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Darwin’s Doubt Audiobook Summary

When Charles Darwin finished The Origin of Species, he thought that he had explained every clue, but one. Though his theory could explain many facts, Darwin knew that there was a significant event in the history of life that his theory did not explain. During this event, the “Cambrian explosion,” many animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record without apparent ancestors in earlier layers of rock.

In Darwin’s Doubt, Stephen C. Meyer tells the story of the mystery surrounding this explosion of animal life–a mystery that has intensified, not only because the expected ancestors of these animals have not been found, but because scientists have learned more about what it takes to construct an animal. During the last half century, biologists have come to appreciate the central importance of biological information–stored in DNA and elsewhere in cells–to building animal forms.

Expanding on the compelling case he presented in his last book, Signature in the Cell, Meyer argues that the origin of this information, as well as other mysterious features of the Cambrian event, are best explained by intelligent design, rather than purely undirected evolutionary processes.

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Darwin’s Doubt Audiobook Narrator

Derek Shetterly is the narrator of Darwin’s Doubt audiobook that was written by Stephen C. Meyer

Stephen C. Meyer received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the philosophy of science after working as an oil industry geophysicist. He now directs the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington. He authored Signature in the Cell, a (London) Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year.

About the Author(s) of Darwin’s Doubt

Stephen C. Meyer is the author of Darwin’s Doubt

Darwin’s Doubt Full Details

Narrator Derek Shetterly
Length 14 hours 59 minutes
Author Stephen C. Meyer
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date December 20, 2016
ISBN 9780062652546

Subjects

The publisher of the Darwin’s Doubt is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Biology, Life Sciences, Science

Additional info

The publisher of the Darwin’s Doubt is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062652546.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Alan

July 28, 2013

The book, 'Darwin's Doubt', by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer is written as a follow-up to his popular book that he released in 2009 titled, 'Signature in the Cell'. As he laid out in the prologue of his book, this book was written as a response to the critics of his first book, which mistakenly judged his first book as if his book was written with the intention of making a full-blown refutation of Neo-Darwinism. 'Signature in the Cell' was a book discussing the first life and the subsequent chemical evolutionary processes that best explained it. This book is oriented towards critiquing Darwinism, and it is exceptionally well documented, objectively communicated, and most of all, addresses the genuine concerns of the validity of Darwinism (primarily the inadequacy of the fossil record). Along with critiquing Darwinism's shortcomings, Meyer beautifully constructs a positive case for Intelligent Design (ID). As many of us have heard over the years, ID generally gets discredited in the public eye because the media is 'in bed' with the scientific elitist groups that supposedly promote the 'advancement of science' . If 'advancing science' were the goal of Darwinism advocates, it can be assured that honest critiques of Darwinism would be acceptable in the public eye by scientists like Dr. Stephen Meyer. As of this writing, critiques of Darwinism are sparsely tolerated because Americans have been taught not to question the scientific status quo of Darwinism at risk of losing all scientific credibility (reference Ben Stein's documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"). Despite the risk of losing his scientific credibility in the public eye and in academic circles, Meyer has continued to ask the hard questions and promote the true spirit of science while most of his fellow colleagues in the 'scientific elite' fail to muster the courage to express their concerns publicly. I deeply admire Stephen Meyer for continuously releasing scholarly material that truthfully challenges not only the misguided ideologies but the methodological naturalism as well.

Thomas

July 16, 2013

Meyer does an excellent job in explaining his point. It is clear that Neo- Darwinism is a faith system built on the mathematically impossible. That it remains scientific orthodoxy is a testimony to the level of bullying used to keep doubters in line and nothing else

Brian

December 31, 2013

First of all, I have read the entire book. All of it. From reading other "reviews," I can see that not everyone has read the entirety of the book.Second, for a detailed view of this book and Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True, go here: http://brianjameswatson.wordpress.com....In this book, Meyer addresses something that troubled Darwin: he knew that the fossil record did not match his evolutionary "tree of life." He assumed that future discoveries would vindicate his theory. Meyer shows that impressive fossil records in British Columbia and in China have not produced a fossil record that matches a Darwinian view of evolution. Instead, the "Cambrian explosion" shows an emergence of many different phyla within a relatively short amount of time, something you wouldn't predict with Darwin's theory. Meyer also addresses neo-Darwinism, particularly the idea that genetic mutations can produce large-scale evolution, such as new body plans. He shows that the chance of genetic mutations producing functioning proteins (which are needed to produce new cell types, which are needed for new body plans) is extremely small. He also examines epigenetic information (information outside of DNA), which is an integral part of cellular life. The main thrust of the book is that all living things require specified information (found both in and outside of genes). Specified information does not come from chance, from blind, unguided processes. Rather, we know that specified information comes from intelligent agents. It is therefore reasonable to assume that all of life has come from an ultimate Intelligence. This book stops short of being a work of theology. It is not a "God did it" book. It is a work of science. The model of science employed by Meyer is the same as that of Darwin and his successors: historical science, which uses abductive reasoning. Of course, since this a controversial book, it will have its detractors. It is best to read the book with an open mind to see its strengths.My only criticism of the book is that it could have used a glossary for technical terms, to help out the average reader.

Melissa

August 01, 2013

Just finished a cover-to-cover, word-for-word reading of DD. Working on a thorough review, to be posted soon. Update: Review series in progress at sciencereasonfaith.com :-)

Timothy

July 13, 2013

This was something of a difficult book to read, as it was incredibly detailed, and the author was definitely not "dumbing it down" at all. It explains, though, one of those scientific conundrums that has plagued the thoughtful for the last 150 years. The particular issue is the explosion of animal life in the Cambrian period, with all of the fossils, which seemingly just appeared.He very thoroughly goes through the various theories, and finds most of them inadequate, in their ability to explain this emergence of the different animal phyla in so short a period of (geologic) time, and he backs up his statements very carefully.I don't want to give away his conclusions, but just want to say that this represents a major work, no matter where you personally stand on the issue. Well worth the read, if you have the time.

Gail

July 06, 2013

***The compelling case for Intelligent Design!***Creationists and evolutionists have long debated their respective views over the origins of man. Did man evolve from the lower animal forms or did man suddenly appear as the Bible suggests. Although Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection favors evolution, even Darwin acknowledged there was a significant historical event he couldn’t account for called the “Cambrian Explosion.”He called it a “troubling anomaly” in “The Origin of Species” and trusted future science and exploration to find the answer. However nothing has explained the event that documents a sudden appearance in the “fossil records” of animals with no sign of previous ancestors. The fossils that have been found are too simple to explain the complex animal forms that suddenly appeared. That’s why Stephen Meyer penned Darwin’s Doubt that follows his “Book of the Year,” Signature in the Cell where he advocated intelligent design. In Darwin’s Doubt he continues the argument that favors “…living creatures are best explained by an intelligent cause…”…Full Review: www.examiner.com/list/darwin-s-doubt-...

Don

January 16, 2014

In the popular Harry Potter books, Lord Voldermort is often referred to as 'He Who Must Not Be Named." In the 21st century when it comes to discussing science, especially on the subject of the origin of life or evolution, God is "He Who Must Not Be Named."Fortunately, not all scientists are afraid of ¨He Who Must Not Be Named.¨ Last summer Stephen Meyer came out with a great companion book to his Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. His first book dealt with the failures of current science to show how life began. His argument was that the basic components of life show evidence of design so it is more logical to attribute the origin of live to a designer instead of random chance. Many critics, totally failing to read the book, instead criticized Meyer as a creationist and hack trying to force religion on science and denying evolution, which is not any part of the book. Meyer is no young earth creationist and he relies on no theological sources to support his arguments. Evolution was hardly a focus of this book.Well, now his critics who often refuse to read his Signature book (because they are afraid they might get cooties?) can complain about intelligent design vs. evolution for real this time because Meyers new book, Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design, takes on the subject head on. It is laughable if you read the negative reviews of this book -- they treat it the way a vampire might treat a holy cross -- they want as little to do with it as possible.The main problem for defenders of Darwinian evolution is that they base their beliefs on random chance for the creation of life from nothingness and its further evolution from its origin to the current diverse and complicated life forms. The more we learn about the building blocks of life, the more we see evidence of design at work, not random chance.I think the reason evolutionists fight so hard to avoid the Evolution - ID debate, is that they are afraid they will lose the support of fellow citizens. Even in this increasingly secular country, a clear majority of Americans (80-95%) continue to believe in God. While some of these people believe in the literal Bible creation version, many have no problem accepting that the universe is billions of years old and that God is still the creator. For atheists who overwhelmingly accept evolution as gospel, this is a threat they want to stamp out. If it turns out that intelligent design is a better explanation to explain the origin of life and its evolution to current life forms, God is the obvious candidate as the designer, not something atheists want to deal with. My challenge to all people who accept the reality of God is to continue to call for a debate between intelligent design and random undirected evolution. The secular humanists have used evolution as a beachhead to tear down conservative institutions and values. Conservatives have been successful in challenging the truthfulness of man-made global warming. Liberals have not been able to implement carbon taxes that they think can help control the climate. We need to push for a similar action regarding undireced evolution.For an entertaining and informative way to study the intelligent design - evolution controversy, I invite you to read my play Inherit the Wind Overturned by DesignInherit The Wind: Overturned by Design.

Joan

November 02, 2013

Meyer has presented a comprehensive look at the problems with neo-Darwinism. He notes that many evolutionary scientists now grudgingly admit that no chemical evolutional theory offers an adequate explanation for the origin of life or the ultimate information necessary to produce it. But the public get a different story. There is a great disparity between the popular perception of the theory and the actual state of it in the peer-reviewed literature. He sets that straight in this book.He concentrates on the Cambrian explosion as the focal point for the inability of neo-Darwinism to explain animal forms and the origin of the information for the new forms. See my full review at http://bit.ly/1iArT8j.

Kurtis

May 09, 2015

Sadly, the ratings of this book show the polarization of such a topic. I actually thought that Meyer did a great job of being objective and removing any notion of religion from his investigation. I tried to approach this book without any presuppositions and I walked away with plenty to think about. Meyer's direct interaction with and citation of Neo-Darwinian proponents helps the reader to go explore for himself/herself whether Meyer's critiques have legs. For this reason, I highly recommend this book.

Socrates

January 27, 2014

This 400 page masterpiece is the book I always wanted to author myself! Stephen Meyer really did his homework, he did'nt miss any relevant research or update to the scientific status of Evolutionary Biology, neither did he oversee any possible objection to his critics or arguments! He is a marvelous writer indeed and his book deserves more than five stars, but not because he proved his point so persuasively ( although he did) but rather because of the objective and open-minded way he presented the evolutionary controversey. For me, this quote out of the page 228 - 229 summarizes the poor scientific reason of the neo - Darwinian claims about the mechanisms that produce the raw material of Evolution, genetic variation through random mutation that is. And I claim that this is the central dilemma because without any means of variation established, you wont have any credibility to claim to have demonstrated the whole picture of Darwinian Evolution. And here is the quote :" In the absence of such demonstrations, evolutionary biologists have taken to offering what one biologist I know calls "word salad" -jargon- laced descriptions of unobserved past events - some possible perhaps but none with the demonstrated capacity to generate the information necessary to produce novel forms of life. This genre of evolutinary literature envisions exons being "recruited"and / or "donated" from other genes or from an "unknown source"; it appeals to extensive refashioning" of genes; it attributes "fortuitous juxtaposition of suitable sequences" to mutations or "fortuitous acquisition" of promoter elements, it assumes that "radical change in structure " of a gene is due to "rapid adaptive evolution"; it asserts that "positive selection played an important role in the evolution of genes", even in cases when the function of the gene under study is completely unknown, it imagines genes being "cobbled together from DNA of no related function or no function at all; it asumes the creation of new exons "from a unique noncoding genomic sequence that fortuitously evolved"; it invokes "the chimeric fusion of two genes", it explains "near identical" proteins in disparate lineages as "a striking case of convergent evolution", and when no source material for the evolution of a new gene can be identified it asserts that " genes emerge and evolve very rapidly, generating copies that bear little similarity to their ancestral precursors" because thay are apparently "hypermutable". Finally , when all else fails, scenarios invoke " de novo origination " of new genes, as if that phrase - anymore than the others just mentioned - constitutes a scientific demonstration of the power of mutational mechanisms to produce significant amounts of new genetic information. these vague narratives resemble nothing so much as the naming games of scholastic philosophers in the middle ages. Why does opiun put people to sleep? Because it has a dormative virtue. What causes new genes to evolve so rapidly? Their "hypermutability" or perhaps their ability to undergo "rapid, adaptive evolution". How do we explain the origin of two similar genes in seperate and disparate lineages? Convergent evolution of course. What is convergent evolution? The presence of two similar genes in two seperate but otherwise widely disparate lineages. "I think the point has been made! haha! I love you Meyer!

Alan

February 25, 2016

Most evolutionists hold to methodological materialism, which rules out anything but purposeless chance guided by natural selection. There is no design. The belief was that maybe 90% of DNA was ‘junk DNA.’ It was a product of the random process of evolution. The prediction of ID was that most DNA would be functional. It turns out that ID is right.Lamarckian theories of inheritance fell out of favor early in the last century. Neo-Lamarckian epigenetic inheritance has recently been discovered to play a part in genetics.Stephen Jay Gould first wrestled with the question of how new forms of animal life could have arisen so quickly in the fossil record. In his famed 1980 paper he declared neo-Darwinism “effectively dead." Neo-Darwinism lacks an explanation for the origin of organismal form precisely because it cannot explain the origin of epigenetic information. The neo-Darwinian synthesis was formulated during the 1930s before the elucidation of the structure of DNA.Many evolutionary biologists have simply regarded mathematical challenges to the creative power of the mechanism, coming as they mostly do from scientists and engineers in other fields, as exotic or irrelevant. Overall synthesis of Mendelian genetics with Darwinian theory came to be called “neo-Darwinism.” Eldredge and Gould devised the theory of punctuated equilibrium to eliminate the conflict between the fossil record and evolutionary theory. This was a discrepancy that puzzled Darwin himself. Darwin believed that layers of sediments would eventually be discovered that would solve the lack of transitional life forms. Preservation of numerous soft-bodied Cambrian animals as well as Precambrian embryos and microorganisms undermines the idea of an extensive period of undetected soft-bodied evolution.

Danny

April 16, 2014

Excellent outlining of the issue and the attempts to solve it. This book was very comprehensive and presented both valid and sound arguments. It described things well, and in a fashion that I as a non-bioligist can understand. My only critique is that the book could have been up to 2/3rds shorter. Dr. Meyer did have a tendency to repeat himself.

Jeff

July 31, 2013

While I am not convinced that Intelligent Design is a more useful theory than Darwinism, I do think the issues Meyer raises about the many, many shortcomings of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories to account for large morphological changes and speciation (especially between different phyla) are very compelling. Plus, the Cambrian Explosion is a very interesting period in the history of life on the planet, and so this would be a fun and interesting read just to learn more about that aspect.For information on how random variation and natural selection totally fail to account for the *origin* of life (rather than the origin of different species, as this book discusses), try reading Stephen Meyer's earlier Signature in the Cell, another good book.For a more "mainstream" view of the Cambrian Explosion (it's still an extrordinary event), see Simon Conway Morris. I loved his book Life's Solution.

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