ID the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.

Welcome to ID the Future. I'm your host, Andrew McDermott.

Today, we're happy to bring you the second half of a stimulating conversation between philosopher of science,

Dr. Stephen Meyer, and historian of science and founding editor of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer.

The conversation was hosted by comedian and podcaster Brian Callan on the Brian Callan show.

In part one, Meyer and Shermer discussed their mutual preference for a Bayesian approach to

science, assigning a likelihood ratio to a given hypothesis based on the available evidence.

But when it comes to the origin of life and the universe, which hypothesis best explains the

scientific evidence? The two men have some meaningful back-and-forth dialogue

about it. Here in part two, Meyer and Schumer both address where they think complex life

comes from. For Schumer, it's an interplay between matter and energy through some evolutionary

process. But as Meyer points out, the highly ordered codes and complex biological systems we see at the heart of life

are not the type of thing that results from an unguided evolutionary process.

They also discuss the mind-body problem, how the mind or consciousness interacts with the physical world,

which brings up the subject of mathematics.

Meyer calls math mind independent.

We discover it, we don't invent it.

And it's conceptual, not a physical, material thing,

which begs the question in what mind was it conceptualized, if not ours? The pair also discussed the merits

of skepticism itself. I don't know is a reasonable position to take, agree both men, but is that a

permanent position? Does one have to be perpetually skeptical, or is it possible to move toward the

truth, and even reach it?

...