Education Icon Education
Intelligent Design Icon Intelligent Design

Meyer: Did a Student’s Challenging Question to Dean Kenyon Spark the Modern ID Movement?

Image credit: Arek Socha, via Pixabay.

It was a student’s challenging question in class at San Francisco State University that prompted biologist Dean Kenyon to question and ultimately reject his own highly influential theory about the origin of biological information. Stephen Meyer tells the story in a lecture from his 42-part DiscoveryU course, “Stephen Meyer Investigates Scientific Evidence for Intelligent Design”:

Meyer discusses theories, such as Kenyon’s, that seek to account for the information in DNA by reference to chemical forces alone — that is, self-organization. Ultimately, Kenyon would turn in a very different direction. In a speech in Dallas in 1985, he acknowledged that “he had come to think that the information in DNA might be pointing to an intelligent source of some kind, in other words, to intelligent design.” In the audience was a young geophysicist, Stephen Meyer, who would go on a year later to Cambridge University to study the puzzle of the origin of life, and to become a leading proponent of the theory of ID. It would be interesting to know the identity of that student in Kenyon’s class to whom, just possibly, we owe a great deal.

Meyer’s course, which includes quizzes and assigned reading, is perfect for the students in your own life, including homeschoolers and adult learners. Or perhaps the student is you! More information about this great educational opportunity is here.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

Share

Tags

biological informationbiologistsCambridge Universitychemical evolutionchemical forcesDallasDean KenyonDiscoveryUDNAintelligent designorigin of lifeSan Francisco State Universityself-organizationStephen Meyer