Of Clues and Causes

Stephen Meyer’s 1990 Cambridge dissertation, Of Clues and Causes, is here at last made available to the general reader. Written before intelligent design became a household name, this dissertation was nonetheless remarkably prescient. Meyer argued that origins research can never simply be a matter of laboratory chemistry. Rather, it is also a historical science that reasons from present clues to past causes. He argued that inference to the best explanation, or abduction, is essential to reconstructing life’s origin. He also argued against the arbitrary imposition of methodological rules that exclude in advance the kinds of causes that evidence may or may not support. With a careful examination of origin-of-life research as well as a thorough elucidation of historical explanation and scientific reasoning, Meyer uncovered the deep structure of the origins debate. New appendices address the evidence for intelligent design from DNA as well as the demarcation problem for distinguishing science from non-science. Annotations bring the dissertation into conversation with present scholarship. Long awaiting publication, this dissertation deserves widespread attention as a foundational work on the scientific and philosophical questions surrounding biological origins.