This week’s article at Design Disquisitions is about Perry Marshall’s ‘Evolution 2.0’ thesis and his criticisms of intelligent design. This article responds to some of his recent writings on his blog and his interaction with Stephen Meyer a few weeks back. Bottom line is, his philosophy of science has significant problems and he has some grave misconceptions about what ID is:
A few days ago I was listening to an episode of Unbelieveable?, the fantastic radio debate show and podcast at Premier Christian Radio. The episode was a fairly recent one between Stephen Meyer and Perry Marshall. Marshall is the author of Evolution 2.0 and writes at his blog Cosmic Fingerprints. I’ve read some of his work and he makes some interesting points, though I find myself disagreeing on many issues. Essentially, his contention is that biological complexity is best explained not by conventional evolutionary theory or standard ID, but by the mechanisms proposed by those promoting the ‘Third Way’ and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. For him, the explanation for biological complexity lies within the cell itself because cells are essentially intelligent agents, capable of doing their own design work. I plan to examine Marshall’a work in more detail in the future but for now I want to briefly comment on one of his more recent blog posts where he reflects on his discussion with Stephen Meyer.