Bridging Evolution: A Conversation Between Intelligent Design and Third Way

What happens when researchers from competing scientific worldviews sit down for an honest conversation? In this dialogue, three thinkers—exploring Neo-Darwinism, Third Way evolution, and Intelligent Design—discover unexpected common ground while respecting disagreements. Denis Noble (Oxford University, Third Way evolution, www.thethirdwayofevolution.com), Casey Luskin (Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design, www.evolutionnews.org), and Perry Marshall (Evolution 2.0, bridge-builder, www.evo2.org) engage in the kind of scientific discourse that's increasingly rare: genuine curiosity about opposing viewpoints without the usual academic tribalism.

• A Third Way evolutionist who challenges both Neo-Darwinian orthodoxy AND Intelligent Design assumptions
  

• An ID theorist who genuinely appreciates criticisms of mainstream evolutionary theory
  

• Discoveries of shared ground where opponents thought none existed
  

• Honest wrestling with profound questions about consciousness, agency, and the nature of life itself 
  
  

This isn't just another evolution debate. It's a case study in how scientists engage across ideological divides to advance understanding. The most profound insights often emerge not from echo chambers, but from healthy tension between opposing ideas.

"We don't substitute any certainties whatsoever... let it evolve. Let us find out, let us, for God's sake, be open to what it might be that we discover." —Denis Noble

Transcript: https://evo2.org/wp-content/uploads/2...

You know how creationists often blindly reference a particular scholar, as though the things the scholar says somehow substantiate their ridiculous views? These days that scholar is Denis Noble. He's a physiologist who thinks he's debunked Neo-Darwinism and revived the long discarded Lamarckian model of evolution. Spoiler alert: he hasn't. He only offers a pathetic distortion of principles in evolutionary biology which are so disgraceful that it raises the question of who is paying him to do it. Don't worry, all your questions will be answered and all of Noble's ridiculous rhetoric will be dismantled in this video!

Again a sobering clarification of what the "third way" is.
By now we must have gotten used to his rather grating style, so try to see through that, and listen to what he says.

Denis Noble, Oxford physiologist, has been all over YouTube spreading misinformation and confusion about the current status of evolutionary biology. He and his colleagues promote what they call the "Third Way of Evolution," which they see as overturning so-called Neo-Darwinism. In this video, we cover all of their major arguments - from the role of non-genetic inheritance in evolutionary theory, to concepts of agency, purpose, and teleonomy in biology, "natural genetic engineering," and more. Ultimately, we conclude that the Third Way is neither a novel paradigm nor a serious challenge to the existing one.

This one goes more into detail, has a completely different tone, so maybe more accessible to someone who does not like Dave Farina's style.

[Laird]

I've watched all three videos shared in this thread. As a non-expert, it's very difficult to know what the truth is. Clearly, the proponents of the modern synthesis theory of evolution claim to have a solid experimental and theoretical basis on which to dismiss competing claims of non-random innovations and intentional selection. I don't doubt that they're sincere about that, and I get why folk like Dave Farina are so outraged by those competing claims, especially given his understanding that they are motivated by a theocratic political agenda.

On the other hand, that the incredible complexity and integrated organisation of biological life arose through a purely mechanistic, unguided process of natural selection acting upon random innovations is prima facie an extraordinary one, especially given that we don't yet seem to understand how abiogenesis got us from simple non-biological chemicals to the unfathomably intricate biological system capable of undergoing random innovations acted upon by natural selection (i.e., DNA, etc) - Dave's insistence that we know enough about it to be confident that it, too, arose through a sort of chemical process of natural selection notwithstanding.

Too, the best conclusion to be drawn from the empirical evidence for paranormal phenomena that we discuss here on PQ seems to me to be that consciousness (call it, say, "the soul") persists after biological death, and thus must in some way be integrated with the biological body during life, an integration which is hard to explain if biological bodies evolved gradually from chemicals which initially had no associated consciousness/soul - it is hard to imagine there is some particular point at which this integration began to occur, and that until then, bodies had been mere insentient collections of chemicals operating according to physical laws.

Finally, even if the modern synthesis (plus/including abiogenesis) is wholly correct, the very fact that the universe is conditioned in such a way that the incredible complexity and integrated organisation of life could spontaneously arise in this way is itself extraordinary, and invites the question as to whether that conditioning could itself be random and non-intentional.

These sort of sentiments made me resonate with a quote from Destin of the Smarter Every Day YouTube channel. He was quoted by Greg of The Daily Grail in Greg's August 13, 2024 article Evidence of ‘Intelligent Design’? The incredible microscopic biological machines that make life possible.

That quote (as Greg presents it) is this:

The complexity and origin of the bacterial flagellar motor is a really interesting conundrum. As I was a younger man, and I would read things on the internet I would find people saying, “Hey, you’ve got to believe all this over here.” Or [other] people would say, “Hey, you’ve got to believe all this over here. There’s a big war going on. It’s between science and faith. You’re either in one camp or the other. Get your flag and figure out where you’re going to put your flag.”

And the more I have matured and started to not really care about defending where my flag is, the more I’ve been able to learn from people no matter where they are. I’m still working on this.

Incidentally, Greg's article and the videos to which it links are really interesting.

Yeah I think for the case of ID at the biological level the Materialist Evangelicals vs the ID crowd makes it hard for me to take either at face value. 

Both camps are too biased by their faith.

Sadly I think the technical details are not something a layperson can evaluate with ease. I do still need to go through the Farina vs ID videos [and essays] I'd say I'd look over, but I don't have much hope of seeing a deciding argument on either side.

All that said, throw in the fact that there are Christian biologists who are very much against ID + Third Way types and it starts to feel that just on a heuristic basis there's a rational reason to be wa[r]y of ID claims...

Yeah I think for the case of ID at the biological level the Materialist Evangelicals vs the ID crowd makes it hard for me to take either at face value. 

Both camps are too biased by their faith.

Sadly I think the technical details are not something a layperson can evaluate with ease. I do still need to go through the Farina vs ID videos [and essays] I'd say I'd look over, but I don't have much hope of seeing a deciding argument on either side.

All that said, throw in the fact that there are Christian biologists who are very much against ID + Third Way types and it starts to feel that just on a heuristic basis there's a rational reason to be wa[r]y of ID claims...

ID is solid on a scientific and philosophical basis ~ one just needs to strip out the particular Christian interpretations as they pop up.

However, creator/s, designer/s ~ nothing particularly religious about those. And there are plenty enough ID articles which carefully avoid referencing the religion of the writer, which is admirable, as it allows the individual to come to their own conclusions.

But ID arguments by and large gets strawmanned by the Darwinist crowd, who ad hominem its proponents as being Christian Creationists, when they're nothing alike.

ID is solid on a scientific and philosophical basis ~ one just needs to strip out the particular Christian interpretations as they pop up.

However, creator/s, designer/s ~ nothing particularly religious about those. And there are plenty enough ID articles which carefully avoid referencing the religion of the writer, which is admirable, as it allows the individual to come to their own conclusions.

But ID arguments by and large gets strawmanned by the Darwinist crowd, who ad hominem its proponents as being Christian Creationists, when they're nothing alike.

I agree that one need not worship any possible designer, after all they could just be running up the Matrix rather than being something "Divine".

But there are religious people who just don't think the evidence is there for biological ID, and additionally the Third Way seems to propose an alternative to ID.

So it seems to me that ID *might* be correct, but it remains to be seen if this is the case.