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Stephen C. Meyer

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This article is about the intelligent design advocate. For the rugby player, see Steve Meyer.
Stephen C. Meyer
Born1958
USA
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
Occupation(s)Director and Senior Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute
Known forAdvocate of intelligent design

Stephen C. Meyer (born 1958) is an American scholar, philosopher and advocate for intelligent design. He helped found the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) of the Discovery Institute (DI), which is the driving force behind the intelligent design movement. Previous to joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at Winthrop University.[1][2][3] Meyer is currently vice president and a senior fellow at CSC, and a director of the Access Research Network.[4]

Biography

Meyer graduated with a degree in physics and earth science in 1981 from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-affiliated Whitworth University[5] and worked as a geophysicist for the Atlantic Richfield Company.[6] Shortly after, Meyer won a scholarship from the Rotary Club of Dallas to study at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science in 1991 at the University of Cambridge.[7] His dissertation was entitled "Of clues and causes: A methodological interpretation of origin of life studies."[7] After graduating, Meyer taught philosophy at Whitworth,[8] then at the Christian Palm Beach Atlantic University.[7] Meyer later ceased teaching to devote his time to promoting intelligent design creationism.[9]

Advocacy for intelligent design

Main articles: Neo-creationism, Intelligent design movement, Wedge strategy, and Teach the controversy

Meyer is described by philosopher of science Robert T. Pennock as one of a small group of prominent young intelligent design creationists who have "dedicated their lives to the creationist cause" (the others being William Dembski, Paul Nelson, and Jonathan Wells).[10]

Meyer's involvement in intelligent design (ID) can be traced to his participation in the 'Ad Hoc Origins Committee' defending Phillip E. Johnson's Darwin on Trial in 1992 or 1993 (in response to Stephen Jay Gould's "devastating" review of it in the July 1992 issue of Scientific American), while with the Philosophy department at Whitworth College.[11] He was later a participant in the first formal meeting devoted to ID, hosted at Southern Methodist University in 1992.[11]

In December 1993 Bruce Chapman, president and founder of the Discovery Institute, noticed an essay in the Wall Street Journal by Meyer about a dispute when biology lecturer Dean H. Kenyon taught intelligent design creationism in introductory classes.[12][13] Kenyon had co-authored Of Pandas and People, and in 1993 Meyer had contributed to the teacher's notes for the second edition of Pandas. Meyer was an old friend of Discovery Institute co-founder George Gilder, and over dinner about a year later they formed the idea of a think tank opposed to materialism. In the summer of 1995 Chapman and Meyer met a representative of Howard Ahmanson, Jr.. Meyer, who had previously tutored Ahmanson's son in science, recalls being asked "What could you do if you had some financial backing?" [12] He was a co-authorship of the "Wedge strategy", which put forth the Discovery Institute's manifesto for the intelligent design movement.[14][15]

In 1999, Meyer with David DeWolf and Mark DeForrest laid out a legal strategy for introducing intelligent design into public schools in their book Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curriculum.[16] Meyer has co-edited Darwinism, Design, and Public Education (Michigan State University Press, 2000) with John Angus Campbell and co-edited Science and Evidence of Design in the Universe (Ignatius Press, 2000) with Michael J. Behe and William A. Dembski. In 2009, his book Signature in the Cell was released and in December of that year.

Meyer has been described as "the person who brought ID (intelligent design) to DI (Discovery Institute)" by historian Edward Larson, who was a fellow at the Discovery Institute prior to it becoming the center of the intelligent design movement.[17] In 2004, the DI helped introduce ID to the Dover Area School District, which resulted in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District where ID was ruled to be religion. Discussing ID in relation to Dover, on May 6, 2005 Meyer debated Eugenie Scott, on The Big Story with John Gibson. During the debate, Meyer argued that intelligent design is critical of more than just evolutionary mechanisms like natural selection that lead to diversification, but of common descent itself.[18]

He has appeared on television and in public forums advocating intelligent design. Notably he wrote and appeared in the Discovery Institute's 2002 film Unlocking the Mystery of Life[19] and was interviewed in the 2008 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed movie. Has also been an active debater such as in April 2006 with Peter Ward, a paleontologist from the University of Washington held an open online discussion on the topic of intelligent design in the Talk of the Times forum in Seattle, WA.[20]

In March, 2002, Meyer announced a "teach the controversy" strategy, aimed at promoting the false idea that the theory of evolution is controversial within scientific circles, following a presentation to the Ohio State Board of Education.[21] The presentation included submission of an annotated bibliography of 44 peer-reviewed scientific articles that were said to raise significant challenges to key tenets of what was referred to as "Darwinian evolution".[22] In response to this claim the National Center for Science Education, an organisation that works in collaboration with National Academy of Sciences, the National Association of Biology Teachers, and the National Science Teachers Association that support the teaching of evolution in public schools,[23] contacted the authors of the papers listed and twenty-six scientists, representing thirty-four of the papers, responded. None of the authors considered that their research provided evidence against evolution.[24] On March 11, 2002 during a panel discussion on evolution Meyer publicly told the Ohio Board of Education that the "Santorum Amendment" was part of the Education Bill, and therefore that the State of Ohio was required to teach alternative theories to evolution as part of its biology curriculum. Brown University Professor of Biology Kenneth R. Miller, showed that the amendment is not in the body of the Education Bill itself and concluded "It is indeed sad to see how people who claim only to be interested in the truth are willing to mislead the public, but it also sets a standard of inaccuracy by which the people of Ohio may judge the reliability of their scientific claims as well."[25] Meyer and others rebutted that the language, while not in the bill itself is in the Conference Report to the bill and pointed out what they believe are misrepresentations by Miller.[26] Miller replied that Conference Reports do not carry the weight of law and that in implying that they do, Meyer factually mistated the nature and gravitas of the Santorum Amendment.[27]

Peer review controversy

Main article: Sternberg peer review controversy

On 4 August 2004, an article by Meyer appeared in the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.[28] On 7 September, the publisher of the journal, the Council of the Biological Society of Washington, released a statement retracting the article as not having met its scientific standards and not peer reviewed.[29] The same statement vowed that proper review procedures would be followed in the future and endorsed a resolution published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which observes that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID.[30]

The journal's reasons for disavowing the article were denied by Richard Sternberg, the managing editor at the time.[31] As evidence they cite that Sternberg is a fellow of International Society for Complexity, Information and Design (ISCID), a group dedicated to promoting intelligent design,[32] and presented a lecture on intelligent design at the Research And Progress in Intelligent Design (RAPID) conference.[33]

A critical review of the article is available on the Panda's Thumb website.[34] In January 2005, the Discovery Institute posted its response to the critique on their website.[35]

Meyer alleges that those who oppose "Darwinism" are persecuted by the scientific community: "The numbers of scientists who question Darwinism is a minority, but it is growing fast. This is happening in the face of fierce attempts to intimidate and suppress legitimate dissent. Young scientists are threatened with deprivation of tenure. Others have seen a consistent pattern of answering scientific arguments with ad hominem attacks. In particular, the series' attempt to stigmatize all critics—including scientists—as religious 'creationists' is an excellent example of viewpoint discrimination."[36] An essay in the Journal of Clinical Investigation responded to these claims by stating that "...the idea that there is a community of ID scientists undergoing persecution by the science establishment for their revolutionary scientific ideas" is a hoax, due to the fact that "a search through PubMed fails to find evidence of their scholarship within the peer-reviewed scientific literature."[37]

Signature in the Cell

Main article: Signature in the Cell

On June 23, 2009, HarperOne released Meyer's Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. The book was positively reviewed by various philosophers,[38][39] conservative commentators[40] and evangelical communities,[41] but criticized by the scientific community including scholars who specialize in the topics discussed in the book.

Stephen Fletcher, chemist at Loughborough University, wrote in The Times Literary Supplement that Thomas Nagel, a philosopher who reviewed the book, is "promot[ing] the book to the rest of us using statements that are factually incorrect...Natural selection is in fact a chemical process as well as a biological process, and it was operating for about half a billion years before the earliest cellular life forms appear in the fossil record."[42] Biologist Darrel Falk used the book as an example of why he does not support the intelligent design movement, citing numerous erroneous claims within the book as well as Meyer's criticisms of experiments in abiogenesis without having conducted any actual research on the topic. Falk concluded that the book demonstrated that the intelligent design movement is a popular movement rooted in religion and philosophy rather than the scientific movement it portrays itself as.[43]

Bibliography

  • Meyer SC (2009). Signature in the cell: DNA and the evidence for intelligent design. HarperOne. ISBN 0-06-147278-6.
  • DeForrest ME; DeWolf DK; Meyer SC (1999). Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curriculum: A Legal Guidebook. Richardson, Tex: Foundation for Thought and Ethics. ISBN 0-9642104-1-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Meyer SC; Behe MJ.; Lamantia P; Dembski WA (2000). Science and evidence for design in the universe: papers presented at a conference sponsored by the Wethersfield Institute, New York City, September 25, 1999. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. ISBN 0-89870-809-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Meyer SC; Campbell JC (2003). Darwinism, design, and public education. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. ISBN 0-87013-675-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Footnotes

  1. ^ Forrest 2007
  2. ^ Harris 2005
  3. ^ Mooney 2002 "ID's home base is the Center for Science and Culture at Seattle's conservative Discovery Institute. Meyer directs the center; former Reagan adviser Bruce Chapman heads the larger institute, with input from the Christian supply-sider and former American Spectator owner George Gilder (also a Discovery senior fellow). From this perch, the ID crowd has pushed a "teach the controversy" approach to evolution that closely influenced the Ohio State Board of Education's recently proposed science standards, which would require students to learn how scientists "continue to investigate and critically analyze" aspects of Darwin's theory."
  4. ^ "About the Access Research Network". Access Research Network. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
  5. ^ "Mission & Heritage". Whitworth University. Retrieved 2010-10-28.
  6. ^ "Paul Chien, Senior Fellow - CSC". Discovery Institute. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
  7. ^ a b c "Stephen Meyer Biography". Access Research Network. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
  8. ^ Forrest & Gross 2004, p. 205
  9. ^ Allene Phy-Olsen (2010). Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design (Historical Guides to Controversial Issues in America). Westport, Conn: Greenwood. pp. 68–9. ISBN 0-313-37841-X.
  10. ^ Pennock, Robert T. (2000). Tower of Babel: the evidence against the new creationism. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. p. 29. ISBN 0-262-66165-9.
  11. ^ a b Forrest & Gross 2004, p. 18
  12. ^ a b Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive Jodi Wilgoren. The New York Times, August 21, 2005.
  13. ^ Stephen C. Meyer (1993-12-06). "Open Debate on Life's Origins: Meyer, Stephen C." Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2007-08-27.
  14. ^ Johnson, PE (1999). "The Wedge Breaking the Modernist Monopoly on Science". Touchstone. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  15. ^ Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (1999). "The Wedge Document" (pdf). Discovery Institute. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  16. ^ "Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curricula: A Legal Guidebook". Access Research Network. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
  17. ^ Mooney, C (2005). "The Republican War on Science, Chapter 11: "Creation Science" 2.0".
  18. ^ "CSC - Kansas Debates Evolution: Stephen C. Meyer, Eugenie Scott (transcript)". Discovery Institute. 2005-05-06. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  19. ^ "Unlocking the Mystery of Illustra Media". National Center for Science Education. June 30, 2003. Retrieved 2008-12-24.
  20. ^ "Town Hall presents Talk of the Times: Intelligent Design vs. Evolution". Washington State Public Affairs TV Network. 2006-04-26. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  21. ^ Gishlick, A (2004-09-12). "Meyer's Hopeless Monster". talk.reason. Retrieved 2010-10-29. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ Meyer, SC (2002-03-30). "Teach the Controversy". Discovery Institute. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  23. ^ "About the NCSE". National Center for Science Education. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  24. ^ "Analysis of the Discovery Institute's Bibliography". National Center for Science Education. 2002-06-01. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  25. ^ Miller, KR. "The Truth about the "Santorum Amendment" Language on Evolution". Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  26. ^ "Biologist Ken Miller Flunks Political Science on Santorum". Discovery Institute. 2002-04-19. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  27. ^ "Is There a Federal Mandate to Teach Intelligent Design Creationism?" (pdf). National Center for Science Education. Retrieved 2010-10-29.
  28. ^ Meyer, SC (2007-05-18). "Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories". Discovery Institute. Retrieved 2010-11-23.
  29. ^ Archived 2007-09-26 at the Wayback Machine
  30. ^ AAAS Board Resolution on Intelligent Design Theory
  31. ^ Home page of Dr. Richard Sternberg
  32. ^ ISCID Fellows
  33. ^ RAPID Conderence Schedule
  34. ^ Meyer's Hopeless Monster, Wesley R. Elsberry, The Panda's Thumb
  35. ^ Rebuttals to Critiques of Meyer's PBSW Article, Discovery Institute
  36. ^ 100 Scientists, National Poll Challenge Darwinism (also known as A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism)
  37. ^ Defending science education against intelligent design: a call to action, Alan D. Attie, Elliot Sober, Ronald L. Numbers, Richard M. Amasino, Beth Cox, Terese Berceau, Thomas Powell and Michael M. Cox, J. Clin. Invest. 116:1134-1138 (2006)
  38. ^ Nagel, T (2009-11-25). "Books of the Year 2009". The Times. Retrieved 2010-10-22.
  39. ^ Kanigel, H (2010). "Signature in the Cell". TELICOM. XXIII: 78–83.
  40. ^ Peterson, D (2009-09-01). "Blown Away". The American Spectator. Retrieved 2010-10-22.
  41. ^ Peterson, K (2009-10-06). "Signature in the Cell". Spectrum. Retrieved 2010-10-22.
  42. ^ Fletcher, Stephen (December 2, 2009). "TLS Letters 02/12/09". The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 2010-03-28.
  43. ^ Falk, Darrel (December 28, 2009). "Science & the Sacred » Signature in the Cell". BioLogos Foundation. Retrieved 2009-12-28.

References

Books
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Critical works

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