Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul

Love this book. I am a Christian in the loosest term, even so, I still and always have believed in evolution. It is plainly anti-intellectual and dishonest to reject this theory, yet, that is all the more common. We have politicians with "some college education" telling thousands if not millions of people to question it.

Last year I left evangelicalism in favor of agnosticism. A major reason for my departure was twenty-four years of negative experiences within the Church. However, another important impetus was an exposure to deeper levels of science and rationality through the works of Hitchens, Dawkins, Stenger, and others. I had become tired of living with the tension between various conflicting ideas that Christianity requires of a believer, and these authors suggested a more rational alternative. One area of tension in particular was the dissonance between evolution and intelligent design (ID). "Only A Theory" addresses this battle, and it's one of the best and most tactful books I've read on the subject. Indeed, it should act as the obsolescence notice that ID has needed for a long time. "Only A Theory" focuses on the American battlefront concerning evolution and ID. The two foes recently went head-to-head in Pennsylvania, where both camps were put on trial as a result of the Dover Board of Education's desire to add ID instruction in public school. After hearing testimony from both sides (including the author and ID proponent Michael Behe) and examining the evidence, the court ruled that ID was another name for religious creationism, and it was thrown out of the academic setting. Mr. Miller was encouraged by science's courtroom triumph, but given the strength and righteous indignation of the ID movement, he fears for the future of evolution and the scientific method. The title of this book reflects that concern, since one of ID's biggest catchphrases is that evolution is "only a theory," and therefore other competing "theories" like ID deserve equal hearing. The author has reason to be afraid. As a former evangelical Christian and seminary graduate, I can affirm that ID is a user-friendly term for a faith-based system of thought that stands at odds with rational science. I've seen "Darwinism" portrayed by the Church as a subtle tool of satanic forces arrayed against God's faithful. Rationalism is considered a slippery slope to atheism and moral relativism, as exemplified by Nietzsche, Nazism, and Communism. To counter this darkness, believers such as Henry Morris responded with scientific creationism. However, that term sounded too religious, so the name was changed to the more palatable "intelligent design." ID star Michael Behe wrote books advocating ID-centric ideas like "irreducible complexity" (IC) to show that gradual evolution could not have produced complex biological organs or processes. Do the proponents of ID have a point, or are they simply in over their heads? The author argues the latter. He categorically rejects the idea that ID has any scientific merit, and correctly labels it as a philosophical branch of evangelical Christianity. However, far from the polemic statements made by Dawkins and Hitchens, Mr. Miller presents the facts underlying modern science and evolution in a non-inflammatory way. Although he acknow

The book briefly discusses the genetic evidence for common descent, and describes the consequences of trying to take the Intelligent Design stuff as serious science. But he also tries to explain why evolution gets such a chilly reception in the U.S. Part of this is the American tradition of distrusting authority, in this case scientists. But the heart of the religious objection is that evolution as frequently explained says that human beings are an accident. I think this interpretation is a problem for traditional religious belief. But the author thinks that this interpretation has gotten too much attention. He uses the principles of evolutionary convergence and constraints to argue that the eventual arrival of self-aware beings may actually have been somewhat inevitable. Hence, a divine being can work through evolution. The idea that God can work through evolution is hardly new, but he author makes an attempt to flesh it out somewhat from the scientific end. I'm not sure about the inevitability of self-aware beings, but it's an interesting counter-point to the usual suggestion that evolution is affected so much by contingency (Stephen J. Gould being the most well-known advocate). But I think that making such grand conclusions about evolution, whether using contingency or convergence, is misguided. We just don't know. It also means that the religious objections to evolution are unclear. I think this leaves the door open to people who are inclined to believe that God works through evolution.

The market is crowded with books on the evolution/intelligent design "controversy," so much so that works in this area have become highly repetitious--read one, it seems, and one has read them all. This is a refreshing book in a couple of respects. First, Miller's rhetorical approach is to err on the side of taking the claims of intelligent design more seriously than they really deserve. As a result, the book does not come across as polemical, and this gives rise to the hope that an ID creation-sympathetic reader might actually read it and learn something truly useful about the flaws of ID creationism rather than getting insulted and putting it aside in disgust. Miller initially presents the claims of design without rebuttal and acknowledges how powerful these claims--if true--are. Only after having given these claims an initially friendly treatment does he then return to them and explain just why they are unsupported by evidence. Second, Miller argues fairly forcefully that acknowledging the facts of evolution does not compel one to reject religion, and he does so from the position of a person of faith--Miller being, himself, a Roman Catholic. He does not purport to be able to "prove" his religious faith in purely rational terms, but only to show that science does not exclude it. His arguments, being somewhat subjective in nature (e.g., the "fine-tuned universe" argument) are going to seem persuasive to some and not at all persuasive to others, but he does a splendid job of setting them out and putting the case well. The main thesis comes toward the end, and is reflected in the subtitle, "Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul." Miller is concerned that the fight over creationism has morphed, through the political program of intelligent design, into an all-out attack upon science at its roots--and upon America's "scientific soul." Where the hard sciences have been largely untouched by the advent of extreme relativism, ID threatens to introduce that relativism to biology--a relativism which asserts that there is no real "right" or "wrong," that objective knowledge is beyond our reach, and that all points of view and ways of looking at evidence are equally valid. Such a view would of course undermine the whole foundation of science. Materialism is under attack; methodological naturalism is under attack; and if these attacks succeed, what can remain of science? Nothing good, to be sure; baraminology would have equal status with cladistics, "flood geology" equal status with real geology, and so on. Miller's involvement in school-book publishing as the author of popular biology textbooks, his involvement in disputes over school-book choice, and his testimony as a fact and expert witness in federal trials over anti-evolution laws and ID creationism policies have given him a seat front-and-center to this battle for our scientific soul, and his hopes and fears clearly have been shaped by the fights he has seen. He ably points

"Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul" is all we have come to expect from noted Brown University cell biologist Kenneth R. Miller in the course of his many public debates against creationists; a sterling blend of ample wit and elegant prose coupled with his passionate sincerity in defending genuine science's methodology and data from those intellectual Vandals seeking to replace it with their delusional notion of pseudoscientific mendacious intellectual pornography known as Intelligent Design. Here, in this succinctly-worded, quite magnificent, book, Miller has rendered an elegantly stated, magisterial refutation not only of Intelligent Design's pathetic pretense of being genuine science, but of its ongoing - and regrettably still successful - effort to claim America's "scientific soul" as he has defined it, and thus, to pose a dire threat to American scientific and technological supremacy. Fanatical skeptics like Discovery Institute mendacious intellectual pornographers ("Fellows" and "Senior Fellows") Michael Behe, William Dembski, David Klinghoffer, Paul Nelson, and Jonathan Wells, among others, will scoff at Ken Miller's assertions, and accuse him of being "possessed" or "enslaved" by his "atheistic, liberal Darwinist" agenda. However, unlike them, Miller has consistently staked out views recognizing that science and religion must remain separated - despite his own devoutly held Roman Catholic religious convictions - and indeed, his cogent remarks are rather quite persuasive, and, happily, harbor the glimmerings of some hope despite their dire alarmist nature. Without question "Only A Theory" ought to serve as a clarion call to those willing to be persuaded by Miller's arguments, because the emotional, intellectual and political stakes for America's future are quite high, and among these include the survival of a vibrant, American science as a rational enterprise totally devoid of supernatural considerations (For these reasons alone, "Only A Theory" demands a wide readership, extending well beyond the battle lines of contested school districts like Dover, Pennsylvania's to the very halls of Congress, even if there are many, in Washington, D. C., unlikely to listen to Miller's warning.). Not only evolutionary biology, but geology, chemistry, and physics too would be twisted beyond recognition by the Discovery Institute's zealous band of mendacious intellectual pornographers seeking a more expansive "definition" of science that allows "research" into supernatural phenomena; a nonsensical definition endorsed by Behe, having admitted under oath at the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial, that astrology could be accepted as science. What is America's "scientific soul" and why its survival remains in jeopardy from Intelligent Design's ongoing, vigorous - or perhaps more accurately, fanatical - assault, are among the most important, most compelling, themes examined by Miller in his elegant, terse tome. As Miller eloquently notes i

It's a question that I have pondered before, "How can America be one of the most scientifically advanced nations when such a scientific idea as evolution is so widely doubted compared to other countries?" But for the more economically thoughtful among us the answer is probably more obvious than not. The incredible -- and ironically rather Darwinistic -- powers and capabilities of competitive capitalism lie at the heart of America's soul. Consequentially, business is not the only place where such factors are present in the United States, for science is home to them as well. The result, then, is that just as good and bad products come and go before really great ones succeed in the niche of popular demand, scientific ideas (even so called ones) are in a manner of speaking subject to the same experience. But there's a little bit of problem here, as Kenneth Miller elaborates on in his new book "Only a Theory". While the more competitive nature of science in the States has given fertile ground to great ideas, the arbiters of what constitutes good scientific ideas worth being taught in the curriculum have too often not been scientists! Rather political ideologues have attempted to interject what is somewhere between poor science and not-science to be either taught along with genuine science (at best...) if not to its detriment (at worst). With these concerns as the foundation of his book, Miller describes the problems that could confront America's scientific eminence if such aforementioned political forces were to gain further power. To fulfill his duty to ensure that more people become educated, and therefore hopefully able to make better decisions when it comes to the scientific education of our children, Miller, for three chapters, engages in a powerful but honest assault on the (so-called) alternative scientific ideas that were argued over in the 2005 Dover trial. This is probably the best part of the book and undoubtedly the reason why many, if not most, will read it. Much of this portion of the book reads like a version 2.0 of his previous book "Finding Darwin's God". Miller takes on once again the claims surrounding the sacred icon of the recent "Intelligent Design" movement: the bacterial flagellum. He also again addresses the argument of irreducible complexity as it relates to the blood-clotting cascade. Beyond this, Miller references a couple of examples of observed evolution-in-action with regards to synthetic compounds, and looks at our genetic relationship with the chimps. Suffice it to say Miller does, as we've come to expect, an excellent job dealing with the science and making his case. Michael Behe's newer work "The Edge of Evolution" even gets a little addressing. It is perhaps a bit misguided to think that this book is all but a screed of scientific arguments. In fact, although it contains the scientific arguments, it's also more than that. Miller explores how the educational system is, in fact, facilitating the "c