The Eric Metaxas Show - Neil Thomas

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

Neil Thomas ways in from across the pond with thoughts found in his new book, “Taking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic Discovers the Case for Design.” 

to the Eric Mettaxas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey, Albin. Hey, Eric. Christmas vacation, but we kind of had to pop on here because we got a couple things to say. But both of us are officially on vacation. I'm not going to pretend. I could be unconscious right now, but I had to get up to do this. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I should change my glasses, so it looks different in every opening that we do on Christmas. Yeah, we can fool them. We can fool them. Okay, so right now we want to talk about. about the fact that we're on vacation. But I just want to say, folks, we have stuff going on every day this week. So just because Albin and I are on vacation, we don't want to tell you that we don't

have original programming. Robert Riley will be my guest. We have, Albin, who else do we have? Michael Pack. I'm putting on a different shirt, so it looks like it's a different opening. I know. I love the fact that we're fooling people. Oh, that's a fooling.

we've got, but anyway, we've got a lot of programming this week, but we don't want to forget to say, still, this is the last week, folks, this is the last week to get 30% off at Nutramedics.com. You need melatonin. You need zinc. You need vitamin C. You need vitamin D. You need all that stuff, quercetin, all that stuff. The only place you can get it, when you put in the code Eric to get 30% off is nutrometics.com. That's only good this week. And if you're buying this stuff anyway from other people, listen, this is true. I was visiting a doctor here in New York City. He doesn't know what I do professionally. I just asked him because he's a, you know, kind of an alternative medicine doctor. He uses all this. I said, have you heard of nutrometics.com? Yeah, but I don't know what you

do professionally. So I'm not surprised. He said, oh, that's a great company. He's not where I am politically, theoretically. He's just a good doctor here in New York City. I mentioned Nutrametics.com. He goes, oh, that's a great company. And I said, use the code Eric. But seriously, they're a great company,

but they also give 50% of their profits to missions, organizations. Folks, come on, this is amazing. Nutrametics.com, M-E-D-I-X, Nutramedics.com, 30% off until the end of this year, until the end of this week. That's it, all right? You've been warned. Secondly, we have the campaign with CSI to free slaves.

This week, this is it, this is it. You need to go to metaxistock.com. Year-end giving, folks, year-end giving. It doesn't get better than this. Suzanne and I gave them a gift recently. I have to tell you the idea that every $250 you gives them enables them to free a slave in Africa. We've talked about this in the past weeks.

It's amazing that this is true, and you get to participate, and we want everyone to participate who can participate. Go to metaxis talk.com, click on the banner. This is just a great organization. I don't know what to say. It's so beautiful that they're doing this. And by the way, Anne and I also gave to CSI generously because it is a great organization. Yeah, we're not just telling you to give.

We are ourselves giving. And by the way, there's a phone number. It's 888-253-3522. 888-253-3522. All right. So we hope that you'll give generously. I'll say this because it's true. One of the things that I say that I can do to help an organization like this is I will offer myself for the evening to have dinner with anybody that can give a gift of $10,000.

even if you get a group of people together. Maybe there's five couples they each want to give $2,000, and we can get together and all have dinner someplace, whether here in New York City or in a state where you don't have to wear masks while you eat. But, you know, really, I love to do that. I love to meet the people who care about the things that we do. So if anybody out there wants to get together $10,000,

give it to CSI before the end of this week, folks. You've got to do it. You got to go to metaxis.com. I'm sorry, not Ericmetaxis.com. You got to go to metaxistocotocon. That's the radio website. Metaxistock.com, click on the banner. If you give $10,000 before the end of the year,

obviously it's tax deductible. And obviously, if you do the math, it helps to free 40 people who are currently enslaved. Folks, it's unthinkable. Every time I think about it, I just get so upset. This is so important. We can do tremendous, unmitigated good to God's glory by freeing people.

250 frees a slave. For a thousand, you can free four slaves. You also get autographed copies of Eric's new book, his atheism dead and also the complete collection of hamster homes from Simon and Houston. Complete collection. That's unheard of. All right.

So we want to encourage you, anybody who gives anything, it doesn't matter what you give. You want to give $10, $50, $20. It doesn't matter. Whatever you give to CSI, go to metaxestock.com, and click on the banner. Whatever you give, we will enter you in our drawing, our end of the year, three grand prizes. We have a drawing, and we will send you tons of signed books, all kinds of fun stuff, just to make it fun, so that whatever you give, you're entered in the drawing. I also want to say we have one Make America Great Again hat left.

This is, this hat was given to me, I'm not kidding, by Donald Trump, this hat. It's the last one. He also gave me this pen. It's a special Donald Trump pen. He signed stuff. He signed the other hats with this. I'm going to, if anybody can give $2,500, I will sign this hat to you or to anyone you like with this hand, with Donald Trump's pen.

with the hat that Trump gave to me, if anybody wants to give $2,500 and help free, you know, 10 human beings. It's just, it's extraordinary. So I want to say that. Albin, real quick. Yes. We also want to remind people, you can get most of my books at my store.com. Use the code, Eric.

And I hesitate. because it gets us into this big conversation, but there are people that haven't seen, they don't know about the Salem News Channel. This is now a TV program and will become a late night TV program. I don't want to tip it off, but it's in the works.

Salem News Channel.com. You can see this program as a TV program, just as you can see it at Mike Lindel's Frankspeech.com. But when you go to Salem Newschannel.com, SalemNewschannel.com, you can see the Christmas special. You're wondering, where was that? How can I see it? Salem Newschannel.com.

It's there. We encourage you to see it. We've edited out. We bleeped out all the cussing. We pixelated all of the nudity. It's all pixelated so the kids can say, why is that pixelated? You can say, get out of the room. It's a fun family Christmas special, as they used to do back in olden days of your.

Yeah. So. I wish we would have done outtakes because you've fallen off the top of the double-decker boss and me catching you. Oh, man. I know that was, man, it's crazy that that even though it didn't happen in my mind, it happened because you just put the picture in my mind. but it is so crazy we just want to encourage you to check it out if you don't enjoy it something's very wrong with you that i say that in love i'm confronting you like nathan the prophet you are the man you're messed up if you don't enjoy it something's wrong

see you need to get help i think you need a lot of soaking prayer if if you didn't enjoy it because you have religious spirit that needs to get you're the lost sheet you know what i mean something like that something like that so um we sound like we had too much eggnog and yet we're utterly sober. Folks, we just wanted to come out of our vacation, out of hiding, to let you know we're still alive, very much alive. And we want to encourage you to do the things we've been mentioning because they go away. This is the last week.

So 30% off, nutrometics.com, use the code Eric. My store.com, my pillow.com, use the code Eric. And of course, don't forget, folks, CSI. This is literally the last week of the campaign to free slaves. It's the Christmas season. Please take advantage of this. It's just a glorious thing. God bless you.

Merry Christmas. We're still goodbye. As long as you love me so, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Hey there, folks. Have you ever looked for a business podcast? You're into business, but you also like to be interested. So you're looking for a funny business podcast. Well, some of them try to be funny.

They're just not funny, which is a problem. I think I have the answer for you. If you like business news and current events with the side of actual comedy, you want to listen to, I can't say this with a straight face. It's called IP Frequently, the host, Sir David and Brad, IP frequently, solid business advice that leans right, conservative. It comes with 80s music and current events. They're calling it the unicorn of business podcasts. Is that a good thing? If it's funny, it is a good thing.

They're also calling it the Holy Grail of Business Podcasts. Subscribe to IP Frequently and stay up to date on their weekly stream of episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Go to IPfrequently.com. That's IPfrequently.com. It's time. Folks, it's time. I warned you we would have some substantive conversations today. No more joking around. That's it. Albin, don't make me, we're going to get substantive. We have had this guest on before. His name is Neil Thomas, University professor, Neil Thomas. He has a new book out called Taking Leave of Darwin. A longtime agnostic discovers the case for design. I want to read what this says. So you, so you understand what we're talking about. University professor Neil Thomas was a committed Darwinist

and committed agnostic until an investigation of evolutionary theory led him to a startling conclusion. I had been conned. As he studied the work of Darwin's defenders, he found himself encountering tactics eerily similar to the methods of political brainwashing he had studied as a scholar.

Not that there's anything wrong with brainwashing. We just want to be. clear. We're not judging communist brainwashers or the democratic establishment. I want to be very clear. We're not political. In any case, Neil Thomas felt compelled. He says impelled to write a book as a sort of warning call to humanity. Beware you've been fooled. Really thrilled to have him back with us. Neil Thomas, welcome. Nice to be with you again. The book is taking leave of Darwin. You, I just want to get this clear. So most of your life, you were indeed a committed agnostic or atheist and certainly a committed Darwinist.

When and how did you decide that you wanted to look into this, so to speak? Well, it was when I had the leisure to do so, I think, when after retirement. Did you say leisure? Well, leisure. You said leisure? We say leisure. But I want you to know that we don't mind if you say leisure. In fact, we prefer it.

We should be clear with the audience. You don't just sound English. You are, in fact, in England as we speak. I am indeed, yes. West of London. I want to be clear. You're in England. So thanks for tuning in.

I know the time change complicates things. So for the first time in your life, you had the opportunity, the time, the leisure, as you put it to do it. And were you, I always say when people are surprised by something, I mean, I, obviously you were surprised by what you encountered. But this is a strange question. Were you surprised to be surprised? Yes, I think so. Because after a long life, you would have thought that I would have twigged this already. And I think I was culpable to the extent that I hadn't actually investigated this as I should have.

But isn't that the point? You didn't think you needed to investigate it. You thought it was settled. There are so many things that many of us think are settled, and we do not investigate because I think that's preposterous. Do I need to investigate whether the earth is flat? I don't think so. I don't think I need to bother with that.

Most people feel that way about Darwinian evolution. The idea that it's a hoax or it's confused or there are intellectual issues with it, that seems to be the precinct of Loonies like Eric Metaxus. We don't want to go there. So I asked that question very earnestly. You were surprised, but were you surprised to be surprised? And you said yes. Okay.

Yes, I think so. Because all the more so, since it came out of a clear blue sky, in the sense that after retiring, I've had another career, sort of very small business career, but a career nevertheless. And there was no continuity between investigating Darwin in any of my business affairs. So it really was something novel to me. And I surprised myself. Well, you recently, now the book we discuss on this program, your book is taking leave of Darwin.

So if anybody's interested in what you have to say on this subject, that's the first place they should look, taking leave of Darwin. But recently, I believe at stream.org, you wrote, no, I'm sorry, where did you post your reviews? Evolution News, are you referring to? Evolution News? Yes. Okay. Evolution. Evolution. It's pronounced evolution, please.

Evolution news. Is it dot org? I can't quite remember. Evolution news. All I know is that you, if you Google it, it'll take you straight there. Evolution News. It's an electronic resource. Which I think is related to the Discovery Institute. But you wrote three reviews of a raft of books dealing with these subjects, one of which I was flattered to see was my own new book, is atheism dead. So let's talk about that. Because if people want to read what you have to say on this, I recommend they go to Evolution News or Evolution News.

Either way, they should go there. But so what do you say roughly in these articles? Yes, it's a case of leverage and leverage, I'm afraid. It's one of these. Well, I was looking at your book, is atheism dead, along with Stephen Meyer's book, Return of the God hypothesis, and something called A God of the Details by Christian Bandia. And I was looking at the sort of continuities and the first.

fact that the three of you sort of came out against a simple sort of idea, received ideas about Darwinism and sort of forged your own ways. And I admired that. And I thought that this should, this should be foregrounded in some way, which is the reason I decided to do the review. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, three reviews. And I was flattered to be included, as I say. And also, I have to say, that when I was writing my own book, I was pleased to see that I came out at a place very similar to Stephen Meyer. You know, Stephen Meyer has academic credentials

that I obviously don't. And I was really thrilled to see that, logically speaking, I came out roughly where he did, that there are three areas of inquiry that, you know, you cannot help but be amazed when you see how much evidence there is for a God, for a design. You cannot help but be sort of shocked that the reigning narrative is still as secular as it is.

It seems preposterous given the evidence we have. And that's what you write about in these reviews. Yes, that's right. I think that the science, and the science obviously is incomplete so far, but the science, whether it's cosmological, microbiological, or whatever, seems to point to an unknown entity, a prime intelligence behind these various phenomena. And what you have to do, in fact, is explain a multi-miracle.

It's not just some simple thing. It's a multi-miracle. And not to do that, the Darwinism seems to be a rather feeble device to try and get a handle on such huge phenomena. But I think, you know, I ask the question whether you're surprised to be surprised. The reason I ask that is because inevitably, when I encounter something astonishing,

I am then secondly astonished that I hadn't heard it before. You know, it's like discovering, you just discover something that's extraordinary, whether it is, whatever aspect of it, what we're discussing. The second astonishment for me is always, how is it possible that everyone doesn't know this?

In other words, it's not as though this is some crazy theory. We're talking about things that it seems to me ought to be seriously established by now, but we still have people in the academic world, certainly in the scientific world, that they are clinging to outdated narratives. It's not 1911 or 1915 where you can understand why Albert Einstein would be horrified to declare the universe has a beginning because he'd be the first one to say it. You can understand his fear at what the scientific establishment would say.

But it's now over a century past that. The evidence has been rolling in like breakers through the decades. And most people in the scientific world still see. seem to be afraid to embrace even the idea of what Stephen Meyer calls the God hypothesis? I do think it's strange. And from my own point of view, with an agnostic background, I mean, what concerns me is the quality of the science. And the science seems to be tipping me over into thinking there must be some primal intelligence

behind such minute phenomena as we're talking about, such irreducible complexity to use the popular term. So, yes, I would agree with you. I mean, what I would say, I'm surprised by myself. I'm also surprised by two former colleagues of mine, whom I know quite well, who, when having introduced them to my work, more or less said,

oh, well, Darwin has disproved all that. you know, we don't really agree with you. And, you know, I'd set it out in such sort of open-hearted detail, what I felt. And as two sort of friends of mine, I thought they might be a bit more sympathetic. I don't know if the Brits are a bit more of two. No, no, no. This is the key. This is the key.

When we come back, let's pick it up right there. I want to hear that story. Hi. Folks, talking to Neil Thomas, the book is taking leave of Darwin. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed and when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you

need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds, and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one of the best ways to protect your retirement. No matter what happens, you own your gold. It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable since the dawn of time. Legacy precious metals is the company I trust for investing in gold. They can help you roll your retirement account into a gold-backed IRA where you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metals safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-5281903 or visit them online at LegacyPMinvestments.com. All right, you chipmunks, ready to sing your song?

I'll say we are. Yeah, let's sing it back. Hey, folks. I'm talking to Neil Thomas. His book is taking leave of Darwin. A long-time agnostic discovers the case for design. Neil, you were just about to tell us, because I think this is at the heart of all of this stuff. The way people respond to logic, to evidence, when you did this investigation, you as someone

who had been known as a long-time agnostic, naturalist, Darwinist. You showed some colleagues what you found. And did you say they were dismissive? Were they embarrassed? Were they, did they feel they had to back away because you'd obviously gone crazy? How did it, you know, how did that play out? Well, they were never less and polite, of course.

Of course, you're in England. What could we expect? But they were not responsive to what I was having to say. Let us put it that way. And I remember the one lady who's a retired professor of French in London, who I asked her to do a review for Amazon, and I expected to trot off a few lines and not think anything of it. But she, instead,

transferred the manuscript, the electronic form of, to a biology professor who, of course, did not agree with me. And so she framed her interpretation in line with what her biologist colleague had said, instead of actually looking at it with an unbiased mind. Let's put it that way. That is my interpretation of what happened. and ditto for the other gentleman who was a former hiking colleague of mine in the Lake District and so on. Did you say hiking colleague of mine from the Lake District? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Let me just guess. I'm talking to an Englishman.

A hiking colleague of mine from the Lake District, I aspire to have hiking colleagues in the Lake District. So you appealed to your friend whom you knew well. What was his response? Well, his response was to say, I don't agree with you. Why don't you look at this work by Jared Diamond? And so I dutifully got this book from Amazon, as one does, and I looked at it and I looked at it carefully. But I didn't see it actually attached to what I was trying to say. He was spinning his own line.

Maybe I was spinning another line. But it didn't seem to sort of marry up. with what I was trying to say, because what I was giving was essentially a new DeMash, a sort of new approach, and which he didn't seem to sort of appreciate to the extent that I thought he might have. Let's put it that way. It's interesting that you frame it as you do, because this has been my experience as well, that sometimes you say something, and it's clear as a bell where the logic leads, but the person's response is not, it doesn't seem adequate. In other words, they seem to,

it's almost as though they get a glassy look on their face, in their eyes, as though they can't be seen talking to you or they have to. You know, the idea of that, well, this can't be right. I have to send this to my colleague in the biology department. They don't trust themselves. They're afraid to think for themselves. I feel that the issue that we're talking about is there's a fear. There's a fear somehow that if you're open to what Stephen Meyer calls

the God hypothesis. His book that you review in these articles at Evolution News is the return of the God hypothesis, if you're open to that, somehow you've gone off. This is not permissible. You've gone outside the lines. So we understand that Albert Einstein felt this in 1911. And in those years, he thought, the science is clearly leading me to believe that the universe had a beginning. That can't be. That makes me not a scientist, but somebody with a scientist. But somebody with a the religious narrative, so I've got to fudge it. And we see this carrying on. This is, I mean, this is effectively the theme of my book, is atheism dead, that we've had this secular narrative in the academy, roughly since Darwin, and then it trickles down into the culture. But it has now

become so established that when you try earnestly, as you did, to help people see the possibility of this, they're just, they seem afraid. It would be, you know, it's like talking to somebody in Stalin's Russia, what do you really think of Stalin? They will back away and say, I can't have that conversation. I'm sorry. Yes, I mean, I think that's a possibility. Whether they're afraid, I don't know, or whether they're inhibited, or whether they're simply brainwashed by decades of a sort of liberal Ede or Sue.

I do not know. But what I would say with Einstein, little no, I know of him, I have read the book by Max Yamah, written jammer, it's a nameer in German, on Einstein's religion. And Einstein, after trying to cook the books

to try and establish that there was a sort of steady state, he eventually had to concede that with the Georges Le Mert and so on, that there was an origin of the universe. And after that, I think he became

more humble because a lot of his recorded sayings are, you know, that there is a force beyond which I cannot see. You know, I might be a world scientist, but I must be humble. So, you know, that's a little plug for the later Einstein, at any rate. Well, no, that's quite right. But that's what I find so interesting is that even the great Einstein, I mean, this is why I devote a chapter, the first chapter, I think, of my book to this, is that it's astonishing that Einstein, the great Einstein,

was cowed by the scientific materialistic establishment to the extent that he was afraid to reveal what he saw plainly. When we come back, we'll talk more about this. Folks, I'm talking to Neil Thomas. His book is Taking Leave of Darwin. Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father, son, owners, Pete and Seth Talbot, have never made a big deal about,

but I think it is a big deal. I really do. They sell the three-week quick start pack for just 1995 to anyone struggling from pain like neck, shoulder, back, hip, or knee pain, 1995, about a dollar a day. But what they haven't broadcasted much is that every time they sell a three-week quick start, they lose money. In fact, they don't even break even even until about four to five months after if you keep ordering it. Friends, that's huge. People don't keep ordering relief factor month after month if it doesn't work. So yes, Pete and Seth are literally on a mission to help as many people as possible deal with their pain. They really do put their money where their mouths are. So if you're in pain from exercise or even just getting older, or to the

three-week quick start for 1995. Let's see if we can get you at a pain too. Go to relieffactor.com. Relieffactor.com or call 800-500-384-800-500-584. Relieffactor.com. I use it. It works. Folks, the book is taking leave of Darwin. University professor Neil Thomas is the author. He's also recently written three essays reviewing a number of books that deal with the issue of God and science and Darwin and the God hypothesis and whether atheism is still tenable. They're published at Evolution News, so I would recommend that very highly. So we're just talking, Neil, about Darwin and what ends up being the Big Bang. hypothesis, this idea that the universe began, which most scientists today say, yes, this is established. But we forget, and the reason in my book I devote so much time to it, is I myself

forgot how this thing that we now take for granted, which is this idea that, oh, the universe began here and it expanded, and here we are. That idea was scandalous. It was absolutely scandalous to people until rather recently. Yes, I think it was because, I mean, the very term Big Bang came from Fred Heil, and it was a term of sort of irreverence and almost abuse, because he would prefer to have preferred to have had a steady state universe, which would then not have needed to create a figure. I think this was it.

And when Lemaire and others came out with the idea of the Big Bang, then the the theistic implications could not be ignored. And I think that was a kind of embarrassment to someone in the scientific community. Huge embarrassment. I mean, this is the thing. I mean, the reason I devote so much time to it in my book is I thought to myself, we don't talk about this anymore. That's kind of, you know, it's been digested, so to speak,

and we've moved on to other things. But, you know, you want to say to someone who purports to believe, that there is no God. There can be no creator. We reject this hypothesis. We forget what a compelling argument just that is. The idea that, no, the universe

did not exist forever. Science has now shown us clearly that it has a starting point. That was an outrage to people. It was an outrage to Einstein and he knew it would outrage his colleagues. And through the decades, people were afraid

of saying, yes, the universe has a beginning, because to them the implication was clear. But we seem no longer to be talking about that anymore. Now we talk about other things, and somehow, I don't know what, I don't know what agnostic or atheistic scientists say to that. Do they say anything? Do they care? I guess they have many ideas. Well, I think that the view is that the world created itself by some kind of preternatural

automatism. This is certainly what Peter Atkins, the Oxford scientist of a few decades ago, said. And when he brought out his book on the creation, that must be the most immodest title for any book ever, the creation back in 1981. And in his revamping of that in 1992, he goes back to this idea that, that in a sense, the universe created itself. Now, he calls it an agentless act. How on earth you can have an agentless act, either in logic or in terms of even the etymology of those terms, is somewhat lost on me, but that's what he says.

But that's what in Alan Sandidge, he figures prominently in the chapter in my own book, when you're talking about the 20th century and you're talking about the evolution of this idea, of whether the universe had a beginning. And later in life, Sandidge, who was Jewish by birth and eventually became serious about faith in the God of the Bible, what I find interesting is his honesty

as a top, top, top scientist calling out the nonsense of many of his colleagues who were saying things that were meaningless, things like the universe created itself. We all know that unless you are in a certain world where you don't question those things, most people would say, excuse me, that sounds like nonsense. What do you mean the universe? In other words, you're talking about an intelligent universe critic? What are you saying?

They never say what they're saying. They use these terms as a kind of a camouflage as fig leaves. But there are many other things like that that Alan Sandidge refers to. Yes, I mean, little long I know the detail. Alan Sand, I know something about him. I think that he, I think he latterly became in such a secure professional position that he could afford to call out the nonsense of colleagues. Younger Calleys can't do that.

You've got to be properly tenured. You've got to have a momentum of prestige behind you before you feel confident enough to be able to say such things. In my own case, of course, as a retiree, then, you know, I can say what I like. But I think other people are far more inhibited, especially if they've got a sort of scientific career to make. Yeah. Well, I think that's the point. That's really the underlying narrative of this conversation is that people are afraid to speak the truth.

And they have certain strictures that they don't even question whether those strictures are appropriate. They just say, I want to succeed. I don't care so much about truth. I must succeed. and maybe, you know, at some point I can worry about truth. But it's getting, I guess the evidence has piled up again. It's my thesis in the book to such a preposterous level that they're doing backflips almost literally to make their cases. Talking about things like the universe creating itself, talking about things like a multiverse theory.

I mean, did you, do you, can you talk a little bit about the multiverse theory? I find it so hilarious. Yes. The multiverse theory is essentially a theory and without any empirical support at all. I mean, it's been instrumentalized as a theory in order to negate the effects of the earth being a Goldilocks zone, an area of sort of cosmically ring fenced for human life and so on. And the multiverse theory is essentially, creating a kind of alternative narrative, which says that the Earth just happens to be the winner of the cosmic lottery, you know, that there are all sorts of other places, which could have been, but we just are. This is chance again coming into it.

Yes. But the idea, of course, is that they simply say, it can't be this, therefore, it must be this. There's no evidence for the second this, but we don't care. It must be that. And we declare that we're going to look into that. We'll be right back talking to Neil Thomas. His book is Taking Leave of Darwin. He'll have a big fat pack upon his back.

And lots of goodies for you and for me. So leave a peppermint stick. Oh, the weather outside is frightful. Folks, I'm talking to Neil Thomas, author of Taking Leave of Darwin. And recently at Evolution News, he reviewed a number of books that deal with the various theses involved in the idea of whether there is a creator. I guess I want to ask you, Neil, if you would, this is a shorter segment, but can you talk about the difference between intelligent design as laid out by folks like

Stephen Meyer and Michael Behe and what is called theistic evolution? Where do you come out in that conversation? Well, I think that the two are links, maybe not at the hip. I would prefer to use the word like primal intelligence being involved in being involved in the sort of intricacies of the earth. I'm not sure whether you can entirely detach them, as I think Stephen Miron himself. But what is the problem that people – there are people in the theistic evolution universe, people like Francis Collins, whom I've questioned about this, who seem uncomfortable. They seem as uncomfortable with the term intelligent design as, you know, as Fred Hoyle was with

the universe having a beginning. They seem to blanch, they seem to want to distance themselves from the ID folks as though they've got the plague or something like that. And they say, no, no, no, I am a theistic evolutionist. What do they mean? Well, in my own case, I think that I do not have that, say, that problem. Because I think that the basic problem is how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you explain a series of interlocking miracles?

I mean, and having given Darwin his due on this, I feel that his explanations were so childlike and rudimentary that they are not really worth thinking about too seriously. In which case, you have to go back to the drawing board. Well, what does the drawing board say that how do you explain a miracle? you have to explain a miracle by resort to some kind of preternatural apparatus. I'm not in a position to say what this is, and I'm not sure anybody else is either. But some kind of primary intelligence. I mean, in the Middle Ages, they use this term apathetic theology, you know,

that you can't actually name the precise modalities of whatever this godhead might be, but you can still presuppose that there was something equivalent to that actuating all that we have. Well, let's, I think, I mean, this is my theory, and I want to get your feedback on it. We've just got a minute here, and I'd love to keep you over into the next hour if you can hang on. But what I'm fascinated by is that it seems to me that, the theistic evolutionists, people who say, I am a Christian, but I believe in Darwin's idea of natural selection through random mutations, it seems to me that the reason they say that has to do with fear of the secular establishment. In other words, they know that if they are

to say that God somehow intervened in the way that only God could, that if he didn't set things in motion, If he set things in motion and the world was created through Darwin's theory of natural selection, that's safe. They can handle that. But the idea that there was some other mechanism at work to account, which seems obvious that there had to be, you say it, I say it, we both see it. They say, well, that can't be. That can't be. We have to go with Darwin. When we come back, we're going to unpack this further talking to Neil Thomas.

The book is taking leave of Darwin.