Could Life Really Build Itself?

Added: 2026-06-06

[00:00:00]And here's your host, Anil Conda.

[00:00:06]We all have different gifts. Some of you can build something beautiful and functional without even thinking about it. For others, well, we struggle with IKEA furniture. You think you got it all figured out, and then you realize you put the left leg on the right side. Now you got yourself a wobbly bookshelf.

[00:00:23]You know, I asked the audience, "What's the hardest thing you've ever put together?" Some said a crib, a bed frame. Somebody even said a Japanese LEGO set.

[00:00:34]Well, for me, it was brakes. Car brakes, that is. One summer during a youth event, three different cars needed brake jobs, and somehow ended up helping with all three. By the end of the week, I needed brakes myself.

[00:00:48]But here's the point. Putting together a bike, a bookshelf, or even brakes is nothing compared to putting together life itself. Because life doesn't just need parts. It needs the whole system to work at the same time. And that's what tonight's show is all about. Our first guest has been wrestling with these questions for decades. He's a Harvard MIT-trained scientist, a holder of over 180 US patents, and has helped create medical devices that have been implanted in millions of patients. He's also author of the scientific approach to evolution and co-author of the Stairway to Life. Please welcome to Hope at Night, Dr. Robert Stadler.

[00:01:35]Dr. Stadler, thank you so much for being here. Very good to be here. Thank you.

[00:01:39]Now, you have had 30 years experience being a scientist, but you're also a Christian. Now, how in the world do you resolve the tension that's there between science and faith? Yeah, it seems like our culture wants us to have that tension. We're kind of taught it, and we had on media, we get it all the time.

[00:01:58]And to me, it doesn't make sense, you know, because God, who is beyond time, space, and matter, created everything, including science.

[00:02:08]Science is trying to understand the natural laws that he put in place.

[00:02:13]So, how could science possibly conflict with God because it came out of what he produced?

[00:02:19]Now, you co-authored a book on the origins of life. Could you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, it's right here. So, my uh my co-author, Chang Tan is a biologist, and I'm more of a scientist engineer type.

[00:02:31]And we looked at life and and thought about, you know, people are telling us in our textbooks and on media that molecules, basic simple molecules like carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, came together and started bumping into each other, and over time progressed and got more complicated and became the first living thing, which is a microscopic little cell.

[00:02:54]And we said, "What would it take? You know, what kind of requirements would you have to lay out to get from simple chemicals like that and to progress toward life?"

[00:03:03]And we thought, "Well, maybe a stairway would be the way to to show that, with each step being required one step after the next."

[00:03:10]And then we go through it step by step and show that for each step, natural processes, meaning just physics and chemistry doing what they do, they naturally oppose what needs to be accomplished in order to get to life. So, so a simple example is um all the molecules in your body, most of the molecules that make up life, have a left-handed version and a right-handed version, called chirality.

[00:03:37]And if you just mix chemicals in the chemical lab or outside, they naturally happen, you always get 50% 50% every time.

[00:03:46]So, if you say, "If natural processes produced life, then what would I expect to see inside of life?"

[00:03:53]50% >> 50% >> what natural processes do. And when you look at any life of any kind, it is absolutely opposed to that. It is exquisitely sensitive to picking only one, never picking the other one. You know, I remember in every I think it was junior high when I first learned about the conventional theory on the origins of life and about this primordial soup that was somehow struck by lightning, or there were vents that somehow in some way it it began the the process which produced the first cell, and then so on and so on, and eventually you had some kind of creature, you know, walking out of the water.

[00:04:32]You're sharing with us barriers that exist to the stairway to life. In other words, what are some of these other barriers that exist? Well, one of my favorite ones, this is a chapter in the book, is about how life uses energy.

[00:04:49]You know, if you picture a world without any life, there's lots of energy there.

[00:04:53]There's going to be volcanoes and lightning, and there's going to be radiation and and solar power, all these kind of things.

[00:05:00]And those kind of raw forms of energy are much more destructive than constructive. Like, when have you ever seen lightning build something or do something constructive? They naturally just sort of tear things down.

[00:05:13]But life has to build things up. And it uses energy very carefully under precise machinery to build things up.

[00:05:22]And so, we uh we made a series of videos that are on YouTube, taken somewhat from this book. You can see it on on YouTube under uh Long Story Short, Origin of Life.

[00:05:32]So, I'd like to to roll the first clip and and show it looks like.

[00:05:37]It's kind of like trying to charge your cell phone with a charcoal grill.

[00:05:41]There's lots of energy in the grill, but none of it is usable for your poor, dying phone.

[00:05:46]To harness the raw energy of the grill into something your phone can use, you would need a set of pretty complex machines. A boiler to heat water into steam, a turbine that the steam pressure can spin, an electric generator, then transformers, converters, regulators to get the energy in just the right form.

[00:06:04]And then you need the right kind of charger plug thing for your phone. And if you're lucky, the cable's long enough so that you can lay in bed while it charges and not at some weird angle. But like life, your cell phone isn't just picky, it's also fragile.

[00:06:17]Not only will the grill not charge your cell phone, but it'll also destroy it.

[00:06:23]If the little circuits and bits in your cell phone get too much energy, or even a little bit of the wrong kind of energy, it's done for. Ooh, battery's almost dead. Let's get you some energy.

[00:06:32]Energy. Energy.

[00:06:34]Energy.

[00:06:36]Energy.

[00:06:38]Raw forms of energy can only be used for life if complex machines are available to harness them. And the wrong kind of energy will destroy life.

[00:06:48]Now, I see you're eating some potato chips. Did you bring some for me as well?

[00:06:52]Sure.

[00:06:54]So, this is kind of like the video. I mean, here we have some raw energy, and I'm I'm able to use it to build something.

[00:07:03]But there's a lot of energy in these things. Let me give you a feel for how much energy is here. You have anything to put out a fire? Yes, I actually happen to have a bowl of water right here. Oh, how convenient.

[00:07:13]Um there's a lot of raw energy in our food, and you can just burn this like a candle, and it'll just keep on burning and burning and and um it's quite hot.

[00:07:26]And so, you wonder why you don't get heartburn when you eat potato chips like this, right?

[00:07:30]Doctor would disagree with you on that.

[00:07:33]Look at all that energy. In fact, there's enough there's enough energy in this can right here to kill me.

[00:07:39]There's enough energy in here to raise my body temperature to 120° Fahrenheit, and of course, a fever can kill you at 106, 107. That's a lot of energy. So, why don't I die when I eat these? It's because the body is really, really good at taking the energy, extracting it, and using it to build things.

[00:07:59]That's really fascinating because as we're thinking about energy, I you know, employed in like the conventional theories on the origin of life is the belief that somehow these these vents, you know, were able to somehow bring energy that eventually brought about the formation of that first, you know, first cell. Yeah, and so, life uses energy amazingly in a very similar way. Even the simplest life and humans, they're able to extract energy in quite a complicated process, and I wanted to walk through that to give you a feel for how fancy the machinery has to be. So, what life does, of course, you have to digest it first, which is another process entirely. But once you break it into the tiny little molecules and they get distributed to your cells, what happens is your body will will strip electrons off of the food.

[00:08:49]It strips electrons off the food, and they get passed through 15 very, very careful steps.

[00:08:55]And in the end, the energy coming off of those electrons is used to pump protons, of all things. Imagine you're you're pumping protons so there's more protons below this membrane and fewer protons above the membrane. And that actually creates a voltage. And the voltage actually is a very thin membrane, but the amount of volts per distance across every membrane like this in your body is the same as a bolt of lightning.

[00:09:22]For how much voltage per unit distance, you have that much voltage.

[00:09:27]This is such a precise system we're talking about here.

[00:09:31]Yes. And you don't believe this occurred just naturally. You believe that there is divine intelligence behind all of this?

[00:09:38]>> Yes, it's not possible for it all to come together naturally because what I explained is just step one, which is to strip electrons, go through 15 steps to create a voltage across the membrane.

[00:09:49]And when you strip I should add, when you strip electrons off, it's very dangerous business because loose electrons cause chaos. In fact, an article recently came out that said animals sleep because electrons leak.

[00:10:03]Occasionally electron gets away and it causes damage to DNA or damage your cells and you get tired and you have to sleep in order to repair the damage.

[00:10:13]You know, decades ago we had scientists that formulated that the origins of life could be at least recreated in a simulated environment. Um and then I think it was the Stanley Miller experiment. And obviously there's been aspects of that that have been debunked.

[00:10:32]It was too artificial.

[00:10:35]But don't we have more advanced models, you know, in the last few years that might explain the origins of life a little bit better?

[00:10:43]Not as much as you might think. Tell us a little bit more about that.

[00:10:46]>> Well, you will see things on television that occasionally or or on media of any kind and they'll say we've got it figured out or the next step has been figured out. And when you actually read what they've actually done, you'll find a lot of human intervention and the intelligence of humans setting up the experiments to kind of coerce molecules to do what they don't naturally want to do. And then they'll get a tiny little piece of something that looks positive and claim success and >> Right. get the big manuscript out and all that like >> it becomes law and it's in science books and science arguments all of a sudden.

[00:11:20]But if I can go back to the to the food processing, we're not finished yet. So when we get a voltage across this membrane, which is about the same voltage per distance as lightning, this voltage is used by your body to turn an electric motor.

[00:11:35]You have billions of these electric motors inside of your body and this is called ATP synthase. And this video clip will show this is computer graphics, but it shows there's more protons below the membrane, fewer above, and the voltage generated across them is used to turn this motor at 8,000 RPM.

[00:11:54]It turns a shaft. There's another shaft that's fixed and it kind of holds an umbrella over the shaft. And as that shaft rotates, it's actually charging up batteries, chemical batteries.

[00:12:06]That's fascinating. The uncharged battery is called ADP and then the charged battery is called ATP.

[00:12:13]And then the charged battery is ready to go, ready to be used. They're used by all of life to do all of the things that life requires like moving muscles or thinking or replicating or fixing errors, fixing mistakes.

[00:12:27]So that's a big three-step process, stripping the electrons to make voltage, turning an electric motor, step two, and then using the batteries that you've charged up in order to get work done.

[00:12:39]And then the batteries go back, get recharged, get used, recharged, get used. So all of that process, incredibly complicated, takes about 45 very complicated proteins to do that is in every form of life. Wow, this is really incredible. You're like describing an alternator here that just seems to be part of of life itself. And the key is you can't just have a piece of it or this piece you got to have all of it together because there's an interdependency between all these parts.

[00:13:09]And that's what this third video clip I have is about. We get to the interdependency.

[00:13:15]Here's the paradox. The cell needs to make ADP, the empty batteries of life, before they can be charged up to ATP and put to use.

[00:13:25]But producing one new empty battery requires at least seven already charged batteries. So you can't make ADP until you already have ATP around in the cell.

[00:13:36]And ATP is required to build ATP synthase. But ATP synthase is required to charge ADP into ATP.

[00:13:45]So life's energy harnessing process is one big paradox. You need it before you can have it and you can't make it until you've already made it.

[00:13:54]Every part had to arrive, assemble, and start working all at once, leaving no time for it to gradually develop.

[00:14:02]What a fascinating video. Could you elaborate a little bit more on what we just watched?

[00:14:08]Well, it just shows the complexity of the energy harnessing going on in your body and that it's all interdependent.

[00:14:13]You can't just start with one component and then evolve to build a second component and third component. It's got to all be there all at once. It just doesn't make sense that it would just it come out of nothing. Dr. Sadler, the more you've studied this out, does it contribute more to faith or to doubt in all the years you've studied this? In my life as a scientist, I've become more and more stronger in my faith because of what I discover, because of what I've seen.

[00:14:41]It's so clear that natural processes alone oppose life and here we are. So why is that?

[00:14:49]And so with that being said, so as time progresses and more scientific research is being done and discoveries are are happening, do you think that's increasing the argument for intelligent design or decreasing it? I absolutely think it's increasing it. You know, back when when people thought cells just popped out of mucus, like life just came out of nowhere, they thought cells were super simple. It was just a glob of protoplasm. And now we know cells are like little cities.

[00:15:20]They're so complicated and we've learned so much about the complexity there that there's no way it could just have happened.

[00:15:26]So what is this teaching you about the value of God's creation?

[00:15:31]Uh we can't live without it.

[00:15:34]And and everything I see, everything I encounter, to me it gives glory to God.

[00:15:39]I mean, that's what we're here for.

[00:15:40]We're here to glorify him and everything I do in my job, it all gives glory to God. It's a beautiful thing. That's beautiful. And as you're you're seeing design everywhere and these intricacies that exist and this kind of we'll call it, you know, this irreducible complexity in some sense, what is it teaching you about the character of the designer himself?

[00:16:03]It's humbling because I design stuff.

[00:16:07]And everything I've designed is just nothing compared to the complexity of the human body and not only not only is life so complicated, but the fact that it can replicate itself. I mean, we humans have never come up with something that can make another version of itself. Right?

[00:16:24]But you can't even do that with a factory or whatever. You need something to build a factory then if you're going to make a replication.

[00:16:30]You know, as you're sharing these the complexities that exist here and and you know, this aspect of intelligent design, do you feel that people are very open to the things that you are sharing or do you find just that there is a resistance? And is that resistance intellectual or emotional?

[00:16:50]There is a lot of resistance and I wonder if it comes from our our school system and so forth. It's um it does seem like we're raising our kids to resist that and to oppose it. And you know why where I think it comes from?

[00:17:04]Science is for studying natural processes and some people constrain science by saying it can only think about natural processes. So they block out anything supernatural up front.

[00:17:16]And then when you talk about origin of life, they'll say um the question has been changed to what is the best natural explanation for the origin of life? And because that's the only option you have, you can't consider supernatural. They'll come up with something.

[00:17:31]And then they'll say science tells us this is how life began.

[00:17:36]But you see they've actually warped science, abused science to have it uh constrained to the point where it's not actually leading you to the truth.

[00:17:45]It might actually science could actually lead you away from truth because it's constrained to only consider natural things.

[00:17:51]The better answer is to keep both options open. Maybe nature did it by itself, maybe you need supernatural. And then let's look at the evidence and look at the evidence, where does it lead us?

[00:18:02]If you're open to follow the evidence and that's what this book is all about, it's pretty clear. Dr. Sadler, we always appreciate these kinds of episodes on science and faith. It gives me so much to think about. Thank you. I've learned that even something as simple as a burning potato chip can point to the incredible design behind life. Science, when honestly followed, doesn't push God out. It points us straight to him. When we come back, we'll meet another scientist who sees God's hand in the smallest details of life. We'll be right back. Don't go away.

[00:18:48]Welcome back to Hope at Night. We just heard from Dr. Rob Sadler about the origin of life. Now we're going to hear from someone who studies life on a molecular level every day. She has a PhD in microbiology and molecular genetics and teaches about the hidden world of microbes. She's passionate about showing how science reveals God's design and how the Bible's promises can be trusted.

[00:19:12]Please welcome to Hope at Night, Dr. Suzanne Phillips.

[00:19:22]Dr. Phillips, thanks so much for being here.

[00:19:24]>> Thank you for having me. I asked the same question to Dr. Sadler. How in the world did you as a molecular biologist scientist become a Bible believing Christian? I was raised in a Christian household. Um but you know, we all get a little bit of freedom once we get into college and it's like, well, what what am what am I actually going to believe here? And what do my what my parents teach me was that some weird cult that I belonged to or what what was actually going on there? And so I took a lot of time and actually read I read read the Bible and and and I thought philosophically about about this question and I came to the conclusion that the reality of the situation is that no matter what if I went with believing the materialistic worldview, I was essentially saying that my whole value system, my whole worldview was going to be dictated to me by a group of people.

[00:20:12]And and I decided, well, they probably aren't much smarter than me. So, why do they have the right to tell me what's most important in life, um how I should live my life, how I should raise my kids, how I should spend my money, and how I should determine what my future is. And so, basically, there in college I decided, no, if I'm going to have an authority in my life and I I really do believe each of us does have an authority in your life.

[00:20:34]Whatever your worldview is, it's not you didn't think it up. Somebody gave it to you.

[00:20:39]Um that my worldview was going to be determined by somebody divine. Um that if there were if I was going to have an authority in my life, it wasn't going to be you or a church or a bunch of scientists. Um I I like scientists and all, you know, I don't have anything against them.

[00:20:54]Um but so so I decided the Bible was going to be my authority. And that has been my dictating reality and and the source of joy and peace in my life. And so, it was by making that decision and then beginning to experience really what the Bible believing what the Bible had to say and then testing as as we're invited to do in the Bible. We're invited The Bible says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." Um the Bible says, "Test me in this." And when you actually do those things that where it invites you to test him, you begin to experience a change in your life. You begin to experience something different than you were before. And and I to me it's like actually putting it through a scientific test.

[00:21:35]When I'm with God, I experience love and joy and peace.

[00:21:39]When I'm without God, reliably every single time, those things are gone from my life. I mean, scientifically, it's it's provable over and over and over again. Yeah, and now speaking of science, you're studying out molecular biology. Do you see God's handywork in molecular biology? I believe for a number of reasons. Um a number one is the what I see is the truthfulness of God.

[00:22:03]Uh when I read the scriptures and I'm invited to test him, I can try those things out and I see reliably that they come true.

[00:22:11]Um there are other things where he tells us things about himself and I can't test him on those things. I can't test that he created the world. I can't test that he spoke things into existence, but I found him to be true in these other avenues. Therefore, it has built a relationship of trust that then when he says things about himself, I go back and say, "Oh, well, he's a reliable reliably uh he tells me the truth and therefore I believe that he tells the truth about other things. So, I believe because of my experience with God, but I also believe for a number a number of other reasons. Um the Bible has a lot of reference to history and events that actually took place. So, um I believe the archaeology is is a a science that greatly supports the reality of the Bible. It was you know, it was a day's journey to this place and that town and and wherever. And you know, archaeologists go and start digging those places and lo and behold, there they are. Um and and so, I think that that's uh a really important historical archaeological evidence. There's prophecy in the Old Testament that predicts a Messianic prophecy that predicts the Messiah, Jesus Christ, but those things I don't know, maybe more than 300 different prophecies were fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ. Um that's not chance. Um statistically, that's not chance.

[00:23:28]Messianic prophecies, prophecies about Jesus Christ and about the Messiah who's going to come, they're they're scattered in many different places, but certainly there were actually time prophecies given um in Daniel about when the Messiah would come and Christ showed up just then. Um and in fact, that's why the wise men showed up just then also because they had read the prophecies and they knew, "Hey, he's supposed to be here now." So, um so that to me is uh really good evidence.

[00:23:56]Uh also, there's prophecy in the Old Testament about political structures that would come down through history.

[00:24:01]Those also came came true exactly as predicted.

[00:24:05]>> Where's that found by the way? In terms of prophecy, it's found in the book of Daniel. Um prophecy about the about what things are going to happen in the future. I believe the historicity of the Bible is greatly supported in the history that we see playing out um you know, Greek and Roman uh history. The Bible predicts all of those things. So, that's another reason. And then science, of course, my field uh is is probably third down on the list of things that are really pivotally important for why I believe.

[00:24:31]Honestly, anyone who studies molecular biology um there's just no other way to to explain.

[00:24:38]It would take more faith to believe in a naturalistic perspective, believe in a naturalistic origin of life than than to believe that there is a supernatural being. Could you give us one um one scientific evidence that is just so powerful to you? As we've mentioned, talking about origin of life, um there's just not a way that these things could have happened on their own. And we're just talking about like physical things. One of the biggest hurdles that for me in college was was the recognition that inside of our bodies, inside of our cells, that uh what's happening inside there it is like opening up the back of a watch. There's actually stuff going on. I mean, there's there's stuff is happening and it's not not just a bag of soup. It's actually uh it's actually little tiny gears, literally in some cases, spinning away and winding away and generating other stuff, but we're so much more than the sum of our parts. We're not just protein and salt and fats. But if you take a chunk of me, that's what you find, protein and salt and fats, you know, and and um you know, some sugars maybe.

[00:25:45]We're supposed to be sweet, right? But obviously taking a chunk of my brain, you'll find the same thing, but that's that's not all that I am. I'm so much more than the sum of my parts. So, so basically, this biological question is is kind of a an origin of the human mind, origin of information uh question as well. Written in these little parts is not only the machinery, but the code to make the machinery. So, imagine your computer, uh your software is running, but the software can also generate more hardware.

[00:26:14]You know, and that's I mean, you you you can't you don't like come back and here two computers have birthed a laptop. I mean, that's not the way it works. You know, I've heard from Dr. Stephen Meyer, who is part of the Discovery Institute and he says, "We used to think when you open up a cell," he's like, "that it's like a like a basic engine." He's like, "Now we know this to be a big city." Absolutely.

[00:26:36]>> Moving parts, you got workers in there, you got different kinds of factories in there.

[00:26:41]Like it's far more complicated than people have realized. And like we learned earlier that time has shown this that intelligent design has to be of the most viable option here.

[00:26:53]>> Right. And and I will tell you honestly, I I avoid all that in general because not not in general. I avoid eukaryotic cells, which is like what we are, and I study like the most simple cell in the world, um bacterial cells. They're they're profoundly like orders of magnitude on a logarithmic scale less complicated than than the types of cells that we are, the types of cells that animals are and that plants are. I say bacteria. Bacteria um from an evolutionary perspective are the the the origin the the original type of life form because they're they're much more simple, much um but in reality also from evolutionary perspective, they are the most successful organisms evolutionarily speaking. So, if that was us, then the perspective of evolution says we never should have evolved away from that because they're already the primary the best uh at reproducing. There's nobody better in the world than a bacteria. There's no reason for us ever to have evolved away from that. So, these are the guys that I study very um what what molecular biologists would say was is simple, but they're they're not simple. Um you know, we we still don't even know what all their genes are doing, what all their genes are carrying out. They're they're not a simple not a simple life form. So, in terms of a a greatest example, the information that we find inside of cells, whether they're these simple bacterial cells, simple, um or if they're complicated, I mean, literally, you have a single cell, a single cell that goes from here all the way up to your spinal cord.

[00:28:20]That's a single cell that does that.

[00:28:22]A neuron. Those are probably the most complicated cells in the human body.

[00:28:26]Profound. And there's no reason for those to have evolved. Now, you're you're a molecular biologist.

[00:28:33]You're the first molecular biologist I met who's a Bible-believing Christian.

[00:28:38]Wow. And I've met a few of them.

[00:28:41]I have met a few of them.

[00:28:43]Now, how do other molecular biologists feel about you and the things that you say and believe?

[00:28:51]So, I I do I do have colleagues who are not believers um uh and and the reality of the situation is that um while this is their their philosophy on life, it doesn't affect how how we do science. It doesn't affect um how I go to what I happen to study is bacteria, how they make decisions about where they're going to go in the world.

[00:29:13]Locomote. Like, are we going to go over there? Are we going to go over there?

[00:29:15]Well, are you prettier or are you prettier? That they this basically they have like three proteins that are making this decision. Um so, uh and and and so, I'm studying how they they gather information, signal transaction, how they get information from the external environment, um put it inside and make some decisions about, "Oh, I'm going to go here." Okay? Uh that type of process doesn't involve We don't have to cite evolution when we're writing papers, when I'm doing peer-reviewed um publications. So, so my my colleagues um they may roll their eyes, but but it doesn't affect the the reality of my ability to make work. And God, by the way, God God has blessed me when I'm when I'm when I'm in the lab, things go well.

[00:29:54]>> If I can add, I just if there's one thing I'd love people to take home from this session, it's that there are a lot of scientists out there that are successful, well-educated people who do not accept the naturalistic story that we've been taught. But they might be holding that inside. They might not be speaking about it or they're just kind of keeping it quiet cuz they want to protect their career. I mean, the fact that you two are here is obviously destroying the myth that all scientists are atheists, right?

[00:30:20]>> But there are thousands of us.

[00:30:21]>> also scientists who have been led to belief because of cuz of studying molecular biology. I mean, like going through getting their PhD, doing genetics, and getting into the post doc and just saying that there's just no way I can accept this narrative.

[00:30:35]>> Now, I I got to ask you this question because you guys are more than just theists and believers in intelligent sign. Both of you believe in the God of the Bible. Now, here's the thing. If you were to take the you know, the the data, the information we see in the world today, whether it's on a molecular level, whether it's in let's say even the the fossil record itself, is it compatible with the story of scripture?

[00:31:03]There are some conflicts in terms of of geology and a creationist can come up with a hypothesis about what the world might look like before the flood, but the problem is is that from a scientific point of view, I can't test that. I can come up with a hypothesis about it, but there's no testing, so therefore science can't say much about it because science by definition requires testing. Um and so while this this hypothesis fits the data, um in order to be a good theory, you not only have to fit the data that's available, but you also have to be tested and be shown to be true. And so then therefore uh There are limits.

[00:31:37]>> There are limits to that because we're talking about things that happened in the past and scientists by definition do experiments. We modify one variable and we do we do the experiment. We modify another variable, we do the experiment until we come to a theory that cannot be disproved. Um but that doesn't mean we that doesn't mean it's true. It's just we haven't figured out a way yet to disprove it.

[00:31:54]We're still working on it. Right.

[00:31:55]>> But that that's the way science works is by disproving.

[00:31:57]>> Right. And you're mentioning something even even mentions in the National Academy of Science the criteria for science that must be testable and repeatable. But then why do we have a lot of theories in science that aren't really testable or at least repeatable and then are pawned off as fact? And maybe we'll start with you and I want to hear your opinion as well.

[00:32:19]>> Well, I have a very strong opinion about this. I The reality of the situation is that there is an a priori assumption that that only naturalism is what is a mechanism by which we are here. That there was nothing ever supernatural that could have occurred. Therefore, we have to explain everything by by the laws that we see in place. Unfortunately, the laws that we have in place can't have brought us to this situation. In reality, they they they just could not have. But um if you go back and look at the original citations, uh like if you're reading your textbook, you might start out with how life began like a high school biology textbook and then we'll get to um you know maybe kidney structure and function. And you look at like lower life forms, how do they have how do they have waste disposal? And they look at middle life forms, how do they have waste I'm talking about like worms and then insects and then um and then we get to animals and the animals have very complex waste disposal systems. Uh and and the the initial portions of those have a different I I yet like to use the word confidence level. The initial por a portion of that textbook will tell you things that if you go to try and try to find the original literature on, there is no original literature. All there is is a someone who originally said it. The original hypothesizer, not the original researcher cuz there's no data to support what they've said. However, then you get over here to the worms and the insects and the humans, well, there's great data on there. There's nephrologists who they like, you know, they make a pile of money um because they're working on something very very complicated and and we know how that thing works. We know how the kidney works. Um and we know how the insects' disposal system works. We know But this original data so so there's a varying level of the confidence that that that that is is real in the statements about origins versus the other portions of the textbook. When people read a textbook, they presume that all the statements that are made are on the same level of confidence and that's just not true. But how could a high school student know that?

[00:34:07]>> Right.

[00:34:08]>> How could they know that this stuff is just a hypothesis, but it's being presented to me as truth versus this stuff over here that's that's it's actually got a lot of research >> Right.

[00:34:16]>> it up. Dr. Stadler? Well, to add to that is kind of what I had said previously is that they're constraining science to exclude anything supernatural up front.

[00:34:25]So only natural things can be considered and they have to come up with some explanation and that becomes the scientific explanation.

[00:34:32]>> Right. Which may be leading you away from truth because truth might be over here.

[00:34:36]>> Right.

[00:34:37]>> already blocked out.

[00:34:39]Dr. Phillips, in regards to you know, you're a professor, you you're browned uh a lot of young adults and young professionals. You're teaching at that level.

[00:34:50]When you are talking to them and you see perhaps maybe their backgrounds, things they learned maybe in public high school, maybe things their parents told them or maybe somebody did. You see intelligent sign, you believe in in God.

[00:35:03]You see a value that God places upon humanity.

[00:35:07]What do you want young people to understand in regards to the value God has placed on them?

[00:35:14]>> Uh I I think you hit on something very near and dear to my heart. I I have two children. I have a 20-year-old and an 18-year-old.

[00:35:20]And and I I see the world in which they've grown up in um and their peers who are who are stressed and and have anxiety attacks and and who maybe have suicidal thoughts and and epidemic of suicide that we have among young people and it really just breaks my heart because they've never been taught who they are.

[00:35:38]They don't know that they're children of God and it doesn't matter if they're ugly or can't find a mate or because these are the defining characteristics are important. Uh evolution says that in order for you to be successful, you need to find a mate and make babies. Um and if you aren't able to do those things because of something about yourself, then you have no value and that's absolutely inappropriate. Um the God of the universe created you in his image.

[00:36:01]You have inherent value whether you're unable to do calculus or not. Whether you've got some disfigurement, that has nothing to do with your value. You are a child of God. And I think that this lack of awareness of that reality is what's produced this epidemic that we have in in young people because they're unaware they're child of God and is something precious in this the same way I mean, I have two children. I literally would do anything to to for their betterment to the point of giving my life. Um God just has billions of children and he's got a brain that's able to also look at each one of you individually and say, I would do anything for them.

[00:36:36]I would do anything. In fact, I would have my hands nailed to a cross and I would be beaten and stripped, have my body bare in front of everyone and I would die for them because he loves each of us as individually as your parent loves you and as you love your child. That's such an important message that's needed today, especially for young people, everyone, but especially for young people today. Thank you so much. I know we're going to be able to talk about more stuff during the Q&A.

[00:37:01]What struck me about Suzanne's story is how she brings together both heart and mind. She reminds us of the value that we have that comes from God and that you don't have to check your brain at the door to believe in a creator God. Both Dr. Stadler and Dr. Phillips will be taking questions from our audience right after this. But if you have questions, please visit our website at HopeTV.

[00:37:22]org/hopeatnight where you can find out how to leave questions, review past episodes, and also download the free gift for this season. We'll be right back. Don't go away.

[00:37:48]Welcome back to Hope at Night. Tonight we've heard from medical device scientist Dr. Rob Stadler and microbiologist Dr. Suzanne Phillips.

[00:37:56]Together they've shown us that whether we're talking about the engineering of energy or the complexity of cells, faith and science aren't enemies. They point to the same creator. Now it's your turn.

[00:38:08]Let's take some questions. Who has the first question for us?

[00:38:12]Right over there. What is the most fascinating thing you've learned while studying cells and microbiology?

[00:38:18]Part of my conversion experience, even though I was raised in the church, was uh sitting in general biology class when I was a college freshman and uh learning about the electron transport system. I don't know who except for maybe an engineer, that was that was so gorgeous. I I looked at that system. I was like, how is it how is this possible? Because there's an it's a way of that the cells make energy. Every single cell makes energy. Most bacteria, not all of them, you know, do do these things.

[00:38:46]And I remember looking at that and thinking, wow, this is so elegant and so gorgeous. I've never seen anything more beautiful than the electron transport system. And I was I I I was like, wow.

[00:38:57]Were you in tears? Oh my God did this. I was almost in tears.

[00:39:01]>> heard anyone get emotional yeah, about the electron transport science class, by the way. But continue. It was I mean, seriously, because there's other ways of making ATP that that our bodies do that as well. We we can just take ADP and glue on a phosphate, make ATP. But that's not what the electron transport system does and it's so elegant and it's so much better and it's so much more efficient. The efficacy of what goes on inside of our cells is just a beauty of design and function.

[00:39:26]It really I I mean, it's moving. It's art. It's art.

[00:39:29]>> Everyone needs to take science classes from you.

[00:39:32]Dr. Stadler, anything you want to add to this?

[00:39:34]>> It's kind of a strange epiphany moment in anatomy class, human anatomy, we're dissecting a cadaver. And there's like six muscles that move your eye, you know, you you just move your eye, but one of them, right here at the corner of your nose, is a pulley made out of a bone, and then one of the muscles goes around that pulley, and then it pulls the eye one direction. And I was just pulling on that muscle, looking at that pulley, and I'm like, "Oh, that's engineering. That's pretty great."

[00:40:02]By the way, you know people, certain people are built for science when they get so excited about dissecting cadavers or biology classes.

[00:40:14]So. Any other questions? Right over there. Why did Darwin have such a drastic impact on the scientific community? Before Darwin, God had the agency. God was given agency.

[00:40:26]And what Darwin did, his great success, was he took the agency away from God and gave it to something called natural selection.

[00:40:37]So, natural selection now is the agency.

[00:40:40]And so, people didn't have to believe in God or trust in God. It came from a natural process. Now, is natural selection is is nature an agent? Does nature choose and decide things? Right? That's kind of a mystical thing.

[00:40:54]One of my favorite pictures is a picture of a a hurricane that hit Florida, and it wiped out all the houses. But there's one house that looks absolutely untouched in this picture, and it's all a bunch of devastation around it. And that house was built to survive a hurricane, and it did. So, no one would ever say nature selected that house and not these houses. That's Nature doesn't select. It was designed to survive, and it did.

[00:41:20]Can I also add that I I think Darwin's theories came at a very unique time in human history. Um a time when when the church had had a very heavy hand. We're just coming to the end of the Dark Ages, where the church had very heavily suppressed anything different than their than their perspective. And so, there was a general desire to be free of that.

[00:41:40]Um the government as well. Additionally, with Darwin's ideology, um we knew nothing about the cell structure. They called it a plaque of a pack of protoplasm. And and we knew nothing about the machinery in the city that was going on inside of that microscopic microscopic thing that that is a cell.

[00:41:58]And so, it was a really pivotal point in time in human history, where there was so much angst against um authority um and so much so little knowledge about biology. Fascinating.

[00:42:11]Any other questions? It's it seems that Darwin and the Enlightenment have then separated forever the concept of that all life was created by God.

[00:42:21]Um but now that some of these theories have been shown to be flawed, is there more acceptance of the theory of intelligent design in the scientific community? I would say Darwin hypothesized that there was a separation of God from life, and he predicted that there would be more evidence to support that. Uh and Dr. Stadler can tell us if that's true or not.

[00:42:44]Well, a lot of his predictions are not really becoming true. Like the the small small incremental changes to get from here to there, we're not seeing. We don't see that in the fossil record. We don't see that when you do experiments on evolution to try to create some new innovation innovation, evolution kind of falls flat, and it it can't can only go a little bit of the way. It can't do it.

[00:43:07]>> So, are we finding more scientists and researchers that seem to be more open to intelligent design as evidence increases? I believe so, but that might be just my circles and the people I talk to. Worldwide, I don't know if there's a survey of that.

[00:43:23]>> Right.

[00:43:23]I was I personally believe that there's there's so much siloing of of information of fields of study. Um for example, at um I I work in an academic department, and I'm the chair of a of an academic department, and we were benchmarking our programs versus some others. And um they were looking at other public universities where they were getting PhDs, and we we thought, "Oh, these are biology PhDs." Well, they're PhDs in evolutionary biology.

[00:43:46]We're benchmarking our our prerequisites. Almost every single program in evolutionary biology no longer had a requirement for organic chemistry, a full year of organic chemistry. I was astounded to find all these programs in evolutionary biology where they nixed out those undergraduate prerequisites that would have taught you some of the basics about about building molecules.

[00:44:07]That's a problem. If you don't know organic chemistry, then you don't necessarily know the reasons why evolution can't be true. He was talking earlier about left and right-handed stuff. You learn that in organic chemistry, and if there's no reason to learn in any other course. And so, if you just skip that class altogether, then you can hypothesize whatever you want.

[00:44:26]That's interesting. Huh.

[00:44:28]Any other questions?

[00:44:30]I know that viruses are a different biological construct from bacteria, but what is their purpose, and why do they exist?

[00:44:40]Viruses are completely different than bacteria. They're they they don't follow cell theory. Cell theory is life begets life, and and that you have to have the ability to take in and and metabolize and make energy. Viruses don't do those things. They're they're obligate parasites. They they have to get into a cell and and utilize the cell's machinery to to reproduce themselves. Uh whereas living things are capable of self-reproduction as long as there's a appropriate energy source and electron donor source electron acceptor source.

[00:45:10]Um so, there are two evolutionary theories about how viruses came into existence. One is that they escaped from a genome and that they were natural elements. We do have jumping transposable elements inside of our genomes that they escaped and became free-living um free-living uh and then they were able to infect others. The other uh evolutionary perspective uh is that they were part of the original RNA world. That when when when life began, there was a warm little soup, and um that RNA was the initiator, and that some RNA grew up to be human cells, and other RNA grew up to be viruses, depending on their evolutionary. So, that's the evolutionary perspective on on the origins of these things.

[00:45:51]A Christian perspective on the origins of of these things is um uh Dr. Stadler's going to mention.

[00:45:58]>> well, I think with bacteria and with viruses, we give them a bad reputation because you think of the bad bacteria and the bad viruses, which are real problems, but they're not I don't think they were ever designed to be bad. I think a lot of bacteria are very helpful, right? If you didn't have bacteria, world as we know it would die because, of course, your gut is full of useful bacteria and so forth. And it's similar for for viruses. They serve a different purpose, but I think they were intended to be good. Some of them degrade, pieces fall off, and they become pathogenic. Sorry, I have just got to plug bacteria because like bacteria are the most amazing things in the world. Literally, we would not be alive if it weren't for our bacteria, because in terms of nitrogen cycles, if if it weren't for bacteria, that would not happen. There'd be no nitrogen available to your body if it weren't for bacteria grabbing it out of the air, putting it in into the nitrogen cycle, and providing it making it available for plants, which then utilize it, and then we consume either we we eat the plant or we eat the animal that ate the plant. Um and that is how the nitrogen cycle That's how we are able to to get nitrogen is based on microorganisms. So, they are they are essential. They they are essential part of the ecosystem that God designed.

[00:47:04]>> you, God, for bacteria and viruses.

[00:47:06]They're are a very very very small percentage of microorganisms that are disease-causing. And and yeah, they'll they'll kill you.

[00:47:13]Dr. Stadler, during the break, you brought up something in regards to the plague. Could you share a little bit what you were talking about? Yeah, the the they've studied the plague, the the Black Plague, and it it's a bacteria that was perfectly fine and functional, but it actually lost a component, lost its flagellum, and and then it became pathogenic. It clearly wasn't designed to be or didn't come about as evil to begin with, but it lost something, and then it the only way it could stay stay alive was to do harm.

[00:47:45]And that's fascinating, and that's coming back to a little bit to your point that you know, with the bacteria, and you know, it's um it's contribution to life Right.

[00:47:56]>> and to to growth, and and why that's so necessary. But then we also see in this messed up, broken world that there is a fracturing of creation that has devastating consequences, right?

[00:48:07]>> Absolutely.

[00:48:08]Any other questions?

[00:48:10]How has your relationship with God or God himself uh inspired your design? You know, there's a whole field called biomimetics, which is when engineers try to take smart things that they find in living things, and they end up making much better products from that.

[00:48:27]So, for me, my job is about curing heart failure uh and arrhythmias in the heart and so forth like that. And the whole goal of my work is to try to get back to what God designed in the first place, cuz we get old, things are falling apart. And the best product you could possibly make would get you back to the way it was supposed to be. That's the goal, and we don't of course we don't quite get there. We're trying to get there. But Any other questions?

[00:48:55]Right over there?

[00:48:56]What other evidences of intelligent design have you two come across? I think that um the most amazing thing in in the natural world is the human mind. And from evolutionary perspective, um what's supposed to happen in in evolution is that an organism um is in a particular environment, and it adapts to that environment, and and new adaptations come into existence based on the constraints and needs that the environment places on them.

[00:49:23]But uh the human mind does things that there's no there's no reason um that you would ever need to do. You don't you don't need to be able to do calculus to reproduce. Um you don't need to be able to make beautiful music to reproduce. You you don't you don't even need to love to reproduce. The most successful organisms in the world don't don't do any of those things.

[00:49:45]And so and this was actually this is not my perspective. A colleague of Darwin's Alfred Russell Wallace had this exact perspective and they Alfred Russell Wallace is who brought natural selection to to the mix of evolution. Darwin was thinking more of sexual selection is what what made this.

[00:50:01]And together we have we have what was is evolution on the theory of evolution presently.

[00:50:06]But Alfred Russell Wallace believed that there is no possible way that the human mind could have come into existence from natural selection only. And there was no possible way that evolution could have brought the human mind into existence because of this very fact. It does things that are uncalled for from the environment. So and and all of us have experienced this. We we know the human mind does amazing things and we experience emotions and love and joy and peace and none of those things are needed to be evolutionarily successful in that in that paradigm. That's fascinating.

[00:50:38]Well, for me the most convincing evidence of intelligent design really is in information.

[00:50:44]And there used to be a more of a gene-centric view of life that everything was about genes and that that was everything. But now we know that information is distributed throughout the cell. It's all over the place in the cell. It's in the sugar code. It's in the membrane. And and the information all depends upon it's all interdependent. So if you just have DNA sitting here full of information, it's just going to fall apart on its own. It can do nothing. It can't make anything.

[00:51:11]It can't it just falls apart. So you have to have all the information, the entire structure, all of it interdependent and helping each other out to have life. And that's really tricky to come up with. Right.

[00:51:23]Amazing.

[00:51:24]Any other questions? Right over there.

[00:51:26]How would you encourage other scientists to become believers? In my experience I feel very strongly about influencing young people especially people who are trying to make decisions about this this philosophy early in their life especially if they come from a Christian perspective. So they come from a Christian perspective, they get into high school or college and now the professors are telling them, "Well, you're a dumb idiot if you believe these things that your parents are teaching you." And and to tell them to be there as as their professor in college to say, "No, you're not a dumb idiot. Look, there are there are realities to evolution in that if you look at evolution as as a defining that things change. Things do change. Things have changed. We we recognize that but they change within the the confines of their genome. They don't they haven't changed outside of their genome. They don't they don't become we don't get a rodent becoming becoming you know, something bigger than a something different than a rodent.

[00:52:20]They're if it changes it's still a rodent and and yes, changes happen.

[00:52:24]Um And I still don't like them at the end of the day.

[00:52:28]So so what I mean to say is that so I I feel like giving an example to to people who are in in process of making that decision that there are intelligent scientists who don't believe that narrative and giving them examples that you will not find in textbooks because often times textbooks don't present the conflicting data that that contradicts evolutionary theory.

[00:52:49]Dealing with a professional in the field who's evolutionist I think is a very different story.

[00:52:54]They have very profound reasons and and philosophical reasons why they believe what they believe.

[00:53:00]But probably they have not experienced Jesus Christ and they have never experienced peace.

[00:53:07]Um in fact working in a laboratory our post-doc after working with her for five years she came and she's just like, "You're just a happy person and you're always peaceful. What do you have?"

[00:53:17]She's like, "I've just never It's like and that's that's what's missing from a died-in-the-wool evolutionist is to see what a Christian see the peace that a Christian gets to experience. And then they ask questions and then I can tell them then I can tell them about my beliefs. So I think that what's missing from that in that element is is a knowledge of God and and personal value when you recognize how God feels about you. Beautiful. Dr. Seller, you got the final thought. That's beautiful. It's hard to add to that.

[00:53:47]I'd say, you know, different people are led to faith in different ways and for most people it's love is going to you know, through the act of love they're going to find interest in that. But if you're talking about pure scientists, a really logic-driven person, you know, and you want to encourage them into into faith.

[00:54:04]Um that's kind of like the books that I've written I think are heading in that direction where you you try to work the logic out that that you can't be explained your life can't be explained by natural processes. You need something else. Yeah. Um and so but I think that's a a rare person that that's going to be the convince because it's it's the love that's going to end up making the difference. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:54:26]Thank you both of you. This is really enlightening and I think our minds are blown away as you guys have taken us through the cosmos and taken us deep inside a cell.

[00:54:36]Whether it's the smallest cell or the vastness of the cosmos, the evidence of design is all around us. Creation itself is a message of hope. Because if God designed life with such care, then your life is not random or meaningless.

[00:54:51]The evidence is clear. Life isn't an accident. It's a gift. And when you know your life was created with intention, you can face the future with confidence.

[00:55:01]The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

[00:55:13]The same God who designed the universe also designed you with purpose, value, and with the future. And that's enough to bring hope at night.