 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | One hundred fifty years ago, Charles Darwin revolutionized biology, but did he refute intelligent design (ID)? In Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer argues that he did not. Much confusion surrounds the theory of intelligent design. Frequently misrepresented by the media, politicians, and local school boards, intelligent design can be defended on purely scientific grounds in accordance with the same rigorous methods that apply to every proposed origin-of-life theory. Signature in the Cell is the first book to make a comprehensive case for intelligent design based upon DNA. Meyer embarks on an odyssey of discovery as he investigates current evolutionary theories and the evidence that ultimately led him to affirm intelligent design. Clearly defining what ID is and is not, Meyer shows that the argument for intelligent design is not based on ignorance or "giving up on science," but instead upon our growing scientific knowledge of the information stored in the cell. A leading proponent of intelligent design in the scientific community, Meyer presents a compelling case that will generate heated debate, command attention, and find new adherents from leading scientists around the world. |
Average Customer Rating:   This one takes some time, but is well worth it regardless of which side of the debate you're on. Anyone on either side of this debate should read this book, if for no other reason than to see what actual ID advocates think. So many of the negative reviews on Amazon.com, for instance, have clearly not even glanced at the table of contents.
This book is a significant time investment, being almost 600 pages long. To give you an idea of how thoroughly this book is researched, there are 32 pages of bibliography and there are 52 pages of end notes.
Meyer gives an extensive history of scientific methods and demarcation criteria (what is and is not science) for different scientific disciplines. He also gives a compelling case for the necessity of agency in the formation of specified information. I'd be pleased to hear a thorough refutation of his analysis rather than the typical ad hominem name-calling and genetic fallacies. This book specifically deals with the multiple competing hypotheses on the origin of biological life which is understood today as the origin of biological information.
Interestingly, the many detractors of "Signature in the Cell" skirt the topic actually found in this book and argue philosophy of science instead of the evidence.
So, it's just the "appearance" of design? In Signature in the Cell, Dr. Meyer scrupulously constructs a seamless logic that declares the absolute legitimacy of ID as science. This authentic logic is portrayed in contrast to contrived, suppressive, fallacious evolutionary logic, where invalid inference, scientific malpractice, and appeals to miracles abound. In Signature in the Cell, all scientific claims are scientifically substantiated. Signature in the Cell is a scientific armament, indeed, a titan of science that renders the honest opponent void of reasonable excuse. Complexity at the start, including information and specificity, cannot be denied. And no undistorted evidence communicates a macroevolutionary picture. Where it is possible, Meyer provides the intellectual, fact-conforming power to unveil the evolutionist eye. Debi Signor Was the editor dead, or merely comatose? This book is long. No, not long...it is LOOOOOOOOONG. It is kind of a stream of consciousness narrative that incorporates the author's journey of discovery into a larger web of the history of modern biological science. I totally don't care about the author's job looking for oil in the gulf of Mexico before transferring to Oxford University. Oh, my. Who will read and enjoy this book?
Unfortunately, scientific illiterates will not enjoy this book. It will be overwhelmingly complex and difficult to understand. Although they will have the occasional "aha" moment, they will have a difficult time following the development of the thesis of the book.
More unfortunately, those of us who are knowledgeable about science will find the prolonged rehash of basic scientific concepts to be insufferably boring. After wading through page after page, it is easy to lose the philosophical underpinnings of the thesis of the book.
I guess what I am trying to say is that the medium is drowning out the message. Reading this book will require a great deal of patience and tolerance.
Okay, so what is the thesis of the book? The thesis is EXACTLY the same thesis that has been espoused by Watson and Crick in their "panspermia" theory of the origin of life. In case you don't know, "panspermia" is the idea that life originated from aliens who seeded our planet with life. Presumably, these aliens were "intelligent." And, presumably, they "designed" the sperm or seed that caused life to originate in our solar system. Basically, the idea is that DNA is a complex computer code, more complex and compact than the highest tech computers that we have ever designed on earth. The likelihood of all this information showing up spontaneously, due to random chance, is almost infinitely small. So it follows that there was some sort of intelligence that caused life to exist on earth. For Watson and Crick, that intelligence was an alien intelligence. For Stephen C Meyer, that intelligence was...well, he does not make any speculations about the nature of the intelligence that caused life on earth. In this way, Stephen Meyer's "Intelligent Design" is far more intelligent than Watson and Cricks "Intelligent Design." But BOTH are advocating ID.
Difference between PANSPERMIA and ID:
Intelligent design speculates that there might be an intelligence behind the bioinformatics of the cell. Panspermia is ID with aliens. Which version is in the textbooks? That's right--the one with the aliens. (I know, I read one of my kid's bio texts)
Oh yes, and a rebuke to the "one star" crowd that is spamming this review site with comments about "religious crap" and "creationist dogma"....all I can say is that you obviously have not read this book at all. If you had read the tome (and I suspect many of you are not capable of digesting a full 500+ page read of this caliber) you would realize that Meyer never invokes any religious ideas at all, nor does he engage in any "pseudo-science." Rather, he recounts the amazing history of genetic research and information theory. He also covers the history of the philosophy of science and origins, finally asking some questions of his own. Ultimately, the reader will be led to evaluate his own assumptions and think. Granted, there are those who are not willing to do either.
My reason for awarding a mere 3 stars to this weighty work is that the editor did not do his job. This book should not have been written in this lengthy narrative style. It is very difficult to tease out the philosophical bits from the technical bits. It is impossible to use this book as any sort of reference. You basically need to mark up the book with page notes and highlights if you ever expect to piece together a narrative that is useable. The editor should have gone through and marked up the book for us. But he didn't. Boo for him. A Farce Not again! This junk science advocated by a christian apologetic is the best example of how to keep America stupid. Author is wrong-headed in his science -- this is just plain old metaphysics like Marxism This is metaphysics, not science.
Karl Popper did revolutionary work in the philosophy of science, and also comprehensively explained why metaphysical systems, such as Marxism, are not science at all, even though they often try to appear as so. The basic premise of distinguishing science from metaphysics is not, as this author suggests whether a theory is testable, or uses empirical data, but whether it is falsifiable and does it have any prediction power.
No where in this book does the author show how ID can be falsified -- evolution can (just show evidence of a rabbit in the pre-Cambrian as Dawkins often suggests.) Secondly, this book argues from conclusion to evidence (just wrong-headed.) Thirdly, what predicting power does this ID theory have? The author doesn't seem to supply any. So, if you can't use ID to predict future outcomes and it can never be conclusively dismissed (how do you disprove whether God created the world?), then it isn't very useful, is it?
In short, ID is just metaphysics. |  |
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