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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 concept of intelligent design, and a leading proponent and lobbyist in the intelligent design movement. Meyer is a Vice President and Senior Fellow at the institute's Center for Science and Culture.

Biography

Meyer graduated with a degree in geology in 1980 from Whitworth College and worked as a geophysicist for the Atlantic Richfield Company. After attending a creationist conference he became increasingly interested in origins and rejected the evolutionary creationism in which he had previously believed.

Meyer won a scholarship from the Rotary Club of Dallas to study at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science in 1991. His dissertation was entitled "Of clues and causes : a methodological interpretation of origin of life studies."

After graduating, Meyer taught at Whitworth College, which has links to the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Spokane, Washington, and then at Palm Beach Atlantic University, a Christian university. As of 2006, Meyer works full-time at the Discovery Institute.

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 HMS 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" . 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.

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. On 7 September, the publisher of the journal, the Council of the Biological Society of Washington, released a statement retracting the article as not having met its scientific standards and not peer reviewed. 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.

The journal's reasons for disavowing the article were denied by Richard Sternberg, the managing editor at the time. Critics believe that Sternberg's personal and ideological connections to Meyer suggest at least the appearance of conflict of interest in allowing Meyer's paper to be published. As evidence they cite that Sternberg is a fellow of International Society for Complexity, Information and Design (ISCID), a group dedicated to promoting intelligent design, and presented a lecture on intelligent design at the Research And Progress in Intelligent Design (RAPID) conference.

A critical review of the article is available on the Panda's Thumb website. In January 2005, the Discovery Institute posted its response to the critique on their website.

Meyer's alleges that those who oppose "Darwinism" are persecuted by the scientific community: "The numbers of scientists who question Darwinism is a minority, but it is growing fast. This is happening in the face of fierce attempts to intimidate and suppress legitimate dissent. Young scientists are threatened with deprivation of tenure. Others have seen a consistent pattern of answering scientific arguments with ad hominem attacks. In particular, the series' attempt to stigmatize all critics--including scientists--as religious 'creationists' is an excellent example of viewpoint discrimination."

Political controversy

A "teach the controversy" strategy was announced by Meyer 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” . 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 , 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 .

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. Meyer and others rebutted that the language, while not in the bill itself is in the Conference Report to the bill and pointed out what they believe are misrepresentations by Miller. Miller replied that Conference Reports do not carry the weight of law and that in implying that they do, Meyer factually mistated the nature and gravitas of the Santorum Amendment.

Debates and discussions

• On May 6, 2005 Meyer debated Eugenie Scott, on The Big Story with John Gibson. During the debate, Meyer argued that Intelligent Design is critical of more than just evolutionary mechanisms like natural selection that lead to diversification, but of common descent itself.
• In April 2006, Dr. Meyer and Peter Ward, a paleontologist from the University of Washington held an open "discussion" on the topic of Intelligent Design in the Talk of the Times forum in Seattle, WA.

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 see:Sternberg peer review controversy

Film

• Unlocking the Mystery of Life

External links

Pro-ID

• ARN page
• Discovery Institute biography
  • Discovery Institute articles
• website for Darwinism Design and Public Education

Anti-ID

• evowiki
• Meyer's hopeless monster Review of Meyer, Stephen C. 2004. The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117(2):213-239
• the antievolutionists - Meyer

• Discovery Institute fellows and advisors
• Intelligent design movement
• Intelligent design advocates
• Living people
• Spokanites
• American theologians
• Creationists