| Stephen C. Meyer | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1958 USA |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Occupation | Director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute and Vice President and Senior Fellow at the DI |
| Known for | Advocate 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 main organisation behind the intelligent design movement.[1][2][3] Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at Whitworth College. Meyer is currently director at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture and Senior Fellow at the DI.
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Meyer graduated with a degree in physics and earth science in 1981 from Whitworth College[4] and worked as a geophysicist for the Atlantic Richfield Company.[5] 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.[6] His dissertation was entitled "Of clues and causes: A methodological interpretation of origin of life studies."[6] After graduating, Meyer taught philosophy at Whitworth,[7] then at the Christian Palm Beach Atlantic University.[6] Meyer later ceased teaching to devote his time to the intelligent design movement.[8]
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).[9] 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"[10] review of it in the July 1992 issue of Scientific American), while with the Philosophy department at Whitworth College.[10] He was later a participant in the first formal meeting devoted to ID, hosted at Southern Methodist University in 1992.[10]
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 in introductory classes.[11][12] 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?" [11] He was a co-author of the "Wedge strategy", which put forth the Discovery Institute's manifesto for the intelligent design movement.[13][14]
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.[15] 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.[16] 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.[17]
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[18] 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.[19]
In March, 2002, Meyer announced a "teach the controversy" strategy, which alleges that the theory of evolution is controversial within scientific circles, following a presentation to the Ohio State Board of Education.[20] 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".[21] 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,[22] 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.[23] 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. 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.[24] 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.[25]
On 4 August 2004, an article by Meyer appeared in the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.[26] 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.[27] 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.[28]
The journal's reasons for disavowing the article were denied by Richard Sternberg, the managing editor at the time.[29] 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,[30] and presented a lecture on intelligent design at the Research And Progress in Intelligent Design (RAPID) conference.[31]
Meyer alleges that those who oppose "Darwinism" are persecuted by the scientific community and prevented from publishing their views.[32] Such assertions have been refuted, disputed or dismissed by a wide range of scholarly, science education and legislative sources. In a 2006 article published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, a group of writers that included historian of science Ronald L. Numbers (author of The Creationists), philosopher of biology Elliott Sober, Wisconsin State Assemblywoman Terese Berceau and four members of the department of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, dismissed such claims as a "hoax".[33] In their website refuting claims of persecution contained in the film Expelled (which featured Meyer), the National Center for Science Education states that, in contrast to the many new good scientific ideas that win out when they are proven to be sound, "Intelligent design advocates ... have no research and no evidence, and have repeatedly shown themselves unwilling to formulate testable hypotheses; yet they complain about an imagined exclusion, even after having flunked the basics."[34] In analysing an Academic Freedom bill, that was based upon a Discovery Institute model statute, the Florida Senate found that:
According to the Department of Education, there has never been a case in Florida where a public school teacher or public school student has claimed that they have been discriminated against based on their science teaching or science course work.[35]
On June 23, 2009, HarperOne released Meyer's Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. Philospher Thomas Nagel submitted the book as his contribution to the "2009 Books of the Year" supplement for The Times, writing "Signature in the Cell...is a detailed account of the problem of how life came into existence from lifeless matter – something that had to happen before the process of biological evolution could begin ... Meyer is a Christian, but atheists, and theists who believe God never intervenes in the natural world, will be instructed by his careful presentation of this fiendishly difficult problem.".[36] Stephen Fletcher, chemist at Loughborough University, responded in The Times Literary Supplement that Nagel was "promot[ing] the book to the rest of us using statements that are factually incorrect."[37] Fletcher explained "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."[37] In another publication, Fletcher wrote that "I am afraid that reality has overtaken Meyer’s book and its flawed reasoning" in pointing out scientific problems with Meyer's work by citing how RNA "survived and evolved into our own human protein-making factory, and continues to make our fingers and toes."[38]
Darrel Falk, co-president of the BioLogos Foundation and a biology professor at Point Loma Nazarene University, reviewed the book and used it as an example of why he does not support the intelligent design movement.[39] Falk wrote that the book contains many incorrect claims such as "Meyer correctly concluded that no RNA molecule had ever been evolved in a test tube which could do more than join two building blocks together."[39] Falk was critical of Meyer's declaration of scientists, such as Michael Lynch, being wrong without Meyer conducting any experiments to falsify the established work in the field.[39] Falk wrote, "the book is supposed to be a science book and the ID movement is purported to be primarily a scientific movement—not primarily a philosophical, religious, or even popular movement."[39] Falk concluded, "If the object of the book is to show that the Intelligent Design movement is a scientific movement, it has not succeeded. In fact, what it has succeeded in showing is that it is a popular movement grounded primarily in the hopes and dreams of those in philosophy, in religion, and especially those in the general public."[39] On January 28, 2010 the BioLogos Foundation published Meyer's response to Falk.[40]