Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution [Paperback]

 

 

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Ken Miller is a Brown University biologist who has tried to make a career out of challenging Intelligent Design theorists. I say "challenge" because Miller hasn't come close to even understanding, let alone rebuking, Intelligent Design theory. In this volume, it becomes apparent that Miller so poorly understands Intelligent Design that he should be dismissed from the debate summarily by both ID adherents and Darwinists. Why? Because his own solution to the Creation/Evolution controversy is, when all is said and done, INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

Miller theorizes that God uses quantum mechanics to make life turn out the way He plans without resorting to miraculous interventions. While this theory of theistically-guided evolution might be unpalatable to Young Earth creationists like Ken Hamm and Henry Morris, and uneasy to Old Earth creationists like Hugh Ross and Gleason Archer who still like their Scripture on the literal side, it fits squarely within the Intelligent Design camp. One can imagine ID advocates like Michael Behe (Catholic), David Berlinski (Jewish), and Jeffrey M. Schwartz (Buddhist) putting forth precisely this argument as an explanation of the designer's mechanism - in fact, Schwartz put forth this exact argument regarding the development of the human brain in "The Mind and the Brain," and has intimated strongly that teleology via way of quantum processes is the driving force behind evolution in various interviews. (For those outside the ID debate, Jeffery M. Schwartz is the neurologist who revolutionized the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and pioneered the use of brain imaging technologies in Psychiatry - in other words, Schwartz is a far more accomplished scientist than Miller. Schwartz was also humble enough to work in collaboration with an actual physicist on his theories, unlike Miller, who's speculating on areas far outside his field of expertise; but then, I suppose evolutionary biologists have taken their own press seriously and really think they do know everything. Neurologists can afford to be more gracious.) Reading "Darwin's God," I get the sense that Miller is actually an ID proponent playing a trick on the scientific establishment by writing a purportedly "Darwinian" book that really builds up the Intelligent Design theory it's supposed to tear down.

Orthodox Darwinists also should not accept Miller as a defender of their "faith," because Miller's proposal marks a turn away from Naturalism toward metaphysics. Of course, it is inevitable that this shift will take place, because the revolutions in Physics and Cosmology must eventually spill over into biology. But trying to say that this turn of events is in the spirit of "Darwinism" is pure bunk.

Miller should be more honest. He's an intelligent design advocate, not a Darwinist, and his energies'd be more usefully spent if he'd acknowledge the truth and go with it. But I suppose it'd be harder to maintain his good standing with his Brown colleagues if he did that.

Miller's book is divided into two equal halves, one for science, one for religion.

Miller really shines in the first half of the book, directly confronting three current, popular, creationist ideas.

Miller starts out proposing that the creation-evolution dispute is largely the result of extremists in both science and religion PARADOXICALLY accepting the extremist position of the other side. In other words, science extremists say science shows that life has no purpose; religious faithful accept that as an accurate description of science; and that leads them to reject science altogether. Similarly, religious extremists say God and evolution are incompatible; scientists accept that; and that leads them to reject religion. So each side's erroneous acceptance of extremist arguments of the other side insures continued conflict.

Correct or not, that proposal is guaranteed to enliven any Bible study or faculty lounge conversation :-)

Chapter 2 describes some entertaining examples (using beer cans!) showing how scientists can obtain reliable knowledge of both ancient events and distant events without either personally observing them or reproducing them in a lab.

Miller also highlights the importance of biogeography, showing that fossil sequences are in an orderly progression, not just chronologically, but also geographically, with similar species close to each other in both time AND space. The Darwinian inference is obvious.

Chapter 3 reviews young-Earth creationism (YEC). Miller uses coprolites (fossilized feces) to show that YEC's literally don't know squat. He also reports brazen dishonesty on the part of a prominent creationist who uses the Earth's magnetic field as young-Earth evidence.

Miller also presents a very simple argument showing how the absence of the 20-plus persistent nuclides with a half-life less than 80 million years shows that Earth must be AT LEAST 1.6 billion years old. This is a disaster for YEC, of course.

YECs often dismiss radiometric dating as being subject to contamination, but Miller shows how geologists avoid those problems with some ingenious cross-checks.

Chapter 4 discusses the Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) advocated by Phillip Johnson, whose version of IDC is based largely on his interpretation of punctuated equilibrium (PE) in the fossil record. PE means, ". . . change is not continuous; . . . [rather] each form remains for long periods unaltered, and then again undergoes modification." (PE is a key concept, so keep that definition in mind for just a moment, please.)

Johnson argues: 1) all species appear in the fossil record suddenly, i.e., in a punctuated manner, thus disproving Darwinian gradualism; and 2) since Darwinism is wrong, fossil sequences must be interpreted as the product of a Great, Overall Design (GOD). But Miller examines the fossil record of several interesting species, showing how they merge into each other, chronologically AND geographically. Considering the sheer number of species throughout geologic history that follow the same pattern of chronologic and geographic progression, the conclusion is inescapable. Arguing that God individually created each one of the millions upon millions of species AND just happened to put every last one of them in a chronologic and geographic order consistent with common descent is more than a little hard to believe!

By the way, remember the definition of PE above? It comes from a very famous book by a very famous author: "The Origin of Species," by Charles Darwin! Yes, that's right. It was Darwin himself who introduced the concept of PE, 100 years BEFORE Gould and Eldredge. He just used different vocabulary. So Johnson's argument that PE is inconsistent with Darwin is simply stupid.

Johnson also argues that evolution lacks an adequate mechanism to make the punctuated changes found in the fossil record. For example, the fossil sequences for horses show a rate of change of .04 darwins, and the fossil sequences for Triceratops show a rate of change of .06 darwins. A "darwin" is a rate of change of 2.718 in 1,000,000 years, and .04 or .06 darwins is a very high rate of change to be found in the fossil record; so Johnson's argument essentially is that species cannot change through natural means at those rates, and that intelligent intervention must have been involved instead. But Miller points out that rates of up to 45,000 darwins are ROUTINELY observed in living species, making Johnson's argument wrong by a factor of up to 10 million!

Chapter 5 examines Michael Behe's irreducible complexity (IC). Behe says IC systems could not possibly have evolved step-by-step, because if a single piece is missing from an IC system, the system will not function at all. Behe identifies several allegedly IC systems, such as the bacterial flagellum and the cilia, which he says will not function at all without all of their parts; but Miller very effectively points out that every single one of Behe's allegedly IC systems is found in nature in a reduced form, and that every single one of those reduced forms still functions just fine! So what doesn't function here is Behe's IC!

Miller's religious opinions in the second half of the book are no more persuasive than others I've read, though his argument that quantum physics indeterminacy invalidates reductionist, determinist philosophies is very intriguing, and possibly very helpful in rebutting both scientistic and creationist arguments that modern science eliminates purpose and free will.

This review gives just a hint of the rich detail in Miller's book. Under Miller's microscope, the flaws of young-Earth creationism, Johnson's intelligent design, and Behe's irreducible complexity are revealed and described in detail. Buy the book to see the rest for yourselves!

Firstly, I am pleased that a professing Christian and a cell biologist has come out of the woodwork and given us his thoughts on evolution, I wish that more would do so. I am fed up with atheistic propagandists like Dawkins telling us what to believe.

The first half of the book is really an apologetic for evolution and Miller clearly believes in evolution and he quite happily commits the scientific blunder of extrapolating from micro-evolution, which is observable, to macro-evolution, which is not. Macro-evolution is a one off event and has to be studied using a forensic approach, while micro-evolution, which is repeatable, can be studied by empirical science. He first pulls apart the arguments of the young earth creationists (I like it). He then criticises Phillip E Johnson for believing that God created each and every species, but this is the doctrine of the 'fixity of the species' held in 1850 and which no modern creationist would hold now. He creates a straw man and then ridicules it.

Then he turns his gun at Behe, who is raising the old Design argument formulated by Paley but in new terminology and which Miller clearly despises. Behe's argument is that there are molecular structures with irreducible complexity, they need all the parts to work, and there is no evolutionary route to obtain these structures by small steps, since there is nothing for natural selection to work on a non-functioning structure. However, if there is a partially functioning structure then natural selection does have something to work on and a better functioning structure is possible, the prime example that Miller gives is blood clotting. Miller then proceeds with macroscopic examples of the evolution of the eye and Bats sonar detection system but without going into much detail. Both of these are theoretically possible to have evolved through small steps, again he assumes that macro-evolution is true and neither example is irreducibly complex or at the molecular level which is the subject of Behe's book. He then trots out the evolutionist's Just-so story about the mammalian ear evolving from the reptile lower jaw. He then proceeds to the 9-2 structure of the cilium and shows that there are various other arrangements of cilium, but they are all functioning cilium and this does not refute Behe's point, it does show that there are simple and complex cilium. Behe should have used the simplest cilium for his example instead of a more complex but common one. Since Behe's book was published in 1996 there have advances in the study of molecular micro-evolution which Miller describes, but most of these do not involve irreducibly complex systems, metabolic pathways are not irreducibly complex. Miller also shows that the complexity of the blood clotting mechanism, which Behe says is irreducibly complex, could be produced through successive stages. Miller also demonstrates that Behe's hypothesis that the original first 'Designed' cell had all its future complexity coded genetically but turned off was doomed to failure because of the accumulation of errors in unexpressed genes. Overall I would give a partial victory to Miller, but he does not manage to dismantle the challenge of irreducible complexity simply by giving examples of the generation of more complex systems from simple systems. Behe clearly needs to update his book and to produce clearer examples of irreducible complexity. Behe has answered Miller's criticism on the web.

At a theological level he makes some good points, he rightly warns us about making God, the god of the gaps. We should expect that science will reveal how such complex mechanisms such as embryonic development, metamorphosis and the brain work, this is because God has already put in place the mechanisms to make it work without supernatural intervention. However it does not necessarily follow that we should expect to see completely naturalistic explanations for our origins unless you are committed to the doctrine of naturalism. Miller believes that the gaps in our knowledge should decrease based on his faith in naturalism. He says that we believe that God is sovereign now while still governing the universe through the laws of nature. This is true, but he also fails to mention that God has used miracles since the creation. He fails to take into account the fact that God has finished his work of creating and that he now upholds the universe using the laws of science as a mechanism. Miller wishes to continue using those same laws to create the universe as well, assuming that God's method of sustaining is the same as his creating, now this may be true, but he should have at least referred to the biblical data.

He rightly points out that some people have taken evolution from its biological domain, and extended it to areas where it has no place. The public has not accepted the theory of evolution because it has been used by atheists to show that life is futile, something that we do not believe is true. Dawkins may delight in the seeming purposeless of life, while he gets a decent paycheck for saying so. He maybe be content with his 'mess of pottage', but that is a concept that the rest of us, who also sometimes struggle with an apparently meaningless life, find repugnant to our inner nature which tells us that there is meaning to the life we live. We should also note that the sovereignty of God means that God can even use chance to his own ends, God not only plays dice he determines the outcome, unfortunately Miller did not make this point.

Certainly worth a read for its thought provoking account of micro-evolution, but look elsewhere for theologically satisfying answers.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific book
This is a tremendous book that will help any seeker reconcile both evolution and the existence of evil with a caring and loving God. Read more

Published on July 5 2004 by M. Eggers

3.0 out of 5 stars Best of Type
I have been intrigued by the on-going debate regarding evolution. As a result, over the last year I have read a range of books on the issue starting with Darwin's Origin of... Read more

Published on May 1 2004

3.0 out of 5 stars Best of Type
I have been intrigued by the on-going debate regarding evolution. As a result, over the last year I have read a range of books on the issue starting with Darwin's Origin of... Read more

Published on April 21 2004

2.0 out of 5 stars Contains many major mistakes
Although this book has much good material, it contains many major mistakes. For example,research by ophthalmologists has clearly shown why the human retina must be of the... Read more

Published on Feb 23 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars An Opening for God in an Indeterminate Universe
This is in many ways a fascinating book. In it, Kenneth Miller argues that the very contingency of the universe allows for the existence of a personal God. Read more

Published on Jan 31 2004 by David B Richman

5.0 out of 5 stars Top-Notch
The author makes a airtight case for evolution and a slightly less convincing one for the truth of the Christian religion. Like the author, I happen to believe in both. Read more

Published on Dec 9 2003

1.0 out of 5 stars Irreducible complexity's best friend?
Is Ken Miller irreducible complexity's best friend? He uses the exact same arguments as Behe, except that instead of designing biochemical pathways, Miller's deity designs quarks... Read more

Published on Oct 15 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars An odd mix in a fine mind
It is certainly reasonable to propose that acceptance of evolution as the means by which living things developed does not necessarily conflict with belief in some sort of higher... Read more

Published on Aug 28 2003 by Jeremy M. Harris

4.0 out of 5 stars A Necessary Bridge
I am a very science minded person, and for years have struggled with reconciling my christian upbringing with my scientific knowledge. Read more

Published on July 15 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book
It would be a crime for any scientist with an open mind to religion, or any religious person with an open mind to science, not to read this book!

Evolution is fact. Read more

Published on Mar 10 2003

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