Signature in the Cell, ch. 6-10

Chapter 6 shows that the foundation of early scientific inquiry assumed ID. Focusing primarily on Newton, Meyer asks the question 'how can the act of invoking something so foundational to the history of science as the idea of design now completely violate the rules of science itself?' The issue in the debate comes down to a philosophical commitment to naturalism more than scientific inquiry.

Chapter 7 helps the reader understand how causes are inferred from the clues we have in nature. He also demonstrates the cause/effect fallacy that can be problematic to this approach. The best explanation for the clues and causes wins, but ultimately we do not know they are right. He ends the chapter by posing the question 'is ID the only known cause of the origin of specified information (and the origin of life)?' He asserts that the answer is yes.

Chapter 8 takes on the issue of chance. When is it appropriate to site chance as an explanation of things? Chance tends to be a veil for an unknown or extremely complex cause. Using chance as a 'reason' for a pattern assumes reason and pattern, which are not implicit chance concepts. Much of this chapter interacts with William Dembski's work on probability.

Chapter 9 offers helpful illustrations for 'specified information' and why it is so significant. Using his 'Scrable' illustration shows how the problem is not just making a meaningful sentence from randm letters, but also the ability to interpret the meaning. How DNA, Protein, RNA, amino acids and the information systems in the cell could be produced by chance is almost an impossible question.

Chapter 10 demonstrates just how impossible chance is to explain the information in cells. The point is that it is more probable that things came about by design rather than chance, based on mathematic principles. The chance hypothesis should be rejected. Yet, in the midst of the nonsense of this position, scientists continue to buy into it.