STEPHEN C. MEYER Ph.D.
GEOPHYSICIST, DIRECTOR OF THE DISCOVERY INSTITUTE’S CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND CULTURE
Stephen C. Meyer received his Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. A former geophysicist and college professor, he now directs Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He has authored most recently the New York Timesbest seller Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design (HarperOne, 2013) as well as Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperOne, 2009), which was named a Book of the Year by the prestigious Times (of London) Literary Supplement in 2009.
Meyer’s other publications include ten chapter contributions to the 2015 collection of essays Debating Darwin’s Doubt as well as contributions to, and the editing of, the peer-reviewed volume Darwinism, Design and Public Education (Michigan State University Press, 2004) and the innovative textbook Explore Evolution (Hill House Publishers, 2007). He has published editorials in national newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The National Post (of Canada), The Daily Telegraph (of London) and The Los Angeles Times.
He has appeared on national television and radio programs such as The Jim Lehrer News Hour, NBC Nightly News, ABC Nightly News, CBS Sunday Morning, Nightline, Fox News Live, Paula Zahn Now (CNN), Good Morning America and the Tavis Smiley Show on PBS. In 2008, he appeared with Ben Stein in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. He is featured prominently in the science documentaries Icons of Evolution, Unlocking The Mystery of Life, and Darwin’s Dilemma, as well as two New York Times front-page stories and attention in other top national media.
Science Tells a God-Friendly Story
STEPHEN C. MEYER Ph.D.
Over the last century, three important scientific discoveries have told a God-friendly story.
First, scientists have discovered that the physical universe had a beginning. This finding, which observational astronomy and theoretical physics support, contradicts the expectations of scientific atheists, who long portrayed the universe as eternal and self- existent.
Nobel laureate Arno Penzias, who helped to make a key discovery supporting the theory of the Big Bang, has noted the obvious connection between its affirmation of a cosmic beginning and the concept of divine creation. "The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses...[and] the Bible as a whole."
Second, discoveries about the structure of the universe reinforce this theistic conclusion. Since the 1960s, physicists have determined that the physical laws and parameters of our universe are finely tuned, against all odds, to make our universe capable of hosting life. Even the slightest alteration of a single independent factor — such as the strength of gravitational or electromagnetic attraction, or the initial arrangement of matter and energy in the universe — would have rendered life impossible. As Cambridge astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle argued, "A common-sense interpretation of the data suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics" to make life possible.
Over the last century, three important scientific discoveries have told a God-friendly
story.
Third, molecular biology has revealed in living cells an exquisite world of informational nanotechnology. These include digital code in DNA and RNA — tiny, intricately constructed molecular machines that vastly exceed our own technology. Even famed atheist Richard Dawkins has acknowledged being knocked “sideways with wonder” at the machinery of the living cell, writing that "the machine code of the genes is uncannily
computer-like" — implying, it would seem, the activity of a master programmer.
Far from pointing to the "blind, pitiless indifference" of the cosmos, as Dawkins put it, these discoveries affirm the design of life and the universe, and a Creator.