this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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I definitely hate religion but I haven’t noticed any on Smarter Every Day. Does he talk about god? Recently I watched him talking to a researcher about the proton motors that power bacterial flagella and he kept saying he was getting emotional from noticing design features he’s had to implement himself on machines. But he didn’t say a word about god while doing that. It makes me emotional too just in wonder at the complexity of life.
EDIT: as I was shown by another member, he absolutely talks directly about god at the end of the video - I hadn’t watched far enough.
Actually, that was the video that really gave me a bad feeling about him after watching his videos for a long time. The way he ends the video saying "there is an active discussion on how something so complex could have developed because of its irreducible complexity" just seem like religious, creationist dog whistling and sowing doubt about evolution. He seems to be implying that such a structure could not have been produced by evolution and that there must be an intelligent designer. The book he recommends is also written by an religious, creationist philosopher.
@SPAUZPiMP @scarabic Oh wow, did he literally say "irreducible complexity?" That is SO blatant lol.
Not sure if he used the actual words but he was definitely making the point that it is extremely complex and any less complex version of it could not function. Which is exactly the concept of irreducible complexity
Edit: see @scarabic 's comment for a transcript of that part of the video
He asked if the complexity could be reduced or not, so he raised the topic. But he didn’t imply that the thing is too complex and can’t be reduced therefore god. He stopped short of that.
And it is a fair topic for anyone to think about. I’m an “atoms bouncing around” guy and I too want to know if the complexity can be reduced because if not, that means we must have waited a long long time for some of these assemblies to appear.
Maybe I am too paranoid from people "just asking questions" all the time but actually pushing something they are too afraid to say out loud, but to me it seemed like exactly that behaviour. If he was actually interested in providing information on that "debate" he could have talked about it with the actual experts in his video but he just leaves it as an open question. To my understanding this openness is a strong misrepresentation of the scientific consensus because this exact motor has been used by creationist for a while and their arguments have been debunked by scientist for years.
I think you’re right to be skeptical. And I think he’s at least a half step more honestly curious than most of the “just asking questions” douchebags. But there is a lot more to talk about on this subject that’s more interesting than whether or not “god did it.”
Ultimately I think of him as an engineer, and not a scientist. I think engineering is much more compatible with religion, because they cover orthogonal material. Engineering is all about “how” and religion is “why.” And the image of the great-engineer-in-the-sky is tempting to them, I think.