Alex-CA | Coincidences Prove Intelligent Design | The Atheist Experience 26.27 

I’m constantly amazed that everything around me is in English, my natural language. Seems outlandishly improbable. What are the chances that I just happen to speak the right language for where I live? Statistically I ought to speak Mandarin. I’m so glad God gave me the right language. 🤪

Yes, living on a rock that’s 70% covered with salt water that we can’t live in or even drink has intelligent design written all over it

“Well then I guess I disagree with Douglas Adams.” This is a great example of an obsession with an idea that one has formulated by themselves. It becomes such a part of one’s personality that one will not let go no matter what the arguments are or evidence against it are from the other side.

> is aware of the puddle analogy > thinks the hole world was created for his wet shape

In the coming years, Forrest will, deservedly, emerge as a Rock Star of science education.

"It is a huge coincidence that we discovered things work the way we discovered."

This reminds me of when Aron Ra was talking about his relatives view of the bible. When they said "the bible does not say THAT!" And followed it up with: "Well, that is not what it MEANS!" And finaly storm if when they are questioned to explain what it says.

I’m still so shocked how people can have so little regard for the world they inhabit they’ll only ever listen to things that revolve around them and their desperate need for emotional validation.

You can always tell that an argument is going to be weak when the first half of the call is all preamble.

As far as I can tell, nature as a whole is doing it’s damnest to annihilate any single species, humans included. Every species are always working hard to not die. It’s a never ending struggle.

Forrest and Matt, the epitome of good cop, bad cop 😁

If the universe is intelligently designed with us in mind who ever did it did a shit job

Basically, his argument is: “The physical forces of nature can be understood and manipulated by conscious thinking agents, therefore they were intended to be understood and manipulated by conscious thinking agents.”

So basically Alex doesnt know what coincidence means, what natural means, how cause and effect work, and what the puddle analogy was trying to state. Alex is the puddle trying desperatly to pretend there are magically coincidences (that actually aren’t coincidence), therefore there has to be a magic being that exists forever for no reason.

I still can’t understand how these people spend days and days thinking about what they’re going to say only to get on the air and very quickly start sounding stupid. Did this guy actually read and think through the quote before he called to talk about the quote? Lmao.

That was painful. I can’t believe he asked “Who was he talking to?” At he end. Totally clueless.

So sentient puddles are proof of intelligent design? That is amazingly funny.

There is no intelligent design... More the opposite...

I get the feeling that many theists are subconsciously trying to convince themselves.

Imagine arguing FOR intelligent Design and thinking its a good idea to *start* with the Puddle analogy....

"Stuff happens, therefore god." That wasn't A-game, Alex. Not at all.

The puddle analogy is applied thus -- if life on this planet _didn't_ have access to fire or antibiotics or any of the caller's other examples, it would just be a different hole in the ground with a different puddle in it, still marveling that it fits the hole exactly.

The Cosmological Anthropic Principle is a useful tool for inferring the perceived characteristics of the world and universe around us, because we need these things and we are here. It is not an explanation for why those characteristics exist. The universe would have these characteristics regardless of whether we exist to perceive them.

Matts comment about us being tool makers , brought to mind another Douglas Adams "ism" . "The secret is to bang the rocks together , guys"

Only tangentially related: It just dawned on me that the sentient sea in "The dark side of the sun" by Terry Pratchett was probably a reference to Douglas Adams Intelligent Puddle. IIRC (was years ago that I read it) in the book that ocean (puddle) itself explains it had figured out it evolved out of some serious unlikely circumstances.

Us using fire to cook meat isn't a sign of intelligent design. Intelligent design would be if animals had their meat pre-cooked for us.

“I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Great stuff. I enjoy this. The conversation included probabilities, smoking guns, perceived versus actual coincidences, penicillin, the invention of fire (or should I say discovery?) and puddles. The constituents of what an atom came up as well as also did the big bang.

A human woke up one morning and thought to itself that ”this is an interesting place I find myself in. In most environments on this planet I will die within hours, if not minutes, without the proper technology to aid me. It must have been made for me!” That human was a creationist.

just because a man has a smoking gun in hands next to a dead person as is doesn't mean necessary that he had killed him to begin with, he could also shot in the air to ward the now dead man off while a stray round hit him, he might have shot at the shooter that shot the now dead man etc, so yeah a ballistic test on the bullet if there is any in the dead body and the weapon is necessary to conclude that he had been shot with that weapon i mean that dead body could also have become so due to an heart attack, was poisened or struck by lightning etc

How fitting that the caller doesn't even comprehend the analogy he's reffing to.

Alex won't think that fire's on his side if he ever gets trapped in a burning house with no means of escape.

Forrest is a great co-host

Next time I can not sleep, I will listen to him again...

10:30 "Yeah, no, I hear that for sure [so let me now ignore everything you have said and pretend as though we have never spoken before while I put my unconsidered point forward ... again]."

We can create antibiotics to cure our infections, therefore god. Except, that seems to be ignoring the fact that there are infections in the first place. Cherry-picking.

It never fails to amuse me and sometimes, frustrate me, that these theists/ deists/ whatever bang on about"intelligent design" and yet the basic evidence shows that it is absolutely the total opposite. There is the illusion of "design" certainly, but even a cursory look at the reality will soon tear it apart. We can only just live on a tiny percentage of the one planet in trillions that we KNOW has life on it, which is already then a MASSIVE waste of material and effort that so much else out there is totally dead and completely useless. Then when we do look at us here, we can as I say, barely survive on a tiny bit of earth and even that tiny bit is full of animals,, plants insects and other things, constantly trying to kill us. Then there are bacteria, diseases and viruses all trying to do the same and when you get past all of that crap somehow, there's humans trying to finish us off too, mostly cos their invisible , imaginary, fantasy, mafia boss, sky daddy is better than the other person's and we'll fly a plane or two into some buildings to "prove" it. Then there's the fact that 99.7%of everything that ever existed is now extinct, so some genius that "designer" was eh? That's like someone making cars for Ford and out of every 1000 they make, they can actually drive away three to potentially sell. Not sure they'd get the "designer of the week" award too often, do you? Oh yes, it's all SOOO. very intelligently designed isn't it? NOT!!!

Alex is a perfect example of not understanding how his brain works and everybody else's. Our brains trick us everyday into believing many things that aren't real. Or into faulty logical positions. It doesn't make you a bad person, it just makes you wrong. It's my belief that this needs to be taught in school to all children. How our brains deceive us if we let it. I can't think of the psychologists name but he concluded after some intensive research that the human brain has evolved to be more susceptible to religion. It's the main reason why more humans find it easier to believe in God's but not in trolls guarding bridges. More research needs to be done but I also believe how our brains trick us into believing things that aren't real should be taught in school at an early age. Let's say, middle school. I can guarantee that if for the last hundred years this was taught in schools. We would have less religious minded people in the world.

I find it hilarious that he said that he was using Adams’ analogy as a framework for his deism and then said he disagreed with it at the end. The man spent countless hours listing ‘perceived coincidences’ as well instead of investing time to truly understand the analogy itself. What a wasted existence.

Matt and Forrest were the perfect bad cop, good cop combi

I think he doesn't know what coincidence means... It's not like cooking with for was a thing before fire was tamed, and we went 'ouu, what a great planet, where fire happens, here we can finally cook!". If we hadn't had fire, we'd have had to figure out something else... That's not coincidence, that's causal, by construction... What a weird weird mind ...

It irritates me when religious people use the argument that "The World is perfectly designed for us to live in" Yes! The world is extremely inhabitable for us because we evolved into it! If it was uninhabitable for us we wouldn't exist 🤦‍♂️ Just because we know that nothing on Earth could survive on any other planet does not mean that life in any other form cannot survive on other planets. For all we know there is some form of life on other planets that are adapted to the chemical elements within that planets atmosphere.

When Matt is listing things like ‘air to breathe’ and levers being ‘coincidences’ I bet Alex is like ‘WRITE THAT DOWN! WRITE THAT DOWN!’ 😂

How is it intelligent that the eating hole and the breathing hole are the same hole, which can lead to choking to death? A grade school student could make a better design.

coincidence= shit happens

No, they don't.

If it's all intelligent design, why do I need glasses, why had I to go to the dentist today, why do I have half a dozen other health problems? Really? I would fire this designer immediatly.

"too much of a coincidence" shows me that you just don't know what the word coincidence means.

So I am, we are the earth around the puddles. We are subjected to the inanimate, wet nature of the theistic puddle trying to convince us it has all the answers whilst having no ability to offer anything other than stagnant watery incoherent ripples should the breeze blow over it. A believer is the synonym for a puddle. Whilst my words are deep, the puddle is shallow.

Smoking gun story: how about it's a warzone, with 2000 other soldiers and snipers. Or there is a crazy person shooting from a rooftop and the person next to the victim was shooting back? This analogy is just bad. And his interpretation of the puddle was even worse! It all sounds like desperation and not Wanting to accept that the design claim is simply wrong. This will never work.

Shame no one mentioned the Babel Fish ...

A few good rules of thumb; If someone asks; "Is that a coincidence?", you can generally answer; "Yes, it most likely is". If a head line or video title contains a question mark, the question posed can generally be answered with; "No".

On behalf of all Alexs in California, I apologize

The best argument against intelligent design is artificial intelligence (AI): Using AI, we are now capable of "designing" algorithms for a lot of problems that we were not able to develop an analytical solution for (e.g. self-driving cars or prediction of protein structures). However, AI is not designed at all, quite the opposite. You take an "arbitrary" network and only define the type of connections. Then, the network is "trained", i.e. you take a lot of data and try out, which of the parameters in the infinite parameter space give the best results. This is exactly what DNA and evolution does. Thus, by accepting AI as the best way to compute complex problems, we conceded that intelligent (i.e. our intelligence) design is not capable of doing the same but that trial-and-error (evolution) is superior.

Coincidences are when incidents coincide. Humans making fire or using radio waves are not examples of coincidence.

Sounds like a version of solipsism: I perceive this, this must be a coincidence, therefore my position on coincidences is correct.

I love how the stick is still the banging tool. Also, could the caller screw up Douglas Adams' analogy any more?!

It sounds like Ray Comforts "God's Banana" to me. Although I am only at 7.07. Maybe he will get to his argument before the temporal trap door falls.

I was having trouble paying attention because I kept think how much Forrest looks like Ruth from Ozark in this clip. 😄

Hello, my name is Alex and I am the caller in this video clip. First off, I apologize for the performance. I could have definitely done a better job. I was pretty nervous as I’ve never spoken in front of a live audience of over a thousand people. That said, I do think that what I said was logical and sound, but I wanted to give some clarification and responses to the hosts' objections to my ideas. After I talked about "radio waves, fire for cooking and antibiotics from nature" Forrest said that I was claiming that "everything is so perfect" which proves a God. I am not arguing that anything is perfectly aligned with anything else. Reality is full of chaos and sometimes that chaos overlaps which sometimes results in a net benefit to something else. I was trying to say that some coincidences are not extraordinary and some are. The reason I brought up the smoking gun analogy was to show that we, as a society, acknowledge that we can have beliefs that are not completely factual, but rely on inference which is OK. Forrest also said that I was putting humans in the forefront of my narrative, but I was not saying humans were the reason for the universe, but that many things are there for intelligence to take advantage of. I guess I’m claiming that intelligence is one of the main reasons for the universe. That’s why I think the simulation theory is a good example of deism because it’s a precreated environment that is fine tuned for intelligence to take advantage of it. How that intelligence proceeds, however, is up to the intelligence which means you may get a wide range of results. Matt said "We are tool makers" and then compared our tool making (like a stick for digging) to having enough food to eat and air to breathe. There is a fundamental difference between making tools like calculus or a Turing machine and having air to breathe. If there was no air to breathe then we wouldn’t be having this discussion so it’s a necessary occurrence and therefore isn’t an extraordinary coincidence. However, it is extraordinarily coincidental to be able to use radio waves to communicate, invent calculus and create a Turing machine. Matt said I was misunderstanding the puddle analogy which was correct, but only partially. I didn’t realize that Adams included utility in his description of the boundary of the puddle (so I thank Matt for pointing out that flaw). So, I disagree with that part of the analogy but, save for that, the illustration is still compelling for my point. Basically, I am claiming that there’s a certain amount of utility in reality that could reasonably be used as an argument for the existence of a creator. I don’t see how one could say that no amount of utility can be used to support the idea of deism. Because that ignores the distinction between ordinary coincidence (like having air to breath and food to eat) and extraordinary coincidences like someone being able to create the first Turing machine. That said, I don’t think that such extraordinary coincidences should merit a “smoking gun” level confidence in a deistic claim, but surely it’s a reasonable belief to hold. I believe deism can live alongside atheism and both can disagree but still be reasonable in their positions.

Yeah think about the poisons, the things that are super super inconvenient to humans. Deserts. Space itself. Black holes, stars etc.

Douglas Adams had this to say: "Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!” The analogy goes like this: The puddle is born and shaped by the circumstances of the hole it exists within. The puddle concludes that the whole was created for it, or that it was created for the hole. Adams's analogy demonstrates that the Fine-Tuning Argument is the result of an interverted conception of the universe. In the same way that, in actuality, it is the molecules of water in the puddle that conform to the dimensions of the pothole, it is our kind of life that conforms to the parameters of the universe.

Forrest is sharp as heck.

Not to contradict Matt (sacrilege I know), but the use of fire was most likely “invented” by certain species of bird and merely adopted and improved by humans (homo erectus). Which I think actually limits Alex’s argument further.

We shouldn't be surprised that things appear to be "made" for us. They appear that way because we are the result of what worked in the random and chaotic environment throughout the planet's history. Which is funny, because that's exactly what Douglas Adam's puddle analogy means. We're the water and the environment is the shape of the puddle.

How is fire, and cooked food so special? All creatures that eat, must break down the food source, before it is of use to them. There are plenty of ways food and be reduced for absorption: Fire is just one good, and fast way to break down food for absorption. Even after breakdown and absorption, there is waste, so no system is absolutely perfect. Life is still a struggle against barriers, and difficulties.

"don't u have to have evidence for that?" how ironic.🤣🤦🏿‍♂️

Caller ignoring the infinite list of things that are bad for us.

I think one thing that could have been brought up in this discussion is the difference between natural science and technology. Fire is a part of natural science, cooking with fire is a technology developed by intelligent beings.

Just an example of the mental gymnastics a person of faith will go through to try and make their perceptions of reality match their beliefs. Neil Degrasse Tyson the Astrophysicist addresses this when he stated that "The time to believe you are actually in the Matrix, is when you have evidence you are in the matrix". What I have similarly noticed is, organized religion goes through huge efforts to undermine our perceptions of reality, of ourselves, and our place within reality, so it can then make itself the sole authority on these things. A good example of Buddha who after being raised in the walled city was overwhelmed when presented with the realities of poverty, inequality, of hardship and death. Rather than face these truths Buddha instead chose to not only deny these truths but to undermine our perceptions and reality itself. If it's all an illusion, dream, or delusion, I remove myself from having to take responsibility for myself and others, and for making the situation better. I met a Christian who divorced himself from morality through a similar process; as he claimed it could be God's Will these things happen, and who is he to judge God's Will. This is my issue with Christianity as, it demanded the followers of Moses go out and kill every man, woman, and child minus the young Virgin girls who were given to the men. This would be a very easy and convenient way from an Army of Moses' followers to go out and commit all manner of atrocities and then justify it as being God's Will. There are even descriptions of armor and using it as symbolism for God and his attributes. A modern take on this hypocrisy is the love the sinner hate the sin diatribe coming from many Christians. This mentality has been used to justify denying LGBT people equality and freedom, and even church members disowning or even beating LGTB individuals. I mean, priests can't even universally follow their oath to celibacy, yet the faith demands LGTB people do the same in order to be accepted by the church and its members. If acceptance comes with such ligation, it's not acceptance it's a bribe at a minimum and a threat in actual practice. The fact God's love is conditional by requiring us to accept Jesus; least we face God's wrath, and comes with the bribe of salvation shows it to be a coersive and thus immoral proposition for God to demand.

Christ sake Alex. You couldn’t misunderstand the puddle analogy any more. Puddles understand it better than you do.

A coincidence is subjective pov.

Man sees fire feels the heat and thinks this would be great by my cave. Man probably found an animal burned in a fire and ate it and thought this tastes better then before. Amazing what millions of years can change

Life fits the environment. That is what the puddle analogy is saying. So it is not a coincidence but it is the opposite of the environment was created for life.

I’m very appreciative of the help in my deconversion that this show gave me, but idk how much more of Matt being objectively rude to people approaching genuinely like this person I can take.

It's a remarkable coincidence that there are diseases that we can cure. They must have been designed specifically for us.

“And god created willful stupidity, and called it Alex”

My counter to "it was designed for us" is "by a shitty designer, I can do better in seconds."

The puddle analogy is about the universe and humans in it. The puddle is people and the pothole it's in is the universe, the pothole just happens to be and the water in it fits just right because the water fit to the hole just as hijabs evolved to fit earth/universe/whatever.

My initial problem with the analogy of the person caught holding a smoking gun is that there IS a person holding the smoking gun. Where is this "god" holding the analogous smoking gun? Also Alex doesn't understand coincidence.

All well and good and quite fascinating how does it pay my mortgage or any other bills for that matter?

This seems like a convoluted way of saying that humans are intelligent therefore whatever made the universe is intelligent. Without realising that that’s the argument he’s making.

Its always very interesting to watch the co-host's face while matt gets angry when people speak over him. I wonder if they wish he had more emathy and less disdain for people who have not been on this topic as long as he (matt) has

I wonder how Alex would explain chimps and monkeys using, and in some cases making, tools to get at food

When someone needs to spend 5 minutes to define an analogy down to specific details that usually means they have an extremely weak argument.

"Who is he [Douglas Adams] talking to?" ... You, matey. People like you. People who needs to stop thinking there's a "Plan" in creation and whatever we do with our world will be OK.

Other than his misunderstanding the puddle analogy, I'm not sure what the caller was trying to say

This guy completely misunderstood the Douglas Adams puddle analogy… its an argument based on irony to point out how ridiculous the idea of « intelligent design » is.

You can fire and miss with a gun, and another person with a gun shoot and kill the person. You walk in and see the smoking gun and it not be the one who murdered the person. So that's why a ballistics test and a whole lot of other tests are done to eliminate mistakes that you can test for.

If mass and energy would have been created would it contradict first law of thermodynamics?

What do you think about The Double Slit Experiment and Matrix Theory possibly having something to do with each other?

I think his point was that, as the analogy is about us adapting to the world rather than the other way around, it illustrates how evolution is a better explanation than intelligent design; however, there are tons of things in the world that are useful for us that had nothing to do with our millions of years of evolution, such as fire, antibiotics and everything we use to create technology. Still though, that's not enough to conclude it was put there by a designer, it's just the fact that stuff does stuff, and we've been smart enough to know how to use that particular stuff to our advantage. It might seem intuitive that fire was put there for us so that we can cook food, but the reality is that, had it been cold instead or had any other behavior, we would be using it for something else instead. So, as this caller failed to realize, this *can* be taken back to the puddle analogy as well.

Convincing yourself of a lie doesn’t make it the truth

On the contrary, Alex, if everything was intelligently designed, you wouldn’t have come up with such a clearly unintelligent response

I notice that you're arguing for and against Heisenberg and Schrodinger at the same time. "Fact is that you are both right and wrong at the same time,it's not rocket science it's Quantum physics" -Aaron Kuntze

Matt .. forest... I commend your ability to stay sane..

Even after he was proven wrong by reading THE CREATORS OWN ANALOGY. He still STUCK with his own narrative only to serve his ego…. 🤦🏻‍♂️

rethink the analogy maybe its time 2 think alex

If we can't make use of anything in our environnement then we won't have existed. Moreover other animals also use the environnement but with a significantly lesser extent.