Signature in the Cell: DNA and the evidence for Intelligent Design, Stephen Meyer. Just occasionally, a book comes out which is destined to have a big impact. Signature in the Cell , I am convinced, is one of those books. Normally, we review books written for a general readership in Discipleship, so this is an exception.

Stephen Meyers a Cambridge trained scientist, who calls himself a Christian, rigorously sets out the evidence for a designed universe, especially at the level of every cell in our bodies.

Meyers shows how chance and law could not possibly, left to themselves produce a cell, with all its amazing complexity. The ’probabilistic reservoir’ of the whole universe is simply far far too small. In the past, evolutionary scientists thought that time could come to the rescue—given the billions of years of supposed earth history the improbable becomes probable—and even certain! But now we can work out the ‘probabilistic resources’ of the universe and it turns out that chance and law are utterly insufficient to account for the origin of life.

In a wide ranging book, which demonstrates the vast complexity of the cell, Meyers makes a convincing scientific case that left to itself, without the intervention of intelligence, chance and law could never produce life. Meyers shows that the implication of Darwinism is hopelessness and he hopes that the new interest across the world in the evidence for Intelligent Design will reverse this philosophy of despair.

That may be too great a hope, since it is the Gospel alone that is the power of God to salvation. But this book may get some folk thinking.

Unfortunately it’s not the easiest read, but it is the best book on the growing scientific discipline of Intelligent Design.

Reviewed by Roy Summers