Dr. Stephen C. Meyer is an American philosopher of science and theologian. Meyer, along with Bruce Chapman and George Gilder, is a founder of the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture, which advocates the controversial theory of intelligent design, and a leading proponent and lobbyist in the intelligent design movement. Meyer is a Vice President and Senior Fellow at the Center for Science and Culture's.
Biography
Meyer originally graduated with a degree in geology in 1980 from Whitworth College and worked in the oil industry. After attending a creationist conference however, he became increasingly interested in origins and rejected the evolutionary creationism in which he had previously believed.
Meyer won a scholarship to Cambridge University in the United Kingdom to study the history and philosophy of science. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University in 1991. His dissertation was on the history of the origin of life and the biology and the methodology of the historical sciences.
Meyer formerly worked as a geophysicist for the Atlantic Richfield Company and is now a Professor of the Conceptual Foundations of Science at Palm Beach Atlantic University, a Christian University, where he teaches a course on Christian apologetics in its School of Ministry. He was previously on the faculty of Whitworth College (which has links to the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Spokane, Washington for twelve years.
In 1990, Meyer, Bruce Chapman and George Gilder, formed the Discovery Institute as a non-profit educational foundation and think tank based upon the Christian apologetics of C.S. Lewis and opposed to materialism. It was founded as a branch of the Hudson Institute, an Indianapolis-based, conservative think tank and named for the H.M.S. Discovery, which explored Puget Sound in 1792.
In 1993, Chapman secured seed money in the form of a grant from Howard Ahmanson, Jr. and $450,000 from the MacLellan Foundation which underwrote the earliest nucleus of intelligent design authors who titled themselves "The Wedge" [1]. Meyer had previously tutored Ahmanson's son in science and Meyer recalls being asked by Ahmanson "What could you do if you had some financial backing?" It is from these beginnings that the intelligent design movement grew.
Dr. Meyer has recently co-written or edited two books: Darwinism, Design, and Public Education with Michigan State University Press and Science and Evidence of Design in the Universe (Ignatius 2000). He has published over 70 articles and papers.
Meyer has been described as "the person who brought ID (intelligent design) to DI (Discovery Institute)" by historian Edward Larson, who was a fellow at the Discovery Institute prior to it becoming the center of the intelligent design movement.
Peer review controversy
On 4 August 2004, an article by Meyer, appeared in the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.[2] On 7 September, the publisher of the journal, the Council of the Biological Society of Washington, released a statement repudiating the article as not meeting its scientific standards and not peer reviewed. [3] The same statement vowed that proper review procedures would be followed in the future and endorsed a resolution published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which observes that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID. [4] The journal's reasons for disavowing the article were denied by Richard Sternberg, the managing editor at the time the article was submitted and who subsequently left after its publication. [5] Critics of Meyer's paper believe that Sternberg himself was biased in the matter, since he is a member of the editorial board of the Baraminology Study Group, an organization with a creationist agenda. The Baraminology Study Group's official position is that Sternberg is not a creationist and acts primarily as a skeptical reviewer. [6] A critical review of the article is available on the Panda's Thumb website. [7]
Political controversy
A "teach the controversy" strategy was announced by Meyer [8] following a presentation to the Ohio State Board of Education in March 2002. The presentation included submission of an annotated bibliography of 44 peer-reviewed scientific articles that were said to raise significant challenges to key tenets of what was referred to as “Darwinian evolution” [9]. In response to this claim the National Center for Science Education, an organisation that works in collaboration with National Academy of Sciences, the National Association of Biology Teachers, and the National Science Teachers Association that support the teaching of evolution in public schools [10], contacted the authors of the papers listed and twenty-six scientists, representing thirty-four of the papers, responded. None of the authors considered that their research provided evidence against evolution [11].
On March 11 2002 during a panel discussion on evolution Meyer publicly told the Ohio Board of Education that the "Santorum Amendment" was part of the Education Bill, and therefore that the State of Ohio was required to teach alternative theories to evolution as part of its biology curriculum. A Brown University Professor of Biology, Kenneth R. Miller, showed that the Santorum Amendment is not in the body of the Education Bill itself. [12] Meyer and others pointed out that the language is in the Conference Report to the bill. They have pointed out what they believe are numerous misrepresentations by Miller.[13] Miller and others advocating Darwinian Evolution hold that Conference Reports do not carry the weight of law and that Meyer factually mistated the nature and gravitas of the Santorum Amendment.[14] The Senate approved the Santorum Amendment by 91 to 8. Those advocating Intelligent Design observe that the Conferees strengthened the Santorum Amendment on inserting it into the Conference Report. Bruce Chapman and David DeWolf explain how Congress intended the Conference Report to guide education with "the effect of law" giving details on how the Act is to be implemented.
Bibliography
Books
- David K. DeWolf, Stephen C. Meyer, Mark E. DeForrest (1999) Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curriculum: A Legal Guidebook ISBN 096421041X
- Michael J. Behe William A. Dembski and Stephen C. Meyer (2000) Science and Evidence of Design in the Universe ISBN 0898708095
- Campbell and Meyer (2003) Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, Michigan State University Press. ISBN 0870136755
Scientific paper
- Meyer, S.C. (2004) The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117(2):213-239. online version
External links
Pro-ID
- ARN page
- Discovery Institute biography
- biography at Palm Beach University
- website for Darwinism Design and Public Education