All language subtitles for Through the Wormhole S04E10 Did God Create Evolution [pseudo]

Freeman: Were we put here on
purpose by someone or something?

Or did some random event create

all of the incredible complexity
we see today?

[ Hisses ]

Freeman: Scientists
have been trying to understand

how life was created...

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

But there are still gaps
in our understanding.

Could our existence
be the work of a higher power

or was it the laws of nature?

[ Thunder cracks ]

Did God create evolution?

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

Subtital By RA_One

Scientists estimate

that billions of species
have lived on earth

from the tiniest microbes
to a 50-ton dinosaur.

The Bible says God made them all
in six days.

But there's another theory...

life created itself
about four billion years ago,

and the myriad species
earth has known

have all been the product
of evolution.

Theology and the science

struggle
to find a common ground.

Did Charles Darwin get it right

when he proposed that evolution
created all life?

Was it the guiding hand
of some supreme being?

Or could it have been both?

I used to find caterpillars

in the bushes near my house
growing up...

fat, stubby worms.

Before long, each one hid away
inside a silky cocoon.

I wondered what was going on
inside that tiny shelter.

How did something so ugly

transform
into a beautiful butterfly?

Michael Behe is a biochemist
from lehigh university

in Pennsylvania.

He's an advocate for an idea
called intelligent design...

that someone or something

planted the seeds of life
on earth

and has had a guiding hand
in its evolution ever since.

Behe: Intelligent design argues
that random processes

can't produce
what we see in life today,

but it has no quarrel
with the idea of descent

from ancient organisms
to modern organisms.

Freeman: Michael's problem
with Darwin's theory

is that Darwin insists evolution
stems from random mutations.

When he looks around in nature,

he sees plenty of things
that look like

they were
randomly thrown together,

like the debris in these woods.

We had a storm
pass through here recently.

Nobody would think
that any of this

was particularly arranged
on purpose.

You know, it's just a jumble.

Here's a stick here.

There's a stick there,
a stone there.

Freeman: But Michael believes
other things in nature

could not have arranged
themselves randomly.

They appear to be
the work of a designer.

Just as these sticks didn't
randomly arrange themselves

into the word "Life, "
Michael doesn't believe

biological life
came together randomly, either.

Behe: I'm a biochemist,
and so I see evidence in nature

and places where most people
don't think about,

but it's in the cell.

The cell is
a fantastic nano-scale factory

with machinery... literally
machines made out of molecules.

Freeman: Michael studies
the structure of bacteria.

Some bacteria have tails
called flagella

that allow them to swim.

Behe: It is quite literally
an outboard motor

that bacteria use to swim,

and just like an outboard motor
in our everyday life,

it's got clamps to hold it
on to the bacterial membrane,

it's got a propeller
that spins 'round and around.

Turns out if you remove
one of more of these pieces,

the flagellum
doesn't work at all.

Freeman: The complicated
structure of bacterial tails

led Michael to develop a theory
he calls irreducible complexity.

It claims that living systems
need all of their parts

in order to work.

They can't evolve
piece by piece.

So, Darwin's theory
requires this gradualism,

wherein some feature of biology
is built up slowly over time.

But with
an irreducibly complex system...

that means a system that has
a number of components...

you can't build it up gradually
over time and have it work.

Freeman: If the tail of the bacterium
was missing just one part,

the whole thing
wouldn't function.

Michael doesn't think

organisms could have made
such leaps of complexity

through evolution alone.

He thinks they must have had
help from a creator.

I'm a Christian,

and so I certainly think
God created the universe,

but the nice thing
about intelligent design

is that you can realize
something was designed

without knowing
who the designer was.

But you can be confident
of the design.

Freeman: The complex design
of bacteria tails

isn't the most mysterious leap
in biology.

There are
even more complex structures

that are harder to explain,

like the bony spines
of vertebrates.

Our earliest
vertebrate ancestors

had backbones call notochords...

boneless,
flexible rods made of collagen.

Some big, freshwater fish that
are alive today still have them.

Other species, like us, have
evolved bones in the back...

vertebral columns.

But how did long strips
of collagen make the leap

and become bony spines?

Bioroboticist John long
at vassar college

is searching
for these missing links.

One of the great questions
we're interested in

is how did this group of animals
that we belong to

called vertebrates
first evolve?

Now, this happened
500 million years ago,

so we don't have a time machine
we can jump in, unfortunately,

and go back
and see what happened.

Freeman: John suspects the first
versions of the vertebral column

were small mistakes in our DNA

that created little
bony deposits on the notochord.

They stuck around
because they ended up

making animals faster, stronger,
and better at finding food.

But fossils of ancient fish

don't tell this
evolutionary story step by step.

There are huge gaps
in the historical record.

So John has decided
to try and fill in these gaps

by bringing extinct creatures
back to life...

As robots.

Welcome to the abyss.

We create an artificial world
here in this tank

for our swimming biorobots
where we reanimate evolution

that happened
500 million years ago.

Freeman: John's robots
are called evolvobots.

They are about to play
the game of life.

Long: This is
a biomimetic vertebral column

that's specially designed
out of collagen,

and we can vary
the number of vertebrae,

and this is the feature
that we're allowing to evolve.

Freeman:
John has given them notochords

that can each be segmented with
different numbers of vertebrae,

from 0 to 5 to 10 to 15.

He has created a world in which
light means life or food.

The evolvobots' task
is to find their next dinner.

Long: So, we go
from 0 to 5 to 10 to 15,

and what we're expecting
to have happen, right,

is that the robots
with the most vertebrae,

over here,

will out-compete the robots
with the fewest vertebrae.

So, this should be
gold-medal winner,

silver-medal winner,
bronze-medal winner,

and thank you for trying.

Now, dragging way behind now,
looks like zero vertebrae.

Freeman: The evolvobots
with segmented backbones

are performing better
than the one without.

Long: Look at number 10...
way out in front now.

And then we have number 5,

and 15 over on the side there
is getting there, but slowly.

Freeman: To John's surprise,

the evolvobot with 10 bones won,
beating the one with 15.

Long: So,
what do we have emerging here?

It looks like
intermediate number of vertebrae

is doing a better job
at getting food.

So it's not just having
a bunch of vertebrae,

it's having the right number.

Freeman:
John believes this shows

that evolution
is not a designed process.

Nature may have randomly tried
different kinds of backbones,

and the best ones survived.

We find that when there's
selection pressure

for enhanced feeding
and fleeing,

this is sufficient to drive
the evolution of vertebrae.

Freeman: Using his research,

John can trace
the path of backbone evolution

all the way up to us.

Long: So, as humans,
we get bothered by the idea

that we could have evolved,

in all our wonderful,
brain-heavy glory,

by random processes,

but one of the hard things

to wrap your head around
as a human being

is that evolution works
not by design

but by hands-off
emergent principles.

Freeman: John's evolvobots
give us a window

into how primitive organisms
can evolve

into upright,
complex human beings.

But has there been enough time
in the history of earth

for this slow and unsteady
process of evolution to happen?

An M.I.T. Complexity theorist
is doing the math to find out.

Darwin's theory of evolution

hinges on the idea
that species gradually evolve

through a process
of genetic trial and error.

In the four-billion-year history
of life on earth,

evolutionists argue,

the first single-celled
organisms evolved to become me.

Those who believe
in intelligent design

argue that trial and error

could never create
something so complex

in that amount of time.

Does the theory of evolution
add up?

That's a question
only a mathematician can answer.

When M.I.T. Professor
Scott aaronson was growing up,

he had big dreams.

When I was a kid,

my dream in life was to create
my own video games.

You know,
video games just amazed me.

They were like these entire
worlds in miniature,

and yet, you know,
unlike with the real world,

someone must understand
exactly how they work, right?

Because someone made them.

Freeman: Scott used to imagine that
the characters in his video games

were built in a factory
like machines.

But he eventually figured out

they were actually built
from math.

Aaronson: You could say,
"Here is the game,

and then here's the code
of the game."

and the code, you know,

is not just some description
of the game.

It is the game, right?

You change the code,

and then you can watch the game
do something different,

which is
really just a math problem.

And, you know, for me,
I think that was a revelation

comparable to learning
where babies come from.

Freeman: This realization
inspired Scott

to look
for deep mathematical theories

to solve the biggest mysteries
in science,

like how organisms evolved
into complex beings.

Believers in intelligent design
like to say

that for some random process
like natural selection

to produce the eye or the wing
of a bird or the human brain

is about as improbable

as a toRNAdo passing
through a junkyard

and somehow assembling
a usable building.

This is where I work.

It's called
the M.I.T. Stata center,

and it does kind of look like

a toRNAdo passed
through the place.

This building,
despite how it may look,

was not designed
by natural processes.

It was designed
by the architect Frank gehry,

but in math
and computer science,

we know that producing
interesting structure

doesn't always require
a designer.

Freeman:
Creationists often argue

that evolution is a random,
exhaustive search

through all possible
biological combinations.

[ Wheezes ]

An impossible task

that could never have gotten
as far as it has

in only four billion years.

[ Oinks ]

Scott believes complex traits
like the human brain

or a bacterium's tail

can evolve
in a reasonable amount of time

because evolution is not
a completely blind process.

In fact, evolution
has some clever shortcuts.

Imagine this chessboard is blank

and Scott's goal
is to properly color it

so that
no two neighboring squares

are colored the same.

So, how could you do it?

Well, there are
three different approaches

that may spring to mind.

Let's see my avatar,
super Scott, here, try to do it.

If super Scott had
the magical powers

of an intelligent designer,

he could, I suppose,

just see in his mind's eye
all of the possible colorings

and just instantly pick out
the one that worked.

Freeman:
If it takes just one step

for the intelligent designer
super Scott to fill each square,

it would only take him 64 steps.

You could create humans
in a matter of minutes

if you had this kind
of God-like vision.

Aaronson:
What else could we do?

A brute-force approach... just
trying every possible coloring,

every possible assignment
of colors,

to all 64 of the squares.

Well, there are
2 to the 64th power

ways of coloring all the squares
of a chessboard.

That's about 18 quintillion.

He's obviously gonna be at this
for quite a while.

Freeman:
On this purely random mission,

even if super Scott gets
all but one square correct,

he has to start over again.

Is organisms evolved like this,

it would take millions of times
longer

than the age of the universe

for a single-celled bacterium
to evolve

into the intelligent life
we see today.

But evolution works differently.

It makes random guesses,

but doesn't go
back to square one

whenever it makes a mistake.

Aaronson: Here, super Scott starts
out with a complete random coloring.

He can just look
for any two squares

that are colored the same,
pick two of those at random,

and then randomly change
the color of one of them.

Freeman:
In this evolutionary approach,

super Scott can make corrections
along the way

without having to start over
every time.

Aaronson: But you might wonder
how long will this take?

Well, it turns out
it will take longer

than the intelligent designer,
that's for sure.

On the other hand,

not nearly as long
as the brute-force approach.

With an eight by eight
chessboard,

this random-mutation approach
will take about 5,000 steps.

Freeman:
5,000 steps is more than 64,

but it's not anywhere near
18 quintillion.

These emerging mathematics
of evolution

show that complex patterns
can arise surprisingly quickly.

We've seen that
a mindless evolutionary process

really can solve the problem,

and it can solve it without
an inordinate amount of time.

Freeman: Scott doesn't claim
he's proven evolution happened,

only that it is possible
within earth's timeframe.

Aaronson:
For me, the scientific attitude

is not that there are
no mysteries in the world.

It's that you don't wallow
in mystery.

It's that you constantly look
for explanations of things,

and, you know, if you find a
good explanation for something,

you go with it, you know,

at least until a better
explanation comes along.

Freeman: But there is
still one unknown variable

in the equation of life.

One chemist in Arizona
is rolling back the clock

to figure out where the first
spark of life came from.

All living things on this planet
have one thing in common...

from plants to bacteria
to people,

every life form uses the same
genetic material built from DNA

or its close chemical relative, RNA.

This makes perfect sense
to evolutionists

who believe all life evolved
from a common ancestor,

but there is a more profound
question still to be answered.

If DNA is the spark of life,
what or who created DNA?

John chaput, a chemist
at Arizona state university,

studies the roots of DNA...
where it came from

and how it has survived
long enough

to produce complex life.

For all cells to survive,
they require DNA,

which is the genetic information

or the blueprint
for that organism.

And for cells to live,
they have to grow and divide,

and during that process,

that DNA has to be copied
identically

so that you maintain
that genetic information

from one cell to the next.

Freeman: John is playing the role
of an enzyme called DNA polymerase.

His job is to copy the code
of one DNA strand onto another.

Chaput: "A" Always
base pairs with "T, "

and "C" Always base pairs
with "G."

Freeman: But DNA can't replicate
all by itself.

It require John, the polymerase,
to do the copying.

But at the first spark of life,
there was no John.

It's a big problem
for the theory of evolution.

DNA could not have been

the first molecular basis
for all of life

because it can't copy itself.

If not DNA, what was
the first spark of life?

It's quite possible that DNA
may be the product of evolution

and that other genetic materials
preceded it

in the history of life.

Freeman: DNA has a double-helix
structure, like this rope.

The genetic material
that came before it

would have to have been able
to bind with its complex shape

in order to pass on
genetic information.

One candidate is RNA,

a simpler form of DNA that
is found in our cells today.

But yet, if we look at RNA,
RNA is still very complicated,

and it may have been preceded

by an even simpler
genetic material.

Freeman: RNA is too complicated to
be the very first genetic material,

because it's made of
a complex sugar called ribose.

Imagine you were a scientist
3.5 billion years ago

waiting
for the first spark of life.

In order for RNA to form,
five specific sugar molecules

would have to
spontaneously come together,

one by one,
in a very particular order.

Scientist think
the odds of that happening

in earth's primordial swamp
were highly improbable.

You would be waiting
for a very long time.

But John thought there may be

a genetic material made
of a simpler sugar than ribose,

something more likely to form
on its own.

By recreating evolution
in a test tube,

he may have found
the perfect fit...

a sugar that forms TNA.

[ Wolf whistle ]

No, not that.

[ Woman giggles ]

TNA or Threose Nucleic Acid.

Threose is very exciting,

because it's, chemically,
much simpler than ribose.

Freeman: John thinks
TNA is a likely candidate

for being
the first spark of life

because it is made of
four identical sugar molecules

that come together
in just one easy step.

Chaput: And when you make
a genetic polymer

out of threose nucleic acid,

it turns out that it base pairs
very well with RNA,

so it has the ability

to not only be
chemically simpler than RNA,

but it can also exchange
genetic information with RNA.

Freeman: John may have found
an ancestor of DNA,

an ancient genetic blueprint
that showed up

long before
the complex machinery

that is in our cells today.

He has not yet been able to show
that TNA can copy itself,

but he believes
it is the best candidate so far

to be the precursor
to complex life.

Chaput: So, life in so complex

that many people feel that
it must have had a higher power,

a God-like power that helped
to create life as we know it.

But the reality is,
when you take a look at it

from the perspective of,
say, chemistry,

it's really a question
of what molecules

might have been present

and how were these molecules
able to react with one another?

Scientists are zeroing in
on a molecule

that may have been the first
genetic material on earth.

Would this be the spark of life?

Perhaps the answer
is deeper than chemistry.

What if the origin of life

can be traced back
to one simple pattern,

a pattern that governs

the structure
of the entire universe?

Imagine
if everywhere you looked,

you saw the same pattern...

in the sky, on the ground,

in your body.

You might wonder if it was
a signature of a craftsman.

In fact, our universe really is
filled with such a pattern.

Does this mean it must be
the work of a grand designer?

Before Adrian Bejan became
a Professor of engineering

at Duke university,
he had a very different career.

Adrian was a basketball star
in Romania.

I was a player
under the communist system.

Basketball is not communism.

Even under communism,
basketball was played correctly.

The greatest single lesson
from growing up in basketball

was the idea that the ball flows
through channels.

The channels are not rigid.

They are constantly morphing.

Freeman: Just as Adrian
the athlete saw basketball

as the flow of a ball
across a court,

Adrian the engineer
now studies that flow.

He thinks it may be the key

to understanding
the design of the universe.

Basketball is
a live flow system.

The ball flows from any point
of the area to the basket.

The players on offense are
trying to open up the channels

to facilitate the flow.

The players on defense,
at the same time,

are closing down the channels.

Freeman: Over time, the better
players get the ball more often,

making certain channels bigger
and busier

while the less active channels
stay smaller.

Eventually, a pattern emerges

that resembles the shape
of a branching tree.

This tree shape is everywhere.

They occur
in the billions and billions.

They constitute
a phenomenon of all nature.

Freeman: Adrian sees the same
pattern everywhere in nature,

from a tree to a lightning bolt
to the veins of a leaf.

He's trying to figure out
where this pattern comes from.

He thinks it has to do

with the way things flow
from one point to another.

What flows through the tree?

Water is flowing from the ground
back into the dry wind.

The other thing that flows
through the tree structure

is the mechanical force
or mechanical stresses.

The force of the wind
is transmitted to the ground

through the tree.

Freeman:
Adrian believes this design

is an expression
of a universal law of nature.

He calls it the constructal law.

It states, most generally,

that anything
that is finite size and moves,

in order to persist in time,
which means to live,

it must evolve such that
it flows more and more easily

for greater and greater access
over time.

Freeman: Adrian sees evidence
of the constructal law

inside of all of us.

Oxygen flows through our lungs,
blood flows through our veins,

electricity flows
through our neurons,

all in the same
tree-like design.

The universe seems to be
hardwired to create complexity,

almost as though
it was designed that way.

To a believer in creationism,

it would seem like
the mark of a creator.

Adrian says no.

Bejan: The design is a phenomenon
just like the gravitation fall.

We do not know
why these things happen.

All we can do is
to summarize these phenomena,

and those are the laws.

Freeman: Adrian thinks
this tree-shaped pattern

naturally creates stronger,
fitter organisms

because it helps improve flow,

whether it be water flowing
through the trunk of a tree

or the ball flowing
through the court to the hoop.

Bejan: Basketball
is actually a metaphor

for the movement
of the individual in society.

It is the same kind of movement
through channels

that the individual strives
to open up

and, at the same,
channels that others are,

in fact, unwittingly,
trying to close down.

Freeman: Perhaps
the design of the universe

is like a giant tree...

constantly growing and evolving
through improved flow.

But across the world
in South Africa,

a cosmologist is looking
at the design of the universe

through a different lens.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

He's turning the laws of nature
upside down.

How do large and complex things
come to be?

They're collections
of many little things.

Bodies are made from cells,
and cells are built from atoms.

But the atoms in my body
don't know they're part of me.

How do they know what to do?

Why don't I just fall apart
into a trillion tiny pieces?

Are they being guided
by a higher power?

[ Choral singing ]

George Ellis from the university
of cape town in South Africa

is one of
the world's leading theorists

in physics and cosmology.

Recently,
he has shifted his attention

from trying to understand
the cosmos

to trying to understand

how complex systems on earth
come to be,

like the sounds
of the cape town youth choir.

[ Singing continues ]

To George, a beautiful song
can be scientifically understood

in different ways.

His old physicist self

would have seen the singing
of the choruses

as emerging out of activity
at the subatomic level.

I think the physicist would tell
you what is happening here

is the effect
of fundamental particles

interacting with each other
as electrons and protons.

That these youth
can sing this way

is because in their nerve cells,
electrons are flowing

and they're sending signals down
from the brain to the nerves,

and so, it's physics
at the bottom, all the way,

and the physics is actually
what's causing it to happen.

Freeman: But George now wonders

if there's another way
to understand the choir's music.

Perhaps these singers aren't

just an aggregation
of subatomic physical processes.

The flow of causation is

from the conductor
to all the members of the choir,

so he is coordinating
the chorister's actions,

and so the flow of the electrons
in the people's brains...

they're just responding
and being controlled

by what the conductor
wanted to happen.

So, it's top down
from the conductor's mind

into those electrons that are
flowing in people's brains.

Freeman: George calls this idea
top-to-bottom causation.

The fundamental particles
that comprise each chorister

are the bottom level

and are being controlled
by a higher level...

the conductor.

If there were no conductor,

George would need
some ear plugs.

[ Discordant singing ]

Ellis: The amount
of beauty coordination

you can get purely bottom-up
is strictly limited.

You have to have
the simple coordination,

and it's the thought
that's controlling the physics

and making the physics happen.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

Freeman: Perhaps the universe
needs a conductor

to create the beauty of nature
all around us.

And George thinks

there is evidence
that this is true

in the form of geometry.

Ellis:
This is Pythagoras' theorem.

If you take that length,
square it,

add it to that one squared,

you get the square
on the hypotenuse.

So that's an eternal principle

which is true everywhere
in the universe.

Freeman: George believes the
universe has an underlying geometry

that governs what is possible
in the physical world.

He thinks geometric laws existed
before our universe existed.

Humans are
only discovering them.

It's an idea that stems from
the Greek philosopher Plato,

who believed
mathematical patterns

existed in some abstract space

before the birth
of our universe.

Ellis: I think when the universe
was set up,

the mathematical patterns
pre-existed the universe.

But it isn't
only physical things that exist.

There are also meanings
that exist.

Freeman: Just as Plato believed

the universe was born
with mathematical truths,

he said the same could be true
for human ethics.

To George, it is a philosophy
that suggests

our rules of right and wrong
may stem from some eternal truth

that dictates how humans
should treat each other.

Ellis: These ethical patterns
were set out there,

in my opinion, before any human
beings ever existed.

I've arrived at this position

through a long process of trying
to understand complexity,

because it's quite clear
that there is meaning.

There is more going on than this
purely mechanical kind of stuff.

Freeman:
Did someone or something create

the laws that govern nature
and society?

Are human ethics a sign
that life was designed

by a moral being?

Or is morality
a product of evolution?

One man in California

is taking a giant leap of faith
to find out.

Evolutionary theory seeks to
explain life in all its forms.

But in theology,
there's more to creation

than our physical bodies.

God is master
of our moral universe.

Can morality arise
in the human brain

by the haphazard process
of biological evolution

or was it designed?

[ Bird screeches ]

Professor Paul Zak from
claremont graduate university

is a scientist on the frontier.

He's a pioneer of a field
called neuroeconomics,

which is the study
of how brain chemistry

affects people's decisions
in life.

His latest quest is for
the origin of human morality.

My mother, before she was my
mother, was a nun, a catholic nun.

So, mom was the ruler
of the morality world.

I really had
this underlying kind of worry

that aren't there many different
forms of morality?

Where do good and evil
come from?

And that's the question

I really spent my time running
experiments to identify.

Freeman:
Paul thinks there might be

a single molecule
responsible for morality.

His research has led him
to one possible candidate...

a brain chemical
called oxytocin.

Zak: Oxytocin is a chemical
the brain makes

that, until about 10 years ago,
was only noted in humans

to facilitate birth
and breast feeding.

So, when I first started doing
this work,

one of my colleagues said,

"it can't be that important
if it's only for women, "

but, in fact,
men's brains make it, too.

The question was why.
Is it actually doing something?

Freeman: Paul wondered
if oxytocin had a larger role

than aiding in reproduction,

that perhaps it helps
all humanity

feel compassion, love,
and trust.

In order to find out,
he began a long-term study

of how this brain chemical
fluctuates

when a person is forced to trust
a stranger.

Today,
his test subject is himself.

We're gonna go skydiving today
to find out

what happens to the human brain
when you're under high stress

in the presence
of another person.

So, we've shown in a laboratory

that oxytocin facilitates trust
in strangers,

so how about trusting your life
to a stranger?

That's
what we want to test today.

Freeman:
Paul first takes a sample

of his own blood on the ground.

This will be used as
the baseline level of oxytocin

so he can compare it to
his blood levels when he lands.

Tandem skydiving is
the ultimate test of trust.

Two people, one parachute.

Paul's life is in the hands
of his instructor, Andy.

So, this is Andy. So, I've just
met him for the first time,

and I'm gonna strap myself
to him

and jump out of an airplane
at 12,500 feet,

so I don't know
how you're trained.

I don't know the pilot. I don't
know who packed your chute.

I don't even know that, either.

[ Chuckling ] Yeah, okay, so...

After a brief coaching session
on the ground,

there's nowhere left to go
but up.

Most skydive accidents
happen from human error...

improper packing
of the parachute,

inadequate inspection,
poor jumping technique.

Paul is putting his trust
into a crew of strangers.

I don't think I have a choice.

I really got to trust Andy now,

so I'm just hoping
it all works out.

Ready to do this?

Let's go!

All right!

Let's do it, baby.

Oh, look at that view.

Hands on the harness.

Take a nice, deep breath.

Yeah.

Now for some fun.

All right, man.

Head to the right.

[ Yells ]

Whoa!

Well done. You're unhooked.

All right.

Welcome
to the rest of your life.

Thank you. Okay.

Freeman: After the jump, Paul
immediately draws his blood again.

Zak: I was strapped to this guy,
12,000 feet.

You know, we dropped like a rock
out of this airplane...

very unusual kind of event

where I'm watching the plane
move away from me...

kind of panic, kind of fear.

Freeman: Paul brings his
blood samples back to his lab

to find out if
the intense feeling of trust

was reflected
in the chemistry of his brain.

As one might expect after
jumping out of an airplane,

Paul had almost a 500% increase
in cortisol, a stress hormone,

and a 40% increase
in testosterone,

which is associated
with the feeling of courage.

But did the skydive
cause a moral molecule

to jump into action?

Zak: I had about a 17% increase
in oxytocin.

17% is actually
a fairly large increase

for an interaction
with a stranger.

So, for example, at a bride
at her wedding that I went to...

I took blood before and after...

I found
that she had a 28% increase.

So, I'm half as connected
to my skydive instructor

as the bride was to her groom
at her wedding,

so that ain't bad.

Freeman:
Paul's studies have shown

that oxytocin levels
are strongly linked

to other social behaviors
besides trust,

like empathy and generosity.

If oxytocin is the molecule that
controls our moral behavior,

where did this molecule
come from?

Was it designed by a creator
who yearned for a moral society?

Zak: I want to be humble
and say, "Look, I don't know

"What happened before evolution
started happening,

and if there's a God,
how wonderful is that?"

but it's not my place
as a scientist

to say whether God exists
or not.

I think
that's a question of faith.

Freeman: Is a moral molecule
in our brains

the sign that we are designed
by a holy God?

Or did our brains evolve
that way...

allowing us to survive
together as a species?

If it is oxytocin that makes us
trust and tolerate one another,

maybe this single molecule
is the answer

to bringing creationists
and evolutionists together.

Creationists argue that
only the guiding hand of God

could arrange the countless
atoms of the cosmos

into the remarkable pattern
that exists today,

that moral molecules would
only form in a moral universe.

The theory of evolution argues
that one simple rule...

survival of the fittest...

can explain everything
that lives today,

from
the most rapacious predators

to beings like us
who are guided by a deep sense

of what is right
and what is wrong.

The debate isn't likely
to end any time soon,

but there is one thing
both sides do agree on...

the sheer wonder of creation,
no matter how it got here.