Lee Spetner Takes Aim at Natural Selection and Population Genetics

Intelligent Design the Future

Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

Science, Philosophy, Astronomy, Society & Culture, Life Sciences

4 • 993 Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, we bring you the second of three short interviews with MIT-trained physicist Dr. Lee Spetner. We were saddened to learn of the recent passing of Dr. Spetner at 91 years old, and we’re sharing these conversations in tribute to his significant contributions to the evolution debate. Host Ira Berkowitz interviews Dr. Spetner in Jerusalem. Together they explore key arguments from Spetner’s books Not by Chance and The Evolution Revolution. Here, Spetner takes on natural selection, discussing what it can and cannot do. He also explores aspects of population genetics and the constraints the Earth’s history imposes on evolving new species. This is Part 2 of a three-part interview. Listen to Read More › Source

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to ID the Future. I'm your guest host, Ira Berkowitz speaking to you from the ancient yet modern city of Jerusalem where I live at work.
0:16.1	I teach right into personal counseling here.
0:19.0	In my neighborhood of Harinolf on the western side of the city lives one of my culture heroes Dr Lee Spetner.
0:25.1	Through his books, Not By Chance, and the Evolution Revolution he's given me and many others a real
0:29.7	education about Darwinism and its limitations.
0:33.0	Dr. Spetner is a physicist with a PhD from MIT who taught graduate level courses at Johns Hopkins University,
0:40.0	worked for decades in military electronics R&D, and then worked for 12 years in work for
0:44.0	12 years in military electronics R&D, and then work for 12 years in cancer research.
0:46.0	Besides, his two books, he's written many articles, and he holds a few patents besides.
0:50.0	Dr. Spettner is in honor to have you with me in the studio today.
0:53.2	It's a pleasure to be here, Ira. Well, Dr. Spettner, you're skeptical of modern
0:57.6	evolutionary theory, but you do believe that natural selection does account for some evolution. Is that correct? Well, partially. I think
1:06.0	natural selection is overblown. I think it has some kind of an effect but I don't
1:11.2	think it's as pervasive as the current theory of evolution takes it for.
1:17.0	Natural selection is supposed to work on random mutations that occur spontaneously, and it turns out that the mutations that are important
1:27.7	in the evolution that we actually see are non-random mutations.
1:31.9	They're non-random changes in the genome.
1:35.0	And natural selection plays a very small role in that.
1:38.0	So let's start with some of the problems.
1:40.0	In your first book, not by chance, you write that a mutant with a selective advantage still doesn't
1:45.4	have a much better chance of surviving than other individuals of the same species.
1:49.6	Why is that?
	...

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