21:42 - Lennox: Evolution depends on a fine-tuned universe, which raises important questions about the origin of the universe - evolution doesn't deal with that. (D agrees.) Nor does it deal with the origin of life. (D agrees.) The notion that things must go from simple to complex seems to be D's faith. (D disagrees - simple things going complex need an explanation, and the explanation is there in biology.)
The point of evolution is that the outcome is a given, i.e. the ones that survive are the ones that survive: the universe is not necessarily fine-tuned, it just happens to be the place where the ones that survive survive, as opposed to all other known places, where organisms as we know them don't survive. However, L has a point in that we have no particular reason to think that things typically go from simple to complex, or that things need to be explained, or that they can be explained. The need to understand and explain is derived from the belief in the Jewish/Christian God and the Order of Creation. As an atheist, once you accept that the ones that survive survive for no ultimate reason, you may just as well accept that things are the way they are for no ultimate reason, and when they change, that just happens for no ultimate reason. Assuming the need and possibility to understand, atheists are holding on to a concept of reality that follows from the Judeo-Christian tradition, but doesn't follow from atheism.
22:38 - Lennox: Life has a digital database, a language of its own, and there is no language without a mind. D as an atheist must reject that. (D agrees - while there is a mind behind human language, DNA is not a human language.) DNA is very sophisticated, and the cell is a very sophisticated information processor. Should L believe that this information processing came about by natural processes without a mind? (D concurs.) L finds that impossible to believe as a mathematician. (D calls this 'the argument from personal incredulity'.)
Bad news for L, DNA can, in principle, work in an analogue way, base triplets coding for amino acids, which are joined in order to make specific proteins. Once the first DNA was in place, its evolution could proceed without a mind in the background. The rub lies in how DNA came into existence, as it does not tend to crop up on its own.
24:11 - 24:35 Lennox: You can reverse that and say D's belief comes from personal credulity. (D disagrees.) D believes that rationality comes from irrationality, and mind comes from matter. L finds that the Biblical explanation (in the beginning was the word, i.e. logos) makes perfect sense.
Again, L has a point: there seems to be faith on either side of the debate. Irrationality -> rationality is an unexplained quantum leap. However, the logos is more of a solution through definition than a reassuring solution, since it contradicts our experience of the world. (As does eternal matter.)
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