Stephen Meyer Takes On Darwin’s TreeS

Everyone has seen the iconic tree of life depicted by Darwin. But in this bonus interview released as part of the Science Uprising series, best-selling author Stephen Meyer describes how the fossil record poses significant challenges to Darwin’s tree of life. When one studies the various biological forms of the fossil record, one finds that these forms remain static with slight variations until the species either goes extinct or persists into the present day. According to Meyer, “we don’t see the kind of morphing from one major morphological innovation into another that you would expect on the basis of Darwinian theory.”

Meyer argues that while the fossil record demonstrates some transitions in the history of life, evidence for the major transitions is lacking. He also challenges the claim that transitions are lacking because the fossil record simply didn’t preserve the transitional forms. Meyer then goes on to discuss population genetics and the “waiting times” problem faced by the Darwinian mechanism.

Stephen C. Meyer received his Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. A former geophysicist and college professor, he now directs Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle. He has authored the New York Times best seller Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design (HarperOne, 2013), Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperOne, 2009), which was named a Book of the Year by the Times (of London) Literary Supplement in 2009, and now, Return of the God Hypothesis (HarperOne, 2021).