Stephen C. Meyer

Stephen C. Meyer (b. 1958) is an American philosopher of science, director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, and the most prominent contemporary advocate of intelligent design (ID). After working as a geophysicist, he earned a PhD in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge in 1991 with a dissertation on origin-of-life biology and methodological questions in historical science. Meyer's work develops an abductive 'inference to the best explanation' from features of biology and cosmology to an intelligent cause. In Signature in the Cell (2009) he argues that the specified information in DNA is best explained by intelligent agency rather than chance or chemical necessity. Darwin's Doubt (2013) extends this argument to the Cambrian explosion and the origin of animal body plans. Return of the God Hypothesis (2021) integrates ID with cosmological fine-tuning and Big Bang cosmology, arguing that theism better explains the universe's origin, fine-tuning, and informational complexity than naturalism. His work has been sharply criticized by biologists and philosophers of science including Kenneth Miller, Francisco Ayala, Nick Matzke, and Robert Pennock, who argue that ID is not testable science and misrepresents evolutionary biology; the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling found ID to be religion rather than science. Meyer remains a central figure in science-religion controversies and contemporary natural theology.