THEY'RE BOTH TOAST:

"A Somewhat Higher Opinion of God": A conversation with biologist Ken Miller. (Interview by Karl W. Giberson, March/April 2004, Books & Culture)

Ken Miller is professor of biology at Brown University. In addition to his specialized research, Miller—a practicing Roman Catholic—is the author of Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. He is also the coauthor of a series of high school and college texts and has frequently debated opponents of evolution (see www. millerandlevine.com/km/evol/). Karl Giberson spoke with Miller about his faith, his public role as a defender of evolution, and the integrity of science. Here we conclude the two-part conversation that began in the previous issue. [...]

The Intelligent Design people who have moved to the cultural center-stage recently make a lot of hay out of the writings of Richard Dawkins, Peter Atkins, Steven Weinberg, and other scientists who are harshly critical of religion. How justified is that?

It is always the case, in any political debate, that the two extremes tend to justify and validate each other. I think the Intelligent Design movement has seized upon the most extreme views of the meaning of evolution to argue that this is an inherent aspect of evolutionary theory.

They recognize what is going on when Dawkins and others in that vein make the statements they do about the meaning and the purpose of life and the irrelevance of religion. What they are doing is essentially abandoning science and pushing a philosophical point of view. Now it is a philosophical viewpoint that these people have every right to hold. But what is important is that the philosophical viewpoint should not be confused with the science that is behind it.

What the Intelligent Design movement has done all too often is to conflate the science and philosophy, to argue that within evolutionary biology there is a philosophy of anti-theism and a pro-materialist or an absolute materialist philosophy. That is simply not true. The fact is that the philosophy and the science are separable. Evolutionary biology is very, very good science. The philosophy that one draws from that, however, depends upon one's own philosophical point of view, and not so much on the science itself.

An interesting thing occurs when you say, "ok, let's teach our children about Intelligent Design theory." What happens very quickly as you try to assemble a curriculum is you realize that there is nothing to teach. Intelligent Design theory is empty. Intelligent Design theory is really nothing more than a set of half-baked arguments against evolutionary biology. It has no coherent, theoretical or factual or scientific basis of its own, and once that is realized the air comes out of the blimp.

I'm sure that the unsettling conversations and disputes about evolution will go on, but I am equally sure that Intelligent Design theory, as it is critically examined by more and more people, is going to lose steam in a very big way.

When ordinary people who might be inclined to accept evolution think about it, they have to think about it as the way that God created us. But it doesn't look that way to them. How can we think about the role of God in evolution and still validate this concept that he is the creator?

I would ask people who are concerned about the issue of how God could have created us if our species arose by evolution to have a somewhat higher opinion of God. What I mean by that is that the God that we know through Christianity is not someone who acts like an ordinary human being, who simply happens to be endowed with supernatural powers. We are talking about a being whose intelligence is transcendent; we're talking about a being who brought the universe into existence, who set up the rules of existence, and uses those rules and that universe and the natural world in which we live to bring about his will.

The overwhelming scientific evidence shows very clearly that all species did not appear simultaneously. They appeared gradually over time and often appeared to take the places of other species that had been lost to the earth by extinction. We human beings—created from the dust of the earth, the Bible says—arose in exactly the same pattern. We are part of the natural world, and I think one aspect of God's message to us is that we have to look to the natural world to understand our relationship with God.

If someone says, "So, how did God create me?" I would ask them to raise their view and look instead at a Creator who brought an incredible evolutionary process into being—that he created not just me and not just you as individuals but he created us as part of the fabric of life that completely covers this planet. I think that's a bold and expansive vision and the one that I hold to.

Evolution is obviously a fact, but neither Darwinism nor Intelligent Design are much use in explaining it. Creation still rules the roost precisely because it makes no pretense to be science.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 30, 2004 02:23 PM