What does Stephen Meyer really think?

One of the most frustrating things about the current crop of Intelligent Design Creationists is that it's impossible to pin them down on what they really think happened in the history of life. We know that some of them are closet Young Earth Creationists so we can guess what they think. They may be arguing that bacterial flagella reveal the actions of a designer but they actually don't believe any of the data used to make that argument. They think that all species (or kinds) were created at once just a few thousand years ago.

Other Intelligent Design Creationists seem to believe in a different form of creation but who knows what it is? Take Stephen Mayer, for example, you can read his books from cover to cover and still not know what he thinks about the history of life. It's clear that the Cambrian Explosion is a big deal for him and it's clear that he thinks god is behind it all but he's remarkably noncommittal about what actually happened according to his interpretation of the evidence.

That's why I tried to provoke a response by guessing at what he means [Molecular evidence supports the evolution of the major animal phyla ]. I said,

Meyer thinks he has a much more reasonable explanation. He believes that a supernatural being visited the Earth about 540 million years ago and noticed that it was teeming with life—lots of plants, algae, fungi, protozoa, and bacteria. The god(s) thought there should be some bigger creatures called "animals" so he/she/it/they built a few and let them loose to reproduce and evolve.

Ann Gauger didn't like this so she decided to tell us exactly what Stephen Meyer really thinks about the origin of the major animal phyla [From Biochemist Larry Moran, More Gratuitous Misrepresentations]. This is so exciting ... finally we're going to get a detained model of how life came to be according to Stephen Meyer!

Take notes. Here's how Ann Gauger explains what happened 500 million years ago.

Meyer believes no such thing. He thinks that the appearance of most of the animal phyla over 10 million years represents a considerable increase in biological information. Ten million years is nothing on the geologic time scale, and information isn't had for free. New body plans and new ways of living require new cell types, new organs, new nervous systems -- at a minimum, new ways of using existing genes and the acquisition of new ones. This represents an incredible increase in biological information.

... I have already said Meyer does not think that all these animals poofed into existence over the span of days, weeks or years. He acknowledges the existence of the fossil record and the time span of ten million years over which animal life made its appearance.

Damn! We're no further ahead than we were before. Apparently the gods inserted all this new information into existing evolving species gradually over the course of 10 million years instead of just a few days, weeks or years. That's not very helpful in understanding what the Intelligent Design Creationists are proposing.

Perhaps Ann Gauger can expand on this a little more? Did the gods nudge some of the species toward being arthropods in the first million years but waited until the last few years to create the information required to make chordates and vertebrates? What kind of information did they insert? What did they insert it into? Do we have any evidence of new god-created genes that sprang into existence during this period of time? If so, which ones?

And how old are these gods, anyway? Did the same ones stick around for the entire 10 million years to see if their experiment worked or were there several generations of gods?

Why were the gods so active in the Cambrian? Why didn't they create all this new information 100 million years earlier or 100 million years later? Have they created any new information since then or did they front-load everything into genome during the Cambrian then turned their attention to some planets in other galaxies? These are all legitimate questions that deserve answers. They're just like the questions you ask of scientists when you demand detailed evolutionary explanations.

Meyer disagrees with the interpretation that is placed upon the Cambrian by Moran and other evolutionary biologists, primarily because they fail to account for the sudden appearance (10 million years) of so much biological information. They assume that a purely materialistic evolution is capable of accounting for all that biological information. The problem is, it does no good to push the origins of animal life further and further back in time, because the information problem hasn't been answered. Meyer states very clearly that the information to make animals, whether from prior organisms or not, came from an intelligent designer. Why? Because intelligence is the one source we know that is capable of generating that kind of information.

Not good enough. That's just anti-evolution, anti-materialism rhetoric. We all know that attacking evolution is just about all you've got for an argument but it's wearing thin after two decades. If you don't believe "materialistic evolution" then give us a better explanation than just "gods did it."

Come on, Ann, you can do better than that. Talk to Steve and report back next Monday. Ask him to pick just one of the species and explain how the intelligent designer created it. I like Marrella splendens (above) but he can pick another one if he likes.

Oh, and while you're at it, why not have him respond to my critique of his views on molecular evolution instead of hiding behind surrogates? He can post on ENV if he likes. That way he will be shielded from the crude IDiots that flock to Uncommon Descent. Why didn't he respond in the latest book Debating Darwin's Doubt?

It's time to fish or cut bait.

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