Question 178 – On Kenneth Miller and Evolution
Dear CAI, do you know of any response for this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXdQRvSdLAs&NR=1
Thank you,
Damien
R. Sungenis: The first thing we need to note about this vignette is that it is from Ken Miller, one of the most biased evolutionists in academia. Miller has shown in various cases that he cannot be trusted to interpret the data fairly, and here is no exception. A few years ago Miller tried to make a case for evolution based on the protein Pencillinase, but it was an utter failure. You can read about it in the attached piece I wrote on Miller for the Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Genesis 1-11.
As for the genome he describes in the above video, the burden is on Miller, and a heavy burden it is, to prove that the fusion of the two chromosomes is from two separate chromosomes from a the lower species, not merely suggest that it is. This means that he must eliminate all other possibilities before he can make a case. After all, isn't that what "science" is? It's not guess work or mere hypotheses, but solid evidence that what is purported as evidence is, indeed, evidence. Miller is using the same kind of logic here that he used in the Pencillinase case -- if you don't see it Miller's evolutionary way, then you are blind, and he implies as much in this video. Notice also that Miller doesn't tell us what the function of the #2 chromosome is. I think the reason for this is that if it shows that #2 is the cause of a unique feature in chimps and apes that is not in humans, then there is good reason why God eliminated it in the creation of a human. In other words, it's not a fusion but a deliberate excision. It is impossible for Miller to prove that it is not an excision, therefore he has no case. According to Genesis 1, animals and man were made on the same day, the Sixth Day. So obviously, when God was making their respective DNA, he put an extra chromosome in the chimp that he did not put in man. Very simple. If it "looks" like it's fused, well, that's Miller's problem to solve, but he can't solve it by claiming that what "looks" like a fusion is, indeed, a fusion, and one caused by evolution and nothing else.
Unfortunately, this is just another case in which Miller props up evidence to wow and flutter his audience (who don't know any better), when in actuality it is just the same smoke and mirrors we have seen from him in the past. If Miller really had proof for evolution, he would have shown it by now. Instead, we are treated to an assortment of side-shows that prove nothing except Miller's desperation to vouch for the fact that he is a scientist from Brown working for his tenure. If Brown so much as gets a whiff that Miller or anyone else on their esteemed roster of academics is voicing doubts about evolution, the powers-that-be would not hesitate to terminate their position. The movie by Ben Stein, "Expelled," shows that fact in graphic detail.
Here is the piece I wrote on Miller:
Critique of Kenneth Miller’s
Views on Theistic Evolution
Kenneth R. Miller is a Brown University professor of biology and the author of “Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.” In an article originally published in The Providence Journal, August 12th, 2005, Dr. Miller writes the following:
Catholic Theology has no Fight with Darwin
It’s never been easy being Charles Darwin. Rodney Dangerfield talked about getting “no respect” but the brickbats thrown Darwin’s way are putting poor Rodney to shame.
Alabama pastes warning stickers in any textbook that mentions evolution; a member of the Kansas Board of Education pronounces evolution “biologically, genetically, mathematically, chemically and metaphysically impossible.” And now even a cardinal of the Catholic Church has taken a potshot at poor Old Charles.
Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, editor of the church’s Catechism, recently wrote that any notion that neo-Darwinian theory is “somehow compatible with Christian faith” is simply “not true.” The cardinal asserted that evolution is an “unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.” Evolution, in his view, isn’t science so much as a “materialistic philosophy” that denies the existence of a creator’s plan. It’s anti-Christian, he says, and it’s bad science to boot. The cardinal may think that evolution deserves the Dangerfield treatment, but in his understandable eagerness to stand up for God, he’s made three glaring mistakes: The most obvious is scientific. The second is political. And the third, dare I say as a Catholic layperson, is theological. Knowing how the cardinal’s words will be misused by the enemies of science, I think it’s important to set the record straight.
Response: Miller designates those who take an opposite view than his as “enemies of science.” He speaks about a desire to “set the record straight,” but it seems he is trying to twist the record by implying his opponents not only ignore but repudiate science. This is a common ploy of evolutionists, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is upon science that the Creationist bases his argument, mainly because of the scientific impossibility of an upward progression of species by blind chance. Hence, if we can take the liberty of ‘reading between the lines’ of Miller’s words, he is claiming that anyone who doubts the conclusions he and his evolutionary colleagues draw from science is an “enemy of science.” Miller apparently cannot accept that someone else who sees the same scientific evidence can come to a perfectly valid yet opposite conclusion than he. Why should this be so hard for Dr. Miller? Hasn’t the history of science shown that scientists have disagreed with each other countless times, and haven’t most theories of science been either radically modified or rejected as time goes on, which at first had unqualified acceptance? It is my honest opinion that Dr. Miller is on a mission to silence anyone who advocates an anti-evolutionary viewpoint, no matter what scientific evidence is utilized to support it. In reality, Kenneth Miller is the “enemy of science.” Not only does he ignore all the scientific evidence that leads to the impossibility of his evolutionary view, he wants only his interpretation of the scientific data to be made available to the minds of the public.
Miller: Let’s start with what Schonborn got right. The Catholic Church has always opposed any view of life that would exclude the notion of divine purpose. As the Catechism says, scientific studies of “the age and development of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man...invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator.” Indeed they do.
But Schonborn’s assertion that the theory of evolution is inherently anti-God is simply wrong. Consider these words from George Gaylord Simpson, widely recognized as one of the principal architects of the neo-Darwinian synthesis:
The process (of evolution) is wholly natural in its operation. This natural process achieves the aspect of purpose without the intervention of a purposer; and it has produced a vast plan without the concurrent action of a planner. It may be that the initiation of the process and the physical laws under which it functions had a purpose and that this mechanistic way of achieving a plan is the instrument of a Planner - of this still deeper problem the scientist, as scientist, cannot speak.
Exactly. Science is, just as Pope John Paul II said, silent on the issue of ultimate purpose. This means that biological evolution, correctly understood, does not address what Simpson called the “deeper problem,” leaving that issue, quite properly, to faith.
Response: Miller’s his attempt to compartmentalize the debate into one of faith versus science is precisely what an atheist such as Stephen Gould has proposed. The reason is simple: Gould does not want any authority higher than himself to tell him how to interpret the scientific evidence. A dramatic example of how Gould’s (and Miller’s) prejudices drive their viewpoint is clearly noted in the fact that Gould (as he admitted) has not found any intermediate fossils (e.g., fossils between a bird and an amphibian or between a dinosaur and a bird). He, if he wants to be a scientist who examines evidence impartially, can conclude one of two things:
(a) he cannot find no intermediate fossils simply because there are no intermediate fossils in existence,
or
(b) the intermediate forms appeared but decayed so fast that they left no trace of their existence.
Not surprisingly, Gould chose (b) as his “scientific” answer. One would have to agree, however, that option (a) is also a viable and logical scientific answer, even if one disagreed with option (a). In other words, one cannot discount option (a) on the basis that it is “unscientific” and conclude that (b) is the only scientific answer. But this is precisely what the Goulds and the Millers of evolutionary science do. They refuse to consider option (a) as a possibility. Yet Miller has a problem, because he cannot refuse option (a) on the basis that it is unscientific. Miller knows that if he allows someone to conclude on a scientific basis that there are no intermediate fossil because such fossils, scientifically speaking, never existed in the first place, then evolution can never claim any superiority over creationism. Consequently, Miller will do his best to label those who chose option (a) as the “enemies of science.”
In the area of cosmogony, science and faith cannot be divorced for the simple fact that none of us were there at the beginning to see the “scientific evidence” of how the universe came into being. If Miller wants to examine a paramecium and divide it into its constituent parts for his biology class, we commend him. He might be able to do so without invoking the name of God, if he so chooses. But when the discussion involves the origin of the universe and its animal species, Miller departs from his expertise, not only because he can make no absolute claims to being present at the beginning of the universe and witness the mechanisms employed at that time, but because he has no scientific proof that one species can evolve into another species.
Miller may retort that he can examine today’s scientific evidence and, more or less, work backwards in time and theorize that a paramecium had to develop from some primitive and distinct species of one-celled creatures. Granted, he may theorize all he wants, but he doesn’t have any proof he is correct. Without any solid proof, Miller’s view is no better than Fred Hoyle’s view, who, seeing the difficulty of how non-life can evolve into life, posits that aliens from space deposited their seeds upon Earth millions of years ago. Miller’s view is no more plausible than if I concluded on a scientific basis that, since there is no evidence of species-to-species transformation, and no evidence of intermediary forms between species, then all indications show there is no evolutionary process. In fact, my conclusion would have more scientific basis than both Miller and Hoyle because science, as we still know it today, does not allow something to come from nothing, unless, of course, Dr. Miller can show proof how a species acquires the genes to advance to the next species. Scientifically speaking, if I know there is no scientific evidence for a certain theory, science allows me to give scientific reasons for the lack thereof. Hence, if I say that science itself leads me to the inevitable conclusion that a Supreme Being placed the various species on Earth whole and intact, that is just as viable a scientific conclusion as Miller’s.
The sad fact is, however, Miller will not support my decision to have such a scientific opinion for my evidence. Why? Because it invokes the name of God. Since Miller has already decided that any appeal to God is “not scientific,” he then labels those who resort to God as “enemies of science.” Even if it can be shown that an appeal to God is just as much a “scientific answer” as the blind chance of evolutionary theory; and even if it can be shown from science that complex beings cannot be produced from blind chance, Miller and his like-minded colleagues will not allow that option to be taught at Brown University. But Science deals in logic and facts, does it not? So what is more logical and factual than concluding there are no intermediary fossil forms because intermediary forms do not exist?
Here’s a typical example of the kind of obstinate blindness that Miller and his colleagues bring to the discussion. Dr. Axe of the Biologic Institute studied a protein called penicillinase. This protein allows bacteria to survive when they are exposed to penicillin. Penicillinase is made up of a strand of amino acids folded into a shape that binds to penicillin and disables it. Success depends on whether the protein folds up in the right way. Dr. Axe computed the probability of this protein coming into existence ahead of all other possible proteins. It was 1077 against such a possibility. In other words, there was no chance it could have happened by chance. So what does Kenneth Miller do with this astounding evidence? He says that Dr. Axe did not look at penicillinase “the way evolution looks at the protein.” In effect, Miller has shown us the presupposition with which he, and all evolutionists, base their views. Evolution is the sifter through which all analysis must pass before it is accepted. Miller further stated that a small number of mutations, sometimes just one, can change the function of a protein, allowing it to diverge along new evolutionary paths, yet without the slightest proof to his assertion and with the knowledge that 99% of mutations are harmful and thus would impede evolution into higher forms.
The task for Miller, of course, is to show convincing evidence that mutations provide beneficial changes; changes that result in an upward progression of the species; changes that can form the genes in the DNA so that the next specimen in line can pass it on to their offspring. Has Miller found any evidence of these changes coming from mutations? No, none at all. In virtually every mutation, whether from natural or artificial means, it results in the deterioration or death of the biological specimen or an abnormality that is simply not useful. A few years ago evolutionary scientists were so proud of themselves when they caused a mutation in a fruit fly by bombarding it with radiation that gave it four wings instead of two. This was touted as proof that mutations support evolutionary theory. What they didn’t tell the public was that the second pair of wings was totally dysfunctional. It would be akin to stitching a human leg to your shoulder and declaring that you now have better mobility than humans with just two legs. This is the world of Professor Kenneth Miller – a hope against hope that evolution will find an answer to things that it now finds impossible to answer.
Miller: The cardinal’s second error was to enter American politics by supporting the “intelligent-design” movement. This movement seeks to short-circuit science by applying political pressure at state and local levels, and the cardinal’s misrepresentation of evolution will only further a growing entanglement between church and state. He seems not to understand that the neo-creationists of “intelligent design,” unlike Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, argue against evolution on every level, asserting that a “designer” has repeatedly intervened to subvert the laws of nature.
Response: Miller’s ploy here is to make it appear that anyone who is advocating Intelligent Design is doing so merely for political reasons. The truth is that some Creationists felt the need to lower their standards and take the “intelligent design” approach because no one, including Ken Miller, wanted to hear the word “God” or “supreme designer” in an anti-evolution position. The Creationists decided to appeal to a person’s common sense by means of the “intelligent design” argument (e.g., a bombardier beetle cannot evolve; it must be designed by an intelligent entity) just to get a foot in the door in the ongoing debate. Of course, Miller simply cannot allow that to happen, for he knows that once the intelligent designers are in the debate, evolution will be exposed for the myth that it is. The guardians at the gate of knowledge have no sympathy for rival theories. As evolutionist Richard Lewontin says:
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concept that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.[1]
The evolutionist conspiracy against Intelligent Design was no better confirmed than in the case of Richard von Sternberg. Von Sternberg holds two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology and thus we could say he is as qualified, and perhaps even more so, than Kenneth Miller to comment on whether evolution has the answer. In 2000 von Sternberg won a prestigious appointment as a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. But von Sternberg was vilified by his colleagues for suggesting that Intelligent Design is a viable cosmogony. An article in the Washington Post by Michael Powell reveals:
Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made a fateful decision a year ago. As editor of the hitherto obscure Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Sternberg decided to publish a paper making the case for “intelligent design,” a controversial theory that holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand – subtle or not – of an intelligent creator. Within hours of publication, senior scientists at the Smithsonian Institution -- which has helped fund and run the journal – lashed out at Sternberg as a shoddy scientist and a closet Bible thumper. “They were saying I accepted money under the table, that I was a crypto-priest, that I was a sleeper cell operative for the creationists,” said Steinberg, 42, who is a Smithsonian research associate. “I was basically run out of there.” An independent agency has come to the same conclusion, accusing top scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History of retaliating against Sternberg by investigating his religion and smearing him as a “creationist.” The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which was established to protect federal employees from reprisals, examined e-mail traffic from these scientists and noted that “retaliation came in many forms…. misinformation was disseminated through the Smithsonian Institution and to outside sources. The allegations against you were later determined to be false.” “The rumor mill became so infected,” James McVay, the principal legal adviser in the Office of Special Counsel, wrote to Sternberg, “that one of your colleagues had to circulate [your résumé] simply to dispel the rumor that you were not a scientist.” The Washington Post and two other media outlets obtained a copy of the still-private report. McVay, who is a political appointee of the Bush administration, acknowledged in the report that a fuller response from the Smithsonian might have tempered his conclusions. As Sternberg is not a Smithsonian employee – the National Institutes of Health pays his salary – the special counsel lacks the power to impose a legal remedy. A spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution declined comment, noting that it has not received McVay’s report.[2]
Undoubtedly, the above reprisals against von Sternberg are spawned from the same lake the led Miller to repudiate the views of Cardinal Schönborn and the Intelligent Design community. These are certified members of the thought-police who will brand their own peer-reviewed Ph.D. biological academicians as “enemies of science” merely because they suggest that the complexity and diversity of life on earth cannot be explained by the operation of random processes alone.
But let’s analyze Miller’s thesis a little more closely. Above he writes: “He seems not to understand that the neo-creationists of “intelligent design,” unlike Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, argue against evolution on every level, asserting that a “designer” has repeatedly intervened to subvert the laws of nature.” Miller has a fallacious concept of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. ID does not say that God “has repeatedly intervened to subvert the laws of nature.” ID merely asserts that, since there exists obvious design in the universe, the universe cannot be a product of blind chance. A designer must have designed it. All three branches of Christian science (Theistic Evolution, Progressive Creationism and Six-Day Creationism) believe in the ID premise, but only one of them, Progressive Creationism, says that God intervenes to direct the course of nature. But it makes that particular claim because it knows from scientific knowledge that without God’s intervention the possibility of having the creation complete its task is virtually zero, since blind chance cannot produce complex organisms. Miller will not even support Theistic Evolution, since Miller wants random chance to rule every aspect of evolution. In Miller’s view, God created random chance, not design. What appears to us as design is merely the fortuitous result of random chance. Of course, the only problem for Miller is providing a convincing experiment, or even an analogy from life, which demonstrates that design comes from random chance. So far, Miller has not provided any such evidence, save for the imaginations of his own mind.
Miller: This view stands in sharp contradiction to a 2004 International Theological Commission document approved by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict. This document carries a ringing endorsement of the “widely accepted scientific account” of life’s emergence and evolution; describes the descent of all forms of life from a common ancestor as “virtually certain,” and echoes John Paul’s observation of the “mounting support” for evolution from many fields of study.
Response: Apparently, Miller believes that merely because a large number of atheistic and agnostics scientists have generated a consensus that man came from apes, and merely because he can find a group of liberal theologians who have long since abandoned their trust in Scripture, then the court of popular opinion should suffice to silence any challengers to the status quo. Interestingly enough, two years after Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge admitted to a worldwide audience of evolutionists in 1970 that they couldn’t find any evidence of intermediate fossils to support Evolution and thus had to opt for “punctuated equilibrium,” the Pontifical Academy of Science said that evidence for evolution was beyond dispute! There was stunned silence in the auditorium when Gould asked his evolutionary colleagues at the 1970 Chicago symposium whether any scientist in the audience had found any evidence of transitional forms. No one raised a hand. If evolution were true, we would expect to see thousands of such specimens, but they can’t even find one. Yet Miller asserts that he has “virtually certain” evidence, nonetheless.
Ideology rules the world of evolutionary thinkers. Recently I asked Miller to have a formal debate with me on the subject of evolution. His answer was: “Sorry, but I am much too busy with other duties to debate questions…that have long been settled scientifically. Even the most ardent opponents of evolution realize that ‘creationism’ is not compatible with scientific data…” When I took him to task in a return email for being close-minded, he changed his answer, saying that he debates on a “case-by-case” basis. But, of course, that is not what he stated in his original reply, which made it clear that Kenneth Miller is an avowed evolutionist and will no longer listen to anyone with an opposing viewpoint, based on his own “scientific data.” As I noted earlier, it is not the “scientific data” that is the problem. We have plenty of that on both sides of the isle. The problem is the interpretation of the data. The bottom line is that Miller and his academic colleagues will not allow alternate interpretations of the scientific data into the universities and secondary schools of our land. Scientific views that are opposed to evolution are completely censored from academic curriculums.
Miller: More important, the document makes a critical statement on how to interpret scientific studies of the complexity of life: “(W)hether the available data support inferences of design or chance...cannot be settled by theology.”
Response: The truth is, it cannot be settled by science, either. No one was there when it all began, and no one has seen evolution take place today. As we noted above in the die-hard views of evolutionist Richard Lewontin, evolutionists cling to evolution and allow no other option because modern science has decided that any theory that depends on God for any part of the evolutionary process is not to be considered “science.” If the theory has any reference to God, it is summarily dismissed, for as Lewontin says, “we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.” Evolutionists take this stance despite the fact that they have no indisputable proof of their theory.
Miller: But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, “true contingency” – that is, dependence upon chance – “in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence.” Right there, in plain view, is the essence of compatibility between evolution and Catholic theology. “Contingency in the created order,” the very heart of evolution, is not at all incompatible with the will of God.
Response: Miller is comparing apples and oranges. Merely because God created a universe that allows contingency[3] does not prove or even suggest that an evolutionary process took place in the universe. Rolling dice on a Vegas card table is one thing, but producing dozens of amino acids in proper sequence to have biological life is quite another. The “chances” of getting a winning roll on the former are at least respectable, but the chance of getting the proper sequence in the latter is virtually zero. If Miller were seeking to be a genuine scientist, he would acknowledge that, scientifically speaking, it is impossible to produce complex organisms by chance. Anyone who places his hope in chance as the creator of all that we see simply cannot be living in reality and is depending irrational mysticism, not science.
Miller: The church document re-emphasizes this point by stating that “even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation.” And evolution, as scientist Stephen Jay Gould emphasized, is truly a contingent natural process.
Response: Here Miller admits to us that one of his mentors is the atheist and anti-Christian, Stephen Gould. Gould writes in his book “Rocks of Ages”[4] that the Church has no official say in the conclusions of science. They are totally separate entities that cannot overlap. Gould coined the acronym NOMA for this purpose, which stands for Non Overlapping Magisteria. Gould would be appalled at Miller’s attempt to mix religion and science.
Irrespective of Miller’s misplaced praise of Gould, the truth is, everything in creation “falls within God’s providential plan,” contingent or non-contingent. As St. Thomas Aquinas put it: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.”[5] But how does this even begin to provide “virtually certain” evidence for evolution? In reality, it shows how Kenneth Miller chooses only those theological concepts that will provide him a veneer of justification for his views that otherwise bar God from being a factor in his evolutionary conclusions. Miller seems to have no problem calling on God when its suits his agenda (the need for God to allow chance events), yet he dismisses God from the equation when Intelligent Designers insist that the creation screams of design, not chance. Miller’s God apparently deals only in chance.
Miller: The concerns of Pope Benedict, as expressed in his earlier writings, are not with evolution per se, but with how evolution is to be understood in our modern world. Biological evolution fits neatly into a traditional Catholic understanding of how contingent natural processes can be seen as part of God’s plan, while “evolutionist” philosophies that deny the divine do not.
Response: Miller says: “Biological evolution fits neatly into a traditional Catholic understanding of how contingent natural processes can be seen as part of God’s plan.” But the tradition of the Church denied the world was the result of an evolutionary process. The traditional Church was in direct opposition to the Greeks who were advocating a theory of evolution long before Charles Darwin came on the scene. Darwin merely gave the full-blown version of evolution. The only matter with which the Fathers and the medievals struggled was whether God made the universe in six days or one day. It wasn’t until Catholics became liberal in their theology in the late 1800s that they started to entertain unsupported scientific theories, such as Darwin’s. Ironically, Darwin was the very person who said that, unless transitional forms could be found, his theory was false. It is logical to assume, then, that Darwin would be appalled at the stances that evolutionists such as Kenneth Miller take today who, after 150 years of not finding any transitional forms, still cling to evolution as a “virtually certain” scientific fact.
As for Miller’s statement that “contingent natural processes can be seen as part of God’s plan,” that’s always been the case, in every avenue of God’s domain (1 Samuel 23:1-14), but how does that give “virtually certain” evidence of evolution? Creation in six days also had its contingent natural processes. When God created birds with wings on the fifth day, they flew by flapping those wings under the Bernoulli principle of air pressure. If the bird stopped flapping its wings it would either fall or come to rest on a branch. That’s real contingency. When God divided the waters on the second day, the water remaining on earth assumed the shape of its container, the ocean basin. The sun gave light because its photons were sent out from its photosphere toward the earth, and those photons hit different places on the earth depending on the position of the globe. Even in the case of Adam contingency is true: if he obeyed God there would be no curse; if he disobeyed there would be a curse. Yes, there is real contingency at work in all these cases, and many more. But contingency says absolutely nothing about evolution. It is merely Miller’s scientific opportunism at work, making it appear as if everything is the result of contingency instead of design, and then concluding that this arbitrarily weighted equation gives evolution a “virtually certain” status. Evolution must produce its own convincing evidence, not ride on the bootstraps of theological contingencies that apply to Creationism as much or better then Evolution.
Miller: Three popes, beginning with Pius XII, have now made this clear. John Paul’s 1996 letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences bore the magnificent title “Truth Cannot Contradict Truth.” Writing in the tradition of Augustine and Aquinas, the late pope affirmed the church’s twin commitments to scientific rationality and to an overarching spiritual view of the ultimate meaning and purpose of life.
Response: This doesn’t prove anything for Miller. Granted, John Paul II said that “truth cannot contradict truth.” Creationists say the same, as does anyone else with common sense. But how does that show “virtually certain” evidence for evolution? John Paul also said in the same speech that a theory without proof is just a theory, and that leaves Kenneth Miller as a mere theorist in the judgment of John Paul II.
Miller: Like many other scientists who hold the Catholic faith, I see the Creator’s plan and purpose fulfilled in our universe. I see a planet bursting with evolutionary possibilities – a continuing creation, in which the divine providence is manifest in every living thing. I see a science that tells us there is indeed a design to life. And the name of that design is evolution.
Response: Our interest is not in “evolutionary possibilities.” We are interested in the cold, hard facts of science. The truth of the matter is this: science is Ken Miller’s worst enemy, because the science of which we are certain won’t allow blind chance to produce complex organisms. If Miller wants to take the theistic evolutionist route and claim that God programmed an evolutionary process, then he is required to show what evidence he has of that assertion, as well as showing on what basis he can now switch from science to theology. Genesis certainly doesn’t speak of such a process. In the end, it is Kenneth Miller who is the “enemy of science,” because he won’t let real science show the flaws and fallacies of evolution.
[1] “Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, pp. 28, 31.
[2] Friday, August 19, 2005.
[3] E.g., Aquinas says: “God knows some things contingently” (De Veritate, Q. 2. A. 12c).
[4] Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fulness of Life, New York, Ballentine Publishing, 1999.
[5] Summa Theologica, I, 22,4 ad 1.
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Thanks for the response. You have no real idea how much little guys like me need the big guns like yourself. There's no way I would be able to take on Miller. That's one of the really cool thing about you knowing your science.
Damien
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