Sunday, January 31, 2010

Sunday Quote: Stephen Meyer on Design in Nature

“If living things—things that we manifestly did not design ourselves—bear the hallmarks of design, if they exhibit a signature that would lead us to recognize intelligent activity in any other realm of experience, then perhaps it is time to rehabilitate this lost way of knowing and to rekindle our wonder in the intelligibility and design of nature that first inspired the scientific revolution.”

- Stephen Meyer, Signature in the Cell (HarperOne, 2009, p. 452).

What was last year's post? See here.

6 comments :

M said...

Read some scientific review blogs (from Christians) of his pseudo-scientific book at:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/01/signature-in-the-cell-1-rjs.html
http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2010/01/signature-in-cell-beginning-review.html

Brian said...

Why do you call his book pseudo-scientific?

bossmanham said...

Is it just me, or does Stephen Meyer look buff? He must work out. I've noticed that guys like William Lane Craig and Meyer are buff, and their atheist opponents are kinda scrawny. Just a random observation.

Chad said...

Hello Mark,

Hope you are doing well. I was wondering if you have read Meyer's book or plan to read it in the near future?

As you are a scientist, I would be interested in your own thoughts on the book.

Godspeed

Ron said...

Mark, that's an interesting review or at least an interesting start of a review.

I haven't read Myer's book yet but I will still share my thoughts on Intelligent Design here. I think ID is flawed because no one ever detects design by asking how complex and specified a thing is. We just see that it is designed intuitively, like the reader of this post knows that these symbols I am typing are an intentional message. I don't think design can be measured in the way you measure height or weight.

Kurmudge said...

Hmm. "..no one ever detects design by asking how complex and specified a thing is..."

Well, they certainly do not consciously use Dembski's words while they are thinking through the clues, because that is the subconscious operating system of forensics, deeply ingrained, for determining admissibility of evidence. But that is exactly what they are actually doing.

No matter what pseudoscientific nonsense the philosophical naturalists spout to support rationalizing their own predispositions, when the guy on CSI looks at a crime scene, or an anthropologist-archaeologist draws conclusions from what she sees, specified complexity is exactly what they are assessing.

In today's world, the only difference is that a certain political group selectively applies normal forensic techniques.

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