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

by Stephen C. Meyer

the “specified complexity” or “specified information” of DNA implicates a prior intelligent cause not only because materialistic origin-of-life scenarios fail to explain it, but also because we know that intelligent agents can and do produce information of that kind. We have positive experience-based knowledge of an alternate cause sufficient to produce this effect. To depict proponents of the theory of intelligent design as committing the GOTG fallacy, critics must misrepresent the case for it. For example, as Michael Shermer claims, “Intelligent design . . . argues that life is too specifically complex (complex structures like DNA) . . . to have evolved by natural forces. Therefore, life must have been created by . . . an intelligent designer.”13 In short, he claims that proponents of intelligent design argue as follows: Premise: Material causes cannot produce or explain specified information. Conclusion: Therefore, an intelligent cause produced the specified information in life. In fact, the case for the intelligent design of life, presented in Chapters 9 and 10 and in my previous books, doesn’t rely on such logic. Instead, the argument takes the following significantly different form: Premise One: Despite a thorough search, no materialistic causes have been discovered with the power to produce large amounts of specified information necessary to produce the first cell. Premise Two: Intelligent causes have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of specified info...