Return of the God Hypothesis: Breakthroughs in Physics, Cosmology, and Biology Seeking Evidence for the Existence of God

by Stephen C. Meyer

One of the first scientists to develop this principle was the geologist Charles Lyell, who influenced Charles Darwin. Darwin read Lyell’s magnum opus, The Principles of Geology, on the voyage of the Beagle and employed its principles of reasoning in the Origin of Species. The subtitle of Lyell’s Principles summarized the geologist’s methodology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth’s Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation. Lyell argued that when scientists seek to explain events in the past, they should not invoke unknown types of causes. Instead, they should cite causes known from our uniform experience to have the power to produce the effect in question.44 Historical scientists should cite “causes now in operation.” This was the idea behind his famous “uniformitarian” dictum: “The present is the key to the past.”