Status
Available
Call number
Publication
HarperOne (2013), 528 pages
Description
When Charles Darwin finished The Origin of Species, he thought that he had explained every clue, but one. Though his theory could explain many facts, Darwin knew that there was a significant event in the history of life that his theory did not explain. During this event, the Cambrian explosion, many animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record without apparent ancestors in earlier layers of rock. In Darwin's Doubt, Stephen C. Meyer tells the story of the mystery surrounding this explosion of animal life, a mystery that has intensified, not only because the expected ancestors of these animals have not been found, but because scientists have learned more about what it takes to construct an animal. During the last half century, biologists have come to appreciate the central importance of biological information, stored in DNA and elsewhere in cells, to building animal forms. Expanding on the compelling case he presented in his last book, Signature in the Cell, Meyer argues that the origin of this information, as well as other mysterious features of the Cambrian event, are best explained by intelligent design, rather than purely undirected evolutionary processes.… (more)
Media reviews
As Meyer points out, he is not a biologist; so perhaps he could be excused for basing his scientific arguments on an outdated understanding of morphogenesis. But my disappointment runs deeper than that. It stems from Meyer's systematic failure of scholarship. For instance, while I was flattered to
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find him quote one of my own review papers (2)—although the quote is actually a chimera drawn from two very different parts of my review—he fails to even mention the review's (and many other papers') central point: that new genes did not drive the Cambrian explosion. His scholarship, where it matters most, is highly selective. Show Less
In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a
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subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! Some people with creationist leanings or little understanding of paleontology might find this long-winded, confusingly written book convincing, but anyone with a decent background in paleontology can easily see through his distortions and deliberate misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Even though Amazon.com persists in listing this book in their "Paleontology" subsection, I've seen a number of bookstores already which have it properly placed in their "Religion" section--or even more appropriately, in "Fiction." Show Less
Most absurd of all is the book’s stance on knowledge: if something cannot be fully explained by today’s science—and there is plenty about the Cambrian, and the universe, that cannot—then we should assume it is fundamentally beyond explanation, and therefore the work of a supreme deity.
But
But
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do not underestimate “Darwin’s Doubt”: it is a masterwork of pseudoscience. Meyer is a reasonably fluid writer who weaves anecdote and patient explanation. He skillfully deploys the trappings of science—the journals, the conferences, the Latinate terminology. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the philosophy of science. He appears serious and, above all, reasonable. The Cambrian argument has been a part of creationism and its inheritors for many years, but Meyer’s project is to canonize it, a task he completes with great skill. Those who feel a hunger for material evidence of God or who sense that science is a conspiracy against spiritual meaning will find the book a thrilling read. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member Jotto
This is the second of two major works by philosopher of science, Stephen C. Meyer arguing for the thesis that the evolutionary process is a designed process. The core of Dr. Meyer's argument in this book is basically the same argument used in his first book, "Signature in the Cell." Given the
Meyer documents that it is not only intelligent design theorists who are convinced that orthodox Neo-Darwinianism has failed in its attempt to provide a viable explanation for the so called "Cambrian Explosion," but more and more biologists whose work is based upon the paradigm of materialism now reject the adequacy of the Neo-Darwinian hypotheses and consequently are working upon alternative theories of evolution, a development heralded by Stephen Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium.
Meyer and his colleagues at Seattle's Biologic Institute (associated with the Discovery Institute) argue for the theory of intelligent design as a more scientifically adequate explanation for the evolution of life by applying the same abductive logic Darwin himself used in his theorizing. Since we cannot observe or duplicate macro evolutionary change (sans intelligent intervention), one must choose between theories that extrapolate from currently observed micro evolutionary phenomena that may be parallels to macro-level processes. Thus Darwin used what was commonly known from breeding practices in his day as well as his own observations of micro evolutionary changes gained on such expeditions as his famous Beagle voyage to postulate inter-special changes over long periods of geological time. In like manner, Meyer argues that given the fact that we humans instinctively attribute the events in our life that involve complex, specified information (CSI) to the involvement of intelligent actors (an email for instance), we are right to assume that the involvement of such information in biological processes such as DNA and some of the cellular engines that appear to be designed are in fact designed.
Whether one is convinced by Meyer's arguments or not, having read either this or the earlier volume of his growing corpus of articles and books, one will have no trouble recognizing the oft heard charge that intelligent design is nothing more than another form of creationism as the uninformed prejudice or dishonest propaganda that it is. And anyone who wishes to have some insight into the history and current theories of evolutionary research would benefit from reading this and Dr. Meyer's earlier book.
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mathematical improbability of the complex, specified information such as that found in the DNA of every eukaryotic cell being created through the processes of random mutation and natural selection alone within the agreed upon time of our world (and the universe's) existence, some kind of intelligence appears to be a necessary component of the evolutionary process. In this second volume Meyer takes up one of the crucial problems that Darwin himself was very aware of. Namely, the sudden (in terms of geological time) appearance of multiple animal forms for which no common ancestor has been found or even successfully theorized is a major stumbling block for Darwinian and now Neo-Darwinian theory.Meyer documents that it is not only intelligent design theorists who are convinced that orthodox Neo-Darwinianism has failed in its attempt to provide a viable explanation for the so called "Cambrian Explosion," but more and more biologists whose work is based upon the paradigm of materialism now reject the adequacy of the Neo-Darwinian hypotheses and consequently are working upon alternative theories of evolution, a development heralded by Stephen Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium.
Meyer and his colleagues at Seattle's Biologic Institute (associated with the Discovery Institute) argue for the theory of intelligent design as a more scientifically adequate explanation for the evolution of life by applying the same abductive logic Darwin himself used in his theorizing. Since we cannot observe or duplicate macro evolutionary change (sans intelligent intervention), one must choose between theories that extrapolate from currently observed micro evolutionary phenomena that may be parallels to macro-level processes. Thus Darwin used what was commonly known from breeding practices in his day as well as his own observations of micro evolutionary changes gained on such expeditions as his famous Beagle voyage to postulate inter-special changes over long periods of geological time. In like manner, Meyer argues that given the fact that we humans instinctively attribute the events in our life that involve complex, specified information (CSI) to the involvement of intelligent actors (an email for instance), we are right to assume that the involvement of such information in biological processes such as DNA and some of the cellular engines that appear to be designed are in fact designed.
Whether one is convinced by Meyer's arguments or not, having read either this or the earlier volume of his growing corpus of articles and books, one will have no trouble recognizing the oft heard charge that intelligent design is nothing more than another form of creationism as the uninformed prejudice or dishonest propaganda that it is. And anyone who wishes to have some insight into the history and current theories of evolutionary research would benefit from reading this and Dr. Meyer's earlier book.
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LibraryThing member KSumerford
This is a very good book by Stephen C. Meyer on evolution, intelligent design, the Creator, and the fossil record. The book explores the Cambrian Period and the Cambrian Explosion. At least 28 phyla came into existence in less than 55 million years. Some of these phyla appeared in the fossil record
Darwin's Doubt is a book that I have read only the first 70 pages but it has a lot of science in those pages. I expect to read more of the book during the next several weeks. Part One is The Mystery of the Missing Fossils. The book discusses several models for evolution. Written on the college level and for the scientist and others who are interested in real science.
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in less than 30 million years. If you divide 30 M by 3,500 M you get .009 or about 0.9% or 9 in 1,000. So in less than 1% of biological life on Earth, several entire phyla came into being. This is much too fast for NeoDarwinism. Intelligent design is indicated. Darwin's Doubt is a book that I have read only the first 70 pages but it has a lot of science in those pages. I expect to read more of the book during the next several weeks. Part One is The Mystery of the Missing Fossils. The book discusses several models for evolution. Written on the college level and for the scientist and others who are interested in real science.
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Language
Physical description
528 p.; 9 inches
ISBN
0062071475 / 9780062071477
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