Meyer became one of a group of prominent young intelligent design (ID) advocates with academic degrees: Mayer, Nelson, Dembski and Jonathan Wells. Meyer participated in the "Ad Hoc Origins Committee" defending Johnson's "Darwin on Trial" in 1992 or 1993 (in response to Stephen Jay Gould's review of it in the July 1992 issue of "Scientific American"), while with the Philosophy department at Whitworth College. He was later a participant in the first formal meeting devoted to ID, hosted at Southern Methodist University in 1992.