New Book Reveals DNA Evidence for Intelligent Design

Washington, D.C. – The digital code in DNA reveals new evidence of intelligent design, Stephen C. Meyer shows in his authoritative new book, Signature in the Cell (HarperOne, June 23, 2009).

In this anniversary year of Charles Darwin’s birth (200 years ago) and the publication of his Origin of Species (150 years ago), scientists and journalists alike are devoting increased attention to the ultimate evolutionary question: the origin of the first life. Darwin himself never addressed the issue, but in recent days the New York Times, Science, The Daily Telegraph and Wired have all carried reports detailing alleged breakthroughs in understanding how life first came to be.

Yet these news stories — some breathlessly hyped — overlook the central challenge. “No theory of undirected chemical evolution has explained the origin of the digital information needed to build the first living cell,” says Dr. Meyer. “For this reason, modern evolutionary theorists are no closer to figuring out where life came from than Darwin himself was 150 years ago.”

Dr. Meyer shows how each successive attempt to solve the mystery of the origin of life has exposed the Achilles heal of evolutionary science: its inability to account for information apart from mind.

“DNA functions like a software program,” adds Dr. Meyer. “Software comes from programmers. Information generally — whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book or encoded in a radio signal — always arises from an intelligent source.”

Signature in the Cell shows that Darwin did not refute the argument from design, as New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins claim. Instead, using the same scientific method that Darwin himself pioneered, Meyer shows that modern discoveries about DNA have revived the design hypothesis, thereby providing modern scientific support for religious belief.