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.