Includes bibliographical references (pages [509]-595) and index.

Intelligent design-the idea that an intelligent cause, rather than an undirected process, best explains key features of life and the universe-continues to ignite controversy around the world. In Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer shows that digital code embedded in DNA points to a designing intelligence and helps unravel a mystery that Charles Darwin did not address: how did life begin? Meyer tells the story of the successive attempts to explain the origin of life and he develops a case for intelligent design based on new evidence using the same scientific method that Darwin himself pioneered.