The British Humanist Association has a useful overview of recent bids for faith-based Free Schools (Creationist Free School bids rejected before interview as other ‘faith’ schools advance to interviews). The article seems fairly upbeat about the failure of several bids from groups clearly planning to teach creationism as an alternative to scientific reality. 

Bids to set up creationist Free Schools have been rejected by the Department for Education (DfE). In particular, the DfE have turned down a high-profile bid from Sheffield Christian Free School, which would have been affiliated to the Christian Schools’ Trust (CST) network of largely creationist private schools. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has welcomed the news; however, at least 15 other proposals to open ‘faith’ schools in 2013 have advanced to the interview stage.

The fate of several specific bids for creationist Free Schools is summarised in the article:

• Creationist Everyday Champions Church’s bid to establish Exemplar Academy appears to have been withdrawn, with the website having vanished prior to the application deadline.
• The fate of other proposals from CST schools such as Destiny Christian School in Bedford and Barnsley Christian School is unknown, but it is unlikely that they were successful.
• Similarly, it is unknown whether CofE school Clayton Academy, proposed by creationist Jesmond Parish Church – who have strong links to the Christian Institute – has progressed.
• Interestingly, creationism is not given as a cause for Sheffield Christian Free School’s rejection, in contrast to when Everyday Champions Academy’s bid was rejected last year.

I share the BHA’s concern about the general tendency for diverse and factional religiously motivated Free School proposals to be made. I also have a worry about school bids with a focus on barmpottery (as David Colquhoun puts it) suchas the three Steiner schools which have progressed in the application process. 

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That hotbed of UK Intelligent Design creationism and Discovery Institute wannabees, the Centre for Intelligent Design (C4ID) has been sending out publicity for another meeting at which Intelligent Design creationism will feature. C4ID Director Dr Alastair Noble enthusiastically writes:

I write to draw your attention to a fascinating conference on Design in Nature being organised by the Philosophy of Religion section of the Tyndale Fellowship in Cambridge.

Here is the doctrinal position of the Tyndale Fellowship Philosophy of Religion Section- very focussed on christianity – as is their Mission Statement. It is reportedly an academic society associated with Tyndale House, a residential biblical study centre in Cambridge.

Stephen Meyer and Steve Fuller will present aspects of Intelligent Design and the other speakers will explore some philosophical implications of the Design Argument. Details of the day and of the talks can be found at  www.tyndalephilosophy.org.uk/events. Information about booking is also available there.

Part of the background to this conference is the C4ID Inaugural Lecture given in London last November by Stephen Meyer which stimulated Tyndale Philosophy to follow up that event with a day conference to explore some key philosophical implications of the ancient question of Design in Nature and the re-emergence of Intelligent Design.

I wonder what’s meant by the re-emergence of Intelligent Design? Maybe that refers to a resurgence of ID twaddle in the UK and the establishment of C4ID, after the Kitzmiller case saw a pretty definitive slap-down for ID creationism in the USA back in 2005.

This will be a significant day conference, dealing with contemporary and controversial issues. I would urge you to attend.

In addition to Stephen Meyer and Steve Fuller, two other speakers are taking part, Stephen Clark (Emeritus Professor, Liverpool) and David Glass (University of Ulster). None of the four speakers appear to be biologists, which is about par for the course for this sort of event (though when I read the email, I wondered if the conference organisers were mounting their own version of Project Steve!).  This seems to be another of these events intent on convincing participants that there is any kind of controversy about evolution.  Other than in their own little world, of course – biologists just continue on their merry way working within the context of evolutionary biology and for the most part ignore these peripheral and generally religiously motivated voices arguing for a celestial designer.

Alastair Noble rounds off his email with another exhortation to buy the entirely risible pseudo-textbook “Explore Evolution”:

P.S. There is probably no other book on the market like Explore Evolution!  Click here to view a full-colour summary of  the book which will help you make up your own mind, from the scientific evidence, about the adequacy of Darwinism to explain the development and complexity of life.

Noble is probably correct when he says “There is probably no other book on the market like Explore Evolution!“, and for that we really ought to be grateful. You may recall that Explore Evolution was previously distributed by the very oddly and inaccurately named Truth in Science. There is a brief review of this short book by the BCSE, a lengthier deconstruction by the NCSE, and a review in the academic journal Evolution & Development. Suffice it to say, Explore Evolution is a deeply deceptive and dishonest treatment of the subject.  For Alastair Noble to peddle this misinformation is a poor show, and particularly so when he targets it at school students (as he has done in recent emails). Remember, he has a past (and possibly current) role as Education Officer with CARE – the Contact Us page for CARE in Scotland lists Alastair Noble as Education Officer.

Returning to the C4ID publicised meeting, it seems to have developed from the Meyer lecture back in November last year, which has attracted the attention of the Tyndale Fellowship.  It’s interesting to note that it’s to be held at the Tyndale Fellowship Philosophy of Religion Section (see links to their doctrinal position above).  Not bad for a supposedly scientific alternative to the rigorously investigated and experimentally supported science of Evolutionary Biology.

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I received an advertising email from the UK’s very own Discotute wannabees, the Centre for Intelligent Design. It’s advertising a ‘textbook’ entitled Explore Evolution, and it’s headlined Explore Evolution- A remarkable book. In common with quite a bit of creationist activity, Explore Evolution seems to be named with the intention to deceive: in reality this publication aims to persuade the reader that there is a genuine scientific controversy, and that creationist views such as Intelligent Design are credible alternatives to evolutionary biology. You can read analyses of this ‘textbook’ by the BCSE and NCSE (the NCSE’s analysis is particularly detailed). There’s also a Wikipedia page on the book. And here’s a review at Ars Technica.

The advert begins:

I write to encourage you to buy a copy of the remarkable book Explore Evolution whose authors include the scientists Stephen Meyer, Paul Nelson and Scott Minnich.   This textbook, which is particularly suitable for senior high school students and undergraduates, is a must read for anyone who is interested in the continuing controversy about Darwinian evolution.  It is also a book to pass on to those who are studying the subject or are confused by the debate. [my emphasis]

It’s bogus – there is no controversy about ‘Darwinian evolution’.  If anything there is a manufactured social controversy, engineered by particular groups and individuals, often with a distinctively religious agenda. I’ve emphasised some text which makes it clear that Dr Alastair Noble (who holds a PhD in Chemistry rather than the Biological Sciences) is seeking to push his Intelligent Design creationism at schools.

This book will help you make up your own mind, from the scientific evidence, about the adequacy of Darwinism to explain the development and complexity of life.

More probably, the intention is to confuse the reader!

Explore Evolution first surfaced in the UK when the fundamentalist creationist group Truth in Science mailed copies to school librarians (BCSE responded by circulating an Open Letter to School Librarians). This looks to me like further blurring of the artificial boundaries between ID creationism and other forms of creationism.

UPDATE: One other relevant observation is that the Contact Us page for CARE in Scotland lists Alastair Noble as Education Officer. CARE is a Christian lobbying group which has interns working for MPs at Westminster. Here’s a Herald article (Rival to evolution may enter schools) in which Dr Noble is quoted:

Alastair Noble is an educational consultant who has been invited by both denominational and non- denominational secondary schools to present ID on a scientific basis. He said: “I gauge a growing level of interest from pupils and teachers. My guess is that the (TiS) DVDs are being used by a small but significant number of teachers.”

“It deserves formal consideration. It presents a scientific challenge to the construct that the world is the result of blind and purposeless forces.”

A more recent article at the Herald includes this strange bit of doublespeak from Dr Noble:

The group’s director, Dr Alastair Noble, told the Sunday Herald it was “inevitable” the debate would make its way into schools — even though the Scottish Government says teachers should not regard intelligent design as science.

“We are definitely not targeting schools, but that doesn’t mean to say we may not produce resources that go to schools,” Dr Noble said, adding that he had already been asked to speak in Scottish schools, and agreed to do so.

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I received an email from the Centre for Intelligent Design (the UK organisation pushing Intelligent Design creationism). The main offer is that these presentations are free (though contributions would be welcome). The full text has also been blogged here. I particularly noted this paragraph:

I have a number of illustrated presentations which are suitable for college, university, church or public audiences and which deal with various aspects of Intelligent Design. Although C4ID is not specifically targeting schools, I am also happy to give talks in schools, to classes or clubs, where appropriate. 

Dr Alastair Noble (his PhD is in Chemistry, rather than the biological sciences) has spent much of his career working in education, particularly from a religious perspective.  This has of course led to accusations in the press that he’s going to be targetting schools, for example this report in the Herald, from which this quotation:

The group’s director, Dr Alastair Noble, told the Sunday Herald it was “inevitable” the debate would make its way into schools — even though the Scottish Government says teachers should not regard intelligent design as science.

“We are definitely not targeting schools, but that doesn’t mean to say we may not produce resources that go to schools,” Dr Noble said, adding that he had already been asked to speak in Scottish schools, and agreed to do so.

Maybe I’m a suspicious old thing, but I think it might be interesting to see how many schools engage Dr Noble.

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 A review of Stephen C. Meyer’s Signature in the Cell

Pub 2009, Harper One (edition reviewed was the Kindle edition).

Introduction

In late 2011, Stephen Meyer delivered a lecture in London. Organised by the UK’s very own Centre for Intelligent Design (C4ID), and hosted in Whitehall by Lord Mackay of Clashfern (a notable member of the Free Church of Scotland), I received an invitation in the post.  Circumstances surrounding this lecture coupled with some background reading I’d done on Meyer’s thinking and an awareness of how Intelligent Design creationists have in the past used academic attendees at events as some kind of litmus test of acceptance, I decided not to attend.  Instead, I was quite vocal (critical of ID creationism) in several internet fora, which attracted some criticism that I had not actually read the book in question (had I attended, I would have been given a copy).

I can summarise my opinion of the book quite succinctly. It is lengthy, tedious, overblown, very defensive at times, occasionally interesting, generally deceptive, but ultimately completely unconvincing to a practising biologist.  However, I did read this book with the intention of reviewing it, so here goes.

I reviewed the Kindle edition of this book.  This hasn’t made it terribly easy to work through as it’s quite difficult to move to and fro around the text, particularly if one wishes to take a quick look at a citation. HarperOne could have done a much better job.  Also the figures are pretty scrappy, resembling sketches drawn to assist a graphic designer: whether the figures in the paper version are better, I don’t know.

The Author

Stephen Meyer is a major figure in the American Intelligent Design creationism movement.  Along with William Dembski (who is extensively quoted in Signature), and Jonathan Wells (who’s on record as setting out to destroy Darwinism), he’s one of the intellectual leaders of this regrettable movement.  Meyer graduated with a degree in Physics and Earth Science from the christian Whitworth College, and worked for a while as a geophysicist before undertaking a PhD in the philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge.  The more interesting sections of Signature reflect his PhD: they are an account of hypotheses for the origin of life. Meyer then held teaching positions at Whitworth and at Palm Beach Atlantic University (another college with a distinctive christian ethos), before settling at the Discovery Institute, where he’s been a leading light in the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

Meyer’s background isn’t in biology, or molecular biology, which may explain some of the more startling asides in Signature.  His involvement in Intelligent Design can be traced back to around 1992.

The Discovery Institute and the Wedge Strategy

Somewhere along the line Meyer became convinced that life on Earth must have originated with a designer of some kind. According to Signature this was a realisation that followed his study of the many hypotheses of life’s origins that have been advanced over the years.  Meyer is credited as one of the authors of the Wedge Strategy document, which sets out the Discovery Institute’s strategy for intelligent design. To quote from the Wikipedia page:

The document sets forth the short-term and long-term goals with milestones for the intelligent design movement, with its governing goals stated in the opening paragraph:

• “To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies”
• “To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God”

There are three Wedge Projects, referred to in the strategy as three phases designed to reach a governing goal:

• Scientific Research, Writing & Publicity
• Publicity & Opinion-making
• Cultural Confrontation & Renewal

Recognising the need for support, the institute affirms the strategy’s Christian, evangelistic orientation:

Alongside a focus on the influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that support the faith, as well as to popularize our ideas in the broader culture.

I’m including this outline of the position of ID creationism as seen by the Discovery Institute because I think it reveals an overall agenda in pushing a set of religiously motivated objectives, an agenda that initially was covert.  And the identity of the ‘Designer’ is clear from the Wedge Document (though proponents of ID creationism like to keep this vague). Looking into the history of Intelligent Design creationism, one sees that the Wedge Document (thought to date from around 1998) reflects a neo-creationist strategy that began in the early 1990s, and in specific response to successive legal defeats of co-called creation science in the USA, where the teaching of creationism falls foul of the constitutional separation of religion and state.

Intelligent Design is creationism

In 2005, an American court reached judgement on whether Intelligent Design could legitimately be described as science, in the context of the constitutional separation of church and state.  The case arose because a school board in Pennsylvania chose to present ID in schools.  In the end, the court (on the basis of very persuasive evidence) recognised that ID was a form of creationism, albeit one which had attempted to cover its tracks with a surface of science-y language.

Signature in the Cell

Signature is one of the main sources for Intelligent Design creationism.  It presents a version of ID creationism aimed at convincing the general public that not only has science failed to explain the origin of life (specifically the origins of genetic systems), but that it never will, and that ID creationism is (a) a scientific approach and (b) the best explanation for the origins of biological information.  Unfortunately for Meyer, he fails to persuade informed readers.

The Victimhood Card

Somewhat strangely, Signature begins with an account of the Sternberg affair, in which a journal editor abused his position and enabled publication of a paper by Meyer.  Meyer’s take is somewhat at odds with historical reality, making out that the whole affair was one in which Sternberg’s academic freedom was attacked.  However, detailed investigation revealed this to be far from the truth (see for example this report).  But I thought that beginning your popular science exposition of Intelligent Design creationism with a bid for martydom was more than a little odd.  It’s a theme that recurs occasionally as one ploughs through the tome.

Background to Molecular Biology

Next up is what’s essentially a primer on basic molecular biology.  This isn’t presented at a particularly heavy level, which is appropriate for the target general audience.  I thought the material was pretty clearly presented, though the reader would be well-advised to look at any one of the multitude of college-level texts that exist if they wish to get an even better feel for the complexity within the cell.  It’s while reading these chapters that the astute biologist gains the first inklings of the strategy to come, which is to argue that the complexity of cellular systems is just too much to have occurred through natural processes.  I think the biggest failing here is that Meyer’s background is insufficient to truly express how biological systems are systems in which ‘information’ (note that I use ‘information’ in a metaphorical way) can degrade, change and also expand and contract in quantity.  And what’s not made clear is that all the molecular processes that are required for evolutionary change are pretty well characterised and understood.

Strangely, Meyer has the hubris to believe he’s having major inspirational insights:

But notice too that there are no chemical bonds between the bases along the longitudinal axis in the center of the helix. Yet it is precisely along this axis of the DNA molecule that the genetic information is stored.

Amplified later as this revelatory insight:

There in the classroom this elementary fact of DNA chemistry leaped out at me. I realized that explaining DNA’s information-rich sequences by appealing to differential bonding affinities meant that there had to be chemical bonds of differing strength between the different bases along the information-bearing axis of the DNA molecule. Yet, as it turns out, there are no differential bonding affinities there. Indeed, there is not just an absence of differing bonding affinities; there are no bonds at all between the critical information-bearing bases in DNA. In the lecture hall the point suddenly struck me as embarrassingly simple: there are neither bonds nor bonding affinities—differing in strength or otherwise—that can explain the origin of the base sequencing that constitutes the information in the DNA molecule. A force has to exist before it can cause something. And the relevant kind of force in this case (differing chemical attractions between nucleotide bases) does not exist within the DNA molecule.

Well, I’m not so sure I find this an astonishing insight.  In the context of present-day DNA and RNA synthesis, the phosphate moeities are crucial in the formation of linkage between successive nucleotides.

Origins of Life

This is a genuinely interesting overview of how theories of the origins of life have arisen and been modified in light of increasing understanding of cellular molecular biology.  Unfortunately Meyer is clearly presenting a thesis that there are no successful hypotheses.  It’s here that the deeply unscientific nature of ID creationism becomes visible: “Science” is not some completed enterprise: indeed new hypotheses and findings are continually made – not least in the fields associated with the origins of life.  This is the more intellectually satisfying aspects in origins of life research: that novel hypotheses are continually framed and modified – and tested.  But hey, when you’re religiously motivated, why not cut and run and invoke a supernatural designer?

Design Detection, Information Theory & Specified (Functional) Information

There are two significant areas where Meyer draws on the work of colleagues, and in particular William Dembski, a mathematician who claims to have devised probability based methods for the detection of design.  Meyer relies heavily on William Dembski’s approach to detecting design.  I have several problems: essentially this becomes an exercise in probability, where the probability of events cannot really be calculated.

Yes, it may seem that the probability of life beginning was quite low, but Signature exaggerates this by seeming to insist on features of molecular replication being established all at once.  It’s as if Meyer is really keen to place obstacles in front of non-supernatural explanations.

Information Theory

Meyer’s use of information theory in Signature is difficult. As far as I can tell, Meyer doesn’t really have the background to adequately discuss this (and neither do I).  Meyer uses neither Shannon nor Kolomogorov information as the basis of his discussions, but a strange hybrid form in which not only the information is considered, but the message/meaning that is in the information. I find this completely uncompelling.  Meyer’s arguments require an understanding of which stretches of DNA sequence ultimately have functional significance, and he tends to avoid anything other than protein coding sequences.  He doesn’t consider, for example, the latitude there may be in protein sequence before a protein’s function is compromised.  I got the sense that for Meyer, the world is a rather binary place: stuff works or it doesn’t work.

Jeffrey Shallit, who has experience with information theory and mathematics has written several articles slamming Meyer’s treatment of information theory in Signature (for example Stephen Meyer’s Bogus Information Theory): much of this revolves around the undefined concept of functional specified information.

Meyer makes great play of the similarities between genetic information and human language – he gives many examples, even reiterating objections to Dawkins’ ‘Methinks it is a weasel’ computer programme, to which he imputes particular strategy in programming.  It’s interesting to note that the Weasel programme was a simple script to demonstrate how selection speeds up the attainment of an endpoint, in comparison to random letter choice.  This isn’t really a simulation of evolution, and of course the selection pressure here is to home in on a target phrase. I’m unsure quite what Meyer’s goal here is or was, but it’s instructive to read this take on the issue: Dembski weasels out.

Off the Fence: Meyer’s Intelligent Design

Finally, Meyer gets of the fence.  He believes that life originated as an act of Design. Unfortunately, Meyer refuses to come clean that he believes that God was that designer, at which is what I would be led to believe from his co-authorship of the Wedge Document (“To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God”).  Frankly, this is a hugely dishonest approach, but one in keeping with the strategy of Intelligent Design creationism proponents.

But who or what is the designer?

If we can take Signature at face value, no effort seems to be made to establish who or what the designer was.  There is no evidence in any shape or form for the existence of such a supernatural entity – though I believe that in the minds of ID proponents they have uncovered evidence OF a designer

Inference to Best Explanation

Meyer’s attempt to infer the existence of intelligent design are somewhat naive.  He summarises his strategy as “Inference to Best Explanation”.

Premise One: Despite a thorough search, no material causes have been discovered that demonstrate the power to produce large amounts of specified information.

The flaws with Premise One:  (1) There are plenty of chemical and biological mechanisms which can and do increase the quantity of biological information.  (2) ‘Specified Information’ is a bogus concept, and one which Meyer never actually defines. (3) A number of hypotheses have been advanced to explain the origins of biological information, and it’s only the straw man versions set up as easy targets by Meyer which fail.  (4) And finally, science will ultimately continue to generate origin of life hypotheses, some completely undreamt of as yet.

Premise Two: Intelligent causes have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of specified information.

The flaws with Premise Two: (1) Specified Information continues to evade definition by Meyer.  (2) The only intelligent cause that Meyer can demonstrate is human cause, and (3) the complex information devised and generated by humans does not in fact correspond to biological information.

Conclusion: Intelligent design constitutes the best, most causally adequate, explanation for the information in the cell.

ID creationism fails.  Even were one to suppose intelligent design, for this form of creationism to gain traction, one would need at the very least to identify who or what this designer is (or was), and the means by which this intelligent designer undertook this major design effort (which actually exceeds the human ability at present).

Ultimately, Meyer’s concept remains a restatement of the classic ‘God of the Gaps’.  Because Meyer cannot conceive of a natural mechanism by which genetic information arose (or indeed believes that such a mechanism can never be uncovered) the role of a supernatural entity is the explanation.  Meyer rejects this, and rather unsuccessfully argues that his ‘Inference to Best Explanation’ is not such a ‘God of the Gaps’ argument.

Meyer restates his chain of illogic as follows:

Premise One: Causes A through X do not produce evidence E. Premise Two: Cause Y can and does produce E. Conclusion: Y explains E better than A through X.

For Meyer, the ‘E’ in the first premise is biological (genetic) information.  He also supposes that an exhaustive catalogue of explanations has been generated and rejected.  This reveals his unscientific approach: the list can not be exhaustive, and many explanations only fail for Meyer because of the way he’s set up straw men, and applied irrelevant statistical tests.  Meyer makes a direct connection between human generated information and biological information.  From my perspective as a research in molecular genetics, the premises must be restated as:

Premise One: Causes A through P do not explain (in Meyer’s view) the origin of evidence E (biological information), though we have yet to devise causes Q-X . Premise Two: Cause Y can and does produce F (human-generated information). Conclusion: Y explains E better than A through X.

This quite clearly illustrates the flaws in Meyer’s reasoning. I don’t believe that linguistic information or computer code are directly analogous to biological information.

Victimhood again

Meyer goes on at some length about how ID creationists in Institutes and Universities have been persecuted for holding heretical views.  An earlier example was the Sternberg affair, which Meyer misrepresents.  A similar accusation of individuals having their academic freedom trampled on is raised.  Unfortunately for Meyer (and fortunately for everyone else),  academic freedom allows academics to hold views, and conduct research that run counter to accepted wisdom.  This is entirely appropriate.  It can have quite serious effects: it’s why, for example, Peter Duesberg is able to continue claiming that AIDS is not caused by HIV – the failure to accept this has led to considerable mortality.  But what academic freedom does not (and should not) permit is the deliberate mis-education of students.  Frankly ID creationism is so far “out there” that it should not be represented in the undergraduate science curricula.

Meyer spends some time battling against the Dover trial, at which the presiding judge ruled that Intelligent Design was indeed a variety of creationism. But anyone reading the testimony could not fail to be convinced by the evidence that Intelligent Design was a deliberate strategy to make creationism look a bit less religious: particularly damning was the evidence from the iterative revision of the creationist text book Of Pandas and People. Also notable was that the Discovery Institute experts cut and ran from the trial when it became obvious early on that they would be involved in a big time courtroom defeat.

Is Intelligent Design creationism a testable theory?

Meyer wheels out the existence or not of junk DNA as an opportunity to portray ID creationism as a testable theory. He writes:

Consider the case of so-called junk DNA—the DNA that does not code for proteins found in the genomes of both one-celled organisms and multicellular plants and animals. The theory of intelligent design and materialistic evolutionary theories (both chemical and biological) differ in their interpretation of so-called junk DNA. Since neo-Darwinism holds that new biological information arises as the result of a process of mutational trial and error, it predicts that nonfunctional DNA would tend to accumulate in the genomes of eukaryotic organisms (organisms whose cells contain nuclei).

Evolutionary theory does not make the prediction that non-functional DNA would tend to accumulate. Whether mutational events lead to genome expansion would depend on selection pressures.  Within the eukaryotes, one can see huge variation in the extent to which ‘junk‘ DNA is present. Whether ‘junk’ DNA exists or not depends of course on how one interprets function: undoubtedly some DNA is present as a structural feature, some will be transcribed to yield functional RNA, and some will be transcribed to yield mRNA. P. Z. Myers gets it about right (Junk DNA is still junk) in a blog article on a peer-reviewed paper.

One assumes that the ‘predictions’ of ID creationism that ‘we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function’ (and that’s a pretty crappy prediction – as much as possible) are an attempt by ID creationists to read the mind of their creator designer.

Conclusions

While I’ve been preparing this review (it’s taken rather longer than I’d thought, due to pressure of work), I note that the Centre for Intelligent Design has posted an article about November’s Meyer lecture (C4ID’s Inaugural Lecture 2011: ‘Is there a Signature in the Cell?’).  Sadly, no video is presented.  It proclaims:

The content of Dr Meyer’s lecture was fascinating and his book, ‘Signature in the Cell’ is truly groundbreaking.  In his lecture, he outlined his initial interest in the problem of the emergence of first life and the absence, then and now, of any credible explanation for it.  He described how this had led him to Cambridge to undertake a PhD in the philosophy of science and to his discovery of the significance of the information content of DNA.  Using the method of inference to the best explanation, the very approach adopted by Charles Darwin in his elaboration of evolution by variation and natural selection, he described the scientific legitimacy of concluding that the information carried by DNA is best explained by intelligent mind.

This, frankly is nonsense.  The book is not groundbreaking but rather contains an insupportable claim not only that science has no credible explanation for the origins of biological ‘information’, but that it can never have such an explanation.  It uses outdated accounts of the origins of life, does not review more recent theories that have emerged since Meyer’s PhD thesis, and makes use of mangled information theory.  And as for ‘inference to best explanation’, the proposal that some unknown entity, with supernatural powers, was responsible for life’s appearance on Earth is not only ludicrous without evidence for the existence of such an entity but is intellectually hopeless.

There’s a rather succinct demolition of Meyer’s argument in a posting to Panda’s Thumb (ID: Intelligent Design as Imitatio Dei (report on the 2007 ‘Wistar Retrospective Symposium’)) which reviews a bogus conference staged by the Discovery Institute in 2007 (a bit like this one, but where actual scientists were invited – I presume the ID crew learnt from that mistake).  I somewhat regret not having read that article earlier, I might not have wasted the money on Meyer’s ‘groundbreaking’ book or more importantly the time it took to wade through it.

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Regarding Jonathan McLatchie’s lastest outpouring (The GULO Pseudogene and Its Implications for Common Descent) at the bizarrely named Evolution News and Views website (it’s not a blog, really, as there’s no commenting facility, but he generally cross-posts to Crossexamined*, where comments can be left), there are a few things I would observe  (though I don’t think this is worth enough to spend a huge amount of time on, particularly as I am rather busy at work just now**):

1. McLatchie is become quite skilled at making his nonsense impressive to the ignorant.  But it remains nonsense, and still only convinces only the ignorant.

2. Phylogenetic trees are assembled on the basis of similarity.  No-one would suggest that present-day sequences are in any way ancestral.  But doing these thing properly can allow one to make hypotheses and inferences about what the ancestral sequence may have been, or features it may have had.  This is a tack abused by ID creationists (see how PZ Myers addresses Gauger and Axe’s improperly conducted study of protein evolution).

3.  McLatchie makes a notably peculiar claim:

It is interesting to note that the argument for common ancestry based on common mutations affecting a segment of DNA is based on a form of reasoning that is uncannily similar to the specified-complexity criterion employed by advocates of design. Given the premise that mutations occur essentially at random, the inference to common ancestry is preferred over the chance hypothesis. Notice that the inference is justified not solely on the basis of high improbability (attaining the same specific mutations in multiple lineages is no more improbable than any other combination of mutations of the same number).

I assume from McLatchie’s postings at crossexamined that he is a devout christian, and it seems reasonable to conclude that his intelligent designer is his god of the old and new testaments (as appears to be the case for all major figures in ID creationism).  The significant difference between evolutionary biology and creationism (whether it be YEC or ID) is that evolutionary biology has a variety of tested mechanisms for evolutionary change, while the evidence for the existence of god/the ‘designer’ is conspicuous by its absence.  Not only that, the means by which the supposed ‘designer’ implemented her (or his, or its) design is equally fantastical.

McLatchie does seem to pour out a large amount of verbiage through a variety of internet fora.  I do hope this isn’t interfering with his studies on evolution, though I suspect on the basis of the ENV article, he may be leading something of a double life.

* Other than his cross-posts from ENV, Jonathan’s posts at Crossexamined are really quite revealing in terms of his religious world-view.

** Which is why I haven’t finished ploughing through Meyer’s magnum opus Signature in the Cell yet.

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It’s amusing to see the re-think that happens once the evangelical groups striving to establish free schools in the UK realise that their religious beliefs stand in the way of their plans to indoctrinate children. In recent months we’ve seen the Everyday Champions Church’s proposal for a school founder on the creationism issue, despite senior figures denying their previously explicit creationist stance.  The internet doesn’t forget. And hopefully, the latest plans from the Everyday Champions (Zombie creationist free school to rise from the dead?) will also be unsuccessful.

More recently, a proposal for a christian school in Bedford, the Destiny Christian School, surfaced with a natty website. But what’s this? It’s been changing!  Way back when the website went live, it had a section under About Us| What We Believe which read in part:

The Bible
We believe that God reveals Himself through the Holy Bible, that the Holy Bible to
be infallible, inspired by holy men of God, and the authoritative Word of God. 2 Timothy 3:16

and

Man
We believe that God created man in His own image. Genesis 1:27

and

Creator
We believe that God the Father is the Creator of all things, and that He continues to uphold His
creation. Colossians 1:16

Three quotes among several all indicating a literal belief in the Bible, and in particular that the school’s backers are a religious group with a belief in biblical inerrancy and in divine creation (as described by iron age desert nomads).  Now when I visit the current site, there is no section entitled What We Believe, and mention of their beliefs has become strangely absent.

But wait – there’s more:

The website features a nice array of logos on the home page:

One of the things about off-the-peg websites, I guess, is that one really needs to fill out a number of presupplied links. Those unlabelled images are links back to the ‘Welcome’ page.  But look what was there at the original site:

Leaving aside the template-added ‘Feature 6′, note the icon at bottom left (which is now absent from the current site) which is a link to the Christian Schools’ Trust. The BCSE observes of the CST (here) that it is “a loose network of some 50 private Christian schools that teach over 3000 children in the UK (average size of school, 60 pupils – the only one we have checked out has 17 pupils. It isn’t clear how the school is viable with fees of £2,340 a year).”  The CST’s statement of faith is a bit woolly in places, but essentially seems to hold to a literal reading of the bible.  In amongst the usual creepy stuff about “Man’s utter ruin through the fall and his salvation solely by grace through faith in Jesus Christ [...]” and “The essential, absolute and eternal deity of the Lord Jesus Christ”, we find the following:

The inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures as originally given, their verbal inspiration by God and their supreme authority as the only rule of faith and practice.

It would seem that in an effort to backtrack from their previous public position on biblical literalism, the proponents of Destiny Christian School feel a need to downplay their links to CST.  And no wonder, given Michael Gove’s ruling against creationism being taught as scientific truth. Incidentally, the description of the four member team behind the proposal also seems to have done a runner.  Maybe this is for privacy reasons, so I won’t paste the information here.

In a recent article on the many creationist free school proposals (More creationist Free Schools planned for 2013 opening) the BHA noted:

In Bedford, Destiny Christian School is being proposed by the Miracle Church of God in Christ, and if approved to open, will be a member school of the Christian Schools’ Trust (CST). At an open meeting attended by a BHA supporter, the group were asked about their policy on creationism and responded that they believe creationism is science and intend to teach it as such.

Who are the Miracle Church of God in Christ?  Here’s what 192 pulls up for the Bedford church. The Miracle Church of God in Christ (styled Miracle COGIC) features another off the peg WordPress website, from the same source as the Destiny Christian School. Similarly, Miracle COGIC also don’t appear to have received inspiration (divine or otherwise) to fully complete the template. And we see that the Miracle COGIC also believe in literal biblical creation, as revealed by their belief in:

In God, the Father Almighty, the Author and Creator of all things. (Genesis 1:1 Eph.3:9)

It is to be hoped that this church group don’t succeed in pulling the wool over the eyes of the Michael Gove’s scrutineers by attempting to sanitise their internet presence.  But in any case, we are watching…

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Happy Kitzmas. This is the sixth anniversary of the famous decision in Kitzmiller vs Dover School Board, which really exposed the duplicity of those in the Intelligent Design creationist movement. Judge Jones, who many did not see as a particular ally to those fighting this incursion of religion into American schools, actually provided a exceptional smack-down of the devious and dishonest strategy taken by those wishing to push Intelligent Design creationism as science. This has led to many US-based bloggers to conclude that Intelligent Design creationism is something of a ‘busted flush’. But in reality, this is only true in the USA, where publicly funded schools are prohibited by the Constitution from teaching or promoting religion. In contrast, here in the UK we have a government that actively encourages the development of faith schools, and via its ideologically driven Free Schools raises the spectre of increasing the presence of creationism in our nation’s schools.

I have been re-reading much of the Dover trial transcripts and associated material available on the web, and quite frankly the hopelessness of the Intelligent Design creationists’ position should have been evident from the start.  In fact it was obvious to the Discovery Institute, who with drew their ‘big guns’ from the case.  Crucial to the case was the testimony of Barbara Forrest, who’s book Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (written in collaboration with Paul Gross) clearly demolishes any pretence that Intelligent Design is in any way different from any other religious ideology.  Indeed, the underlying history of the ID creationist movement is littered with creationist and religious outpourings by ID creationist principals, all of whom I suspect clearly recognise where their support (particularly financial) was to be sourced.

The Discovery Institute did their best to prevent Forrest’s testimony.  In an article written a few months after Jones handed down his verdict, Forrest makes some interesting points, including the appearance of a faked interview (later flagged as a ‘parody’) – unfortunately this appears to have been ‘disappeared’ from the web. Interestingly, one reads that William Dembski attended Forrest’s deposition – and withdrew from the case four days later.

So, why do I not recognise this as the end of Intelligent Design creationism?  Because in the UK, we are seeing an upsurge of interest in religiously motivated schools, using the government’s Free School programme.  This of course is seen by some as pushing at the open door labelled ‘Faith Schools’.  If the Catholics and Church of England can run so many schools, why can’t the more aggressive evangelical arm of creationism do the same? (There are some other kinds of faith school, but this article is concerned mostly with those of a christian focus.) The British Humanist Association is most concerned (More creationist Free Schools planned for 2013 opening), as is the BCSE.

One possible source for creationist material is the Centre for Intelligent Design (C4ID). C4ID is based in Glasgow, is run by a triumvirate of evangelical christians (at least one of whom preached the literal truth of the creation as described in Genesis), and funded by unclear means.  It seems to be largely a conduit for pushing the kind of material produced by the Discovery Institute. Recent events organised by C4ID have included an especially secret Intelligent Design conference, a lecture tour (mostly of churches) by American ID proponent Michael Behe, and last month a lecture by the senior Discovery Institute figure Stephen Meyer. I was invited to the latter event, and blogged about the reasons I didn’t go - also see this follow-up article.  On the ground, we have a young man, Jonathan McLatchie, with a strange internet presence. I don’t think he’s officially part of C4ID, but he is clearly part of the ID creationist machine, frequently posting his garbled and distorted accounts of biology in attempts to make evolution look unfounded.  Amusingly, McLatchie often cross-posts his material over at a christian website, where his other postings make interesting reading.  His latest biology related drivel can be seen at the (bizarrely named) Evolution News and Views blog: Treasure in the Genetic Goldmine: PZ Myers Fails on “Junk DNA” (in which McLatchie has another go at PZ Myers – see Moran and Myers’ take at Sandwalk) and Animation Reveals Engineering Elegance of RNA Interference (in which McLatchie seems somewhat overawed by an animation of molecules in action).  I do worry that all this blogging activity will jeopardise his progress towards gaining his Masters in Evolutionary Biology.  Yes, Jonathan McLatchie, a person who choses to believe that evolution is wrong and that life is due to the efforts of a supernatural entity, appears to be studying for a Masters in Evolutionary Biology.  When my irony meter subsides, two thoughts cross my mind – firstly, whether McLatchie seeks to emulate Jonathan Wells (who’s misapprehensions of Junk DNA he frequently parrots), and secondly, how he presents his belief system while at university.

So, Merry Kitzmas to my American colleagues.  Not such a Merry Kitzmas over the pond in Blighty, where an entrenched faith school system coupled with ideologically driven educational policies leave British kids vulnerable to being taught bullshit as an alternative to evolution.  With any luck, the C4ID crew will botch things as badly as did the defendants back in 2005.

Update: I forgot to include this link to an article in the New York Times revealing how the Thomas More Law Center sought a case like this.  The article (In Intelligent Design Case, a Cause in Search of a Lawsuit) begins…

For years, a lawyer for the Thomas More Law Center in Michigan visited school boards around the country searching for one willing to challenge evolution by teaching intelligent design, and to face a risky, high-profile trial.

It’s worth a read.

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I see that Jonathan McLatchie has crossed Larry Moran’s radar (Fishing for Creationists).  Jonathan published one of his verbose articles taking issue with Jeffrey Shallit’s takedown of a video featuring Phillip Johnson, the grand-daddy of Intelligent Design creationism  (This Video Should be Shown to all Biology Students - see also A Discovery Institute Flack Responds) – it’s a video dating to the early days of the Intelligent Design variant of creationism, and reveals Johnson’s ignorance of biology and evolution.  The whole thing’s blown up to include another example of ID creationism misquoting, selectively quoting, and just plain failing to comprehend the scientific literature, this time on homology (both morphological and molecular).

Paul Nelson, in particular has weighed in at Sandwalk.  In case you’re wondering about Nelson’s background in biology, it is the usual extensive education seen in ID creationism.  According to his Wikipedia page,  ”In 1998, Nelson gained a PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago”.  Anyway, the discussion has spilled out into a new post, Homology, where I expect the discussion to continue, amid the accusations that he’s selectively mis-quoting and misrepresenting the literature.  Worth following.

And on the ‘further incomprehension by McLatchie’ front, we have this blog article cross-posted to crossexamined*: An Eye-Opening Discovery: The Remarkable Vision of Anomalocaris. This is a ‘teaser’ paragraph from the full article at the very silly and mis-named Evolution News and Views, to which I don’t link, due to its ‘no comments’ policy).  For the rational-minded, the new discovery is really very interesting: that the ‘top predator’ in Cambrian seas was equipped with an effective visual system comprising a high resolution compound eye.  The proposal has elicited quite a bit of discussion, not least around whether or not the eyes are really part of Anomalocaris (which, interestingly, McLatchie doesn’t refer to), but also that it suggests that Anomalocaris had arthropod affinities.  Anomalocaris itself has had an interesting history in palaeontology, having over the years had body parts identified as three different species.  While I cannot fault McLatchie when he says “This beast poses mysteries both small and large”, he then ruins it by charging off into his usual nonsense.  Apparently the new discoveries make it another “tough day to be a Darwinian”, though it’s not clear quite why he says this, other than senior ID creationists say so (Meyer, Nelson and Chien** – the latter being one of the few biologists in the ranks of ID creationists), and that it’s the hoary old story of ‘sudden appearance’ of complex structures (such as a very high resolution compound eye) in the fossil record that exceeds his capacity to grasp the science.

For my part, I am fascinated by Anomalocaris, and look forward to further discoveries about the Cambrian seas. Not so much the ID creationist mangling of those discoveries!

*Jonathan McLatchie seems to be the sole blogger at crossexamined.  Many of his posts there are ‘interesting’.

** Chien apparently leads the Discovery Institute Paleontology Research Program, according to his Wikipedia page, though that page suggests he’s a biochemist rather than a palaeontologist.

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Jonathan M who seems to have become a regular blogger for the Discovery Institute has noticed this blog once again (From the Darwinist Blogosphere, Stephen Meyer’s Trip to London Elicits a Typical Reaction) in a posting at the bizarrely named Evolution News website – no comments permitted there, it would seem. The BCSE believes Jonathan M to be Jonathan MacLatchie (sometimes his name is given as McLatchie), an undergraduate student in forensic science [UPDATE: Jonathan is now taking a Masters degree in Evolutionary Biology & Systematics at the University of Glasgow (!) ] who appears to have absorbed a typical strategy beloved of Intelligent Design creationists: of devising neologisms that don’t correspond to normally used science terminology, and combined this with ignorance of biology. P. Z. Myers was exposed to some of his ‘thinking’ while visiting Glasgow.

Jonathan begins with a quite mind-bending outline of DNA structure in regard to its genetic role.

For one thing, the point that Meyer makes about the bonding in DNA is that “there are no chemical bonds between the bases along the longitudinal axis in the center of the helix. Yet it is precisely along this axis of the DNA molecule that the genetic information is stored” (SITC, p. 242). It is this fundamental property of DNA that allows DNA to carry the information it does. The bases of DNA do not align in the sequential arrangement they do because of physical necessity or chemical affinity. The arrangement, on the contrary, is arbitrary — any arrangement is possible, but only some arrangements convey functional specificity.

This paragraph just baffles me. I presume this quotation is referring to adjacent bases along each DNA strand, rather that the base pairs themselves. I’m not clear why this ‘fundamental property’ bothers Jonathan M – he seems to have a major comprehension failure at this point.

Meyer’s argument also does not say that “x is complex; therefore, x is designed,” nor does Meyer commit the “god-of-the-gaps” fallacy. On the contrary, Meyer argues — based on the standard historical (abductive) scientific method — that there is only one known cause, one category of explanation, that is known by virtue of our uniform and repeated experience to be able to produce large volumes of highly complex (improbable) and functionally specific information. Thus, in the absence of viable competing explanations, it follows that the most likely explanation for this phenomenon is that it too arose by virtue of an intelligent cause.

Oh, for goodness’ sake, this ( “x is complex; therefore, x is designed,”) is exactly what Meyer is saying. He cannot envisage a mechanism giving rise to the genetic code, so he invokes a supernatural entity. And, yes, we have clearly demonstrable mechanisms by which genetic information can grow in both quantity and complexity. I even see this happening in the lab in experimental timescales.  Jonathan is ignorantly regurgitating ID creationist neologisms, to invoke a supernatural entity.

Jonathan takes a contributor to the CIS forum, Simon, to task, accusing him of not reading the ID creationist literature (I suspect that Simon, or “Simon” as Jonathan rather disparagingly refers to him, is somewhat better qualified to understand the science than he is, judging from his profile at the CIS forum):

“Simon” also cites polyploidy as a means by which specified complexity can arise. But Signature in the Cell is concerned with the origin of such specified complexity in the first life, and polyploidy concerns genome duplication in eukaryotes. Moreover, even in eukaryotes, polyploidy only appears to have a major effect within plants — so its relevance to the origin of the first life is dubious.

This is Jonathan wiffly-waffling around a subject he doesn’t seem to have a strong grasp of. It’s often stated in ID creationist circles (such as the C4ID) that there is no known source of ‘information’ other than from an intelligent mind. This is clearly nonsense, as Simon knows: gene and genome duplication provides the raw material for whole families of diverged genes to arise. What is ‘specified complexity”? Is it the genetic code itself? The mere existence of heritable material? Is this the same as Meyer’s undefined “specified information”?

Jonathan – your statement on polyploidy is naive. Genes duplicate. Sections of chromosome duplicate. Chromosomes can fuse and duplicate, genomes can duplicate. It’s not all about polyploidy. But once there is genetic redundancy due to duplication, novel gene functions can evolve. There are good examples of this in the scientific literature.

On Intelligent Design creationism’s testable predictions, as presented by Jonathan:

For example, it predicts the presence of complex and functionally specific information in the cell; it predicts the already-alluded-to rarity of functional protein folds in amino acid sequence space; it predicts certain patterns in the history of life (e.g., the saltationist nature of the fossil record; morphological disparity preceding diversity, etc.); it predicts that design purposes will be discovered for systems that are currently thought to be functionless (such as the discoveries of the past decade or two which have uncovered a myriad of functions for so-called “junk DNA”). In astronomy, it predicts that, as science progresses, the number of instances of fine tuning in the laws and constants of physics will increase and not decrease over time. And it makes many other predictions as well.

OK, here is why I think this is just so much nonsense:

“it predicts the presence of complex and functionally specific information in the cell” – This is a quite bizarre claim. The Intelligent Design variant of creationism arose in the 1990s. At that time, the presence of large amounts of genetic ‘information’ in cells was well-known. In what way is the presence of information a sensible prediction? And as far as I can tell, this whole ‘complex and functionally specific information’ remains remarkably ill-defined (see for example this demolition by Myers), and in particular is inconsistent with conventional information theory. If we’re now going to think of the origins of life and the genetic systems we see around us today, all ID creationists are saying is that they cannot understand how it happened, and in their religiously motivated world-view prefer to fall back on supernatural intervention rather than taking a genuinely scientific approach to the problem. How is complex and functionally specific information defined?

“it predicts the already-alluded-to rarity of functional protein folds in amino acid sequence space”. This is quite interesting, particularly given Axe’s background as a post-doc in Alan Fersht’s lab in Cambridge. But as far as I can see, this boils down to the usual incredulity argument. For Axe, with a pedigree of working in a prestigious lab in Cambridge, I would have thought a more prestigious outlet for this review might have been possible. As it is, he’s reduced to publishing in the Biologic Institute house journal, with the not-so-impressive archive of 7 papers over its two years of existence, all authored by members of the editorial board (all of whom appear to be creationists of one variety or another).

“it predicts certain patterns in the history of life (e.g., the saltationist nature of the fossil record”; morphological disparity preceding diversity, etc.). This sounds almost as though Jonathan is proposing a rather more interventionist kind of creationism than I normally understand is represented by Intelligent Design creationism: that intervention by a Designer (who, let’s face it, for the Discovery Institute is really the Judeo-Christian god, not Zeus, or Odin, or any other mythological entity) has been repeatedly intervening in the appearance of life-forms on Earth.  Of course, the links between Intelligent Design creationism (which publicly denies that the designer/creator is God) and other forms of creationism, notably those of the Young Earth persuasion have been pretty clearly documented.  Indeed the main figures in C4ID have clear links to biblical literalism and young earth creationism.

“it predicts that design purposes will be discovered for systems that are currently thought to be functionless (such as the discoveries of the past decade or two which have uncovered a myriad of functions for so-called “junk DNA”)” OK, so here Jonathan says that a prediction from Intelligent Design creationism is that design purposes will be found. This is frankly astonishing. How can purpose be ascribed to an unidentified ‘Designer’? How can we divine purpose? What purpose would Jonathan ascribe to his Designer/god’s intent to create the so-called Junk DNA? Where in his Bible does he see the culturally primitive scribes mention DNA when they are transcribing the word of the Designer/god?. This supposed prediction also invokes visions of the stultifying effect of dogma. It may well be that at church/temple/mosque/synagogue pronouncements can be made in the expectation that the word of the deity (as relayed by the priesthood) will be unchanging, but in a world of science, evidence counts. Not the ID creationist kind of negative evidence (“it seems improbable to me; I can’t understand why this is so”), but real, experimentally derived, evidence. Accordingly, the collective understanding of genome structure and function changes as evidence accumulates. As an undergraduate in genetics, one of the great mysteries was the so-called ‘c-value paradox’ – why did genomes vary so greatly in size, even between apparently closely related species?  As techniques and technologies advanced, a clearer and clearer picture of genome composition has been revealed. And, yes, some DNA has been referred to as ‘junk’. But as evidence is uncovered, some of this stuff does have a function. Not always a genetic function. And a lot of this is semantics. DNA sequences could have a ‘function’ related to their propagation (I’m thinking here of P-elements in Drosophila), but not a function that has a role in the biology of the organism.

“In astronomy, it predicts that, as science progresses, the number of instances of fine tuning in the laws and constants of physics will increase and not decrease over time. And it makes many other predictions as well.” The fine-tuning argument has always seemed to me to be somewhat tautologous. Had the constants been different, we would not be here to look at the Universe and its physical constants. We have a sample size of 1. Exactly 1. Who knows if physical constants could have been different. I certainly don’t (I’m not a physicist). I doubt that Jonathan does either, except it’s another of those claims that creationists parrot.

I would have thought the stand-out prediction of Intelligent Design creationism would be the unequivocal demonstration of the existence of that Designer/creator.

On the subject of Meyer’s book, I am at least displaying honesty when, as Jonathan observes, I say I didn’t read his book. Which is why I didn’t review the book, and I didn’t review the talk. Actually, one reason for thinking of attending the lecture would have been to get a copy of Signature in the Cell. But balancing the cost (not value) of the book (£8.99 at Amazon) with the travel costs to and from the venue (several times more than the cost of the book) I decided that wasn’t a good deal. I suppose the cost of travel may explain why Jonathan didn’t attend Meyer’s lecture either, and has chosen as I have done to make comment on Meyer’s other outputs. Besides, science isn’t usually advanced through popular science publications (which for example tend not to appear in University libraries). Usually, the popsci books follow genuine scientific advances published in bona fide science journals. Peer-reviewed journals. Genuinely peer-reviewed publications from Meyer are quite thin on the ground.

Jonathan refers to a list of supposedly peer-reviewed ID publications. I note the prominence of BIO-Complexity, the Biologic Institute’s house journal. With its seven papers in two years, it is hardly prolific and might be best regarded as vanity publishing. I have looked at two sevenths of its published output, and neither is a research paper.

Finally, I’m not a Professor, at least in the British sense of academia.

And finally, finally, I expressly did not review Meyer’s book, even though Alastair Noble claims I did in a comment in this blog.

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