Plato's Revenge: An Interview with David Klinghoffer

Summary

The "ID the Future" podcast features an intriguing discussion with science writer David Klinghoffer about his new book, "Plato's Revenge: The New Science of the Immaterial Genome." The conversation delves into Dr. Richard Sternberg's thesis that an immaterial force exists beyond physical reality, which cannot be fully explained by DNA or epigenetics alone. Highlighting the idea that ancient wisdom, as seen in Plato's Timaeus, blends with cutting-edge science, Klinghoffer's book offers a lively introduction to Sternberg's revolutionary hypothesis. This immaterial genome suggests that intelligent design operates not only across history but also in real-time, challenging preconceived notions of biological processes.

Highlights

• David Klinghoffer introduces his book about Dr. Sternberg's thesis on the immaterial genome, suggesting a force beyond DNA. 🌌
• The book links Plato’s ancient ideas with modern science, offering a groundbreaking perspective on life’s dynamism. 🔍
• Dr. Sternberg's work challenges traditional views and invites a philosophical rethink of life processes. 💡
• The conversation unveils a narrative where design operates continuously, not just historically. 📈
• Listeners are encouraged to explore these groundbreaking ideas through Klinghoffer's accessible narrative. 📖

Key Takeaways

• The immaterial genome proposes a force beyond DNA, suggesting intelligent design operates in real-time. 🧬
• Klinghoffer's book connects Plato's ancient ideas with modern scientific discoveries. 📚
• Dr. Sternberg's thesis challenges conventional biological understanding and introduces profound philosophical implications. 🧠
• The discussion highlights ongoing debates in intelligent design and the dynamism of life. 🌱
• Klinghoffer simplifies complex scientific ideas, making them accessible to a broader audience. 🤓

Overview

In a fascinating episode of the 'ID the Future' podcast, science writer David Klinghoffer discusses his latest work, 'Plato’s Revenge,' which explores the revolutionary ideas of Dr. Richard Sternberg. Sternberg's thesis on the immaterial genome suggests that there is an intangible force at play in life, which cannot be fully accounted for by DNA or epigenetic factors alone. This conversation unveils how age-old philosophical ideas align with modern scientific findings, offering a new way to understand the complexity of life.

The interview delves into how Sternberg's theory has historical roots going back to Plato's philosophical musings in Timaeus. This connection between ancient wisdom and contemporary scientific inquiry invites readers to reconsider preexisting notions within biology, creating a bridge between the realms of science, philosophy, and spirituality. The implications of this thesis are profound, suggesting that intelligent design is an ongoing process that continues to shape life in the present moment, rather than simply a past event.

Through his book, Klinghoffer manages to present a complex and potentially revolutionary scientific idea in an engaging, accessible manner. By breaking down these intricate concepts into digestible pieces, he makes the discussion inviting for readers who may not have a background in science. The interplay of history, science, and philosophy within 'Plato's Revenge' not only informs readers about current debates in intelligent design but also encourages them to reflect on the deeper intricacies of life itself.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to the Podcast and Guest The podcast "ID the Future" welcomes science writer David Klinghoffer as a guest.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Discussion of David Klinghoffer's Work and Background The chapter discusses the work and background of David Klinghoffer, highlighting his role as an editor and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. It emphasizes Klinghoffer's significant input in Evolution News and Science Today as well as his editorial contributions. His works, like 'The Discovery of God', 'The Lord Will Gather Me In', and 'Debbing Darwin's Doubt', along with his contributions to the Wall Street [Journal], illustrate his impact in fields involving the intersection of science and ideology.
• 03:00 - 09:00: The Concept of the Immaterial Genome The chapter titled 'The Concept of the Immaterial Genome' introduces a discussion that involves notable individuals like a Brown University graduate living on Mercer Island, Washington, David, along with Emily Sandiko, Dr. Sternberg's associate. The setting is the Discovery Institute's office in Redmond. The discussion involves contributions to ID the Future.
• 09:00 - 14:00: Sternberg's Academic Challenges and Inspirations This chapter discusses two parallel projects involving Sternberg: his personal book about the immaterial genome and a larger, two-volume technical work being developed by Emily with Dr. Sternberg. The chapter hints at further exploration of the technical details of Sternberg's work in these projects.
• 14:00 - 18:00: Sternberg's Exploration of History and Science The chapter "Sternberg's Exploration of History and Science" delves into how evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg posits that, following the genetic revolution which uncovered the role of DNA and RNA in shaping organisms, we are now in need of a new and more profound scientific upheaval. The transcript highlights an introduction to these ideas and the potential implications of Sternberg's perspectives as outlined in his book, 'Plato's Revenge.'
• 18:00 - 23:00: Intelligent Design and Real-time Design Concept Recent findings in biology suggest that genetic and epigenetic sources are insufficient to fully explain life's dynamism. Hence, another source of information must be involved. This concept was first anticipated by Plato 2400 years ago and has been revisited occasionally. Although sidelined by scientific materialism, it is currently gaining traction due to advances in molecular biology.
• 23:00 - 26:00: The Book's Purpose and Impact In the chapter titled 'The Book's Purpose and Impact,' David Klinghoffer discusses Sternberg's explorations, weaving them into an engaging narrative. He delves into the concept that our existence is anchored to a genome that transcends mere matter. This genome owes its essence to an informational source that is immaterial, transcomputational, and exists beyond the constraints of space and time.
• 26:00 - 30:00: Closing Remarks and Ordering Information The chapter titled "Closing Remarks and Ordering Information" reflects on the journey through the ideas of Dr. Richard Sternberg, as discussed in "Plato's Revenge." It emphasizes the complexity and significance of presenting Dr. Sternberg's scientific hypothesis to a general audience, with recognition from Dr. Brian Miller on the challenges of this task. The chapter serves as a concluding dialogue, appreciating the listener's engagement with the profound ideas shared in the discussion.

Plato's Revenge: An Interview with David Klinghoffer Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 id the Future a podcast about evolution and intelligent design Welcome to ID the Future Today my guest is science writer David Klinghoffer to discuss his new book Plato's Revenge: The New Science of the Immaterial Genome It's a concise and userfriendly introduction to the work of Dr Richard Sternberg in his intriguing thesis that an immaterial force beyond
• 00:30 - 01:00 physical reality underpins life existence something for which neither DNA nor epigenics can account Now you may be familiar with David's work as editor of our flagship news and commentary site Evolution News and Science Today He's a Discovery Institute senior fellow and former senior editor at National Review His books include The Discovery of God The Lord Will Gather Me In and as editor Debbing Darwin's Doubt He has contributed to the Wall Street
• 01:00 - 01:30 Journal and the New York Times A Brown University graduate he lives on Mercer Island in Washington And best of all I get to work with him and I'm really grateful for that David welcome to ID the Future Thank you very much Andrew And I it's it's an interesting thing for your listeners to know that we're speaking to you from Redmond the Redmond office of Discovery Institute where we all work And we have also Emily Sandiko here who is um Dr Sternberg's associate She's well we'll get into that a little
• 01:30 - 02:00 bit later But um there are two parallel Sternberg projects going on One is my little book about about the immaterial genome and another is a large uh two volume technical work that Emily is working on with Dr Sternberg Yeah Yeah And uh we'll we'll get into more of that and that is definitely something we can look forward to the technical details of Sternberg Sternberg's work uh coming to light in the the project that he's
• 02:00 - 02:30 working on But your little book is a great little introduction uh to the whole idea Um let me read for you uh listeners the jacket copy for the new book Plato's Revenge I think it will help set the stage for us today Well first there was the genetic revolution the discovery that physical structures in the cell including DNA and RNA shape every organism Now says evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg we're overdue for another and more profound
• 02:30 - 03:00 revolution Recent findings reveal that genetic and even epigenetic sources alone cannot account for the rich dynamism of life Not even close Some other informationational source is required Now this idea was anticipated 2400 years ago in Plato's Tmus and periodically revisited in the ensuing centuries Sidelined by scientific materialism it is now reasserting itself on the strength of cuttingedge molecular
• 03:00 - 03:30 biology higher mathematics and common sense reasoning In Plato's Revenge science writer David Klinghoffer takes Sternberg's profound explorations and weaves them into a lively and accessible account of a most remarkable realization At every moment we owe ourselves to a genome that is more than matter and to anformational source that is immaterial transcomputational and beyond space and time All right So there there it is in a nutshell And if you haven't said wow to
• 03:30 - 04:00 yourself yet well I'm sure you're going to by the end of this uh little chat here But we're so glad listeners that you've come along on this little journey as we enter into the thought of Dr Richard Sternberg and his pretty awesome idea Now David in Plato's Revenge you're writing about the work of of Dr Sternberg And as Dr Brian Miller points out in his advanced praise of your book this is not an easy task to introduce the general reader to a scientific hypothesis that is profound potentially
• 04:00 - 04:30 revolutionary but hardly simple And by all accounts you've managed to to actually do that to paint an engaging portrait of the scientist behind the idea So how did this um book come about this this little book we're looking at today Well it's a long story Uh Andrew how much time do you have um I I've known Rick Sternberg since 2004 2005 when he had a a runin with the Smithsonian Institution where he worked He also worked at the NIH and he
• 04:30 - 05:00 published an article by Steven Meyer in in a technical journal was uh at the Smithsonian the proceedings of the biological society of Washington and that caused a huge storm Rick may well have been naive in not realizing that publishing the fir very first uh article about a in a scientific journal advocating and arguing for intelligent design would cause a huge mess and he
• 05:00 - 05:30 endured a lot of persecution on the part of his supervisors both at the Smithsonian and the NIH And I wrote an article about him for the Wall Street Journal uh about his story and about what all all the consequences of his having published Steve Meyer's um article in 2012 Um I was work I was by that time working at at Discovery Institute and Rick gave a presentation
• 05:30 - 06:00 in a small conference room in Seattle about the immaterial genome And I had never heard him up until that point discuss this thesis of his and it really gave me a chill It it I he was he was speaking to a small number of us and one of the scientists who was present an Ger said at the time if this is true it changes everything and it really and it really did because he had he had taken an idea
• 06:00 - 06:30 that goes back as you mentioned 2400 years to Plato's Tmus and found that it was there found scientific evidence that there really is an immaterial counterpart part to the physical genome The physical genome is DNA The immaterial genome is located somewhere else It's not in space It's not in time And that idea I found thrilling for a couple of reasons One it just it it blew
• 06:30 - 07:00 my mind The other is when you find um uh a figure from history um a book from history that you that was neglected and you realize that it actually speaks to concerns of yours in your life at that moment It is um amazing and thrilling and that was that was my subjective experience when I first heard um Sternberg's thesis Yeah Yeah And I can
• 07:00 - 07:30 relate to what you're saying there To find that that ancient wisdom in really old books is uh quite the thrill indeed Well how long has Sternberg uh been stewing on these ideas i mean this goes back to a paper he wrote uh at least 20 years ago now 2002 Yeah Um in the book I I describe um very interesting dream that Rick had I'm going to call him Rick instead of Dr Sternber if that's okay um where he it he was in Rome in
• 07:30 - 08:00 2007 speaking at the the Pontipical Academy of Sciences and he had a dream of a priest uh an arthodox Christian priest who opened for him um very interesting dream uh a an ancient book filled with figures of organisms and he was inspired prepared to he he couldn't sleep for the rest of the night and this the priest spoke to
• 08:00 - 08:30 him and said this is information is being shared in order for in order that men should repent and but what he meant by repent was not stop sinning it meant changing your outlook about reality and it was it was from that moment that Rick explains that he began thinking about in earnest about the this idea of an immaterial genome right now This is not a book uh like it's not a
• 08:30 - 09:00 biography of Richard Sternberg is it and it's not a biography of you either No there there is a lot of personal as I've just mentioned you know if when when you start talking about a scientist and his dreams um or you talk about you know some some of the very personal things that I share about myself in in the in the introduction anyway Um it's not it's not your average everyday scientific work I it I do try to summarize Rick's thinking in a way that is friendly to the to to
• 09:00 - 09:30 the lay reader but there's a lot in it also that is personal to him and to me So uh when Rick uh publishes his two volume technical work it will not be that kind of book but this one is intended to speak personally right and as such it's concise and it's user friendly uh on purpose Well with PhDs in both biology and system science and having worked at the Smithsonian Institute and the National Museum of
• 09:30 - 10:00 Natural History Dr Sternberg is every bit the worldclass scientist but he's also knowledgeable and interested in history And that was something you say you were surprised by because you too have a deep love of history Is that right yeah I mean I his immaterial genome thesis as I mentioned goes back to Plato and and when I was in college I studied Greek and I've always been fascinated by intellectual searches as an act of archaeology and Sternberg feels much the
• 10:00 - 10:30 same way that he is as interested in the history of science as he in the history of philosophy as he is in science And so yeah I do I do identify with him uh in that sense Yeah You even mentioned in your book uh an old Jewish uh idea of the devolution of generations Um you know that there's this view that we can move forward progressively and and we shouldn't look back because we can always do things better and and move
• 10:30 - 11:00 toward um you know just a better more comprehensive idea of life and and the world But in doing so you you will often forget what has already been thought right that great great thinkers have thought about these questions going back thousands of years We're not the first to have considered them And a lot of people have found um uh clues in ancient thought that shed light on very modern
• 11:00 - 11:30 problems Yeah Yeah That immaterial genome thesis connects Plato as you say with cutting edge modern science research So it's a very old idea but it's also a very new one as the science emerges that confirms it So this literally goes back 2400 years Did you had you ever read Tmus closely did you catch these things before you came across Sternberg's work or did it encourage you to go back to these no I I had not Um but when I did read the TAUS I was struck by but there are a lot of
• 11:30 - 12:00 strange things about it that are not modern but there are other things that really um are like straight out of an ID playbook I mean he he talks about uh the idea of a multi he shoots down the idea of a multiverse Um he discusses he he doesn't use the phrase privileged planet but he discusses the design of our planet for scientific discovery which is a thesis right out of uh conversations about
• 12:00 - 12:30 intelligent design that we have So it's it's a very it it's an ancient but in some ways very modern book and he discusses the the idea that there are these immaterial um forms that are outside space and time that inform um the development of every life Um so that is not an idea that was invented by Sternberg at all Well and in his own research Sternberg turns up a
• 12:30 - 13:00 whole line of thinkers from Plato all the way to you know moderns like Professor Michael Leaven of Harvard and Tufts who have circled this idea in their work and have entertained it That's a long line of intellectual forebears for this argument Yeah As we as we as this book was coming to completion I was very startled to see um a pre-print article by Professor Michael Leven who as you mentioned um has appointments at Tufts University and at Harvard who explicitly discusses and and
• 13:00 - 13:30 he's not an he's not an idea advocate at all but he explicitly discusses the idea that Platonic forms and minds uh play a role in shaping life And I thought I was struck by uh the synchronicity of that Um synchronicity means a a meaningful coincidence as you know and and I was also struck by the fact that that Leven's in his Leven's uh paper ends with an endote uh to Carl Jung's the
• 13:30 - 14:00 psychologist Carl Young's book synchronicity Wow Wow That is cool So you've had a you've got a lot of thinkers who across the centuries have been have been looking at this idea Uh do you think we're now in a place where we can have science that will back it up is that what's been missing since Plato's time yeah And in fact I want Andrew I want to read a couple of paragraphs from the book that discuss
• 14:00 - 14:30 what is called Bremerman's limit A lot of this is quoting from Sternberg who was discussing a a molecular machine called the splicome and he talks about calculating its activities and he says if I start looking at it in terms of numbers says Sternberg it becomes less and less likely to be a standard run-of-the-mill mechanical process the sort necessarily entailed in the in the model of the genome as a purely physical entity The numbers are not just large but quote
• 14:30 - 15:00 transcomputational That's a word that comes up in this book a number of times He says because beyond the capacity of any purely physical system to compute in our material universe The German mathematician and computer scientist Hans Yawakim Bremerman who lived between 1926 and 1996 defined the limit of this Again quoting Sternberg He imagined a computer the size of the earth of
• 15:00 - 15:30 which every atom is devoted to processing bits running for however long the earth has been in existence So billions of years and his question was how many bits could it process he he calculated that it would be a maximum of about 10 to the 93 bits that is one a one followed by 93 zeros That's a problem because in the example Sternberg gives of normal activities going on in the nucleus of a cell the information
• 15:30 - 16:00 processing processing is already far beyond the number calculated by Bremerman It would seem that the nucleus is not of the age or size as a computing entity to manage the computations expected of it To say not even close is an absurd under representation of the problem So there's this really this is not just about airy fairy philosophy It's about hard numbers and the numbers for the material genome
• 16:00 - 16:30 do not add up There is there is simply not enough information the phys in a cell to account for the operations of that cell There isn't enough information Right Yeah I'm glad you mentioned that This is this isn't just a purely philosophical idea by any means This comes down to hard math and the inability of a physical entity to be the source of it It's it's pretty deep But but listeners I hope you can grasp it
• 16:30 - 17:00 Now one one idea I had was there's a mainstream scientist who has explored the immateriality of the genome Dr Dennis Noble and he provides a helpful analogy to grasp this Uh listeners if you're having a difficult time with it so far um let me let me give it to you this way So and this is Dennis Noble's uh analogy You have an organ and you have an organist Uh a person who plays an organ The organ represents an organism's genome The organist is the
• 17:00 - 17:30 immaterial genome When the organist plays the organ he or she is imposing a pattern on the passive organ pipes And what results is a recognizable pattern we know and love as music So David I don't know if you've come across that in your research yet but does that analogy resonate with you yeah I mean something something is it's it it is as if the DNA the physical genome were an instrument that someone or something is playing It's it's the DNA
• 17:30 - 18:00 is not playing itself Something is playing it And just as with your analogy of an organist whoever is playing the DNA is an intelligent agent But it's not it's not happening within the cell itself It's happening somewhere else Somewhere necessarily not in our spaceime Right And what you just said there is another good way to to summarize it It's not the DNA playing itself It's something playing the DNA
• 18:00 - 18:30 Right Well it's it's a lot to wrap your head around but again this is just a teaser Don't freak out Don't uh run for the hills This is a really compelling idea and it just takes a little time to germinate uh to wrap your head around What I what I've tried to do Sternberg's ideas are not easy and what I've tried to do is explain them as a as a journalist which is what I am Uh in terms understandable by me anything that
• 18:30 - 19:00 I couldn't understand coming from Rick I didn't include them in the book only things that I that I personally do understand So I I can promise that that anyone who reads this book will understand Rick's ideas in so far as they represented in this book Okay Yeah that's uh that's great And that's a service you've you've given us So I appreciate that Um well Dr Brian Miller has written recently at Evolution News
• 19:00 - 19:30 which you edit and often write for about some of the mainstream scientists who are intrigued by the idea of an information source beyond DNA and epigenetics In his post three words jumped out at me that helped to kind of explain this whole immaterial genome idea and that is mind before matter Yeah In the ID community we're familiar with mind over matter You know we hear that a lot Um but mind before matter that sort of helps put it into uh a deeper
• 19:30 - 20:00 perspective and it it points to a causal input into mind and life that originates outside the physical world And something that also strikes me about Sternberg's ideas is that we are accustomed to thinking of design intelligent design as having happened in historical time We think of it as a historical science and and it is But Sternberg's thesis um really takes intelligent design to a different level It shows design
• 20:00 - 20:30 operating in real time Operating right now in every cell in your body right now and in the development of every embryo in the womb there is some um uh information gap that is not provided by the DNA of the embryo as it develops It is coming from somewhere else So this is um intelligent design in real time Wow that's an awesome thought to to bring into the mix there Yeah you you do
• 20:30 - 21:00 tend to to see intelligent design described as an historical theory uh similar to um you know Darwinism uh they're both historical ideas of origins But when we toss this into the mix then we understand just the real time immediate right now sense of the design in action And and this is this is not a contradiction to intelligent design I mean this doesn't take away anything from the inference that design occurred
• 21:00 - 21:30 in in the Cambrian explosion for example and all the other explosions of novel biological information that we find traced in the fossil record It's not taking away from that at all It's saying that that design is not only a historical science It is a science of the present moment Well David Plato's Revenge is not an academic book as you've mentioned and alluded to It's a short accessible introduction to a man and his potentially revolutionary idea
• 21:30 - 22:00 As a colleague noted to you years ago and ger you know if it's true it changes everything Now what do you hope that this little book in front of us is going to accomplish in the weeks and months to come and what are readers going to get out of reading it well uh I I know that people have been waiting for uh Rick's technical work Um and I've been waiting for it I'm all I'm very eager to read it Um Emily has had sort of a sneak preview of it Uh and in um
• 22:00 - 22:30 but I I want to be able to give our readers and uh uh our followers um a little bit of a preview of what of Rick's what Rick's thinking is that we've all been following for for years And as you mentioned um with Michael Levan and other um scientists who are not who are not in our community uh there's a sense that this idea has has um has has has um developed enough
• 22:30 - 23:00 that it's it it has broken out of intelligent design and it's being it's being described by others and one of my hopes is to stake a claim uh for Sternberg um before other people get there And um it's it's an idea whose time has come Yeah that's beautifully put Well David where can listeners go to learn more and order a copy of the book
• 23:00 - 23:30 well at Discovery Institute Press which is the publisher on Amazon and your favorite book seller the of course the easiest place is is is Amazon Mhm Yeah Yeah And and and again we're talking about a slim book I mean weekend reading you know it's not going to take you long to to consume this but it's going to set you up for what's to come And what's to come is going to be powerful and it's going to be potentially revolutionary and it has the power to change everything in biology and beyond So it's
• 23:30 - 24:00 pretty exciting Listeners I do encourage you to get a copy um at discovery institute.press press and you'll be able to get your hands on a piece of scientific history that is still playing out and is overdue Well David thank you for joining us today for this little chat I hope we can come back and uh talk again further Thank you very much As David mentioned get a copy of Plato's Revenge at Discovery Institute press website And be sure to follow daily
• 24:00 - 24:30 coverage of the evolution debate and the scientific evidence for intelligent design at evolutionnews.org there We're writing daily covering all these topics as they happen Uh including things in the news and what we're putting out in our research uh all the different fellows and researchers who are involved in the intelligent design community It's a great resource evolutionnews.org for ID the future I'm Andrew McDermott Thanks for listening
• 24:30 - 25:00 Visit us at idthe future.com and intelligentdesign.org This program is copyright discovery institute and recorded by its center for science and culture