Signature in the Cell, ch. 11-15

Chapter 11 considers the 'self-organization theory'. The idea is that things arrange themselves due to certain natural processes or laws. Meyer walks us through the story of this theory and some of the problems its authors wrangled with. It is here that he introduces Polanyi saying that laws do not determine information, but set boundaries for it. Polanyi takes it a step farther by arguing that DNA requires chemical freedom.

Chapter 12 walks through theories that are a bit 'outside of the box' in their approach to answering the DNA information problem. Theories based on energy fail because energy does not produce much specified complexity or information. Kauffman's model suggests that complex specificity could come about as the result of lower specificity. Meyer concludes that this simply is not biological reality, but more of a fairy-tale.

Chapter 13 reintroduces Aleksandr Oparin and the explanation of the origin of life. What is bazaar about many of the new approaches to origins of life is that they seek to demonstrate how a patter could emerge by chance, but give little consideration for the fact that they have in mind a particular end where as chance cannot and does not. There is a massive amount of order for 'chance' to produce without a purpose in doing so. No matter what new theories emerge, the same problems apply - chance probably does not produce consistent order.

Chapter 14 walks us through the main issues of RNA and 5 problems of it: 1. RNA Building Blocks are hard to synthesize and easy to destroy. 2. Ribozymes are poor substitutes for proteins. 3. An RNA-based translation and coding system is implausible. 4. The RNA world doesn't explain the origin of genetic information. and 5. Ribozyme engineering does not stimulate undirected chemical evolution. His conclusion, in the words of Francis Crick is "the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle."

Chapter 15 offers what Meyer believes is 'the best explanation'. He believes that Intelligent Design is the best explanation for DNA, complex specified information, and the origin of life. He offers the following reasons:

1. No other causally adequate explanations

2. Experimental evidence confirms causal adequacy of ID

3. ID is the only known cause of specified information

His conclusion is that ID ultimately is the best and only explanation in life of the lack of any other adequate explanations.