Editing Stephen C. Meyer (section)

===Creation science===
As an undergraduate, Meyer had been "quite comfortable accepting the standard evolutionary story, although I put a bit of a theistic spin on it – that (evolution) is how God operated", but during his work with ARCO in Dallas, he was influenced by a conference: "I remember being especially fascinated with the origins debate at this conference. It impressed me to see that scientists who had always accepted the standard evolutionary story were now defending a theistic belief, not on the basis that it makes them feel good or provides some form of subjective contentment, but because the scientific evidence suggests an activity of mind that is beyond nature. I was really taken with this."<ref name="Meyer Profile Whitworth" />{{sfn|Forrest|Gross|2004|p=260}} [[Charles Thaxton]] organised the conference held in Dallas on 9–10 February 1985, featuring [[Antony Flew]], and [[Dean H. Kenyon]] who spoke on "Going Beyond the Naturalistic Mindset: Origin of Life Studies".{{sfn|Witham|2005|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=llzwy_Ft1DQC&pg=PA220 220–221]}}<ref name="Meyer open debate 1993">{{cite web|author=Stephen C. Meyer : Department of Philosophy, Whitworth College | title=Open Debate On Life's Origin | date=9 August 1993 | url=https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evolution%20Hoax/open_debate.htm | access-date=12 July 2019}}</ref>

Meyer became part of Thaxton's circle,{{sfn|Witham|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=llzwy_Ft1DQC&pg=PA67 67]}} and joined the debate with two articles published in March 1986: in one, he discussed ''The Mystery of Life's Origin'' which Thaxton had recently co-authored, commenting that the book had "done well to intimate that 'we are not alone.' Only revelation can now identify the Who that is with us."<ref name="meyermolo">{{cite magazine |last=Meyer |first=Stephen C. |date=March 1986 |title=We Are Not Alone |url=http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_notalone.htm |journal=Eternity |location=Philadelphia |publisher=Evangelical Foundation Inc. |issn=0014-1682 |access-date=2007-10-10}}</ref> The other article discussed the 1981 ''[[McLean v. Arkansas]]'' and 1985 ''[[Edwards v. Aguillard#Background|Aguillard v. Treen]]'' district court case rulings that teaching [[creation science]] in public schools was unconstitutional as creationism originated in religious conviction, and its reliance on "tenets of faith" implied it was not scientific. Meyer argued that modern scientific method equally relied on "foundational assumptions" based on faith in [[Naturalism (philosophy)|naturalism]], which "assumed all events to be exclusively the result of physical or natural causes", so on the definition used in the court cases "science itself does not qualify as legitimate science". He proposed that "scientists and philosophers" could turn to [[Presuppositional apologetics|Biblical presupposition]] to explain "the ultimate source of human reason, the existence of a real and uniformly ordered universe, and the ability present in a creative and ordered human intellect to know that universe. Both the Old and New Testaments define these relationships such that the presuppositional base necessary to modern science is not only explicable but also meaningful."<ref name="Meyer Tenets 1986">{{cite journal | last=Meyer | first=Stephen C. | title=Scientific Tenets of Faith | journal=The Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation |volume=38 |issue=1 | date=March 1986 | url=http://arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_scientifictenets.htm | access-date=31 May 2019}}</ref> Meyer's argument on [[Epistemology|epistemological presuppositions]] and accusation that evolution is based on an assumption of naturalism became central to the design movement.{{sfn | Pennock | 2015 | pp=131, 133–135}}

At the [[University of Cambridge]] in England, he met theology student [[Mark Labberton]]. In the Fall of 1987 Labberton introduced Meyer to [[Phillip E. Johnson]] who was on a [[sabbatical]] at [[University College London]], and having become "obsessed with evolution" had begun writing a book on what he saw as its problems. Meyer says "We walked around Cambridge kicking the pea gravel and talking over all the issues."{{sfn|Witham|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=llzwy_Ft1DQC&pg=PA66 66]}}<ref name="Meyer Dock 2001">{{cite web | last=Meyer | first=Stephen C. | title=Darwin in the Dock: Meyer, Stephen C. | website=Access Research Network | date=1 April 2001 | url=http://arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_darwininthedock.htm | access-date=30 June 2020}}, also at {{cite web | title=Darwin in the Dock | website=Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity | url=http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=14-03-057-r }}</ref><ref name="ASA origins ID">{{cite journal| last = Yerxa | first = Donald A. | title =Phillip Johnson and the origins of the intelligent design movement, 1977–1991.| journal =[[Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith]] | volume =55 | issue =1| pages =47–52| publisher = [[American Scientific Affiliation]] | date =March 2002 | url =https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2002/PSCF3-02Yerxa.pdf}}</ref>

An article co-authored by Meyer and Thaxton published on 27 December 1987 asserted that "human rights depend upon the Creator who made man with dignity, not upon the state." They contrasted this with "purely material, scientific" ideas which equated humans to animals, and restated their central thesis that "Only if man is (in fact) a product of special Divine purposes can his claim to distinctive or intrinsic dignity be sustained." The terminology and concepts later featured in the [[Wedge strategy]] and [[Theistic science|theistic realism]].<ref name="Thaxton Meyer 1987">{{cite web | last1=Thaxton | first1=Charles B. | last2=Meyer | first2=Stephen C. | title=Human Rights : Blessed by God or Begrudged by Government |newspaper=Los Angeles Times | date=27 December 1987 | url=http://arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_humanrights.htm | access-date=21 July 2019}}</ref>{{sfn | Pennock | 2015 | pp=135–138}}