Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe: Papers Presented at a Conference Sponsored by the Wethersfield Institute, New York City, September 25, 1999

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As progress in science continues to reveal unimagined complexities, three scientists revisit the difficult and compelling question of the origin of our universe. As mathematician, biochemist, and philosopher of science, they explore the possibility of developing a reliable method for detecting an intelligent cause and evidence for design at the origin of life. In the process, they present a strong case for opening and pursuing a fruitful exchange between science and theology.

Mathematician William Dembski, author of The Design Inference, first argues that new developments in the information sciences make intelligent design objectively and scientifically detectable--he identifies the signs of design. Next, philosopher of science, Stephen Meyer, and biochemist Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, argue that these signs are now clearly evident in both the architecture of the universe and the features of living systems. Other essays by the authors defend the scientific status of the theory of intelligent design and show how that theory supports traditional religious belief without necessarily "proving" the existence of God. In a concluding essay, Michael Behe responds to critics of his best selling book, Darwin's Black Box, thus bringing readers up-to-date on the status of the contemporary design argument in biology.

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About the author (2000)

Stephen C. Meyer is director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC) and a founder of the intelligent design movement and of the CSC. Dr. Meyer is a Cambridge University-trained philosopher of science, the author of peer-reviewed publications in technical, scientific, philosophical and other books and journals. His signal contribution to ID theory is given most fully in Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, published by HarperOne in June 2009. Meyer graduated from Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, in 1981 with a degree in physics and earth science. He later became a geophysicist with Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) in Dallas, Texas working in digital signal processing and seismic survey interpretation. As a Rotary International Scholar, he received his training in the history and philosophy of science at Cambridge University, earning a PhD in 1991. He returned to Whitworth College in 1990 to teach philosophy. He left Whitworth in 2002, giving up a tenured position, to found and direct the CSC at Discovery Institute. Meyer's many other publications include a contribution 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 is also the author of New York Times bestseller Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design HaperOne June 2013. Meyer has been widely featured in media appearance on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, PBS, and the BBC. In 2008, he appeared with Ben Stein in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. He's also featured prominently in two other science documentaries, Icons of Evolution and Unlocking The Mystery of Life.

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