There are a number of perks to living in Seattle. You can get espresso at the dentist. Bruce Lee’s grave is only a short bus ride away. You can’t spit without hitting a teriyaki restaurant. And, of course, whenever the Discovery Institute has a book signing to promote their latest anti-scientific tract, it’s super-convenient to just drop in.
To be honest, I had some professional interest as well, as I’ve been thinking about organizing a book signing for Your Religion Is False, and I wanted to see how it was done. However, my plan has always been more on the “card table on a street corner” scale than the “auditorium in the Seattle Art Museum” scale, and much of what I learned tonight doesn’t really apply. (Especially since I’m not particularly confident in my ability to get C-SPAN to show up at my book party.)
The book, in case I didn’t mention it already, is Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell, which I was sort of hoping was going to have something to do with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. (After sitting through the presentation, I’m mostly sure the two are unrelated.)
We started off with a video featuring Ben Stein, which I later learned was an excerpt from his autobiographical film No Intelligence Allowed. “Steve,” he asked, “what qualifies you to question the scientific theories of a man so genius that he’s buried right next to Isaac Newton?” (I think the question was sarcastic, but with Ben Stein it’s always hard to tell.) “This debate won’t be settled by numbers,” Meyer responded, “but with computerized animations.”
At this point I am having trouble reading my notes, but the point raised was either “science can’t solve the mystery of the origin of life,” “screwing can’t be the story of wing of Kate,” or “scary carrot where mystical long plate.” Probably the third.
After making fun of T.H. Huxley for not understanding the complexity of a cell, Meyer started playing with Snap Lock beads, which are supposed to demonstrate some sort of thing about DNA and/or proteins. (Curiously, if you search for “snap lock beads” on Amazon, Meyer’s book is the third result, making me suspect that the beads are more integral to his argument than I realized.)
After this, Meyer showed us a super-elaborate computer animation of gene expression. Although he didn’t explicitly say so, it was obvious that such a computer animation was the creative output of an intelligent designer, implicitly bolstering his main point.
Next we discussed the “DNA Enigma“, which (if you click on it) is apparently the Discovery Institute’s website. You see, if you have a computer, and you want it to do something different, you have to download new code. And the same is true for life.
This computer analogy was to appear repeatedly throughout the evening, as was the Bill Gates quote “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.” (I wanted to ask Meyer what the DNA equivalent of Clippy was, but I didn’t get a chance.)
Somewhere around now, Meyer made an awful joke about Calvinism, which the audience just ate up. (It wasn’t a lightbulb joke. I’m thinking that maybe it involved total depravity, but only because I know a lot of jokes that do. I also know a lot of jokes about things that are black and white and red all over and can’t turn around in an elevator, but it definitely wasn’t one of those.)
Next we learned about the principle of “invoking causes now in operation.” You see, if you were to find ash all over the bottom of Mt. St. Helens, it would be more plausible to attribute it to a volcanic eruption than to an earthquake, simply because we have experience with volcanoes producing ash, but not with earthquakes doing so.
Similarly (and here’s where the magic happens), if we were to find “computer code” in the DNA of a cell, it would be more plausible to attribute it to Mountain-Dew-swilling nerds than to Charles Darwin, simply because we have experience with caffeinated losers writing code. (He left out the “God is a caffeinated loser. QED” slide, probably because of time contraints.)
There were further parallels. DNA uses design patterns and unit testing and a Model-view-controller architecture. So-called “Junk DNA” can be seen as a sort of operating system, albeit one with spectacularly-lousy driver support. And as soon as we go to the library and check out some more books on computers and learn more programming concepts, we’re going to draw up even more bad analogies.
We ended with a message to those who’d dismiss ID as the argument from ignorance: you’re wrong. It’s actually the argument from strength.
To sum up, Meyer’s argument is as follows:
(1) According to Bill Gates, DNA is like a computer program.
(2) Because I am unfamiliar with the field known as genetic programming, every computer program I’ve ever heard of has had a developer.
(3) Charles Darwin once used the principle of Inference To The Best Explanation.
(4) Even though Darwin was a wicked, wicked man, I’m going to use that same principle to refute him. It will be, you know, irony.
(5) I say that intelligent design is the best explanation for the computer-program-like-ness of DNA.
(6) Therefore, by Darwin’s own reasoning, intelligent design must be true.
(7) Please buy my book.
Finally there was an exceptionally boring question and answer period, which mostly consisted of people referencing parts of the books they’d particularly enjoyed and wondering aloud why those parts hadn’t been incorporated into the brief presentation. As I hadn’t read the book, I was unable to participate.
The only interesting question came from a woman who asked what Francis Collins thought of the book. Despite his prominent opposition to intelligent design, it was decided that he might enjoy the chapter explaining the uncanny parallels between triunely-frozen waterfalls and computer code.
Bruce Chapman followed this with a moderately-thrilling appeal for donations, at which point I left and checked Amazon, where I discovered that Meyer was creaming me in sales rank. You could do something about that, you know…
“Somewhere around now, Meyer made an awful joke about Calvinism, which the audience just ate up.”
Maybe it was the joke about Calvin being one of the Founding Fathers.
It wasn’t that one, although I bet that would have gone over pretty well with the Young Republicans sitting in the next row over from me.
“… Bruce Chapman followed this with a moderately-thrilling appeal for donations, at which point I left and checked Amazon, where I discovered that Meyer was creaming me in sales rank. You could do something about that, you know…”. Done, just purchased your book….
[...] about the country, peddling absurd op-eds and flogging his book in bad talks. Here’s a good summary of one of his presentations in Seattle: To sum up, Meyer’s argument is as [...]
[...] about the country, peddling absurd op-eds and flogging his book in bad talks. Here's a good summary of one of his presentations in Seattle: To sum up, Meyer's argument is as follows: (1) According to Bill Gates, DNA is like a computer [...]
[...] That explains that July 23, 2009 — Richard More Discovery Institute bulldung on the way to my door: [Via Pharyngula] Supposedly, the Next Big Thing in the Intelligent Design creationism movement is Stephen Meyer’s new book, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Meyer is wandering about the country, peddling absurd op-eds and flogging his book in bad talks. Here’s a good summary of one of his presentations in Seattle: [...]
One of the most refreshing aspects of the Intelligent Design revolution is that it so openly addresses the origin of life. On the other hand, Darwin cultists avoid any origin of life discussion like the plague. I find that very telling.
For the record, I give Dr. Meyer’s new book 5 out of 5 stars. It’s a breathtaking piece of literature which delivers more science in its first chapter than what can be found in the entire contents of the pseudoscientist P.Z. Myers’ blog. Dr. Meyer has taken biology out of the darkness and into the light by linking it to modern information science. On the other hand, we have Darwinists trying to keep science in the Victorian era of the mid-19th century, a time when biologist’s ignorance made Darwin’s now-absurd ideas seem somewhat plausible.
Now that I’ve given it further thought, I take back my original rating of 5 stars. For helping save science from the deceptive and dangerous hands of anti-science Darwinists, I shall reward Meyer with an extra star. Signature in the Cell is now rated 6 stars out of 5. What a masterpiece!
“avoid any origin of life discussion like the plague”
I find it “telling” that you don’t seem to know the difference between “evolution” and “origin of life”. Meyer claims that since “chance” is ruled out (by his strawman arguments), an “intelligent cause” was required to create life about 3 billion years ago. There is nothing in the book against evolution. And it’s a rather different “intelligent design” from anything presented before. (But just as silly)
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