Three major discoveries during the last century contradict the forecasts of scientific atheists, pointing instead in a distinctly theistic direction. //

In fact, three major scientific discoveries during the last century contradict the expectations of scientific atheists (or materialists) and point instead in a distinctly theistic direction.

First, cosmologists have discovered that the physical universe likely had a beginning, contrary to the expectations of scientific materialists who had long portrayed the material universe as eternal and self-existent (and, therefore, in no need of an external creator). //

This evidence of a beginning, later reinforced by other developments in observational astronomy and theoretical physics, not only contradicted the expectations of scientific materialists, it confirmed those of traditional theists. As physicist and Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias observed, “The best data we have [concerning a beginning] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the first five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole.”

Second, physicists have discovered that we live in a kind of “Goldilocks universe.” Indeed, since the 1960s, physicists have determined that the fundamental physical laws and parameters of our universe have been finely tuned, against all odds, to make our universe capable of hosting life. Even slight alterations in the values of many independent factors — such as the strength of gravitational and electromagnetic attraction, the masses of elementary particles, and the initial arrangement of matter and energy in the universe — would have rendered life impossible. //

Finally, discoveries in molecular biology have revealed the presence of digital code at the foundation of life, suggesting the work of a master programmer. After James Watson and Francis Crick elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, Crick developed his famed “sequence hypothesis.” In it, Crick proposed that the chemical constituents in DNA function like letters in a written language or digital symbols in a computer code.

Functioning computer code depends upon a precise sequence of zeros and ones. Similarly, the DNA molecule’s ability to direct the assembly of crucial protein molecules in cells depends upon specific arrangements of chemical constituents called “bases” along the spine of its double helix structure. Thus, even Richard Dawkins has acknowledged, “the machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like.” Or as Bill Gates explains, “DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.”

No theory of undirected chemical evolution has explained the origin of the information in DNA (or RNA) needed to build the first living cell from simpler non-living chemicals. Instead, our uniform and repeated experience — the basis of all scientific reasoning — shows that systems possessing functional or digital information invariably arise from intelligent causes.

We know from experience that software comes from programmers. We know generally that information — whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book, or encoded in radio signals — always arises from an intelligent source. //

Stephen C. Meyer directs Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle. His new book, "Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Discoveries that Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe," is now available from HarperOne.