Dogmatic Signs
For anyone who wants to understand the argument for the necessary role of intelligent design in the history of life, the indispensable source is now Stephen C. Meyer’s book Signature in the Cell (HarperOne, 2009). For cultural reasons, when arguments for the validity of Darwin’s theory of evolution have been made in the past, emphasis has often been placed on the question of human descent from ape-like ancestors. Meyers’s book, in contrast, directs attention to the scientifically most important subject: the origin of the cell and its complex molecular mechanisms.
Meyers’s analysis is based on facts about the cell that are well-known and uncontroversial in the scientific enterprise. From these facts, he proceeds to infer the best explanation for what we know to be present in the cell. This explanation has to include a role for an intelligent cause because the cell is replete with complex, specified information in digital form. In our uniform experience, we know that such information is produced only by a pre-existing intelligence.
A Peculiar Basis of Attack
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Phillip E. Johnson is Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Darwin on Trial, The Wedge of Truth, The Right Questions (InterVarsity Press), and other books challenging the naturalistic assumptions that dominate modern culture. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
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