Before you pick up a copy of Darwin's Doubt to learn about evolution, you should probably know the subtitle is "The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design."

I see Meyer being favorably cited here, but his two major books have been pretty firmly rejected by real scientists from everything I have seen.

To the extent Meyer has been able to garner positive critical reception, it has been an in-between nether space of media, book reviews, and unfortunately academic philosophy. I actually would go so far as to say that folks like Nagel offering positive commentary on Meyer is an indictment of Nagel and a perfect illustration of how his school of anti-reductionist skepticism can go completely off the rails.

Are you implying Meyer isn't a real scientist?

Openly stating. He was educated as a philosopher with a PhD in 'history of science.' His entry point to conversations on biology is from the perspective of a historian of science.

He also has a degree in physics and worked as a geophysicist for four years.. I'd say he is more educated in scientific matters than most people. Maybe including yourself?

From the google, I see that was a bachelors from 1981 to go into the private sector for work that had no connection to any scientific career.

What qualifies someone as a 'scientist' can be a fuzzy continuum, but that's on the weaker side of the spectrum. Especially for someone who isn't a biologist going against the mainstream consensus of biology.

And what is your degree in?

You could, but you shouldn't. Picking up any basic science book would be better use of your time.

Those are by people not qualified to criticize evolution.

I'm not sure about the others (don't know who they are), but Meyer certainly is.

What exactly are his qualifications? He has no degree in biology. Does he perhaps have a PhD in intelligent design?

He has master's and doctorate degrees from Cambridge in philosophy and history of science, and a bachelor's in physics, as well as having worked as a physicist for several years. He has also done extensive research on the issue and done lots of publishing on it. He's more qualified than almost any Hacker News poaster.

Every ounce of his scholarship has been firmly rejected by the scientific community at every step of his career. Any HN poster is perfectly qualified to assess his credentials and claims relative to those of the academic mainstream.

Edit to reply to comment below: Meyer himself agrees that it is in fact true, and would be the first to affirm that he has faced pretty stiff rejection by the scientific mainstream on questions of biology. One of his major talking points is his feeling that he's been ostracized from the scientific community. He would not agree with anyone claiming it's "not true" that he has clashed with modern scientific consensus.

This just isn't true.

Of course it is.

Not in regard to evolution.