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Eugenie Scott Makes False Claims About Peer-Reviewed Paper on MSNBC

Today CSC Director Dr. Stephen Meyer debated Dr. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE on MSNBC. Dr. Scott claimed that there have been no peer-reviewed science articles which support intelligent design. This claim has also been made by plaintiffs’ expert witnesses at the Dover trial. MSNBC host Dan Abrams had also been misled into believing this false claim.

Meyer, who authored a peer-reviewed science article supporting intelligent design, made a clear rebuttal. Yet Scott persisted in saying that his article did not support intelligent design. Meyer should know — he wrote the article. Judge for yourself.

Here is what Meyer’s article actually says:

“An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a causally adequate–and perhaps the most causally adequate — explanation for the origin of the complex specified information required to build the Cambrian animals and the novel forms they represent. For this reason, recent scientific interest in the design hypothesis is unlikely to abate as biologists continue to wrestle with the problem of the origination of biological form and the higher taxa.”

(Stephen C. Meyer, “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories” in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2):213-239, 2004 (emphasis added).)

Click this link for a PDF version of Meyer’s article with text directly discussing and trying to support design theory highlighted in red. This is primarily at the end of the article where Meyer lays out the case for intelligent design as a better explanation than Darwinian evolution.

Casey Luskin

Associate Director and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Casey Luskin is a geologist and an attorney with graduate degrees in science and law, giving him expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution. He earned his PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, and BS and MS degrees in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied evolution extensively at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. His law degree is from the University of San Diego, where he focused his studies on First Amendment law, education law, and environmental law.

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