Signature in the Cell--part 3

Here's the third part of my summary of Dr. Stephen Meyer's book, Signature in the Cell. Check the previous two blogs for the earlier part of the book.


Meyer then presents a positive case for intelligent design as the best explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life. He begins by saying there is no other adequate explanation as to the cause. Secondly, he claims there is experimental evidence to back up intelligent design as a cause. Here he mentions experiments that try to simulate prebiotic conditions; they “invariably generate biologically irrelevant substances.” In addition he says intelligent design is the only known cause of specified information. He concludes that ID provides the “best, most causally adequate explanation of the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life on earth.” He considers other forms of specified information, such as radio signals, books, hieroglyphics, and indicates that they always arise from an intelligent source, a mind rather than a strictly material process. In addition, Meyer refers to a groundbreaking book on design detection by William Dembski – The Design Inference. This book claims that we can detect the prior activity of other minds by the effects they leave behind, namely complexity and specification. His example is Mount Rushmore – the shapes etched in the rock face demonstrate intelligence behind them because they are complex and specific to four particular American presidents. Dembski’s theory applies to the cell’s information-processing system as well as to DNA itself. Even “junk DNA” has now been found to perform many important functions.

The last part of Meyer’s book defends the theory of intelligent design against various popular objections to it. Some complain that the case for intelligent design constitutes an argument from inference. But Meyer says that is not true. We already know from experience that intelligent agents do produce systems rich in information. This is an inference to the best explanation based upon our best available knowledge rather than an argument from ignorance. Another complaint about the design inference says, “If an intelligence designed the information in DNA, then who designed the designer?” He found it odd that anyone would argue it was illegitimate to infer that an intelligence played a role in the origin of an event unless we could also give a complete explanation of the nature and origin of that intelligence. It does not negate a causal explanation of one event to point out that the cause of that event may also invite a causal explanation. For example, nobody needs to “explain who designed the builders of Stonehenge or how they otherwise came into being to infer that this complex and specified structure was clearly the work of intelligent agents.”

A third complaint about ID is that it is simply religion masquerading as science. Critics say the theory is not testable and, therefore, neither rigorous nor scientific. But Meyer says different scientists and philosophers of science cannot agree about what the scientific method is, so how do they decide what does and does not qualify as science? He rebuts the critics in several ways. First, he says the case for intelligent design is based on empirical evidence, not religious dogma – information in the cell, irreducible complexity of molecular machines, the fine-tuning of the laws and constants of physics. In addition, advocates of intelligent design use established scientific methods, especially the method of multiple competing hypotheses. For another thing, ID is testable by comparing its explanatory power to that of competing theories. As an example, Meyer refers to junk DNA. Neo-Darwinism says this is an accumulation of nonfunctional DNA through mutational trial and error while ID proponents claim that there must be some biological function in this so-called “junk.” It turns out that recent discoveries indicate this type of DNA performs a diversity of important biological functions. To further bolster the idea that ID is scientific, Meyer goes on to say the case for ID exemplifies historical scientific reasoning, it addresses a specific question in evolutionary biology (how did the appearance of design in living systems arise?), and it is supported by peer-reviewed scientific literature.