Is Intelligent Design (ID ) Science? In his new book, Steven Meyer reformulates and redefines Intelligent Design, and asserts emphatically that ID is science. Stephen Meyer's new book, Signature in a Cell, Evidence for Intelligent Design, argues that the best explanation of the origin of biological information (an example is the DNA code) is an intelligent cause. Discovery of the coded instruction set in the DNA of the cell is best explained as designed by an intelligence. He also claims that this specific inference is a scientific argument which was used by Darwin himself, called best inference from the evidence. Video of Meyer's book presentation here.
Stopping Short of the Intelligent Designer
Meyer stops short with his argument, staunchly refusing to then infer the nature of the designer, as this would be outside the realm of scientific exploration. Nonetheless, he goes on to say (off the record) that in his opinion, two possible candidates for the designer are extra-terrestrial beings as suggested by Crick with his life seeding earth hypothesis. Another candidate is God the Creator. He goes on to say that Big Bang cosmology suggests a cause before the creation of matter, space-time which would be compatible with the idea of a supernatural creator.
Is There Intelligence in Nature? The claim that there is intelligence (other than human intelligence) in nature is not a new one. As a matter of fact this claim has been present in human thought since the earliest recorded written documents, more than 5 thousand years ago. The inference that this intelligence is God the Creator has also been present for millennia in human recorded thought.
A New Package for an Old Idea
What is new about Meyer's presentation is the packaging of the claim in the cloak of a scientific methodology which was used by Darwin himself. This methodology makes Meyer's inference of intelligence in nature a valid scientific endeavor. To be scientific, the claim must be falsifiable, and his book goes
through this line of reasoning as well.
Space Odyssey 2001 by Stanley Kubrick
As you might have predicted, the popular media predicted Stephen Meyer's book with a movie 41 years ago with Stanley Kubrick's 1968 movie classic, Space Odyssey 2001. For an explanation of the significance of the movie and the monolith, see the 2001 Principle which explains the socio-political implications of discovering a non-human intelligence on the moon. In the movie, an Obelisk, also called Monolith, is discovered on the far side of the moon, obviously the result of intelligence. In Stephen Meyer's book, this obelisk or Monolith (see left diagram ) has been replaced by the coded instruction set in nuclear DNA. The Monolith is the Signature in the Cell.
In the movie, the Monolith was present at the dawn of human life (see image), and was also present on the far side of the moon, discovered by modern moon exploration.
The message from the above image is that Stephen Meyer's discovery of intelligence in nature, his example being the coded instruction set of DNA, is knowledge understood by early man at the dawn of written history, and can be found in early written documents all the way up to the present day.
Information in Both Animate and Inanimate World
I would suppose that Meyers would say that there is information in nature throughout both the living (animate) world and the inanimate world. Again, science has been useful in bringing this information to light. Take, for example, the laws of electromagnetism in Maxwell's equations. This could be taken as an instruction set for the inanimate world. An instruction set implies intelligence. There are myriads of examples.
Intelligence in the animal world. Science has been studying cognitive function in animals for many years with a considerable amount of scientific information accumulated.
The Great Accomplishment of Stephen Meyer. Stephen's Meyer's great accomplishement is the reframing of this knowledge of intelligence in nature in a form which is acceptable to the man on the street, a format which uses the usual tools of science and abides by the usual rules of science.
A Modification of My Opinion. My previous opinion was ID is NOT science because of the use of subjective knowledge (rather than objective knowledge as required by science). This subjective knowledge is required in the old version of ID in order to make the inference of a Designer or Creator (i.e. a supernatural God-like Creator) However, after reading Stephen Meyer's materials and watching his debate videos, I must agree with his redefinition of Intelligent Design and change my opinion. By removing this additional metaphysical inference, the argument now becomes part of science.
What is Motive Mongering? Another important point made by Meyers is what he calls motive mongering. This was used heavily in the Judge Jones Dover Case. The religious motives of the school board members weighed heavily in the final verdict against the school board's introduction of intelligent design in the class room. Meyer's makes a valid point that the merits of ID or any other scientific theory should stand on its own, and should not rely on the motives of the advocates. I agree with him here.
ID "is" Science After ALL. Stephen Meyer's definition of ID is within the realm of science. Why? Because he uses the methodology of science, making best inference from the available objective evidence. There is no reliance on subjectivity, or subjective knowledge. There is no reliance on religious scripture or religious activity. There is no appeal to the supernatural.
As Cornelius Hunter has so eloquently described it, the many failed predictions of neo-Darwinism have required many after-the-fact modifications in evolutionary theory. This has created an elaborate, complex explanatory structure in a manner very similar to the epicycles of Geo-Centrism of pre-Newtonian 15th century science. The epicycles describes the motions of the planetary bodies very accurately, but we now know a simpler explanation with circular orbits of the planets around the sun .
What is the NEW Science Supported by Intelligent Design? Rather than use the old Darwinian paradigm, the new science takes an engineering approach to explain molecular biology. This is currently underway at major universities across the country indicating a paradigm shift. Perhaps Meyer's book is the final nail in Darwin's coffin. Click here and here for more information about the new science of Genomic Engineering.
A World of Hurt. What does this mean for University based research in the life sciences? We will see a massive shift of funding away from the older neo-Darwin based methodology and into the newer Engineering based methodology. This will mean a lot of hurt and pain for the Neo-Darwin people. There is a lot of money at stake and they are not about to go down without a fight.
Darwin, and the Industrial Revolution. Darwin and his theories arose during the Industrial Revolution, a time when industrial machines became widespread and captured the imagination of the population. An obvious inference from having all these new machines in everyday life is the William Paley observation. Machines were made by a designer, life forms (including humans) are complicated machines, so life and humans must therefore have Designer, and we have Paley's argument for intelligent design. The problem with this is that it leads the average person in the population to the inference of a designer or God, and supports a religious world view.
Atheist Vs. Theist World View. Along comes Darwin and comes up with a theory that allows an atheistic world view, namely that although life forms appear to have been designed, they are not designed, rather, they are the result of non-directed evolution (natural selection acting on genetic variation).
Slavery Versus Freedom
The Darwinian atheist world view was helpful for Industrial Capitalists because it fed the people a non-religious world view that supported the wage slavery of the Industrial capitalist North. The socio-political consequences of a religious world versus an atheist view comes back to the KEY issue during the time of the Industrial Revolution which caused the Civil War in the US. This is the issue of slavery versus freedom. Actually it was an issue between the ancient form of slavery practiced by the South (based on racial discrimination) and a form of hourly wage slavery in the industrial capitalist north which is independent of race. Since the North won, we have had hourly wage slavery in factories, offices and other workplaces as the ruling paradigm in a capitalist economy.
Along Comes the information Age with DNA and Molecular Biology
Fast forward 150 years to our current state of knowledge. We now have the information age with computers on every desk. The new paradigm is not the Machine of the Industrial Revolution, it is Computer Code of the Information Age. For the every day man on the street, the obvious inference relates to information and computer software. Since every man on the street knows that the computer code that runs a program requires intelligence for its origin, it is reasonable to make the same inference with the code in DNA, which is even more complicated. This is Stephen Meyer's point regarding the coded pattern in DNA which (according to Bill Gates) is a even more complicated than the source code for Microsoft Office. Both of them require intelligence for their origin, and even the man on the street can see this clearly.
Monolith in a Cell
Signature in a Cell is a great book not only because it is timely, it is a great book because it restates the obvious in a manner that appeals to the "man on the street". Although the original inference is a scientific one, that the origin of biologic information information requires a designer, the next inference about the nature of the designer is a metaphysical one. Nonetheless the man on the street will most likely make the next inference on their own with a leap into the metaphysical realm. What the man on the street thinks has profound implications for our culture, society, government. If property ownership and individual human rights are granted by the Creator, then this detracts from the authority of the government or the employer as grantor of those rights. Property ownership and our inalienable rights are given to us by our Creator. Sound familiar to the Declaration of Independence? To a large extent this is a battle for the hearts and minds of the "Man on the Street". Stephen Meyers has won this battle, and the forces opposing him have lost.
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This is unlikely - where is the science? What testable hypothesis, unique to ID, has Meyer proposed? What field or lab studies have any of the the ID people done to test their hypotheses?
This is simply ridiculous. I'm in this field using "engineering based methodology"; it's called systems biology. The ID people have nothing to do with it, and it's roots go back long before ID. Moreover, evolution is an important part of the field - researchers who study the 'engineering' of genetic networks also study how these networks evolve (such as this group, and this group.
Meyer's latest book sounds like typical ID verbal spewage - taking the work done by genuine scientists, and trying to squeeze it into an ID framework. These ID people never go out and do any science themselves.