Evolution 2.0

Brenda Dunne was a scientist at Princeton University's Engineering Anomalies Research Lab for 28 years, where she and her colleague Robert Jahn performed extensive experiments on telekinesis (displacing objects and changing the behavior of machines by concentration), remote perception (perceiving objects and locations at great distance) and precognition (knowing future events before they happen). They documented with 99.999% statistical confidence that consciousness interacts with matter in undeniable but presently unexplained ways. Here she discusses their work and the implications of a conscious world being complementary to the physical world. Discover more about Brenda's remarkable work at www.icrl.org. Books: Margins of RealityBeing and BiologyConsciousness and the Source of Reality See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Iconoclast, polymath, renegade and world-class chemist, Steve Benner engineered a new breed of DNA with 8 nucleotide options instead of four. This exponentially increases its data capacity and it’s called Hachimoji DNA. What are the implications of this? Steve sounds off about the conflict between research and advocacy, and the great power of shattering paradigms and admitting what we don’t know. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

While working in plant research at Cambridge, Rupert Sheldrake became dissatisfied with existing materialistic theories of science. This led him to develop his theory of morphic resonance. Sheldrake has become a leading proponent of switching from a reductionist scientific paradigm to a holistic paradigm. In this conversation we discuss scientific experiments that definitively show phenomena we have no way of explaining at present. Find out more about Rupert at www.sheldrake.org. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Frank Visser became a friend and colleague of Ken Wilbur in the 1980s and wrote a book about his work. In this conversation, we discuss Frank’s departure from Ken Wilbur’s insistence that life itself and evolution are manifestations of the divine. We explore the question of how theology informs specific evolutionary theories. Does invoking God further science? Frank and Perry take a look at the nuances of Darwinism versus Design See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michael Behe's "Darwin Devolves" asks: Has Darwin solved the design problem in biology? Behe says absolutely not, and backs his position with detailed examples. Furthermore, nobody has really solved the famous problem of "irreducible complexity" that Behe described in "Darwin's Black Box." But Perry Marshall insists Behe has still omitted vital details and landmark experiments. Bill Cole works closely with Behe, so Perry and Bill discuss: Will Behe's approach be effective in addressing the shortcomings of mainstream science?Where Did Life Come From? Perry Marshall’s Evolution 2.0 at Penn State Universityhttps://evo2.org/where-did-life-come/"Living Organisms Author Their Read-Write Genomes in Evolution" by James Shapiro - www.tinyurl.com/jamesshapiro"Evolution 2.0: Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design" www.budurl.com/ev20The Evolution 2.0 Prize $5 million www.herox.com/evolution2.0Links from Bill Cole:https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-ubiquitin-system-functional-complexity-and-semiosis-joined-together/https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-highly-engineered-transition-to-vertebrates-an-example-of-functional-information-analysis/https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-spliceosome-a-molecular-machine-that-defies-any-non-design-explanation/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Two world class physicists from Oxford, together with philosophy professor Hans Halvorson from Princeton, integrate faith and science in their new book "It Keeps Me Seeking." Andrew Briggs specializes in nanomaterials and quantum information, and Andrew Steane made a key discovery which was necessary to make quantum computing possible. I sat down with Briggs and Steane in Oxford where we enjoyed a wide ranging discussion about the intersection of the measurable rigors of science and the high aspirations of spirituality.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Former president of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee, describes the rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in China. He discusses what AI is and is not capable of and how AI challenges us to get much more clarity about what it means to be human. His new book AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order presents a much more realistic view of the future than the typical science fiction of most journalists. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The opening shot of my book Evolution 2.0 is an argument between me and my brother about evolution. Bryan had been a missionary in China, but in four years he went from right-wing Christian seminary grad to almost atheist.He was dragging me with him. I wasn’t enjoying it, but I knew I had to be intellectually honest.I found myself retreating to what I know best, which is science. I said, “Bryan, look at the hand at the end of your arm. I’m an engineer, and your hand is a fine, fine piece of engineering. You don’t think your hand is an accumulation of random accidents, do you?”Bryan was good and ready for that question, and he pushed back with a standard-issue Darwinian answer. His answer didn’t quite jive with my experience… but I admitted my intuitions could be wrong. So instead of arguing, I decided to dive down the rabbit hole. I resolved to get to the hard truth, and follow it wherever it carried me.Our argument in the back of a Chinese bus led to a book that took six years to write, a technology prize, and a quest for life’s origin that now includes some of the world’s most renowned scientists at top universities. You can read the rest of that story in Evolution 2.0.But… what about Bryan?Recently we held a business seminar where we presented Evolution 2.0 and the technology prize as a case study. Everyone at the seminar was asking Bryan “OK, so what’s your story?”Here is Bryan’s story… See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Symbiotic Earth conveys one of the most important biographies of the last 50 years. It’s no exaggeration to say that Lynn Margulis’ contribution to science is in the same league as Jim Watson, Francis Crick, Stephen Hawking and Barbara McClintock. It profiles a contrarian woman who was a force of nature, without indulging in sentimentality or bitterness about how long it took for her ideas to get accepted. Everyone who is interested in living things, evolution, or the environment must watch this film. In this interview, I talk to John about his film and his history with Lynn Margulis. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Wynand De Beer has written a beautiful book From Logos to Bios. He links diverse ideas from the ancient Greeks and their ideas about mathematics and life with recent evolutionary discoveries like convergence and orthogenesis. He offers a new framework for evolutionary models that recognize the deteriorating state of the Darwinism, replacing it with a more elegant model.Perry Marshall interviews Wynand, who shares not only surprisingly relevant insights from ancient philosophers, but also his personal story. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Many have claimed atheism was only incidental to the operation of communism under Lenin, Stalin and the old Soviet Union. Victoria Smolkin's new book "A Sacred Space is Never Empty" is the first book to closely examine the role of atheism in Russia. She explains why the Soviet government promoted atheism so assiduously and expended great efforts to crush religion. In this conversation, Dr. Smolkin approaches this issue with scholarly precision, and explains the true meaning behind her book's intriguing title. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Podcaster Joe Rogan sat down with Elon Musk. They discussed AI & Evolution. (Full interview at https://youtu.be/ycPr5-27vSI.) Entrepreneur Tim Berthold mentioned the Elon interview to bestselling author, speaker, engineer and strategy consultant Perry Marshall. Perry explains why the "Singularity" (the prediction that we're all going to upload ourselves into the cloud someday and live on the web) is a crackerjack distraction from the REAL problems. Perry is acutely aware of the *real* dangers after teaching over one million marketers how to advertise on Google. Sleep with one eye open.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I just did a rock-em-sock-em interview with Audie Cashion of World Peace Center. We dug into… The business secrets of blue-green algae Why you gotta pay attention to the pendulum swings in culture The germ of the idea of equality…and what it means in an unequal 80/20 world Why you must find your tribe…and how to know when you’ve found it How non-profits need to think if they really want to save the world And a lot more. Listen to the interview here! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For a century, the belief was that genetic information built organisms, never the other way around. A new paper by Denis Noble definitively proves otherwise. The paper is called “Central Dogma or Central Debate.” In this interview, Denis explains the revolution that is going on in genetics. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

David Quammen's book "The Tangled Tree: A New History of Life" tells the story of evolution through the eyes of Carl Woese, a not-terribly-famous but truly ingenious revolutionary who flipped evolution on its side, literally 90 degrees. He upended Darwin's famous tree of life, showing that genes can come from almost anywhere. Woese's contributions are believed by some to be as great as Darwin's. The view of evolution that Woese brought truly was a genuine revolution. Here, David Quammen engages with Perry Marshall in a wide ranging conversation about who the real heroes in evolutionary science actually are. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.