Reasons to Believe Podcast

Stars, Cells, and God | LUCA’s Complexity and Missing in Evolution

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana and Sy Garte as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

 

LUCA’s Complexity

A research team from the US and the UK discovered that LUCA (the last universal common ancestor) was perhaps more complex than contemporary bacteria and archaea. They used an approach based on physiological features instead of the gene set encoded in LUCA’s DNA. 

 

In the abstract of their paper, the researchers write: 

“Our results depict LUCA as likely to be a far more complex cell than has previously been proposed, challenging the evolutionary model of increased complexity through time in prokaryotes. Given current estimates for the emergence of LUCA we suggest that early life very rapidly evolved considerable cellular complexity.” 

 

In this episode, Fuz and Sy explore the far-reaching scientific implications of this work, which challenges the mainstream perspective about the mode and tempo for the origin and early evolution of life. They also discuss this work’s implications for the design argument and its confirmation of a key prediction of RTB’s origin of life model. 

 

References:

Phenotypic Reconstruction of the Last Universal Common Ancestor Reveals a Complex Cell

Additional Resources:

Origins of Life by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross (book)

The Cell’s Design by Fazale Rana (book)

 

What’s Missing in Evolutionary Theory?

While the biological theory of evolution has been successful and made major progress since Darwin’s day, there remain fundamental gaps in the theory that have yet to be addressed. These include (1) a mathematical expression in the form of an evolutionary law that isn’t tautological or merely descriptive; (2) a more precise definition of fitness; and (3) investigations into the origins of consciousness, human behavior, and other higher functions that appear to be due to things beyond selection of genetic variants. Further explanations of these, as well as of thresholds and discontinuities during evolution, might require the inclusion of paradigms such as teleology and agency in biological science, with theological implications.

 

References:

Continuity, Simplification, and Paradigm Shifting in Biological Evolution

Clear Thinking | God, Government, and the Christian

How to think about being a Christian and a citizen. 

Stars, Cells, and God | Mars’s Core Problem and Life and the Multiverse

Join Hugh Ross and Jeff Zweerink as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

 

Mars’s Core Problem

A seismometer on the surface of Mars has detected sound waves revealing that Mars’s core has a low density. This feature implies that a fifth of Mars’s core is composed of sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. These light elements make up just 5% of Earth’s core. The different size, density, and structure of Mars’s core compared to Earth’s explains why Mars has lacked a magnetosphere for the past 4 billion years. This research adds yet another habitability requirement for the possible existence of advanced life: the planet’s core must be exquisitely fine-tuned. 

 

References:

First Observations of Core-Transiting Seismic Phases on Mars

 

Life and the Multiverse

A great body of evidence points to the improbable nature of life’s existence in the universe, which many people take as evidence of fine-tuning for our existence. However, some scientists have argued that our improbable nature provides evidence that a multiverse exists. In this episode, I’ll discuss why our existence looks improbable as well as how people come to the two seemingly opposing conclusions. I’ll conclude by presenting some recent arguments for why our improbable nature does not provide evidence of a multiverse.

 

References:

Our Improbable Existence Is No Evidence for a Multiverse

Clear Thinking | The Shroud of Turin: Interview with Gary Habermas

Dr. Gary Habermas discusses evidence for the shroud. 

Lunar Catastrophes and Peering Deep Inside Cells | Stars, Cells, and God

Join Hugh Ross and Jeff Zweerink as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

 

Lunar Catastrophes

The Moon is exquisitely fine-tuned in various ways that are essential for advanced life to exist on Earth’s surface. However, astronomers have determined that the Moon will reverse its outward migration from Earth and crash into our planet about 40 billion years from now. Astronomer Bradley Hansen recently demonstrated that for the majority of planet-moon systems capable of sustaining life, the moon will collide with the planet long before conditions on that planet permit the existence of advanced life. Hansen has discovered yet another habitability requirement: a large dynamically stable moon orbiting a large rocky planet.

References:

Consequences of Dynamically Unstable Moons in Extrasolar Systems

 

Peering Deep Inside Cells

Scientists continue to develop tools to investigate the detailed workings inside the cell. In one recent example researchers tracked the motion of individual molecules that transport resources around the cell. Advances over past attempts now demonstrate the step-by-step movements of motor protein kinesin-1 as it moves through the cell, and data gives hints that the molecule might be twisting as it traverses the intracell highways. These advances not only show the incredible design within the cell but continue to add to the overwhelming evidence that humans are truly exceptional among all the animals on Earth.

 

References:

Superresolution Microscopy Tracks a Walking Biomolecule

Direct Observation of Motor Protein Stepping in Living Cells Using MINFLUX

MINFLUX Dissects the Unimpeded Walking of Kinesin-1

Clear Thinking | Reading for Lifelong Learning, Part 3

Here's Ken's recommended reading list for great books. 

AI with an Off Switch? and Self-Supervised Learning | Stars, Cells, and God

Join Jeff Zweerink and computer scientist Dustin Morley as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

 

AI with an Off-Switch?

As we contemplate what a world with true AI (general or super, rather than narrow, artificial intelligence) looks like, the question of how we interact with AI inevitably arises. Specifically, what do we do when AI pursues a path that is harmful to humanity? One scenario put forth is to install an off switch that we control, but would the AI leave the off switch enabled? One study showed that programming uncertainty into the AI about its objective may provide incentives for the AI to leave the off switch functional. However, that uncertainty diminishes the AI’s effectiveness in obtaining its purpose. We discuss some of the apologetic implications of this study.

 

References:

The Off-Switch Game

 

Self-Supervised Learning

Recent major breakthroughs in public-facing artificial intelligence (AI) such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Tesla's self-driving software have achieved success in part due to complex, multi-component deep learning model architectures where each of the components can be trained or fine-tuned while leaving the other components fixed—effectively decoupling different steps or subtasks from each other. A new paper (still in preprint) has demonstrated significant success with self-supervised learning, pushing the envelope on this level of AI versatility even further. What does this mean for the near-term future of AI, and what implications does it have for the age-old comparison between AI and human intelligence?

 

References:

Blockwise Self-Supervised Learning at Scale

Clear Thinking | Reading for Lifelong Learning, Part 2

Get more out of your reading by learning the four levels of reading. 

Clear Thinking | Reading for Lifelong Learning, Part 1

How to read actively and with worldview in mind. 

The Man Behind the Shroud | Stars, Cells, and God

Join Jeff Zweerink and Joseph Bergeron as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

 

The Man Behind the Shroud

The Shroud of Turin remains one of the most hotly debated artifacts related to Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. Join us as medical specialist Joe Bergeron discusses what an analysis of the shroud’s image reveals about the man behind the shroud. The data provides abundant evidence supporting the accounts of Jesus’s crucifixion given in the Gospels.

 

References:

The Shroud of Turin, Part 1: An Examination of the Man

Additional Resources:

Joseph Bergeron, Reasons to Believe

Clear Thinking | Comparing Judaism and Christianity, Part 2

Ken addresses questions on differences between Judaism and Christianity. 

Cheaper Clean Energy and Can Atoms Think? | Stars, Cells, and God

Join Hugh Ross and Thomas Bieler as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

 

Cheaper Clean Energy

Scientists define “clean energy” as electricity for sustaining human civilization and technology that is not derived from the burning of fossil fuels. It is clean in that no particulates or greenhouse gases are injected into the atmosphere. Remarkably, in just twelve years, solar power and battery-based power storage costs have fallen by a factor of eight times. In a few more years, clean energy production will be cheaper than burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. Therefore, economic incentives alone will be adequate to restore climate stability within the time constraints needed to avoid ecological and climatic calamities.

 

References:

Energy

Building New Renewables Is Cheaper than Burning Fossil Fuels

 

Can Atoms Think?

What we think about atoms is intimately entwined with what we think about God, matter, energy, life, and chaos. Atoms are at the heart of the epic drama that underlies the tensions between theism, atheism, and science that simultaneously inform how we think about our culture, ourselves, our relationships with others, and our purpose in life.

Clear Thinking | Comparing Judaism and Christianity, Part 1

How does Moses compare with Christ and why does it matter?

Clear Thinking | Value of the Unborn: Interview with Chris Cirucci

Obstetrician-gynecologist Chris Cirucci discusses how she helps women in need

What Does It Mean to Be Human in the Age of AI? | Stars, Cells, and God

Join astrophysicist Jeff Zweerink and technology ethicist Jason Thacker as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

 

What Does It Mean to Be Human in the Age of AI?

From ChatGPT and generative AI to algorithms and automation, we live in an age of unprecedented technological innovations. Despite the many benefits and conveniences these technologies provide, they are fundamentally challenging what we’ve long assumed it means to be human. How does Christian philosophy and ethics help us to better understand what’s unique about being human in a digital world? And how do we develop wisdom in navigating the challenges before us as a society?

 

Resources:

ChatGPT and Christian Ethics: An Interview with Technology Ethicist Jason Thacker

Ethics in the Age of AI: Defining and Pursuing the Good for Our Good and the Good of Our Communities

 

Additional Resources:

Jason Thacker, The Age of AI (book)