Centroids : There is someone I think the group will want to know about. His name is Stephen Meyer and he is a brain. Smart as hell, articulate, and the best kind of skeptic. . A philosopher of history of science, he has devised an argument from design that simply blows you away. Heard him on C-Span's "Book TV," and he is Good, as in "really, really good." Unlike all other Intelligent Deign advocates that I know about, Meyer is not a spokesman , when all is said, for anti-evolution simplistic religious views. At least as I understand him there is a world of possibilities opened by his information-centered hypothesis, and -while he doesn't say so-- it has potential use by Hindus as well as Christians, Buddhists as well as Jews. Best of all, in no way does he deny the workings of evolution. The argument concerns the Information that started life in the first place, hence how life continues to function in the world -largely through the processes of evolution. But also most welcome, he gives due credit to Darwin and scientists like Watson and Crick The discoveries of these giants of research are integral to Meyers' own outlook. His philosophy is NOT Genesis 1, but gussied up and given a glossy "science looking" appearance. Rather, it is skeptical in all the places it should be, which is just about everywhere, it is critical and self-critical, and it accepts no nonsense at all. I wonder what this does to "orthodox Christianity" ? This is not Ignatius Loyola, " I believe because it is absurd." And it is the opposite of Billy Graham or anyone similar to him, it is not, "believe first and then you will find faith." It is much more like Thomas Aquinas, examine all the arguments, be very wary of cheerleader arguments, raise every possible objection, and only then arrive at a conclusion. None of this excludes a faith commitment. Quite the opposite, since Meyer presumably is a Christian. But conventional belief, "evidence-free faith" as it were, is simply not in the picture. OK, let us accept his argument at least for now. Actually I am strongly tempted to accept it henceforth as a given, but not to get carried away......... Who produced the Information to start life processes in the first place ? Just why must this author of the "signature in the cell" be the God of monotheism ? There is no compelling reason the take that view. Could be God and Goddess, or the equivalent as per Wisdom of Solomon, Proverbs 8, or archaeological finds in ancient Israel which show that the Hebrews venerated "Yahweh and his Asherah." Perchance it is best to think of this primordial singularity as Yin / Yang or Yab / Yum. After all, polarity is rather fundamental to everything else. Among my criticisms of Baha'i views is the objection that it leaves out any possibility for God / Goddess spirituality, unlike the Bible, which I read in the OT sense as insisting that the Holy Spirit if feminine. But there nonetheless is what seems to me to be a valid principle in Baha'i theology, namely that evolution is exactly how Creation comes about, and it all has teleological purpose. In effect the 6 days of Creation did not end way back when, but are an on-going process that takes new forms from one epoch to another. Buckminster Fuller once said something which amounts to about the same thing. His view was that, necessarily, our intelligence presupposes that the potential for the evolution of intelligence was built into the Universe from .00000000000001 second after the Originating Singularity Or before. Anyway, Meyers' work makes it possible to think about all sorts of issues in altogether fresh and productive ways. Some reviews and so forth follow. Billy ======================================================= Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design Stephen C. Meyer
Hardback, 624 pages, 2009 Item# B137 Suggested Donation: $25.00 (includes USPS Media Mail shipping to addresses in US only) $35.00 (includes international air shipping to all foreign addresses) _View Signature in the Cell Video Animation_ (http://www.arn.org/mm/mm_signatureinsidethecell.htm) In Signature in the Cell, philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer shows how the digital code in DNA points powerfully to a designing intelligence behind the origin of life. Unlike previous arguments for intelligent design, Signature in the Cell presents a radical and comprehensive new case, revealing the evidence not merely of individual features of biological complexity but rather of a fundamental constituent of the universe: information. That evidence has been mounting exponentially in recent years, known to scientists in specialized fields but largely hidden from public view. A Cambridge University-trained theorist and researcher, director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, Dr. Meyer is the first to bring the relevant data together into a powerful demonstration of the intelligence that stands outside nature and directs the path life has taken. The universe is comprised of matter, energy, and the information that gives order to matter and energy, thereby bringing life into being. In the cell, information is carried by DNA, which functions like a software program. The signature in the cell is that of the master programmer of life. In his theory of evolution, Charles Darwin never sought to unravel the mystery of where biological information comes from. For him, the origins of life remained shrouded in impenetrable obscurity. While the digital code in DNA first came to light in the 1950s, it wasn't until later that scientists began to sense the implications behind the exquisitely complex technical system for processing and storing information in the cell. The cell does what any advanced computer operating system can do but with almost inconceivably greater suppleness and efficiency. Drawing on data from many scientific fields, Stephen Meyer formulates a rigorous argument employing the same method of inferential reasoning that Darwin used. In a thrilling narrative with elements of a detective story as well as a personal quest for truth, Meyer illuminates the mystery that surrounds the origins of DNA. He demonstrates that previous scientific efforts to explain the origins of biological information have all failed, and argues convincingly for intelligent design as the best explanation of life's beginning. In final chapters, he defends ID theory against a range of objections and shows how intelligent design offers fruitful approaches for future scientific research. Appearing in this year of Darwin anniversaries--Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his Origin of Species--Signature in the Cell could only have been written now that the data of biology's dawning information age has started to come in. Meyer shares with readers the excitement of the most recent discoveries, as the digital technology at work in the cell has been progressively revealed. The operating system embedded in the genome includes nested coding, digital processing, distributive retrieval and storage systems. It is very extraordinary--the terminology is all recognizable from computer science. ---------------------------------------- Dr. Stephen C. Meyer is the director and Senior Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, which has considerable reach into the religious market. Meyer set off a firestorm of media and political attention when the Smithsonian Institution published his pro-Intelligent Design paper in its scientific journal in 2005. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin of life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. Previously he worked as a geophysicist with the Atlantic Richfield Company after earning his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Geology. Meyer has been featured on national television and radio programs such as The Jim Lehrer News Hour, CBS Sunday Morning, NBC Nightly News, ABC Nightly News, Good Morning America, Nightline, Paula Zahn Now (CNN), Topic A with Tina Brown (CNN), Weekend Live with Tony Snow (FOX), The Big Story with John Gibson (FOX), Fox TV News with David Asman, The Tavis Smiley Show (PBS) and others. He has also been the subject of two front pages stories in the New York Times and has garnered attention in other top national print. Selected reviews: In this engaging narrative, Meyer demonstrates what I as a chemist have long suspected: undirected chemical processes cannot produce the exquisite complexity of the living cell. Meyer also shows something else: there is compelling positive evidence for intelligent design in the digital code stored in the cell’s DNA. A decisive case based upon breathtaking and cutting-edge science. Dr. Philip S. Skell, National Academy of Sciences and Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, emeritus In Signature in the Cell, Stephen C. Meyer gives us a fascinating exploration of the case for intelligent design theory, woven skillfully around a compelling account of Meyer’s own journey. Along the way, Meyer effectively dispels the most pernicious caricatures: that intelligent design is simply warmed-over creationism, the province of deluded fools and morons, or a dangerous political conspiracy. Whether you believe intelligent design is true or false, Signature in the Cell is a must-read book. Dr. Scott Turner, Environmental and Forest Biology, State University of New York, and author of The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself Meyer demolishes the materialist superstition at the core of evolutionary biology by exposing its Achilles’ heel: its utter blindness to the origins of information. With the recognition that cells function as fast as supercomputers and as fruitfully as so many factories, the case for a mindless cosmos collapses. His refutation of Richard Dawkins will have all the dogs barking and angels singing. George Gilder, author of Wealth and Poverty and Telecosm This is a ‘must read’ for all serious students of the origin-of-life debate. Not only is it a comprehensive defense of the theory of intelligent design, it is a lucid and rigorous exposition of the various dimensions of the scientific method. Students of chemistry and biology at all levels—high school, undergraduate, or postgraduate—will find much to challenge their thinking in this book. Alastair Noble, Ph.D. chemistry, former BBC Education Officer and Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools for Science, Scotland The origin of life remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of modern science. Looking beyond the biochemistry of the problem and focusing instead on the origin and information content of the ‘code of life,’ Meyer has written an eminently readable and engaging account of the quest to solve this mystery. Sharing both his personal history and a retelling of the key scientific discoveries of the last half century from this new and intriguing perspective, he has challenged us to consider an alternative to the standard story of abiogenesis and discover new meaning from our existence. I recommend this book to laypeople and accomplished professionals alike. Edward Peltzer, Ph.D., Ocean Chemistry, Scripps Institution of Oceanography How does an intelligent person become a proponent of intelligent design? Anyone who stereotypes IDers as antiscientific ideologues or fundamentalists should read Dr. Meyer’s compelling intellectual memoir. Meyer as a student became fascinated with the ‘DNA enigma’—how the information to produce life originated—and at considerable risk to his career hasn’t given up trying to solve the mystery. Meyer shows how step-by-step he concluded that intelligent design is the most likely explanation of how the DNA code came to be, but he’s open to new evidence—and in so doing he challenges defenders of undirected evolution to have the courage to explore new alternatives as well. Dr. Marvin Olasky, provost, The King’s College, New York City, and editor-in-chief, World Signature in the Cell is at once a philosophical history of how information has come to be central to cutting-edge research in biology today and one man’s intellectual journey to the conclusion that intelligent design provides the best explanation for that fact. In his own modest and accessible way, Meyer has provided no less than a blueprint for twenty-first-century biological science—one that decisively shifts the discipline’s center of gravity from nineteenth-century Darwinian preoccupations with fossils and field studies to the computerized, lab-based molecular genetics that underwrites the increasingly technological turn in the life sciences. After this book, readers will wonder whether anything more than sentimentality lies behind the continued association of Darwin’s name with ‘modern biology.’ Dr. Steve Fuller, Professor of Sociology of Science, University of Warwick, and author of Dissent from Descent The astonishing complexities of DNA have raised questions which the ruling scientific orthodoxy cannot begin to answer. As one of the scientists arguing for ‘intelligent design’ as the crucial missing link in our understanding of how life came to be, Steve Meyer guides us lucidly through that labyrinth of questions opened by discoveries in molecular biology on the frontier of scientific knowledge. Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph The most substantial of the many outstanding enigmas in our understanding of biology is to explain the source of the genetic information strung out along the Double Helix and how it gives rise to the near infinite diversity of form and attribute of the living world. Dr Meyer’s evaluation of the many contending theories in the light of the most recent scientific advances is comprehensive and dispassionate. While his interpretation of the arguments in favour of Intelligent Design may not persuade all, this is a fascinating and intellectually stimulating book. Dr. James Le Fanu, author of Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves Stephen Meyer shows with brilliant clarity that biological systems contain information whose origin cannot be explained by purely physical forces. He explains the crucial difference between the order within a complex system and the information needed to specify the functions of a complex system. Many engineers have always known that hierarchical systems do not evolve from the bottom-up by chance. Now Meyer has explained why hierarchical biological systems cannot evolve from the bottom-up by chance mutations. Dr. Stuart Burgess, Professor of Design & Nature, Dept of Mechanical Engineering, Bristol University This timely and important book is a landmark in the intelligent design debate and one which draws together all relevant research and information. It is elegantly written in a style that is accessible and laced with interesting historical and personal anecdotes. ‘Signature in the Cell’ will pay rich dividends to everyone who turns its pages. Dr. Norman C. Nevin, OBE, BSc, MD, FFPH, FRCPath, FRCP, Emeritus Professor in Medical Genetics, Queen’s University, Belfast Signature in the Cell delivers a superb overview of the surprising and exciting developments that led to our modern understanding of DNA, and its role in cells. Meyer tells the story in a most engaging way. He retained my interest through many areas that would normally have turned me off. He is careful to credit new ideas and discoveries to their originators, even when he disagrees with the uses to which they have been put. The central idea of the book is that the best explanation of the information coded in DNA is that it resulted from intelligent design. Meyer has marshaled a formidable array of evidence from fields as diverse as biochemistry, philosophy and information theory. He deals fairly and thoroughly with even the most controversial aspects and has made a compelling case for his conclusion. The book is a delightful read which will bring enlightenment and enjoyment to every open minded reader. Dr. John C. Walton, School of Chemistry, University of St. Andrews Meyer opens up a world of understanding that is largely closed to the public, by producing a work of synthesis and argument that is as powerful as Darwin’s, and one that is based on current science. Meyer has produced a game changer, a book that can win minds and energize a lasting consensus. Samuel M. Randolph, author of Hidden Handedness A fantastic book that clearly answers expressed objections to ID as science . . . Only those philosophically opposed to design would be able to dismiss the clear scientific evidence that design is the only reasonable cause of life’s complex specified information. This book is a “must-read” for anyone within the debate. Dr. Donald E. Johnson, author of Probability’s Nature and Nature’s Probability ==================================================== signatureinthecell.com Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, by Stephen C. Meyer ____________________________________ The foundations of scientific materialism are in the process of crumbling. In Signature in the Cell, philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer shows how the digital code in DNA points powerfully to a designing intelligence behind the origin of life. The book will be published on June 23 by HarperOne. Unlike previous arguments for intelligent design, Signature in the Cell presents a radical and comprehensive new case, revealing the evidence not merely of individual features of biological complexity but rather of a fundamental constituent of the universe: information. That evidence has been mounting exponentially in recent years, known to scientists in specialized fields but largely hidden from public view. A Cambridge University-trained theorist and researcher, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, Dr. Meyer is the first to bring the relevant data together into a powerful demonstration of the intelligence that stands outside nature and directs the path life has taken. The universe is comprised of matter, energy, and the information that gives order to matter and energy, thereby bringing life into being. In the cell, information is carried by DNA, which functions like a software program. The signature in the cell is that of the master programmer of life In his theory of evolution, Charles Darwin never sought to unravel the mystery of where biological information comes from. For him, the origins of life remained shrouded in impenetrable obscurity. While the digital code in DNA first came to light in the 1950s, it wasn’t until later that scientists began to sense the implications behind the exquisitely complex technical system for processing and storing information in the cell. The cell does what any advanced computer operating system can do but with almost inconceivably greater suppleness and efficiency. Drawing on data from many scientific fields, Stephen Meyer formulates a rigorous argument employing the same method of inferential reasoning that Darwin used. In a thrilling narrative with elements of a detective story as well as a personal quest for truth, Meyer illuminates the mystery that surrounds the origins of DNA. He demonstrates that previous scientific efforts to explain the origins of biological information have all failed, and argues convincingly for intelligent design as the best explanation of life’s beginning. In final chapters, he defends ID theory against a range of objections and shows how intelligent design offers fruitful approaches for future scientific research. Appearing in this year of Darwin anniversaries—Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his Origin of Species— Signature in the Cell could only have been written now that the data of biology’s dawning information age has started to come in. Meyer shares with readers the excitement of the most recent discoveries, as the digital technology at work in the cell has been progressively revealed. The operating system embedded in the genome includes nested coding, digital processing, distributive retrieval and storage systems. It is very extraordinary—the terminology is all recognizable from computer science. The appearance of Meyer’s book is timely in two other ways. First, bestselling atheist writers like biologist Richard Dawkins have insisted that because Darwin buried the traditional argument for design in nature, religious belief has been shown to be irrational in our modern scientific age. Meyer reveals that, on the contrary, it is precisely our modern scientific age that is in the process of burying materialist theories of life’s development. Second, since a federal judge in Dover, Pennsylvania, ruled in 2005 that intelligent design may not rightfully claim the designation of “science,” Judge John E. Jones has become the hero of Darwinian activists and their supporters in academia and the media. The Dover decision has been hailed as the death knell of intelligent design. Hardly so! Speaking from the more relevant perspective of the philosophy of science, Meyer responds that federal judges were never given the job of defining what is scientific and what is not. As a philosopher and a scientist himself, having worked in the field of geophysics for Atlantic Richfield, Meyer is able to step back from the fray of competing views about Darwinian theory and offer a searching, compelling investigation of life’s beginning.
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