organism some of these mutations can prove beneficial and helping the organism survive longer and produce more offspring then those beneficial mutations are passed on to more offspring than differently mutated genes and preserved in future generations DNA sometimes adds new genes to itself without any intent over a long enough period of time DNA can change from rather short and simple to extremely long and complex we directly observe this happening even today if you want to get more in depth on this there links in the description which will help you learn more so Turks smoking-gun for intelligent design is a feature of the universe that's been studied so in-depth that we know very well just how it forms and changes naturally Turek doesn't understand how DNA formed it looks complicated and impressive to him so he settles with the answer of God just made it rather than studying the readily accessible scientific resources on a subject or simply being honest and humble in saying I don't know in fact this entire argument comes down to I can't explain that naturalistically so that proves God did it there's something that hasn't been explained so God is invoked to fill that gap in our understanding that's what's called arguing for a God of the gaps it's a well-recognized fallacy and one which Turek knows of how do I know he knows it you'll see how in the ironic twist that is the ending of Turks answer the answer is none of them and if they're gonna say well one day we'll figure that out I call that faith here's the first part of the irony he accuses atheists of having faith implying that's a bad thing meanwhile he bases his whole life and career on the idea that faith is a reliable way to obtain truth and should be encouraged why is it bad for a theist to have faith but it's totally okay for Christians too that's blatant and laughable hypocrisy to be clear I don't think that faith is a reliable path to truth and I strongly discourage its belief or invocation still this guy once again is too dense to understand this hypocrisy or is too dishonest to recognize it and I don't think he's too dense this is so manipulative of his impressionable audience it's gross that's called natural law the gaps here's where the real irony comes in Turek bases his whole argument on naturalism hasn't explained it so God must have done it while poking fun at the natural law of the gaps fallacy here's the thing Turek one DNA can and has been explained naturalistically you just don't know that because you're scientifically illiterate - the difference between you a Christian and myself an atheist is that when we see something that we can't explain you say God did it and I say I don't know I don't ask that anyone assert that naturalism can explain everything all I ask is that when you don't know something don't make up an unproven explanation so that you don't have to admit that you don't know just admit ignorance and then research it from there that's the basis of intellectual honesty and I hope the viewers of this video hold to that themselves I have really little hope for Turek though because as we've seen here honesty is not his strong suit thanks for watching I've been drew of genetically-modified skeptic as always go ahead and subscribe check out my patreon follow me on Twitter and Facebook @ GM skeptic join my discord and until next time stay skeptical you

Channel: Genetically Modified Skeptic

Views: 349,751

Rating: 4.773653 out of 5

Keywords: atheism, atheist, agnostic, skeptic, skepticism, genetically modified skeptic, gm skeptic, Frank Turek, Cross Examined, Christian apologetics, apologist, christian vs atheist, William Paley, watchmaker argument, teleological argument, debunked, Douglas Adams, puddle analogy, Christian propaganda, evolution, evolution vs creationism, intelligent design, is DNA a code, response video, creationism debunked, question for atheist

Id: dhHwPoSp7AU

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 18 2019