Stephen C. Meyer (; born 1958) is an American author and former educator. He is an advocate of the pseudoscience of intelligent design and helped found the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) of the Discovery Institute (DI), which is the main organization behind the intelligent design movement. Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at Whitworth College. Meyer is a senior fellow of the DI and director of the CSC. Biography In 1981, Meyer graduated from Whitworth College before being employed at Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) in Dallas from November 1981 to December 1985. Meyer then took up a scholarship from the Rotary Club of Dallas to study at Cambridge University, where he earned a Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy in history and the philosophy of science in 1991. His dissertation was entitled "Of Clues and Causes: A Methodological Interpretation of Origin-of-Life Research". In Fall 1990 he became an assistant professor of philosophy at Whitworth, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1995, and gained tenure in 1996. In Fall 2002 he moved to the position of professor, Conceptual Foundations of Science, at the Christian Palm Beach Atlantic University. He continued there to Spring 2005, then ceased teaching to devote his time to the intelligent design movement. Work 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." 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". Meyer became part of Thaxton's circle, 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