Atheist Debates - Interview: Dr. Jerry Coyne
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- čas přidán 29. 07. 2015
- Part of the Atheist Debates Patreon project: / atheistdebates
Dr. Jerry Coyne is a professor of biology at the University of Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard and is the author of both "Why Evolution Is True" and "Faith vs. Fact".
You can visit his blog and find more information about him here:
whyevolutionistrue.wordpress....
Actually the Nye vs Ham debate helped me finally realize my doubts were reasonable. I lost all respect for Ham during that debate, I used to watch him as a kid. I am very thankful for that debate. I want Ham to build that Ark, so people can see with there own eyes how ridiculous their belief was.
An immense pleasure, listening to this conversation! Thank you kindly for making this possible, Matt!
Debate dream-team:
Sean Carroll (physics----sorry Lawrence)
Jerry Coyne (biology)
Sam Harris ( ethics and common sense)
Richard Carrier ( history and historical method)
Dan Barker (theology)
Peter Boghossian (philosophy and epistemology)
Matt Dillahunty (counter-apologetics and Team co-ordinator!)
Dana Zikas I would add Dawkins and Krauss, but all are good choices. It would be like Mike Tyson vs 10 year old kid. A bloodfest of biblical proportions and I wouldn't miss it.
Wildwood Claire for geology.
Potholer54 and Bill Nye for general science.
Dana Zikas there should be 6 on 6 atheist theist debate lol
I’d put Bart Ehrman in before Carrier.
* Bart , not Carrier
Great interview.
I can't help but be reminded of a slightly younger thinner Steven King everytime I look at him.
rationalmartian me too
rationalmartian
Except Jerry sings Bass ha
Can’t believe I missed this! Jerry is such a pleasure to listen to.
I noticed the George Smith's "Atheism: The Case Against God" on the bookshelf behind Matt. One of the best books on Atheism that I have ever read.
Kean Simmons Why is it the best?
One of your best interviews yet. Matt you're technical and editing skills are looking very professional as well. Keep up the good work.
Thanks guys. Informed, calm, rational and fifty minutes well spent.
Not bad
Iain Garner That's exactly how I feel. This guy is so chill and yet on-point and direct. I'm certain that I'm going to pick up one of his books.
He's a great talker.... Puts science in a very easy to understand manner and in a way the masses should understand... Goes to show we weren't all "created" equal - hahahahaa
I confess I haven't read a book by Coyne, yet ..
I hate to sound like a fan boy, and I know that I will, but I love listening to Dr. Coyne. Moreover, it's great to know that he has another book out I can read....YAYYYY!
Thanks for that great interview!
Jerry's book, "Faith vs. FACT" is a superb book that I strongly recommend to everyone.
I am so happy you are doing these discussions/interviews. It can teach your fellow atheists a lot, if only the use of careful thinking and consideration of one's own standpoints. Thank you!
Great Interview, Loved watching and learning.
I want to see that 6-person teamed debate.
ConservativeMirror Me too, but the theist would demand five more team members. Or six times the time. Or simply claim persecution.
+Je Suis Ce Que Je Suis Theist also may have as many members as they wish; I see two options, or they agree on a coalition against science and then none of them would add anything new to the other; or they would just start arguing among themselves! :-D
+ConservativeMirror I second that. It would be epic.
I've pondered the notion of such a debate for a long time. I wish Matt and Jerry had at least speculated briefly who they might envision as being on it. Go ahead and give the theists an equal number of members. The only real quandary is choosing the brand of theists: intelligent designers, Old Earth Creationists, Young Earth Creationists, etc. They would all disagree with each other at some points, so they'd have no collective POV.
Great chat! Thanks to both Matt and Jerry for this.
Brilliant. Thanks for this Matt.
Coyne: One needs an *education in facts* (empirical reasoning, logic, philosophy, critical thinking, STEM) and *de-education in faith.*
Exactly brilliant.
Matt, I do wish 'the Atheist Experience' videos would again allow comments, like you used to for so many years. Reconsider the potential downside is not so bad, as in 'give them enough rope'. You do great work.
not my call
Great interview, Matt. Coyne is always fascinating to hear from.
Loving these... Thanks Matt, may have a new patron.
Great interview!
His book is about more than just God , it also explores erroneous ideas pertaining to alternative medicine and certain conspiracy theories in a way that underscores the fatal dangers of using faith to guide your life .
uncleanunicorn Sounds like a good book right up the alley of most skeptics
ThePharphis Totally.
Great Interview!
Was lucky to meet Dr. Coyne during a talk in India. Great talker and nice guy
...which is why I like the method of Peter Boghossian.
+Rand Huso ...You mean the technique of employing rather tedious levels of redundancy in speeches? Oh, well... Peter benefits greatly from having an active interviewer who can keep him focused, economical, and diverse with his comments, I think. Hemant Mehta did well in this regard, as I recall.
Interesting interview!! Thanks!!
I love this. Both Coyne and Dillahunty are heroes of mine. Even an old fool like me still needs his heroes.
Wonderful conversation.
amazing interview.
The professor can only debunk creationist's view on FACTS and FAITH by writing but we have Matt Dillahunty, Richard Dawkins and numerous others who can do that via debates and arguments and it is pretty much working than ever.
Very good interview and interviewee.
Good plug, I'll buy the book although I don't think there'll be anything new :)
Jerry Coyne is cool.
This guy has a good radio voice
marshall brooks LOL. At one point I was thinking, "he has a really nice deep voice." So yeah, he does have a very soothing voice.
He does have a great voice.
+marshall brooks I first heard Jerry Coyne on Sam Harris' podcast. Listening to them both speak was like buttah.
Ikr i love listening to it. He puts off a good vibe
To me the most fascinating part is how Coyne explains his views to Matt in the most simplistic ways that even a child would understand but you realise more and more that those are the exact ideas and feelings Matt has regarging those supjects. It's like an illuminated summary of Matts efforts during the last few years.
wonderful. beautiful. thanks guys.
jchrist, what a great interview. Good job, Matt; this was very enjoyable and quite informative. Is there anything you can think of that afterwards, you thought....damn, I wish I would have asked " " or should've said " " ? Regardless, I think it went quite well, and much kudos for the editing/camera shots as it captured the right emotion and sense of curiosity at just the right times.
For predictive power of evolution theory dish out this one: X.Morganii, a moth, was predicted to exist by Darwin in 1862 and found in 2012, as the flower Angraecum sesquipedale had such a weird shaped funnel that Darwin predicted that you had to find an insect with the an extremely long and flexible beak that could pollinate it. Lo and behold, X. Morganii praedicta was found 130 years later to do precisely that.
Great interview, I've read why evolution is true and I recommend it to anyone who is on the fence, or anyone looking for a good read.
About the Nye/Ham debate. There are at least two situations. One is that scientists debate (and lend credibility to Creationists), another is that they never debate them and leave the public hanging out to dry, because the Creationist ideas are not challenged. There are some people who will hear those debates and be influenced to check out science. I, for one, enjoy listening to debates. AND thanks for this interview!
SweetPea Brown I agree. Not only have I benefited greatly from debates but, I wouldn't want to live in a world where creationists can unanimously state that 'scientists don't debate us because they're either unable to, or afraid.'
CptPhenom Hear, hear! (I see the problems, but I still think it's better than not debating.)
+SweetPea Brown Yes. I was one of those to tell Bill "don't do it". but *Bill schooled me as well*.
You're the man Matt.
I like their asymptotic metaphor for arriving towards the truth. I think of it as an asymptotic protein folding, where there is a sort of "true" conformation, but you jump to different states that usually get you closer to the conformation that is best.
I like the idea of a team of evolution scientists debating a team of creationists. Like dr. Coyne said, the creationists will say the same things, but the scientists will be able to fill in the gaps of each other. Because when you debate someone, it's not only about what you know, it's also what comes to your mind at that time, and sometimes people make mistakes too. But a group of people might be lot stronger that just one.
I would just like to point out that watching the Nye-Hamm debate changed my mind about evolution, contrary to what Jerry thought. I leaned toward young-earth creationism before that.
Oh, and I meant to say too, that I've read alotta atheist/skeptical/secular literature and Coyne's book touches on the entire gamut of relevant issues, without the appearance of oversimplification or strawmaning. And yet it reads well and isnt weighed down by abstruse reasoning. It achieves its knock out in a cumulative series of body blows!
This guy is a really solid interviewee makes me want to check out the book haha
I just finished the book, "Why Evolution is True" for my Bio-Anthropology class, and it was truly a great introduction to evolution. Thank you Matt for having him on.
it was a good book!
5:42 it was on Forensic Files, season 8, ep 9, "Shot of vengeance"
I didn't know Moe Greene was a biologist.
You don't buy me out, I buy you out!
Dr. Coyne brought up the idea of a team of experts for debates, specialists who know their fields inside and out... and I thought of this as well a few years ago, and why it hasn't been done. Theists can throw in all the apologists they care to for this debate, from Craig to DeSouza, whoever, and then see them get smashed on every point. The word 'epic' gets thrown around too casually these days, but if ever the word could be used to its full power it would be after a debate of science versus theology... and scientists absolutely thrashing apologists on any and all points they care to bring up. THIS would open a lot of eyes and minds.
non est deus
Great books
I read Faith vs Fact as soon as I could get it. No disappointments! What I was impressed by, among others, is how much Coyne's thorough understanding of the arguments that the atheist/secular community are constantly beleaguered with from the theistically oriented. And, like Sean Carroll, and UNLIKE Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye (although he's aware more now! ;)), Coyne has been "in the trenches" in the battle with the faithful and superstitious and pseudo-scientifically minded for a long time, and is very familiar with their particular brand of nonsense.
_A huge difference ;_
*If science was like religion & Christianity, **_"there would be multiple contradictory versions of It"_** ,*
*being taught, in different countries & universities all over the world.*
I want all the books on the bookshelf
Regardless of credentials or abilities, the curious mind is the most interesting.
I see that we have much to learn, as a species.
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
The scientific approach. Which is a great quote from a horrible economist. But still. I love that quote :)
another great interview by mr dillahunty
Speaking specifically to the point made at 42:08, yes. My best friend is a theist (christian) and he does not like how Ken Ham addressed the argument.
Hello friends, I am a devout Christian and I find this conversation very interesting! I look forward to reading this book!
I must say that this conversation did not change my view point on the God of the Bible but it did reaffirm my ideology that I believe there are brilliant minds with my many different beliefs and viewpoints. It seems that the conversation over the rationality of a person of faith was displayed in a negative light; this would be my only negative critique of the conversation.
Though I don’t believe I am credible at all in understanding the rational versus the irrational, the great Ravi Zacharias (whom very recently passed away) was a brilliant mind that seemed to be very rational in his theology. Feel free to check him out and let me know your thoughts. Solid video. Thank you.
Also, religious people state absolute knowledge and ridicule science for not being 100% correct, as a way to build/support their case.
They also have a scant understanding of time, beyond their own time on the planet(as most people have). But, they refuse to acknowledge the temporal record, when provided solid facts. It is a loss for them. So much to try to understand.
As I'm making my continuing journey away from nonsense, religious people now seem trapped and a prisoner of ideas and concepts which have no logical basis, other than the story told them from childhood.
The best thing about science is that it IS wrong, and Learns from mistakes. The phone I'm watching this on, did NOT come from religion.
His book evolution is true is amazing anyone could read and understand it .
Matt, have you ever considered interviewing a prominent Christian Universalist or Annihilationist on this show? I think if those people got the chance to explain their position, and why the idea of Hell is unacceptable to them despite being Christians, you might get some interesting mileage out of that.
Through the course of the interview Jerry rubbed his face over 550 times I counted !
Hay Matt, I've noticed that a few people that you, Matt & Seth have had on as guests, don't have there own CZcams channels.
You should pull them all under one monetized site.
Round up some cash to further the cause ....
Maybe this is a Question for Seth ... Like he's got any free time ... Great Show ...
I am still waiting for a hand held device which will identify from a few cells, what species of whatever, plant, insect, mammal, which I have before me to identify.
"Prime Material Plane"...you, sir, are or were a D&D player! :)
Concerning the comment about education teaching what rather than how to think- While they're not perfect, the common core standards heavily emphasize critical thinking, how to evaluate and accurately utilize source material, build arguments on evidence and so forth. Further they make a huge shift toward reading non-fiction material. Perhaps this is why the religious right tend to not like them(?). Any reading of the standards will demonstrate this emphasis. The question is how well will educators teach them. Speaking as a public educator here.
BigIdeaSeeker _"Perhaps this is why the religious right tend to not like them(?)."_
Looks like it...
2012 Republican Party of Texas / Report of Platform Committee and Rules Committee
"Knowledge-Based Education - We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
- - www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/2012-Platform-Final.pdf?docID=3201
+YY4Me133 why has no one said 'wow' to that still yet? I'll say it. Quite a statement.
Mino Re
Disgusting, isn't it? Not only that they think like that, but they're not even embarrassed to admit it.
+YY4Me133 Ye,just wow. I mean we know they are anti educational but to actually commit that fact to a report! Thats almost the definition of brazen.
Pseudonayme 77
The worst part is, their base is so well-indoctrinated that, like victims of Stockholm syndrome or traumatic bonding, they support these abusive politicians. They *want* their kids to be mindlessly obedient robots.
What is that bowl by Matt's head? It looks like a dirty bowl just sitting on the book shelf.
Science experiment?
Primordial soup? XD
It's a candle.
Love to se a debate with a bunsh of expers in the subject.
But doubt that one could find many known creationist to agree to one.
Taking Dr. Jerry Coyne words, form a team consist of 5 science disciplines/fields to debat thousand Creationists
Hey Jerry Coyne! You said in 2011 that epigenetics is not dangerous to the theory of evolution because it only passes for two or three generations. . In 2014, it was found to pass adaptations for HUNDREDS of generations. I take it that now evolutionary theory is dead in the water. Am I right? You inferred this in 2011 it would be the case.
Teach kids a bit of magic. That would be a good start to critical thinking.
I wish Jerry Coyne was my neighbor. Or Matt. Or anyone else besides the godnut that lives there now.
hahahaha
Pondart Inc get out of south
***** I live in Washington state. They are everywhere.
***** true
Pondart Inc Could you imagine living next to AronRa? That would be awesome!
Great article on Jerry's insights:
philosopherinthemirror.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/on-how-to-be-completely-wrong-about-radicalisation-the-curious-case-of-jerry-coyne/
JC says at 23:50 that 'we have tested for ESP......and none of these have panned out'. I disagree. There is extremely strong evidence for existence of telepathy, eg the Ganzfeld studies. Why he said that is beyond understanding. Doesn't want his world view upset? That is not how science works... you can't say something is not true until you look at the evidence, which he clearly has not done.
Geoff Kershaw rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_experiment
17:44 shout out to gamers!
I find interesting that Lamarck's hypotheses, and Darwin's, on the subject of individual adaptations being passed down might have been somewhat correct after all, with recent discoveries about epigenetics and non-coding DNA switches and other things. So even in that, Darwin was at least partially correct!! Science is just catching up.
Once upon a time, we all believed in creation. Then came the rise in secular humanism energized by the laziness of Christians to defend the truth against new "ideas" that were nothing more than replacements for one truth or another, as well as the outsourcing academic and scientific control to those who are non-believers. Then no longer did we all believe in creation, but many fell into believing that philosophical ideas from the secular world scientific because secular men of science said it was so. Today the tables are now turning, and there is a rise in the force of creationism and the Intelligent Design movement that has so greatly threatened the control over academia that secular men of science are resorting more than ever to harsh treatment of Darwinism doubters or disbelievers, that the preachers of evolutionism are now typically afraid to debate the subject of evolution and creation on college campuses for fear of being refuted in front of their own students and the media. Eugenie Scott has stated,
"If your local campus Christian fellowship asks you to "defend evolution," please decline. Public debates rarely change many minds; creationists stage them mainly in the hope of drawing large sympathetic audiences. Have you ever watched the Harlem Globetrotters play the Washington Federals? The Federals get off some good shots, but who remembers them? The purpose of the game is to see the Globetrotters beat the other team. And you probably will get beaten."
Evolution is disproved by millions of facts, such as the fact that polymerase is a product of it's own translation, which proves Special Creation. Atheists are obligated to explain how all things can exist if God does not exist. Their claim that God does not exist is in effect a statement that all that exists can come into being without God. The laws of nature about information have refuted the assumption of scientific materialism and the theories of chemical and biological evolution.
Over 100 yrs ago, Evolution Theory was plausible for naturalists because of their rejection of God. Biological science was rudimentary and archaic, and provided no information about the operations of the cell. Modern biology has very greatly changed what is known of genetics and biology. It has been discovered that life is based upon information which is digitally encoded and stored in a more compressed form than man's best computer compression schemes.
DNA possesses thousands of 3-dimensional information hierarchies directed to the cell. When the DNA molecule is supercoiled as chromatin, some of it's information is available to the cell which is not available when the molecule is uncoiled, and when it is not supercoiled, some of it's information is available to the cell which is not available when it is supercoiled. Genetic information when read by the cell's machinery in one direction produces different information than when it is read by the cell's machinery in the other direction. This feature of design alone is so far superior to man's computer software that it is not currently possible for us to conceive how this could have been done while making all of it's information relevant and critical to the organism. It's individual information sequences are overlapping and nested sharing nucleotides between sequences across the entire molecule. It's sequences across the entire 7 ft. long molecule are organized to conform to linguistics laws which go beyond Zipf's law of Linguistics. It contains codes built upon codes which regulate the use of each other, even when they are distant from each other in the molecule.
A recent discovery is that there is a code which lies upon codes for proteins, sharing it's base pairs, and regulates how to express those sequences for proteins. If we liken the mechanical functions of the protein machines of the cell as it interacts with DNA, then the operations mirror the human language properties of phonetics, semantics, syntax, and grammar, and punctuation. The information input and output processing of DNA includes the analytical operations of proofreading, information comparison, cut, insert, copy-and-past, backup and restore, all of which operate by algorithmic operations which possess "if" and "when" statements, just like computer programs. Information, algorithms, and linguistics are all immaterial nature has no potential to produce them. They are products only producible by a mind.
During an organism's development, the genetic information instructs the cell on how to turn on and off, like chemical light switches, many sequences of information of the DNA in a supremely complex and yet to be understood orchestral arrangement of various groupings and orders so as to build the structures of the organism. These patterns of genes being switched on and off is so complex that man will likely never be able to decipher it.
If you want to believe in evolution because you refuse to acknowledge the existence of our creator, nobody can stop you. But doing so is to be a denialists of the discoveries of modern science - things which the outdated concept of Charles Darwin over 150 yrs ago could not have predicted. Believing in evolution today is as antiquated as it was to believe that flies arose from meat or frogs arose from mud a century prior to Darwin.
Atheists in fact hate the Scientific Method and refuse to employ it. Example: 100 years of random genetic mutation experimentation provides consistent results demonstrating that random mutations are destructive and negative to organisms, both biochemically and anatomically, and does not add anything incrementally to the anatomy of organisms. Conclusion? Mutation cannot be a mechanism for accruing change that results in macroevolution. But what does the atheist conclude despite the evidence? They continue believing that random mutation IS a mechanism for accruing change that results in mind-bending complexity, microscopic interdependent machinery, and macroevolution, not because of science, but because their worldview requires it to be, since if evolution were true, random mutation would have to be the base mechanism for evolution, since genetic information defines organisms. In this way, they refuse to come to the correct conclusion because of their paradigm, tossing out the Scientific Method and the conclusion it would require them to accept.
Examples of how atheists refuse to comply with the Scientific Method are nearly countless, and found in all fields of science. I would say that based upon this fact, atheists are incapable of being objective, responsible scientists in any field of science which relates to the universe, organic life, or history.
Anthony Flew, once the word's foremost atheist academic who's former arguments are the posters upheld by atheists today, converted to a theist and creationist because of the biological evidence. See him dicuss his conversion:
czcams.com/video/SNkxpTIbCIw/video.html
czcams.com/video/MbKsIAib5YM/video.html
Penn and Teller created the Universe in a Big Magic Hat!
When they talk about "the supernatural", it never makes sense to me. If we discovered that angels, gods, or Time Lords existed those would all still be part of nature. It might change the fundamentals of physics if the properties of the universe are really things controlled by a god, but that would just mean that nature's laws are different from what we thought. I do have a friend who is a Christian and defines supernatural as anything we don't yet understand but we know exists and that definition could have utility, but the idea of a supernatural realm that is separate from nature seems like a nonsensical idea.
"anything we don't yet understand but we know exists"
That sort of statement makes no sense. You CAN'T KNOW it exists if you don't understand it. Moreover, by using the word "yet" implies that it DOES exist, when there is no basis for that. It's circular reasoning.
SUPERnatural is by definition beyond natural. Since we live in the natural world/universe, supernatural things don't exist here. If they affect the natural world, they must at least temporarily enter it, and it is then that we can measure, observe, test for them. Heinlein said it well;
"One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word."
One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word.
Read more at: www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertahe164181.htmlOne man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word.
Read more at: www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertahe164181.htmlOne man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word.
Read more at: www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertahe164181.html
Glen Hill I don't understand the internet, but I know it exists.
Christian Religion claims spiritual emanation with the world, and, presumably, the universe. So, if, the Holy Spirit, is part of the natural order, why isn’t temporal ousia manifest? Thus, there to be measured?
YOU CAME FROM OOZE, I CAME FROM ITALIANS
It's always odd and a bit sad to listen to scientists misrepresent the epistemology of science, or to confuse epistemology, methodology, technology, and sociology. We seem to select for them. The reasonable, knowledgeable ones aren't edgy enough for prime time.
It is rare, but humans can be born with prehensile tails.
He slurs his words.
Paula Catlover Daily ayahuasca use. It's a wonder he can string words together to make a sentence.
Wait...so god DIDN'T do it? Well shit.
... if can stop abusing our children, we may have a chance. Give your children education before you drag them to your church, synagogue or a mosque. Fat chance of that.
Science is the study of God's energies. Where is the contradiction? Unfortunately, most people, like the two dudes in this video, fail to distinguish between good science, bad science, science fiction, and scientism.
Patrick65879 Can you prove that everything is god's energy?
Show me a god and define all of those terms.
What a coincidence that his own book happens to be positioned like that in the book case.
Not a coincidence! It happened by intelligent design! ;)
TestMeatDollSteak Praise the lawd! :D
Gluteus Illuminatus Its spine was just naturally selected to face that way.
Cmon man, let the guy plug his book.
michael jordan Definitely.
Atheists like Coyne are not very original. They tend to be cut from the same old reason vs religious straw man mold. There is that persistent, one-dimensional quality in their faith of mechanistic materialism. He's a champion of the genome project which cost billions and delivered very little, dashing atheist hopes for a complete mechanistic theory of life. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Coyne is his mastery of the all-knowing smirk; after Krause, its about as good as I've seen in any icon of mechanistic atheism.