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Blown Away

By from the September 2009 issue

Signature in the Cell is a defining work in the discussion of life’s origins.

Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design
By Stephen C. Meyer
(HarperOne, 611 pages, $28.99) 


WHEN I LEARNED THAT Dr. Stephen Meyer had written a new book on the evidence of design displayed in living cells, I expected to be impressed by it. I wasn’t prepared to have my mind blown—which is what happened.

In Signature in the Cell, Meyer marshals the scientific facts and arguments to show that the staggering quantity of information contained in the “computer code” of our cellular DNA almost certainly cannot have been generated by undirected material processes. Instead, Meyer contends, in our combined human experience the kind of complex, functionally specified information that is present in living cells is known to be produced by only one source: an intelligent, purposeful mind. The implications of that thesis are enormous, and the scientific arguments Meyer presents for it are compelling.

As Director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute, Meyer is a principal architect and advocate of the intelligent design (ID) movement. After gaining altitude for a number of years, intelligent design exploded into the national consciousness in 2004 and 2005 like a starburst shell on the Fourth of July. ID proponents have taken several approaches to demonstrating the existence of design in nature, including arguments based on the dazzling “fine-tuning” of the universe’s physical laws, and on the “irreducible complexity” of biological structures and processes (most famously advanced by Prof. Michael Behe in Darwin’s Black Box).

Of the approaches taken by ID theorists, Signature in the Cell is most closely aligned with the pioneering work on design detection published over the last decade by mathematician William Dembski, one of Meyer’s colleagues at the Discovery Institute. Dembski and Meyer both rely, at least in part, on information theory and probabilistic analysis to determine whether a phenomenon is best explained as the product of unguided “chance and necessity,” or of design by an intelligence.

The major contribution by Meyer’s formidable new book is to employ these tools in a searching, sustained examination of the nature of the information encoded in DNA, how information is processed in the cell, and how that information and processing machinery might have arisen in the first place. The heart of the book addresses this “origin of life” problem. He tackles it at the level of the detailed molecular biochemistry of DNA and RNA, the cellular processes by which the information encoded in those molecules is replicated, and the mechanisms by which the myriad proteins necessary for cell function are produced.

Meyer’s argument is a comprehensive one, rooted in multiple scientific and philosophical disciplines, and he is perhaps uniquely qualified to make it. His background is in physics and earth science, and he earned his PhD from Cambridge University in philosophy of science, with a thesis on origin of life research. Although not himself a biologist, the detailed facts of molecular biology Meyer presents in the book, on which he bases his principal arguments, are sound and accurate scientifically (I checked with an impartial expert). There is far more to the book than biology, but let’s start with the argument based on information in the cell.

AS MEYER SHOWS, it was perhaps plausible in the 19th century to believe that purely natural, unguided processes could have produced the first cell. Beginning with Friedrich Wöhler’s discovery that an organic compound (urea) could be synthesized solely from inorganic chemicals, the supposition emerged: if organic compounds could arise from inorganic ones, why not life itself?

Darwin’s Origin of Species did not provide a theory about how life first arose, but he speculated privately that a protein compound “ready to undergo still more complex changes” might have been chemically formed in some “warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc…” By the latter part of the 19th century, the “protoplasmic” theory had gained predominance, in which cells were considered to be little more than bags of nitrogen-rich jelly. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that such bland entities could have arisen from random natural processes.

Although it was soon learned that cells were considerably more complex than that, it wasn’t until 1953, when Watson and Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA, that all easy assumptions about life’s origins were shattered forever. Scientists quickly realized, and proved conclusively, that the DNA molecule was something very special: a repository of an immense amount of information, nearly exactly analogous to computer code, that specifies how proteins necessary for life are manufactured in the cell.

And that’s where the book becomes mind-blowing. In a few chapters, Meyer lays out with admirable clarity the chemical processes by which information is stored in the DNA molecule and details the tightly integrated cell machinery for transcription of that information. He describes the built-in error correction mechanisms that allow that information to be read and duplicated with astounding accuracy. He shows how the primary code in DNA (which is not suited to forming proteins directly) is translated into a higher-level code, which in turn specifies the sequencing of the 20 amino acids used to form proteins, and he delineates the mechanism by which amino acids are then assembled in precise order in the cell’s ribosome to become functional proteins.

These and other cellular processes are set forth in considerable technical detail. It takes a bit of concentration, but with the help of the book’s many illustrations and Meyer’s lucid writing style, the technical scientific descriptions are remarkably easy to follow.

By the time the reader is done with them, an unbidden conviction takes shape: these astonishingly intricate molecular machines, and the informational software that drives them, could not have arisen, even in a vastly simpler form, as a result of chance combinations of chemicals on the primitive earth. Meyer then nails down that precise point with biological and mathematical tools. Let’s look for a moment at the magnitude of the improbabilities we are dealing with here.

As Meyer notes, it has been calculated that the mathematical chance of producing a functional protein (any functional protein, not a specific protein) of a modest length of 150 amino acids, out of all of the possible sequences 150 amino acids long, is about one in 10^74. Since the number of atoms in our galaxy may be estimated to be 10^65, it would be about a billion times easier to find a single marked atom in the Milky Way by a completely random search than to produce a functional protein 150 amino acids long by chance. Historically, those advocating that life could arise from random combinations of molecules typically have invoked lengthy time periods that would permit such unlikely results to occur. In the 1950s, a biochemist quoted by Meyer explained that, “Time is in fact the hero of the plot…. Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain.”

Well, no. Life on earth, according to most scientists, developed within the first billion years or so after earth’s formation. A billion years (nine zeros) seems like a long time, but any scenario relying on chance is hopelessly, pathetically, impossibly inadequate when confronted with probabilities such as 1 out of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000 (74 zeros for the modest protein just mentioned).

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About the Author

Dan Peterson is an attorney who practices firearms law in Northern Virginia. 

Letter to the Editor View all comments (45) |

bjohnson| 9.12.09 @ 8:08AM

Did Meyer have anything in his book about who designed the designer? I think it is disingenious to complain that the theory of elevation does not cover how life began but then you don't care about how the designer came about.

Paul Burnett| 9.12.09 @ 8:29AM

Peterson writes: "intelligent design exploded into the national consciousness in 2004 and 2005 like a starburst shell..."

That's true. When intelligent design creationism lost the Dover case in 2005, it was revealed to the national consciousness that, as the Federal Judge's decision noted, "intelligent design is not science, and moreover that intelligent design cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

Meyers' entire book is an exercise in the logical fallacy "argument from incredulity" - life is complicated that humans can't understand it, so Godddidit.

DLB| 9.12.09 @ 9:49AM

I beleive in God and in Jesus Christ as a matter of faith. Nevertheless, I am skeptical of the mathematical arguments for intelligent design. If you put 100 blue marbles and 200 red marbles in a bag and drew them all out in random groups of three, the probability of getting exactly one blue and two red marbles on every draw is vanishingly small. So what is the probability that a billion oxygen atoms and two billion hydrogen atoms could come together "randomly" to form one billion identical molecules of H2O? It happens because atoms, unlike marbles, do not combine "randomly."

mike| 9.12.09 @ 10:48AM

Hi bjohnson - In regards to your question, who designed the designer, I would say that's a good question, and I too wonder if that point is raised in the book. Although, in the books I have read about the law of cause and effect, I think that there is a basic understanding that there can be an efficient first cause. I don't think we can equate a material, finite design to an ultimate, immaterial designer. Are God and the universe interchangeable terms? By definition, if something that stands outside time and space "created" the universe, then I don't know if your question carries the same weight when it's directed to possibly an eternal being or a supreme mind. To quote one of my favorite movies, maybe all we can say is "The dude abides".

2Anglico| 9.16.09 @ 8:40AM

Maybe you should READ THE BOOK, johnson!

Dadofhomeschoolers| 9.16.09 @ 8:50AM

Now all the harumphing starts about the "well if I can't understand it then it couldn't possibly be".

The only thing I can tell you Mr Johnson, is to go about your business and not worry about it. Then in the few months or years when you die, either you are right, or you are wrong. If you are right, then all is well, but if you are wrong.......

Dadof homschoolers

Dadofhomeschoolers| 9.16.09 @ 8:57AM

Ah yes, I also wanted to tell Mr DLB that if the chances of his billions of atoms combining in just the right order is vanishingly small, how does that not prove the point of intelligence?

The atoms have an attraction. Where did the attraction come from? You conveniently stop stepping back a few steps early.

Dadofhomeschoolers

KyMouse| 9.16.09 @ 9:29AM

I look forward to reading the book and making up my own mind.

One thing that has always mystified me is the fact that the very first plants, and then creatures, that somehow came from inorganic matter, didn't simply die right away, but rather fought to stay alive and reproduce. Why not simply die? Why fight for existence? What was that drive and where did it come from during those first moments of organic life? I tell my kids that critters struggle to stay alive out of instinct, but where did that instinct come from in the nick of time to make the first simple creatures hunt for food and safety? Things could just have easily gone the other way, I suppose, and life would have been extinguished as soon as it began. Wow, are we lucky!

Kent Lyon| 9.16.09 @ 10:03AM

The two possibilities for the origin of life, eg., either of randomness and chance out of "unthinking" matter, or from an "intelligent mind" commits the Cartesian error of dualism. Could there be other possibilities? Of course. Our understanding of cellular biology is still rudimentary, and we weren't there at the origin, so we don't actually know what happened. John Wesley Powell, the great 19th Century explorer and scientist (originator of physical geology, ethnologist, climatologist par excellance, scientific theorist and philosopher) consider two possibilities, either that intelligence arose out of the complexity of the organization of matter, or that matter itself intrinsically possessed intelligence, that became more and more obvious as life advanced (which it clearly has). He tended to favor the latter possibility. Could it be that matter itself posses intelligence of some sort? It is hard in the animal kingdom to find a level of life at which some form of intelligence is not present (the field addressing this is ethology). We are continuously impressed with the cognitive abilities of lower forms of life, as studies come out shedding light on animal intelligence. Even imprinting, instinct, etc., all rely on information processing, e.g., intelligence. Single-celled organisms exhibit primitive learning behavior. In a universe that has the property of spontanously arising compexity and patterns based on the behavior of matter, is it so surprising that life would arise. In fact, one might argue that both life and intelligence are intrinsic characteristics, indeed, properties, of the universe, every bit as much as black holes or supernova events that occur based on gravity and the properties of matter are. It is noteworthy that our two greatest physical theories of the universe, Quantum theory addressing the behavior of atomic and sub-atomic matter, and General Relativity addressing the behavior of the cosmos, are completely incompatible, indeed, contradictory and irreconcilable (hence the difficulty of physicists in finding a "theory of everything"). That should give us considerable pause in considering origins of life and intelligence. Ultimately, we may discover answers to questions of the origin of life and intelligence. Intelligent design remains a rather post-hoc, kiplingesque just-so theory. The virtually irreducible complexity of the cell should not however be considered impossible without a deus-ex-machina event to create life, but should be looked at in the context of the physical world as a remarkable phenomenon that, unquestionably, is fundamental to the nature of the universe, and will be ubiquitous throughout the universe. Both our existence, the existence of life on earth, and our intelligence, such as it is, guarantee that these are fundamental properties of the universe. The philosophical or religious question is, why is this, or why should this, be the case? And note that neither approach precludes or excludes a divine origin of the universe. Nor do they invalidate the idea of Natural Right, but rather, validate it fully. As they do not invalidate true religion, and accurate reason, but rather support both, and point to a more universal validity of the highest reaches of human achievement, from mathematics through the sciences (Euclid to Einstein and Gellman, et.al.,) to the highest expression of political and economic thought, e.g., Adam Smith, Montiesque, Locke, and the American Founding Fathers.

Vern Crisler | 9.16.09 @ 10:57AM

Darwinism is based on the metaphysical assumption that scaler complexity has a more than fifty percent chance of arising by natural processes and chance.

I don't think I've ever seen any evidence to support this assumption.

I'm looking forward to reading the book. It may have been easy in the 19th century to believe in evolution due to the lack of knowledge of the structure of the cell, etc.

It has since been discovered that living things at the cellular and molecular level shows evidence of ultra-structure, a complexity that can't be explained by appeals to simpler structures. I think Behe and many other ID proponents have demonstrated this beyond question.

Darwinism is thus a metaphysical view, even a religion for many. Hopefully this book and others will convince readers to keep an open mind about the origin of life. Darwinian close-mindedness is not an intellectually fulfilling position to be in.

Tim| 9.16.09 @ 11:00AM

"Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. "

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

ARealist| 9.16.09 @ 11:19AM

I have no idea if life was formed by an intelligent being - i.e., GOD, or if it just developed out of some primordial soup.
I am not smart enough (OK, arrogant enough) to know. I guess I believe that no one knows.
I do not think ascertaining the probability of an outcome provides any information whatsoever as to whether the outcome was purely by chance or if the outcome was guided or predetermined.
One can flip a fair coin 1000 times, and the probability of a specific sequence (permutation) is one part in 2^1000; this result is so small that to the right of the decimal place there are about 301 zeros. An answer that, for all practical purposes is zero.
Yet, there is a 100 % probablility that flipping a coin 1000 times will in fact produce an result whose outcome has a probability of occurence of about zero.
One can then assert that the given outcome (permutation) is so close to zero, that the outcome must have been guided or designed.
Of course, it's not. If a coin is flipped 1000 times, the result is purely random, regardless of how unlikely the specific result.
That's not to say, however, that GOD did not create the universe or life or humans. No one knows.
If GOD did create humans, he most certainly created ticks, mosquitos, ants, parasites, viruses, dogs, cats, skunks, warts and lions that eat baby antelopes.
Why ?
Who knows.
I sure don't .
Everybody has heard stories of really strange and bizarre thing occuring; a loved one gets killed and 5000 miles away the parent wakes up, somehow knowing a tragedy has taken place.
Many things happen all the time that literally defy explanation.
Only the most arrogant and narcissistic believe they can explain how life began; whether you believe GOD created life, or whether you believe it was purely the chance encounter of many molecules that created life.

(Where did the first molecules come from ? OH, from the first atoms, of course. But where did the first atoms come from ? Oh, well , from the BIG BANG. But if nothing existed prior to the BIG BANG, what exactly was it that exploded or expanded, and what caused that? Well, subatomic particles just "appear" from the vacuum of space and purely by chance, they produced a BIG BANG. But where did these subatomic particle come from ? Well, they always existed. There never was a beginning.
Sure)

KyMouse| 9.16.09 @ 1:06PM

Mr. Lyon's comments are interesting, but the question "Could it be that matter itself posses [sic] intelligence of some sort?" stretches credibility to the breaking point. Did the person who originally asked it really suspect that rocks, stars, oxygen molecules -- earth, air, water and fire, etc. -- have some sort of intelligence? Perhaps he was talking about organic matter, not inorganic. Sounds mighty New Agey, though. I've never been one to talk to my houseplants.

Mr. Lyons says, "In a universe that has the property of spontanously [sic] arising compexity and patterns based on the behavior of matter, is it so surprising that life would arise." You're making the assumption that all of this is spontaneous. On the contrary, all of it may come about through the limitless creativity of God.

However intelligence arose in organic life forms, I'm still stuck with the question, "Why do living things struggle to stay alive?"

fundamentalist| 9.16.09 @ 1:18PM

Thanks for the review. I can't wait to read the book.

The shear stubborness of the posters who attack the book without having read it is astounding. You guys make Al Qaeda appear open minded.

The point of using probability is to provide a scientific basis for the analysis of DNA. Any nut can crank out theories like sausage about how things might have happened. But that isn't scientific. Evolution claims to be science. If so, it should agree with standard scientific methods, the most important piece being to provide objective evidence for your theory, not just wild flings of the imagination.

Other areas of natural science use probability. I understand that quantum physics does so. Let's suppose that two theories about the behavior of some subatomic particle had 50% and 0.000001 % probability of occurring. Without the hysterical baggage that the theory of evolution carries with it, don't you think real scientists would opt for the theory with the most likely probability?

Harry: "why should I lead my life any differently than I would if life is the result of chance? "

If God created you, he owns you and will have a great deal to do with how your life turns out. On the continuum of religious belief, God could be controlling you like a puppet on one extreme, or on the other extreme he could be letting you do your own thing, after which he will grade your performance and choose your ultimate fate. But your sheer laziness and lack of curiosity is astounding! You must be the poster child for couch potato spirituality!

Matteo | 9.16.09 @ 1:28PM

bjohnson asked:

"Did Meyer have anything in his book about who designed the designer?"

Yes. Next question?

Those who triumphantly cart out this "stumper" merely serve to illustrate that their belief in Darwinism is based on metaphysical ignorance rather than scientific evidence. The idea of an uncaused First Cause is Intro to Philosophy stuff. To those who've studied even a little philosophy, the "Who designed the designer" question is about as cogent as someone who has never studied mathematics asserting that irrational numbers are impossible. Those who regard the asking of the question as some sort of rhetorical triumph merely illustrate that they themselves are philosophical barbarians...

Texas Male| 9.16.09 @ 2:02PM

[[[bjohnson| 9.12.09 @ 8:08AM
Did Meyer have anything in his book about who designed the designer? ]]]]]]

The "designer" was never created. It (He) has always been here. Just as humans cannot comprehend the idea of eternity, so it is true that the creator lives in this eternity....no beginning, no end. God has always existed.

Before you shoot my theory down, you must acknowledge that there are facts in this universe that humans are incapable of comprehending...ever, and a truth that will never be explained with scientific "facts".

Robert Crowther | 9.16.09 @ 2:11PM

It's always interesting to read comment threads where the vast majority of people commenting have not read the book in question. If you're going to discuss and debate Dr. Meyer's book, whether or not he discusses the designer, what sort of mathematic probabilities he discusses, his views on irreducible complexity, and so on, then you should know what he does say about those things. I would suggest starting at the least with the book's website, http://www.signatureinthecell.com. You can learn more about the book, and watch debates Dr. Meyer has had with people who have read his work.

bobxxxx| 9.16.09 @ 3:05PM

Meyer is a professional liar, and he knows he's a liar. Scientists call Meyer's Discovery Institute "The Dishonesty Institute".

bobxxxx| 9.16.09 @ 3:12PM

"You guys make Al Qaeda appear open minded." It's possible to be so open-minded that your brains fall out. That's what the problem is with creationists. They're so gullible, they will believe professional liars like Meyers instead of accepting the discoveries of real scientists.

By the way Al Qaeda and all other Muslim terrorists are creationists like Meyer. Isn't that interesting?

Tim| 9.16.09 @ 3:30PM

"The position of the question, then, is like this. We want to know
whether the universe simply happens to be what it is for no reason or
whether there is a power behind it that makes it what it is. Since that
power, if it exists, would be not one of the observed facts but a reality
which makes them, no mere observation of the facts can find it. There is
only one case in which we can know whether there is anything more, namely
our own case. And in that one case we find there is. Or put it the other way
round. If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not
show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe- no more than the
architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in
that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be
inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in
a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves."

http://www.lib.ru/LEWISCL/mere_engl.txt

ARealist | 9.16.09 @ 4:27PM

To Bobxxx;

Though I have no problem with evolution- it does seem logical - I do not believe it is a scientific "fact."
I believe it is a scientific theory; hence the term, THEORY of evolution.
In fact , even Newtown's Laws of motion and inertia, today, would not be characterized as scientific "laws," - even though most texts still refer to them as "laws" - because under certain circumstances (at speeds near that of light), they do not "work."
Speaking of evolution I never figured out why that bothered the fundamenalists; after all, perhaps that is the method GOD used to create us.
Evolution theory does seem intuitively reasonable; however, that does not make it right. Only scientific proof makes a theory a scientific fact, and frankly, there are enough holes in the fossil record that one can drive a truck through it.
Of course, this does not make it wrong either; it simply makes it a theory.
The evolutionists are their own worst enemy. All scientific theories have shortcomings, and science accepts criticism of a theory or hypothesis as the best method assess its validity. After all, that is how science progresses.
Unless you are talking of evolution; in this case, any criticism is dismissed as the ravings of a religious fanatic, even if a deficiency in the theory pointed out (e.g., the gaps in the fossil record in which intermediate species are nowhere to be found. Ah, but you say, these intermediate fossils just haven't been found yet. One can then respond, well, the 10,000,000 year old fossils of a fully modern human being also have not yet been found.)

Evolution is a theory. It may be correct, it may not be. So far, no one has definitive scientific proof that it is correct.
Intelligent design is a religious view; that is OK too.

Science and mathematics cannot be used to disprove ID because one can always assert well, that's how GOD decided to create the universe and life.

The great scientists of 100 to 500 years ago never had a problem with GOD and science. To them, understanding the universe , via science and mathematics, provided insight into how HE operates.

Guy| 9.16.09 @ 4:56PM

Mathmatical proof of ID is far more of a threat to Atheists than it would be to Christians. Remember: "In the beginning was the Word." As St. John implies, life is defined by the presence and precedence of the word (informative codes).

Donna| 9.16.09 @ 6:48PM

Premise: It's complicated.

Conclusion: God made it.

Anon| 9.16.09 @ 7:05PM

Premise: Donna wrote a comment.

Conclusion: That comment is worthless.

Robert Crowther | 9.16.09 @ 7:34PM

For those of you who were worrying about who designed the designer? Meyer deals with this in detail in chapter 17 of Signature in the Cell. George Gilder was specifically impressed with Meyer’s refutation of Dawkins on this very point. As for whether or not ID is science, that is a main subject of the entire book. You all should read it. You might even find that you change your mind.

cdc| 9.16.09 @ 8:54PM

Creationists and intelligent design proponents are simply irrelevent and unproductive. This is why they put out public relations tracts instead of doing lab work and publishing research.

Chas| 9.17.09 @ 10:12AM

ID simply says that something shows evidence of having been designed.

Opponents of ID insist that some series of random events resulted in a living, reproducing organism being formed from lifeless matter. They present no evidence beyond the claim that it "might have happened like this...."

Which approach presents more evidence and which requires more faith?

wes jh| 9.17.09 @ 10:22AM

Upon my father's passing, I was given a beautiful timepiece(well, beautiful to me). Visiting a watchmaker, he carefully removed the back and showed me the intricate workings, the movement of the gears and springs, the placement of the jewels. Oh what care was taken in the creation of this work of art, no part able to function without the others, rendering the timepiece useless and worthless.
Now what would you say to me if I told you that it had "evolved"? No, you would say, we know who made it! If I persisted in my insistence in the claim that I found it on a rock pile and it had just "happened" into existence (over millions then billions of years), you would dismiss me as an idiot, a fool, an utter moron. But concerning far more complex and living organisms that grow and reproduce and heal themselves, for the true believer, no amount of new information and revelation of more detail to the intricate nature of the designs of not one, BUT MILLIONS of animals, plants and inorganic structures will sway them from the religious belief that denies, dare I say it, God. Just as a thinking person would reject the fairy tale of a watch or a computer just "happening" into existence given enough time,
the fairy tale of the evolution of life should be rejected for the same reasons. It matters not the education level of those pushing the nonsense, sometimes what sounds completely stupid and improbable is completely stupid and improbable.
The fact that millions have embraced it only reflects on the gullability of man.

cdc| 9.17.09 @ 10:43AM

The old watchmaker parable.
This is rather undone because for the really complicated systems, ones that are simply beyond human ability, engineers use evolutionary algorythms based on the biological model. Chaos, a few simply rules, and some feedback loops are capable of far more complexity than intelligences.

Robert| 9.20.09 @ 12:40AM

I'd be careful about your rebuttal analogy, cdc. Yes, engineers use biologically-based evolutionary algorithms to design extraordinarily complex systems. Those algorithms are themselves purposely designed to accomplish a specific purpose. You have moved the design point back one step. You have NOT eliminated design as a fundamental requirement for creating a complicated system.

Matteo | 9.17.09 @ 11:06AM

"Chaos, a few simply rules, and some feedback loops are capable of far more complexity than intelligences."

Meyer takes on this very position in the book. And dismantles it. But, you'd know that, if you'd read the book. But knowing that you'd know that, you will therefore not read the book. Because you do not want to know that.

Wallyhuck| 9.17.09 @ 1:24PM

Name for me a language that did not come from a mind? a.k.a. 'the atheists riddle'
Inside our cells is the most elegant language ever to be observed.

wes jh| 9.17.09 @ 2:08PM

So, cdc, that's the best you can do? Tell me, where did these "few simple rules " originate?
Just by chance? the entire universe humms along in perfect balance before any of us arrived and will continue to do so after we expire. By the way, order from chaos is not possible, violates one of the laws of thermodynamics. Ordered systems, without maintaince, descend into chaos, much like the educated mind of the evolutionists.
So we are now to trust computer models to be far more "complex" than one that is designed? I think you are confusing complexity with convolutions. The computer algorithms simply allow greater speed than manual computation.
But I would no more trust the outcome as I do the global warming models which by the way, are completely wrong. Again you side step the complexity on the cellular level and dismiss any who question as simpletons. I'll bet you still believe oil is a "fossil fuel".

Russell Seitz| 9.17.09 @ 9:59PM

This ranks as one of Peterson's better performances -he's only off by twenty five orders of magnitude.

juandomino| 9.18.09 @ 1:19AM

Read The Book
Then by all means feel free to share your opinions. The amount of disparaging comments directed at Stephen Meyers research, not to mention the man himself are frighteningly amazing on more than a few counts.
It terrifies me to think that so many of those who consider themselves enlightened can hold such unprovable views as the Theory of Evolution in total disregard for the evidence against it. With the same religious fervor that they continuosly bash others for possessing.
While I myself am a believer in a Supreme Being, I readily admit that my faith is purely experiential. I can no more prove the existence of Him in Whom I believe than I could calculate the distance from here to eternity. I might add at this point that the existence of God can neither be disproved, philosophically disavowed of course, but scientifically disproved, impossible.
In the realm of science however, we can attain much greater certainty with the amount of information that we have up till now discovered.
If any of the devout Darwinists among us should ever even allow themselves to entertain the possibility of another alternative, perhaps then we could begin to have an intelligent discussion.
With the evidence against evolution it is abundantly clear that the holding of this view is more religious than intellectual. At least I can admit as much about my own beliefs. That is not to say that God has not "proved" Himself to me, which He repeatedly has, but not in manner which I could ever use to convince anyone else of my faith.
I am currently about halfway through Signature and am quite impressed to this point with what I have read so far. This is not an opinion piece in Vanity Fair but a very cogent argument against a "faith" that for much too long has been regarded as science.
I was somewhat dissappointed to read earlier in these posts that Meyers tackles the subject of the "Designer" later on in this impressive scientific work. I would have preferred that he not cloud the waters of reason with reference to subjects of a more metaphysical nature. At any rate, I look forward to hearing his views, they will in no way detract from the science contained in his essay.

Wes jh| 9.18.09 @ 9:59AM

About the "watchmaker's parable". That was not fiction, I actually took an old Omega Speedmaster to the watchmaker for cleaning. Ask a pointed question of leftists and what you get is the blow off
because the reality is that the darwin position will not stand up to scrutiny so it must not receive any.
One of the Huxleys stated that the odds of evolution actually happening were slim to none (my words) but the alternative (a Creator) was just unacceptable. Open your mind, pursue truth wherever it leads and you will free you soul.

Sam Smith| 12.8.09 @ 10:20PM

Very impressive article, our physical body is a very complicated machine, they are surely created and designed by intelligence, this is amazing, no one knows how, except God!
jump higher and Mp3 rocket pro

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Ruthie’s Way

May 2, 2013 | Christopher Orlet

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/16/blown-away

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