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Today we continue our Dr. Stephen Meyer theme.

But first an aside: a nice chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio would work well with this post…

As the entire world is focused on Dr. Jordan B. Peterson and his promotion of what is commonly labeled as the God Hypothesis, there is a much large revolution brewing in the biological and physical sciences. Dr. Meyer opens up this universe for you dear and humble readers. And you humble blogger is chronicling it for your ease of reference.

The specific reason for this continuation was a DATA POINT that appeared in another interview that Dr. Meyer gave, this time to Eric Metaxas. This interview is presented (on the youtube website) as:

“Eric Metaxas interviews Stephen C. Meyer about the ultimate mystery of the universe as drawn from recent scientific discoveries in physics, cosmology, and biology.”

First the DATA POINT. At the 1:00:00 hour mark of the video (please go to this point in the video), Dr. Meyer makes the following claim:

SM: To the new cosmology is moving in a decidedly anti-materialistic direction. Because if you want to explain the origin of the universe as a singularity in matter, space, time and energy, you need a different kind of cause outside of matter, space, time and energy. Many cosmologists and astronomers, Sandidge being one, recognize that that had frankly theistic implications. That we were now painting a profile of a cause that really only God, in a way that Jews and Christians have portrayed Him, has the qualifications. 

This statement comes on the back of the Dr. Jordan Peterson, from the social sciences, claim that:

“But I Think Catholicism, That Is As Sane As People Can Get”…

So what to make of the above?

One manner in which to interpret this PHENOMENON is that we are witnessing that which this humble blogger has defined as ORGANIC GROWTH of the Catholic Faith. Once again, here is the definition:

Organic Growth: reconciliation of reason with revelation, of science with faith and of philosophy with theology, SUBJECT TO: that source of our Faith that comes from divine Revelation.

Which brings this humble blogger to chronicle the essence of Dr. Meyer’s claim that the God of science, i.e. the REAL GOD is a Judeo/Christian (read Catholic) God. Here is how Dr. Meyer came to this conclusion (starts at 13:40): (emphasis added)

EM: Ok, so you had an affinity to ask the big question, you obviously had an affinity for science, as an undergraduate what did you think you wanted to do? At what point did you decide to go in the direction that you’ve gone in?

SM: After I graduated, I came to Dallas, I got a job in the ‘80s when the oil market was up and I worked as a geophysicist for Atlantic Richfield company, a big, major oil company back in the ‘80s. And then in the mid-80’s it was down. I had applied for a Rotary Scholarship and I didn’t get it the first time. But I got it the second time and it was able to go to Britain and the big event that occurred for me here was an extraordinary conference, much like this one, but it was about the issue of how science and faith go together. And the conference was at the Dallas Hilton and there were representatives of what was called scientific materialism, what  we would call the new atheists and scientists who were theists. And they were discussing the big questions, the origin of the universe, the origin of life and the origin and nature of human conciseness. And I heard about it the night before and I attended as just a walk up. I was just blown away by what I heard. This very first session, one of the most famous astrophysicists in the history of astronomy was there, his name was Alan Sandidge. Sandidge was an agnostic Jew well known for that point of view for most of his career, worked with Edwin Hubble, the great astronomer who had verified that the universe had been expanding, which was crucial to explain that the universe had a beginning and Sandidge shocked everybody by sitting with the other theists, though he was thought to be one of the materialists and in his talk, explained how the evidence for both the beginning of the universe and its exquisite fine tuning, had convinced him that there must be something more than a strictly materialistic account of the universe. And then he proceeded to reveal how he realized that the evidence was pointing in a frankly theistic direction and he didn’t like it. And he was trying to suppress it. And finally he confronted himself and said “wait a minute”, I’ve prided myself my whole life on my scientific objectivity. Now the evidence is pointing toward the God Hypothesis, what is it in me that does not want that to be true. And I was incredibly taken by that honesty.

EM: Well, that’s one incredibly honest man. And that’s rare…

And just to provide CONTEXT to the above, at about the same time this conference in Dallas in 1985 was taking place, or to be more precise, one year later, the post-conciliar church held its  Meeting of Prayer for Peace, on October 27, 1986. For those not familiar with the official title of this event, it is better known as Assisi I. (see here)

Don’t know about you dear and loyal reader, but this humble blogger can’t identify any scientists in this get together…

But back to the Meyer interview…

SM: The origin of life discipline by the middle of the 80’s has reached an impasse. There’s been no progress since.

EM: (…) by the mid 80’s, they (scientists) got to the point… scientists were understanding that even though they had been saying since the Miller experiment decades earlier, they were saying that there was this primordial soup and lightning struck and the next thing chemicals arranged themselves and became cells. They were saying in the mid 80’s, suddenly they had gotten to the point of wondering why they didn’t have evidence for this hypothesis.   

SM:  Like in Apollo 11 ‘Houston we have a problem’ and the problem was, the many problems, but the fundamental problem was discovery of the information bearing properties of DNA and the other large, what they call bio-macro molecules in the cell. Watson and Crick in 1953, they elucidate the structure  of DNA, 1957 Crick realizes that the chemical subunits along the interior of that double helix are functioning just like alphabetic characters in a written language. Or digital characters like the 0’s and 1’s in a machine code and that they are directing the construction of the proteins and the protein machines that all cells need to stay alive.

So you have digital information directing the construction of the crucial components of the living cells … and this is all elucidated in the 60’s. And people begin to reflect on this and the origin of life guys say ‘To explain the origin of life, you have to explain this complicated information processing system.’ And that’s where it got really sticky.

EM: Because nobody wants to work that hard…

JM: I mean, how do you get chemistry to produce code?

It turned out to be a really difficult problem. And I first learned about this at this same conference.

(…) I was working in industry, in geophysics doing digital signal processing, which was an early form of information technology and I got absolutely fascinated with the idea that the key to the mystery of the origin of life was actually information; it was code.

And a couple of minutes later, we get this from Mr Metaxas:

Everybody who cares about life, the meaning of life, we think about these things. And we think about how do we know what we know and so on and so forth. So what you’ve just said … you know, most of us here grew up in a world where the Miller experiment, that said that life was created out of the primordial soup with no touch from God or anything like that, we all were taught this in schools. And it was accepted. And when in the 1980’s there were questions about this, nobody contacted us by mail, or phoned and said ‘by the way, that thing that was on the test, we no longer really know if that’s true. We just want you to be clear on that’. (…) That never happened. And that to me is interesting since that’s how as a culture we process stuff. Stuff gets out there… I was always taught that Darwin,… you know Darwin was right and the idea of natural selection and we did this and it’s how it all happened. No one ever contacted me to say ‘by the way, there are a lot of big questions that have come up and even evolutionists like Steven J. Gould at Harvard is asking questions’. That informatioon never gets out.

Now please keep in mind that this is all taking place from the mid 1960’s to the mid 1980’s, which gives the scientist priests a decade (from the mid 1950’s) to get their heads around this big issue.

For further CONTEXT, please note that the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences was established in 1936 “and thriving with the blessing of the Papacy ever since.”

Moreover: ‘The Academy of Sciences, one of the Pontifical academies at the Vatican in Rome, is headquartered in the Casina Pio IV in the heart of the Vatican Gardens.[4] The academy holds a membership roster of the most respected names in 20th century science, including such Nobel laureates as Ernest Rutherford, Max Planck, Otto Hahn, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, and Charles Hard Townes.’

Hold that thought…

So this above dialogue quite neatly explains the state of play in Catholicism, as in Catholicism that the scientists are developing and as the instigator of Assisi once noted:

Znalezione obrazy dla zapytania pope john paul ii science and faith quote

Oh well!

Another mystery of the “new springtime of the spirit of Vatican II”…

It’s as if they really didn’t believe in the science…

35 years and an entire generation or two of scientists and scientific discovery later, what is the state of play in the “headquarters” of “catholicism”, i.e. in the cranial cavities of those who resides behind the Sacred Vatican Walls?

This… from our friends at Novus Ordo Watch: (see here)

And what is happening in the wider FrancisChurch of the new springtime of the new whatever of the new spirit of the new Vatican II?

For the answer to that question, below is a post from the Campus Reform website which appeared at our favorite catholic secular blog Zero Hedge. (see here) Aside, just to give you dear reader an indication of the serious nature of the Zero Hedge blog and its other readers, see here.

Concluding, here are the money quotes from Dr. Meyer which come at the 1:06:00 mark:

I would say that we can infer a God with those attributes; transcendence, intelligence, great power, and a God who is active in the creation on the basis of the evidence we have in the natural world. We can move from that evidence to that HYPOTHESIS as a best explanation for the EVIDENCE itself. 

(…)

(…) There’s a different type of scientific reasoning that we are using and it’s sometimes called the method of multiple competing hypotheses, or the method of inferring to the best explanation. It’s the method Darwin used, and it’s the method we use first to make the case for Intelligent Design and the method that I use to argue that the best candidate for that designing intelligence is actually a God who has the attributes that Jews and Christians have long affirmed.

All this humble bloggers would add here is the observation that this EVIDENCE for this Catholic God Hypothesis is something the Catholic scientists, especially those in Pontifical Academy of Sciences should have known back in those heady days of the mid 1960’s.

Which then begs the question: How did this (below) happen?

And one more thought. Dr. Meyers will most likely never be invited to become a member of the Pontifical Academy of Science in the foreseeable future…

… since the “intellectual” wherewithal of the “spirit of the new springtime of VII” is making a b-line straight for the stone age.

*****

You Can ‘Major’ In Social Justice At This Nearly $70,000/Year California College

Authored by Adam Sabes via Campus Reform,

Dominican University in California has added a new major, wholly focused on social justice that will begin accepting students in the fall.

The school created the major after a “growing number” of students became interested in social justice careers, according to a university news release. Dominican will be combining courses from its minors entitled “Performing Arts and Social Change” and “Community Action and Social Change” for the major.

Students who major in social justice will have the chance to “examine the links between well-being, social justice, and diverse worldviews.”

Additionally, students will “analyze social injustices and work toward positive social change.”

The major starts off with a class titled “Theory and Practice for Community Action and Social Change,” which “provides foundational frameworks for analyzing oppression, power, and privilege.”

Other courses that students can take range from “Prophets, Psalms, & Social Justice” to “Liberation Theologies.”

Dominican University suggests that possible careers for those studying social justice include “Journalist/Photographer/Filmmaker,“ ”Community Organizer,” “Educator,” “Political Campaign Staffer,” and even a “Socially Engaged Artist.”

The new major is being funded in part by a $30,000 grant from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion.

A spokesperson from the California Federation of College Republicans commented on the major to Campus Reform.

“While we feel this program is for psuedo-educational purposes and pushes a certain political agenda, students will be spending $67,385 each academic year ($269,540 after four years) on a bachelor’s degree in social justice,” the spokesperson said.

“The United States is on the precipice of our $1.5 trillion student loan debt bubble bursting; therefore, it is clearly not wise for students to take out nearly $300,000 in student loans just to study social justice.”

The $67,385 per year cost cited by the CFCR spokesperson includes tuition, room and board, books, and other fees. 

Dominican University is not the first school to push social justice initiatives, as Campus Reform has reported. 

Hamline University in Minnesota has a social justice major boasting classes like “gender politics” and “sexuality, gender identity, and the law.” Tuition for the 2019-2020 academic year at that school is $41,734.

The University of Michigan took the issue further and opened up an entire “social justice-themed” high school where UMich grad students will have the opportunity to teach.