INTELLIGENT DESIGN BOOK DELIVERS BLOW TO DARWIN; CRACKS AMAZON.COM BEST SELLER LIST IN SCIENCE

_{Clive Hayden

November 18, 2009

Darwinism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science}

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Anika Smith, of the Discovery Institute, brings us exciting new information:

SEATTLE, WA – Despite Darwinist’s attempts to suppress the debate over evolution, a new book about the controversial theory of intelligent design made Amazon.com’s list of the year’s Top 10 bestselling books in science, just as the world marks 150 years since Charles Darwin published his own theory in his landmark book On the Origin of Species.

Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperOne) by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer is entering its fifth printing in as many months, and continues to sell strongly both online and in stores, reports the book’s publisher. According to Amazon.com, books on its 2009 list of best sellers are ranked according to customer orders through October. Only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible.

“Darwin is mistakenly thought to have killed the design argument in science,” said Robert Crowther, director of communications at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, which is the intelligent design research program directed by Dr. Meyer. Now, here’s a book about the science of intelligent design that shows how the design argument is being revived with powerful new arguments relevant to our culture.

By using the same method of reasoning that Darwin himself used, Dr. Meyer explains how intelligent design can be formulated as a rigorous scientific argument. In Signature in the Cell Dr. Meyer shows that the digital code embedded in DNA points powerfully to a designing intelligence and helps unravel a mystery that Darwin did not address: how did the very first life begin?

Comments

I for one am sick and tired of evolutionary biologists dodging the issue of origin of life. Allen, I respect your erudite and calm tone, but how do you expect to get away with statements like Ergo, regardless of the outcome of the debate over Dr. Meyer’s book, it has virtually no bearing on the evolution of life since the origin of living cells and the genetic code, nor is it very likely that we will ever have direct empirical evidence either verifying or falsifying Dr. Meyer’s hypotheses. And then dismissing the entire book with a simple "(which I don't)". The origin of life debate has everything to do with evolutionary biology. Let's face it, evolutionary biology is basically a long standing argument that somehow complex information can be built up without guidance or intelligent input. However, if there was an enormous amount of intelligent input right at the very beginning, then it is very difficult to separate out what in evolution is due to unguided chance, and what is still an effect of the incredible amount of information that was injected into life at the beginning. First, is it possible that so-called evolution is just the natural effect of the initial information dump playing itself out over millions of years? Then it can hardly be called "unguided". Second, if an intelligence dumped a lot of information into life at the beginning, then how come he can't do it at several key points in time also. Keeping that party line going the "evolution has nothing to do with origin of life" is just baloney.JDH_{November 19, 2009
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Meyer's book is the best ID book written to date. I ma so happy that lots of people are reading it because it clears up all of the fallacious philosophical and scientific objections by militant, ignorant and closed minded atheists and materialists.Frost122585_{November 19, 2009
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CannulianYankee @ #25:
I didn’t perceive Meyer as attempting to interject a religious POV into the minds of any of these people. He writes merely about his own speculations on the matter of origins, while relying on the evidences that others had discovered. I.e., he made inferences based on research from a number of areas, but did not assume that those doing such research agreed with ID. If I’m reading you correctly, you’re suggesting just the opposite.
I'm not saying that Meyer was injecting any religious POV into those who unraveled the nature of genes and gene expression, but rather that he is inventing a backdrop - a tension between design and no design - where none existed. For example, he does this by conflating the meanings of the word information. As used by biologists, it is a colloquial and informal term that has nothing to do with information theory, and especially nothing to do with the ID usage of the word. Thus, for biologists, the nature and origins of genetic information are matters of chemistry, and there has never been the dichotomy that Meyer repeatedly implies. Tim @ #23, I have spelled out my ideas and objections re: proteins, RNA, and the origins of the genetic code. The links I provided are a good starting point; it's much better to use this tool than cut and paste lengthy essays into comment boxes here.Arthur Hunt_{November 19, 2009
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Allen - "Dr. Meyer’s book is confined virtually entirely to the origin of life, the origin of the genetic code, and the origin of prokaryotic cellular structure and function...Ergo, regardless of the outcome of the debate over Dr. Meyer’s book, it has virtually no bearing on the evolution of life since the origin of living cells and the genetic code" The problem with this statement is that most evolutionary theory assumes that the origin of life is simple, and that complexity came later. This is an assumption for which there is little evidence. Trilobites are quite amazing creatures. They probably developed by molting and had an overall amazing anatomy. The only reason to consider these (or any other creature - including single-celled organisms) as primitive is because of our view of the origin of life. If, instead, we view the origin of life as being designed, there is no longer any reason to hold on to the assumption that it was simple. This means that the possibilities for how the plethora of organisms developed from that have now increased. If we no longer have the assumption that the information had to have developed (since it could have been designed). It could be that phylogeny is actually a planetary ontogeny from an initial organism. As you can see, when you remove the assumption that the beginning was simple, it opens up a HUGE set of possibilities that were previously unconsidered, because our thinking was needlessly constrained by an assumption of what the origin of life was like.johnnyb_{November 19, 2009
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Arthur Hunt, "I found Meyer’s account of these developments to be, um, interesting. I think autobiographical historical fiction is a good description of this book. (I’ve got news for the IDsts here – design, God, and religion were not much, if at all, in the thoughts of the people who unraveled the nature of genetics. To insert ID into the history of biology as Meyer does is to re-write this history so much as to end up with a piece of fiction.)" First of all, my and your knowledge of what went through the minds of the people who unravelled the nature of genetics is probably lacking any verifiable evidence except for perhaps what they wrote. I didn't perceive Meyer as attempting to interject a religious POV into the minds of any of these people. He writes merely about his own speculations on the matter of origins, while relying on the evidences that others had discovered. I.e., he made inferences based on research from a number of areas, but did not assume that those doing such research agreed with ID. If I'm reading you correctly, you're suggesting just the opposite. Allen MacNeill, Hello again. You stated, "Dr. Meyer’s book is confined virtually entirely to the origin of life, the origin of the genetic code, and the origin of prokaryotic cellular structure and function. Virtually all of the empirical evidence indicates that this happened between 4.5 and 3.9 billion years ago, and left absolutely no trace in the geological record. Ergo, regardless of the outcome of the debate over Dr. Meyer’s book, it has virtually no bearing on the evolution of life since the origin of living cells and the genetic code, nor is it very likely that we will ever have direct empirical evidence either verifying or falsifying Dr. Meyer’s hypotheses." I'm not certain if you are correctly identifying the major point of Meyer's book. He's arguing that Darwinian theories must consider the origin of complex specified information and the probabilities of it arising by chance and necessity, or by chance, necessity and selection alone. He accurately points out that Darwinian theories do not touch on this issue, yet insist on the chance necessity and selection alone argument without empirical evidence. He strongly argues that Darwinian theorists beg the question - they take for granted the prior existence of this complex information without asking how it arose in the first place. Meyer then gives a strong argument for design as the best explanation based on what we already know about how complex structures arise artificially. I find it interesting that Darwinian theorists use artificial computer models in an attempt to demonstrate Darwinian processes, while at the same time ID theorists take those same models as a prime example of design. Who is right here? Any guesses? It's easy to dismiss the issue by stating that because it happened so long ago, and because we have so little empirical evidence, we will never know. I can't help thinking that this is a cop-out for refusing to consider a legitimate argument for design.CannuckianYankee_{November 19, 2009
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Mr Mung, I'm pretty sure that Mr faded_Glory was human as an egg! ;) But even if he was a chicken, his process of development seems to have been inexorably natural.Nakashima_{November 19, 2009
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Allen @ 10, Dr. MacNeill, I was wondering if you would care to comment about the content of the book, not all that you are comfortable with surrounding, but not part of, what Dr. Meyer wrote about. For example, you wrote, Ergo, regardless of the outcome of the debate over Dr. Meyer’s book, it has virtually no bearing on the evolution of life since the origin of living cells and the genetic code, nor is it very likely that we will ever have direct empirical evidence either verifying or falsifying Dr. Meyer’s hypotheses. In other words, even if one grants Dr. Meyer’s arguments (which I do not). . . in which you mentioned his hypotheses and arguments. I am curious to know which inferences drawn by Dr. Meyer you find to be unpersuasive. Also, where in the book has he gone wrong in argument or hypothesis that caused his inference to be lacking? I am glad you took the time to read the book. However, it just seems lame to me (on your part) to write about a lack of "direct empirical evidence" as if that ends Dr. Meyer's argument. While it is technically true that there is currently no direct empirical evidence from that part of the Earth's history, a lack of direct empirical evidence hasn't stopped us from "trusting" in atoms, quarks, and other very very smallish little thingies that apparently hold us together (not to mention a host of biological constructs). To borrow your phrase, "in other words," it is not exactly a showstopper. Why argue against the inference he drew in this way? It is indirect. I am "a suck"(sic) at biology but found his explanations to be straightforward and to lead inexorably to a reasoned inference. Thus, I didn't find your comments about what he didn't examine to be very helpful in moving the conversation forward. You participate here to sharpen us, no? Again: Where, IN the book, did he go wrong? Hunt @13 Your statement belies a most confused understanding of God and religion in Meyer's account of his personal journey concerning intelligent design vs. his account of the development of genetic theory. As I have previously mentioned, I "am suck!"(sic) at biology, but even I could tease apart the philosophical from the scientific as Dr. Meyer proceeded. As for Yarus, proteins, and RNA, spell it out!! Move the conversation forward. I am glad that you also carefully read the book; I bet Dr. Meyer is, too. He seems like an honest guy who'd like mistakes fixed in the second edition. Based on how it is selling. . . looks like there will be one. Gentlemen, CLARITY!!Tim_{November 19, 2009
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To insert ID into the history of biology as Meyer does is to re-write this history so much as to end up with a piece of fiction. I didn't get the sense that Meyer was re-writing history to turn Watson, Crick, etc. into nascent design theorists. Unless you mean that implying that someone wasn't guided by evolutionary theory in coming up with the structure of the DNA molecule is tantamount to fashioning them into a design theorist.Mung_{November 19, 2009
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At Amazon Myers Signature in the Cell is ranked: #1 in Books > Science > Physics > Cosmology #1 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Theology > Creationism #2 in Books > Science > Astronomy Now how do persuade Amazon to rank this under "Intelligent Design" rather than "Creationism"?DLH_{November 19, 2009
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Well done to Dr Meyer and long may his work remain in the bestseller lists. I've just ordered 4 copies for Christmas gifts, which should help.waterbear_{November 19, 2009
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fg:
Once I was but a fertilised egg, now I am a fully grown human and hopefully somewhat rational and creative.
Now this is an interesting comment. Now you are a "fully grown human." This seems to acknowldge that you were a human when you were but a fertilized egg. If not, when did you make the transition from non-human to human such that you could begin the process of becoming a fully grown human.Mung_{November 19, 2009
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I bet this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Undoubtedly this will bring down the edifice that is the theory of evolution once and for all! There is no theory of evolution. Evolution is generally rooted in unspecified hypothetical goo which is as unfalsifiable as other creation myths. To the extent that it has been specified in the Darwinian "theory" of evolution, which is to say very little*, it has been both verified and falsified. *
Charles Darwin surely ranks as the most genial of history's geniuses-possessing none of those bristling quirks and arrogance that usually mark the type. Yet, one subject invariably aroused his closest approach to fury-the strawman claim, so often advanced by his adversaries, that he regarded natural selection as an exclusive mode of change in evolution. (The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen J. Gould :147)
Or perhaps Darwin did not have the temperament of a genius because he was not a genius. The equivalent is Newton specifying his theory of gravity by asserting, "But sometimes it does not apply." Of course it may not apply but if it does not then that is a falsification. Unfortunately with Darwin we're a long way from genius so his "theory" was generally as soft as his personality. That's why despite his specification of the theory of natural selection he spends much of his time, perhaps the majority, on pseudo-science combined with theological and philosophical arguments in "one long argument" about creation myths. There is no theory of evolution in the first place, therefore it cannot be "brought down" based on science.mynym_{November 19, 2009
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Excellent summary of the book. I was wondering what to get a few of my nieces and nephews on both mine and my wife's side of the families. Now they can start to study the other side of Darwin.lcd_{November 19, 2009
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fG, you stated: Once I was but a fertilised egg, now I am a fully grown human and hopefully somewhat rational and creative. To the best of our knowledge, the process that got me from there to here is unintelligent, unguided other than by the laws of nature, I have to ask you, since no one really has a clue where Body Plan (ontogenetic) information is stored, or coming from, within the genome how can you make such a sweeping statement as to the nature of it?bornagain77_{November 19, 2009
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Once I was but a fertilised egg, now I am a fully grown human and hopefully somewhat rational and creative. To the best of our knowledge, the process that got me from there to here is unintelligent, unguided other than by the laws of nature, and to some extent subject to chance (as in stochastic processes). Will this do for you? fGfaded_Glory_{November 19, 2009
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Unintelligent, undirected, chance processes have produced intelligent results (rational, creative humans for starters) according to Darwinism. Can anyone give me examples of this from their experience of the natural world? This takes as much "faith" as belief in God does it not?deric davidson_{November 19, 2009
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Having grown up scientifically in the third decade of the post-W&C era, and been taught by the generation that discovered the nature of heredity and gene expression, I found Meyer's account of these developments to be, um, interesting. I think autobiographical historical fiction is a good description of this book. (I've got news for the IDsts here - design, God, and religion were not much, if at all, in the thoughts of the people who unraveled the nature of genetics. To insert ID into the history of biology as Meyer does is to re-write this history so much as to end up with a piece of fiction.) Not surprisingly, Meyer totally ignores a body or work (search term - Yarus) that refutes quite completely his (otherwise unsupported by any manner of scientific evidence) claims about the nature of the genetic code. Meyer is also quite blessedly ignorant of the field of protein structure, function, and evolution. There is much, much more to this field than the work of Axe (who Meyer relies on very heavily, even though Axe's work does not support the ID party line) and Behe. Many other studies that refute the ID claims in no uncertain terms. It's quite ironic that Meyer waxes in admiration of the so-called "RNA code" in the Epilogue. As I have explained in another thread here, regulation by small RNAs is the very antithesis of ID, in that it makes many macroevolutionary processes quite accessible (moreso even than the friendly-to-evolution landscape of protein functionality) to random and natural processes. (Some of the basis for this statement may be found here.) It's also revealing to see how Meyer ignores what is arguably half (or more) of the whole of gene expression and regulation. For someone who tries to pass himself off as a serious scholar, this omission is a bit troubling. (I'll be coy and leave it to the audience to figure out what I am talking about.) Other than these facts (that pretty much make the whole book irrelevant when it comes to biology and evolution), it was interesting to read about the reality that exists in Meyer's mind.Arthur Hunt_{November 18, 2009
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I wasn't being sarcastic. I want to read this book.Retroman_{November 18, 2009
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Excellent, hopefully this will mean an audio version will be forthcoming.Gods iPod_{November 18, 2009
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Dr. Meyer's book is confined virtually entirely to the origin of life, the origin of the genetic code, and the origin of prokaryotic cellular structure and function. Virtually all of the empirical evidence indicates that this happened between 4.5 and 3.9 billion years ago, and left absolutely no trace in the geological record. Ergo, regardless of the outcome of the debate over Dr. Meyer's book, it has virtually no bearing on the evolution of life since the origin of living cells and the genetic code, nor is it very likely that we will ever have direct empirical evidence either verifying or falsifying Dr. Meyer's hypotheses. In other words, even if one grants Dr. Meyer's arguments (which I do not), they don't affect evolutionary biology at all, as it is based on observations of things that are either already alive or were once so. Even my loyal opponents from the Cornell IDEA Club (now sadly defunct) admitted that this was the case at the conclusion of our "evolution and design" seminar in the summer of 2006. And we all agreed (including all but one of the most ardent ID supporters) that Darwin's theory (as presented in the Origin of Species and the Descent of Man did not include a proposed hypothesis about the origin of life, or the origin of the genetic code, or the origin of cellular structure and function (which was virtually unknown in Darwin's time). As a writer, I congratulate Dr. Meyer for his accomplishments — writing a book is not easy, and writing a best-seller is even harder. As an evolutionary biologist, however, I question its relevance to any branch of modern evolutionary biology.Allen_MacNeill_{November 18, 2009
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Retroman. In reference to your sarcasm. Even though evolution is criticised often here, it is done so as a matter of convenience to reference particular kinds of evolution. ID doesn't oppose evolution per se, it opposes the kinds of unguided evolution that lack foresight - like Darwinian evolution. Read the title of the posting carefully.JGuy_{November 18, 2009
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My congratulations to Dr. Meyer also. It's an excellent book.Granville Sewell_{November 18, 2009
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I'm reading this intelligently written book on my intelligently designed Kindle.Mung_{November 18, 2009
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I think much can be said of the positive demeanor and civility with which Dr. Meyer has presented his case for ID, in addition to his exquisite expertise in the area of origins research, which appears to be producing a dramatic shift in scientific interests (as this list suggests). Let's hope the momentum continues, and that others (on both sides of the debate) learn from his example.CannuckianYankee_{November 18, 2009
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I bet this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Undoubtedly this will bring down the edifice that is the theory of evolution once and for all!Retroman_{November 18, 2009
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Just finished the main portion of the book and have the epilogue and apendixes to go.. which I will complete tonight. What a great book. It is an easy read and ( from my biased point of view ) has no holes in its arguments. All of the attacks I have seen against it stink of ad hominem ad nauseum. They just can not defeat it on substance.JDH_{November 18, 2009
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That is, indeed, superb news. It really touches on something that I've thought for the last decade - that the real debate is only just beginning; there is a great deal more to be realized, so the ramifications may take another generation to begin to seep into many of the key fields of our society.howard_{November 18, 2009
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Congrats to Dr. Meyer! I finished reading the book a week or so ago. It was very informative and a delight to read.Stan McCullars_{November 18, 2009
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What a coincidence! I just put up a video of Dr. Meyer: The Scientific Basis For the Intelligent Design Inference Dr. Stephen Meyer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Krxij8OvsYM further note from video descript: Here Is A Site Where You Can Order Dr. Meyer's New Book: Signature In The Cell (Amazon Top Ten Best Seller) http://www.signatureinthecell.com/ It should be clearly pointed out that we know, for 100% certainty, that Intelligence can generate functional information i.e. irreducible complexity. We generate a large amount of functional information, which is well beyond the reach of the random processes of the universe, every time we write a single page of a letter (+700 Fits average). The true question we should be asking is this, "Can totally natural processes ever generate functional information?", especially since totally natural processes have never been observed generating functional information from scratch (Kirk Durston). Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information - David L Abel and Jack T Trevors: Excerpt: Genetic algorithms instruct sophisticated biological organization. Three qualitative kinds of sequence complexity exist: random (RSC), ordered (OSC), and functional (FSC). FSC alone provides algorithmic instruction...No empirical evidence exists of either RSC of OSC ever having produced a single instance of sophisticated biological organization...It is only in researching the pre-RNA world that the problem of single-stranded metabolically functional sequencing of ribonucleotides (or their analogs) becomes acute. http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1742-4682-2-29.pdf Ben Stein - EXPELLED - The Complexity of the Cell - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yibucli2drc 10 Ways Darwin Got It Wrong Excerpt: As molecular biologist Jonathan Wells and mathematician William Dembski point out: Its true that eukaryotic cells are the most complicated cells we know. But the simplest life forms we know, the prokaryotic cells (such as bacteria, which lack a nucleus), are themselves immensely complex.,,, There is no evidence whatsoever of earlier, more primitive life forms from which prokaryotes might have evolved (How to Be an Intellectually Fulfilled Atheist (or Not), 2008, p. 4). These authors then mention what these two types of cells share in terms of complexity: • Information processing, storage and retrieval. • Artificial languages and their decoding systems. • Error detection, correction and proofreading devices for quality control. • Digital data-embedding technology. • Transportation and distribution systems. • Automated parcel addressing (similar to zip codes and UPS labels). • Assembly processes employing pre-fabrication and modular construction. • Self-reproducing robotic manufacturing plants. So it turns out that cells are far more complex and sophisticated than Darwin could have conceived of. How did mere chance produce this, when even human planning and engineering cannot? http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn85/10-ways-darwin-wrong.htm Intelligent Design - The Anthropic Hypothesis http://lettherebelight-77.blogspot.com/bornagain77_{November 18, 2009
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