Junior, what about the present article? It's got "Intelligent Design" written all over it! The tip-offs are all references to purposeful functionality, and the information (his way of writing the word on p. 216) that makes this possible. "Form" since the classical Greeks has generally implied "design," as in Aristotle's formal cause (Laws II).
(2) the form or pattern of a thing, that is, the reason (and the kind of reason) which explains what it was to be that thing....
My astrophysicist friend has given a superb exposition of the four Aristotelian causes in a recent draft manuscript. I'll quote him here, just in case any Lurker might be interested in the bases of Aristotelian logic:
“the material cause is the basic stuff out of which the thing is made. The material cause of a house, for example, would include the wood, metal, glass, and other building materials used in its construction. All of these things belong in an explanation of the house because it could not exist unless they were present in its composition.
"The formal cause {Gk. eidos} is the pattern or essence in conformity with which these materials are assembled. Thus, the formal cause of our exemplary house would be the sort of thing that is represented on a blueprint of its design. This, too, is part of the explanation of the house, since its materials would be only a pile of rubble (or a different house) if they were not put together in this way.
"The efficient cause is the agent or force immediately responsible for bringing this matter and that form together in the production of the thing. Thus, the efficient cause of the house would include the carpenters, masons, plumbers, and other workers who used these materials to build the house in accordance with the blueprint for its construction. Clearly the house would not be what it is without their contribution.
"Lastly, the final cause {Gk. telos} is the end or purpose for which a thing exists, so the final cause of our house would be to provide shelter for human beings. This is part of the explanation of the house's existence because it would never have been built unless someone needed it as a place to live.” -- Attila Grandpierre, ms of the forthcoming Book of the Living Universe, 2004
The whole article is rather poor in concept. Meyer seems to be suffering from the "Fallacy of Retrospective Astonishment." It's analogous to looking at a bridge hand and claiming that the cards were arranged because the probability of getting that hand was 1 in 3,954,242,643,910,000,000,000 roughly.
The author's definition of "form" implies that donuts, coffee cups, headless humans, and nematodes are all of the same form. (A donut really does look like a very short worm.) He doesn't give any specifics other than some confused comments on topology.
Meyer also uses several versions of "complexity" without defining any of them. This allows him to be ambiguous, clandestinely switching between meanings. He talks about an increase in "complex specified information" without defining the term; however he does claim this undefined "something" increases over time. He gives no measure to show that his claim is true. Later he claims that no "materialist" (another undefined term) mechanism can account for his claim of an unmeasured increase in his undefined "something."
He dismisses self-organized complexity without even getting the mechanism correct. (He claims "highly improbable outcomes" in contrast to the actual work done on self-organization.)
Towards the end, he claims that things must have been "designed" without showing what he means by "design" nor by showing a mechanism for such design. A truly pathetic article.
From the article (emphasis mine!):
IOW, let us consider the reduction of uncertainty (information) necessary for geometric form in addition to the rise of information in causation for biological life (normally viewed in two dimensions, i.e. DNA).