Ken Miller is a creationist — although you didn’t hear it from me

[...] Bill Dembski noted that the inimitable PZ Myers has attacked Ken Miller, anti-ID Catholic poster boy, for thinking there is any evidence for theism. [...] How pro-Darwin Catholic biochemist Ken Miller came to be hated one fifth as much as non-Darwin Catholic biochemist Michael Behe | Uncommon Descent

When I tried to post on Pharygula, P.Z. Meyers' personal blog, I was greeted with "your stench has preceeded you," followed by immediate bannishment, one of my more treasured achievements in the wonderful world of cyberdom. From that time on he irreversably became M.P. Zeyers. I love it so! "A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable." John A. davison John A. Davison

DaveScot,

I also sent an email to Micah asking him to see if he can figure out why edited comments get a / inserted before every ‘ and “. Weird.

This is a known bug in WordPress that has supposedly been fixed in the latest version. http://wordpress.org/support/topic/86389 sagebrush gardener

Thanks; it's nice to be back! I'm almost done with Miller's book. It's a very interesting attempt to have theology without teleology. (Since it's a theology consistent with Darwinism, it would have to be non-teleological.) I definitely give Miller kudos for trying to have his cake and eat it, too. But beyond that, I'm not too sure, yet. Carlos

I tried to post on Alan's blog but it appears you have to initiate your own blog to do so - which I have no interest in doing. avocationist

Welcome back, Carlos. tribune7

Ken Miller video on YouTube: *** The Colbert Report on Evolution vs Creationism *** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4DJznVkFfU&mode=related&search= JGuy

Fross, So if Behe represents the true core of what I.D. really means, and Ken Miller represents the true core of what evolution really means, and they both agree on the biological history of earth, then why is there a debate going on at all? A very good question indeed. I’m really confused. Is this debate even about evolution? Or is it more about abiogenesis? ID is about detecting design. ID does not attempt a refutation of evolution. As one of its critics you might be in a better position to detail what it is ID's opponents are debating. Surely I.D. requires some tinkering moments in the biological history of earth. (Cambrian explosion) Why? Did you read where Behe and Dembski said that ID does not require such tinkering? So to counter that misunderstanding of how evolution works, it’s usually described as unguided or blind. I don’t think the unguided was ever meant to be a statement on God, but on the process itself. ... The use of terms like “unguided” and “blind” are attempts at correcting this. Unfortunately these terms stepped on the toes of some people who felt “unguided” was a statement on their deity. I believe you are wrong. I think the argument has nothing to do with a misunderstanding of the process and everything to do with making a statement about God. From Darwin's Origins... on it has been presented as a theological concern. If Darwinists didn't mean 'random' they wouldn't have said it. 'Unpredictable' would have made the point from the beginning if that were truly the intent. Also, if they meant that 'unguided' only meant that complexity didn't increase necessarily with evolutionary time then Darwinists such as Harvard's George Gaylord Simpson wouldn't say such things as: "Although many details remain to be worked out, it is already evident that all the objective phenomena of the history of life can be explained by purely naturalistic or, in a proper sense of the sometimes abused word, materialistic factors. They are readily explicable on the basis of differential reproduction in populations (the main factor in the modern conception of natural selection) and of the mainly random interplay of the known processes of heredity. ...Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind." [rev. ed. 1967, p. 344-45] Something isn’t “more evolved” if it’s more complex. Then you have no problem with the idea of the BF preceding the TTSS, eukaryotes preceding prokaryotes, the greater complexity of LUCA* as compared to modern organisms, or biological front-loading of information and complexity on general? Besides, this pseudo-orthogenesis is not a misunderstanding of the ignorant, but a working assumption of biologists in the field, and part of the package which is in continual need of refuting: “Data from many sources, give no direct evidence that eukaryotes evolved by genome fusion between archaea and bacteria.”  ... “Unfortunately, such a model has been tacitly favored by molecular biologists who appeared to view evolution as an irreversible march from simple prokaryotes to complex eukaryotes, from unicellular to multicellular.”Kurland, Collins and Penny, “Genomics and the Irreducible Nature of Eukaryote Cells,” Science, 19 May 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5776, pp. 1011 - 1014, DOI: 10.1126/science.1121674. How else did Darwin, for instance, propose the evolution of the eye but from a "simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect"? *The idea that organisms become more complex rather than less as you get closer to the root of the tree of life is impossible to swallow, says [David] Saul [U. of Auckland, NZ].  A single LUCA “would have to have had the most bizarre biochemistry imaginable”. John Whitfield in the Feb. 19 issue of Nature. Charlie

The problem appears to be fixed now. We can continue at Alan's blog. crandaddy

Carlos, I'm having trouble getting my comment to show up at Alan's blog, so I'll post it here. You can leave your response either here or there. I'll try to have the problem fixed sometime tomorrow.

Hi Carlos, I appreciate your response. (BTW, would you prefer I call you Carlos or Dr. Spinoza?) I’d like to focus on your first paragraph right now if you don’t mind. You mention arrowheads and paintings and say that we can infer that these things are designed because we know the causal processes involved. Let’s suppose you’re out walking around in a natural setting and you come across a rock on the ground that looks strikingly like an arrowhead. In fact, it looks like the most perfectly formed arrowhead you’ve ever seen. Are you justified in concluding that this is an actual artifact crafted by an intelligent agent? Couldn’t it just as easily be the product of wind and erosion? Why isn’t the irregularly shaped rock sitting a few feet away from it designed? Consider this post I made three months ago: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/index.php/archives/1194 . Both formations bear a resemblance of a face, and both could just as easily have been physically caused by either humans or natural erosion. Yet one is considered to be an artifact of the Olmec civilization while the other is regarded simply as the product of erosion. It seems that our detection of design is—in at least some instances—independent of our knowledge of physical causal processes.

crandaddy

[Updated 9.10.06] I don’t know what I was thinking. He’s back if he’ll have us. Yes, I would like to come back. Thank you very much, Dr. Dembski. Carlos

Bill Thanks for restoring Carlos! Nobody could quite figure out what he did and there was a lot of guessing going on. I also sent an email to Micah asking him to see if he can figure out why edited comments get a / inserted before every ' and ". Weird. DaveScot

Fross: I am not sure what the false idea is that you believe "random and unguided" to be a useful correction of. Is it the idea that increasing complexity is associated with further evolution? Or is it the idea that a particular KIND, (lets say elephants) would eventually move towards bipedalism as some kind of logical and predetermined superior state? These are very different ideas, and not really related at all. tinabrewer

So if Behe rules out a "preceding state" then doesn't that require a break in common ancestry? Or would it be more like some saltation event where the new genetic code was inserted in one generation but the common descent pattern is still there? Also, you miss my point about the ladder of evolution. While complexity may increase, this isn't a ladder that's predetermined and there's no inherent intelligence in the process. Something isn't "more evolved" if it's more complex. A good example of this misunderstanding is Hollywood's depiction of evolution. In the movie Evolution, single celled creatures from outerspace landed on earth and they had this sort of progressive evolution until they evolved into these bipedal ape like aliens. Star Trek: the Next Generation had an episode where the crew all "devolved" to their ancestral animal form as if any type of animal can eventually evolve into a "more evolved" humanoid creature. The worst offender was the movie Mission to Mars, where the astronauts learn that Martians seeded the earth with microbes that were designed to evolve into humans. While depicting this, they showed dinosaurs morphing into elephants and somehow the chain ended in the ultimate human form. This depiction of evolution is the mainstream depiction and it's completely false. The use of terms like "unguided" and "blind" are attempts at correcting this. Unfortunately these terms stepped on the toes of some people who felt "unguided" was a statement on their deity. Fross

Fross, All Behe has done is present a few instances of complex systems where there is no obviously preceding state. All the Darwinists have done to counteract that claim is say that there are instances when the proteins in the existing state have had another use someplace. They have not provided any sequence of preceding states for the system in question, most often only providing instances of the protein or something similar having a use elsewhere. Ken Miller is one of those who has led the charge against Behe. I think most of us are aware of the biological possibility that some strain of something like e-coli could kill every other life form on the planet and this would theoretically be within the theory of evolution. James Valentine, who is the dean of invertebrate paleontology, makes a big deal of the constant increase of the number of cell types in animals and believes it will continue. At present it is over 200 and was about 30-40 at the Cambrian Explosion and only one a couple hundred million years earlier. So while there can definitely be regressions some Darwinists believe the march of complexity moves on and the evidence supports it. jerry

Fross, It is certainly true that Miller and Behe are not so far apart. The difference lies in that whereas Behe thinks design is detectable, Miller speculates about God acting in the quantum realm and he says that he personally believes in God, but he has not strayed out of bounds by saying we can ever observe evidence of God/Mind/Intelligence/Purpose. This is why I said theistic evolutionists eviscerated themselves. Because there seems to be an agreement that so long as they adhere to keeping God in an utterly separate supernatural realm with no detectible role, they they can be allowed in the science club. This position is not logical, not coherent, and not particularly likely, and I suspect it is held by an act of will, rather than real thought. avocationist

Davescot writes: So where is the funding supposed to come from when any taxpayer derived is verboten? How about the John Tempelton Foundation, who's stated mission is "to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for scientific discovery on what scientists and philosophers call the ‘Big Questions.’ " cjok

But Carlos, You nonetheless missed my point that you have made a blanket assumption that everyone is attached to their personal philosophy first, and then seeks the origins paradigm that best fits. Whereas I was trying to point out that it is possible to be more truth oriented. Some people, convinced by arguments, have changed their origins beliefs. *** Oh dear! I just got the part where Carlos is banned - I thought he was always polite - but I had been meaning to point out to him that while the alien progenitors idea is very interesting and I consider it a very likely occurrence on our planet, it really doesn't solve the question of origins at all, just removes it a step. If the ID inference is correct, what difference does it make if we remove the problem one step in time and distance to another planet. And by the way, I think said aliens did not originate life forms here at all, but were probably genetic tinkerers as we are now doing with our genetic engineering. *** It seems to me that PZ Meyers is saying it isn't OK to be a theistic evolutionist, which is a shame, since the theistic evolutionists appear to have eviscerated themselves in order to be able to play on the science playground. **** I thought maybe Carlos got banned for saying he was going to make the TID label to differentiate between those who think aliens did it. I cannot believe he got banned for saying he did not believe the basic tenets of ID hold water - lots of people say that. avocationist

Tina, We make those claims here and are willing to support those claims. Carlos, never supplied any specifics for his latest claim so he could not be challenged on anything. It would have been nice to push Carlos to the wall on this to see what he would or would not say. On a couple other threads here when he was challenged he then punted. That is why it is so nice to have the Darwinists here, to see where they run when pushed. Carlos insulted those who espouse ID but provided no evidence. How long would you last at PZ Meyer's site if you went there and say that his work is vacuous and especially if you provide nothing to back up your claim. jerry

Tina If you (and Crandaddy, and anyone else, for that matter) would like to continue a dialogue with Carlos, there is a forum open here. Alan Fox

So if Behe represents the true core of what I.D. really means, and Ken Miller represents the true core of what evolution really means, and they both agree on the biological history of earth, then why is there a debate going on at all? I'm really confused. Is this debate even about evolution? Or is it more about abiogenesis? Surely I.D. requires some tinkering moments in the biological history of earth. (Cambrian explosion) Also, there is a deep misunderstanding of how evolution works in general. Most people (in the US) think it means species will automatically go up a ladder of progression, and that somehow the process has some kind of intelligence to it. (ie the animal tries to evolve itself, or the evolution ladder is predetermined and all species can eventually evolve to be intelligent bipedal beings, etc) So to counter that misunderstanding of how evolution works, it's usually described as unguided or blind. I don't think the unguided was ever meant to be a statement on God, but on the process itself. Fross

Mats says "Sure they are, and Alvin Platinga gave an example. If someone were to say ‘God created 3 meters rabbits in Iceland, is this testable? Yes, go to ICeland, and check it. Is it falsifiable? Yes." If 3 meter rabbits were found in Iceland that would only confirm that 3 meter rabbits exist in Iceland, not that God created them just because somebody said so. bebbo

Carlos wasn't so bad. BK

jerry, thanks. However, they say that all the time, don't they? That is why there is disagreement as opposed to agreement. I thought. I think their science is bankrupt and vacuuous, and WE here certainly make that point often enough. tinabrewer

Tina, Carlos, essentially said that the owner of this site was intellectually bankrupt and provided no evidence for his claim. His words "Speaking strictly for myself, it’s because I think the notions of “informational complexity and probability” at work in ID theory are vacuous by contemporary standards of empirical and mathematical precision." Now I do not know if that is what got Carlos banned but it essentially said ID is vacuous, and by implication those who use probability and information science as a basis for it must be inept. jerry

was there a reason that Carlos was kicked off? I read his comments and found them to be helpful. I am confused... tinabrewer

In other words, first convince the materialists that the evidence suports ID, THEN present it in schools, right? It was a question, Mats. I am unaware of a proposed research hypothesis. I would be grateful if you or anyone could correct me if this is not so by advising me of such a hypothesis. Alan Fox

Alan Fox,

What ID research programs have been proposed, and isn’t it putting the cart before the horse to talk about dicussing ID as science in schools before any such research hypothesis has been proposed?

In other words, first convince the materialists that the evidence suports ID, THEN present it in schools, right? Mats

An ID research programs is not eligible for public funding and could not be discussed in a public school.

What ID research programs have been proposed, and isn't it putting the cart before the horse to talk about dicussing ID as science in schools before any such research hypothesis has been proposed? Alan Fox

Ken Miller claims to believe that physichemical laws can account for the origin and development of anabolic metabolism. That is not a scientific belief system. This is a battle of Materialist Faiths. Let 'em fight. mmadigan

Some of Meyers' remarks deserve some comments:

Claims that a god operates in the natural world are not testable.

Sure they are, and Alvin Platinga gave an example. If someone were to say 'God created 3 meters rabbits in Iceland, is this testable? Yes, go to ICeland, and check it. Is it falsifiable? Yes.

They lack evidence in support.

They lack evidence, or there can't be any evidence, according to the self-serving rules of science? (Naturalism)

They make no predictions.

1. Systematic gaps in higher orders 2. Abrupt appearence in the fossil record 3. Limited variation within the kind. 4. No naturalistic process able to generate information systems, like the DNA, etc, etc. Those who invoke God has the Creator have given some predictions regarding the past, and some regarding the future. Meyers must have missed those.

They guide no hypotheses. They add nothing to any explanations of the natural world. They are contradicted by an absence of evidence.

Meyers hasn't investigated all the evidence, but has concluded that God does not interveen in the natural realm. Secondly, unlike what Meyers believes, it wasn't atheism that served as the foundation for modern operational science. It was Christian Theism that served as the foundational for the advance of modern operational science.

But some will object, ‘If we allowed appealing to God anytime we don’t understand something, then science itself would be impossible, for science proceeds on the assumption of natural causality.’ This argument is a red herring. It is true that science is not compatible with just any form of theism, particularly a theism that holds to a capricious god who intervenes so often that the contrast between primary and secondary causality is unintelligible. But Christian theism holds that secondary causality is God’s usual mode and primary causality is infrequent, comparatively speaking. That is why Christianity, far from hindering the development of science, actually provided the womb for its birth and development. Moreland, J. P., 1989. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation, Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 226.

Meyers adds:

Claims that gods do not exist or do not interfere in natural processes, and that we must base our interpretations on an assumption that events occur by the action of natural phenomena, however, have been the essential operational basis of all of science, and that has worked incredibly well.

Like....in the origen of life? Mats

Fross An ID research programs is not eligible for public funding and could not be discussed in a public school. So where is the funding supposed to come from when any taxpayer derived is verboten and how is interest in it going to be sparked in budding young scientists when it's illegal to mention it in public schools? ID as a legitimate area of scientific interest has been crippled by the political/legal chicanery of its opponents. Winning the legal right of equal access to money and minds must be accomplished. DaveScot

BTW, it’s too bad Carlos isn’t around anymore. I wanted to ask him a question about comment #6. Comment by crandaddy — September 10, 2006 @ 2:07 am Crandaddy and Carlos, If you would like to continue your discussion, go here Alan Fox

Some comments Miller: "Some of those who take a materialist world view assert that science alone can lead us regarding the nature of existence, or that scientific knowledge is the only kind worth having, said Miller. In doing so, these skeptics ignore the limitations of science, just as the creationists ignore the limits of theology." IMHO we should be very grateful to Dr. Miller for this kind of statements. First, he's going to shift his positions towards ID; second, in this way more and more atheistic statements by people as PZ will be produced. "while many scientists do believe in some god or gods, he cannot claim that they draw that conclusion from the evidence—there is no evidence supporting the existence of any deities. Miller should know this." And the recent book by one of the chief of the Genomic project ? :-) kairos

Paul Myers, no longer content to shoot himself in the foot, is now focusing on more vital parts of his anatomy.

Oh boy! Poor fellow evidently doesn't have the mental capacity to realize the gun is pointing in the wrong direction. I'm thankful for PZ; I really am. Without people like him around, this world would be a lot less entertaining! :lol: BTW, it's too bad Carlos isn't around anymore. I wanted to ask him a question about comment #6. crandaddy

It may or may not be appropriate to comment as I have before, that the Judeo/Christian view of salvation history looks to many like "tinkering". If that is how salvation looks, it may be that the biosphere will look like that too. It may be intellectually uncomfortable or it may indicate one of the meanings of the term "living God". idnet.com.au

Sorry for the bad format, the last quote is from MIller, on Behe. These easy-to-remember points really should be part of a FAQ page. Charlie

Fross, "The vast majority of the I.D. movement doesn’t accept the common descent of all species either, so the most common definition of I.D. out there clearly requires a scenario that is compatible with the Old Testament." Whoever defines this so-called movement doesn't define ID the scientific endeavour as forwarded by the scientists proposing it. " If I.D. is going to be THE alternative to evolution, then it needs to be able to explain all that evolution attempts to explain. If not, then it’s not an alternative theory." ID is not an alternative and does not purport to be. ID is compatible with evolution. Carlos, "I’m going to start using TID, theistic intelligent design, to distinguish intelligent design that is explicitly or implicitly theistic." Okay. "A theistic ID response to Miller’s theistic evolutionism would be interesting, I think. Has anyone tried doing this?" What do you mean? Is this what you are you looking for? Miller:

In Finding Darwin's God, Miller (1999, 241) writes: "The indeterminate nature of quantum events would allow a clever and subtle God to influence events in ways that are profound, but scientifically undetectable to us. Those events could include the appearance of mutations, the activation of individual neurons in the brain, and even the survival of individual cells and organisms affected by the chance processes of radioactive decay.""

Behe has responded that ID is not incompatible with complete front-loading of all information at the Big Bang, or with design being expressed in quantum events, a la Miller. Dembski:

"Intelligent design is not a theory about the frequency or locality at which a designing intelligence intervenes in the material world. It is not an interventionist theory at all. Indeed, intelligent design is perfectly compatible with all the design in the world being front-loaded in the sense that all design was introduced at the beginning (say at the Big Bang) and then came to expression subsequently over the course of natural history much as a computer program's output becomes evident only when the program is run. "

"In plain language, this means that Michael Behe and I share an evolutionary view of the natural history of the Earth and the meaning of the fossil record; namely, that present-day organisms have been produced by a process of descent with modification from their ancient ancestors. Behe is clear, firm, and consistent on this point. For example, when Michael and I engaged in debate at the 1995 meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation, I argued that the 100% match of DNA sequences in the pseudogene region of beta-globin was proof that humans and gorillas shared a recent common ancestor. To my surprise, Behe said that he shared that view, and had no problem with the notion of common ancestry." > Charlie

Carlos is no longer with this forum. [Updated 9.10.06] I don\'t know what I was thinking. He\'s back if he\'ll have us. --WmAD William Dembski

bFast, If ID simply meant God fine tuned the beginning, then at best it would support a Deistic view of the Universe. While I agree, this can be seen as an ID view, it is a very general definition of ID that does encompass theistic evolution. The most common I.D. view is that the Universe is fine tuned, but not fine tuned enough for life to be able to form, radiate and adapt on its own. The vast majority of the I.D. movement doesn't accept the common descent of all species either, so the most common definition of I.D. out there clearly requires a scenario that is compatible with the Old Testament. (types being formed individually) While I understand that ID is simply about detecting design in biological organisms, it should have the ability (since it's trying to remain grounded in science) to formulate time tables of design events over the course of the geological time scale. If I.D. is going to be THE alternative to evolution, then it needs to be able to explain all that evolution attempts to explain. If not, then it's not an alternative theory. Examples would be design events, radiation events, extinction events, newer design events, etc. If it does accept change over time, make phylogenic trees for the speciation events it does accept. It's not doing any of this. Instead it's spending its time on the political front, attacking Wikipedia web pages, and basing Darwin's theory in every conceivable fashion. (as if they'd win by default if Darwin's ideas were shown to be incorrect) Fross

Miller doesn't like the interventionist conception of God that he thinks is implied by ID. He doesn't like to think of God as a tinkering mechanic. Whether a theistic IDer is committed to that conception of God is an interesting question. A theistic ID response to Miller's theistic evolutionism would be interesting, I think. Has anyone tried doing this? I'm going to start using TID, theistic intelligent design, to distinguish intelligent design that is explicitly or implicitly theistic. AID, atheistic or agnostic intelligent design, would designate intelligent design theorists and supporters who are either undecided on the identity of the designer or who think that the designer couldn't be God, but could be an advanced alien race, e.g. "the Progenitors." Carlos

PZ Myers writes as follows "To those who disagree with my calling Miller a creationist: tough. I've read his book, I've listened to several of his talks. He believes that evolution is insufficient to explain our existence, and has to postulate a mysterious intelligent entity that just happens to be the Christian god as an active agent in our history, and further, he believes he can make common cause with more overt creationists by highlighting his religious beliefs. Theistic evolutionists are part of the wide spectrum of creationist beliefs, and that he personally endorses the power of natural processes in 99.99% of all cases does not change what he is, it just means we're haggling over the degree." http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/09/more_on_that_miller_guy.php idnet.com.au

Why is it so hard to believe that ID is based on evidence of informational complexity and probability? Speaking strictly for myself, it's because I think the notions of "informational complexity and probability" at work in ID theory are vacuous by contemporary standards of empirical and mathematical precision. Theologically, avocationist, I consider you a sort of Neoplatonic emanationist. Neoplatonism is the skeleton of Abrahamic mysticism, whether Christian, Jewish (Kabbalah), or Muslim (Sufism). I suppose I haven't considered carefully enough the role that "Eastern" (Hindu? Buddhist? Taoist?) influences play on your theology -- though I should pay more attention to your use of "nondual," which should have alerted me right off. What are those? Militant atheists consider theistic evolutionists to have strayed off the reservation of evidence as construed by contemporary scientific methods. (E.g. personal experience isn't "evidence," since it isn't reproducible, quantifiable, objective, etc.) So Myers criticizes Miller, and even calls him "the c-word"(!), because Miller reconciles personal faith with NDE. (Incidentally, I've read most of Finding Darwin's God, and while I applaud his attempt to have his cake and eat it, too, it really does look like more "god-of-the-gaps" stuff.) I'm not sure what criticisms supernaturalists make of intelligent design theorists, but I'm sure that someone else here can flesh out this half of the picture. Carlos

Ken Miller, the best I can tell, you believe in creation "by law". Your position seems much like Denton's expresses in "Nature's Destiny". Denton recognises that if God engineered all that is by fine-tuning the big bang, then we are still the design of God. The By Law position, as far as I can see, and as far as Denton can see is an ID position. Dr. Miller, why not follow the truth that you know, and recognize that you believe that God made all of this, that He designed it. Let this be the day that you come out of the closet and admit, "I am an IDer." bFast

Intelligent design is an attempt at constructing a science that’s compatible with a certain interpretation of Abrahamic theology Oh, you should know better than this by now! Why is it so hard to believe that ID is based on evidence of informational complexity and probability? Why the western bias? The three book religions are not the only ones in the world. I have little interest in Abrahamic theology, yet I agree with ID. To each extreme, IDers and TErs seem to have compromised on the very points that are most essential. What are those? avocationist

Interesting comments, Carlos. I think a fundamental distinction here (although I'm not quite sure what groups the distinction applies to) is that Ken Miller and other TE's fully accept the scientific view of evolution and of the physical world in general. Jack Krebs

I've noticed a lively debate among the Pharyngula commenters -- some of them taking Myers to task, others congratulating him. It's an interesting read. I guess the Creationist vs ID has its counterpart in Materialistic Naturalism vs “Religion friendly” Evolution. To some extent -- insofar as supernaturalists and militant atheists aren't willing to accept any compromise with an alternative conceptual/evaluative framework, or indeed, willing to consider that irremediable problems that arise from within their respective frameworks may be resolvable from the perspective afforded by an alternative. And of course there are many such alternative frameworks. Intelligent design is an attempt at constructing a science that's compatible with a certain interpretation of Abrahamic theology; theistic evolution (TE) is an attempt at constructing a theology that's compatible with roughly a neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. To each extreme, IDers and TErs seem to have compromised on the very points that are most essential. And of course, human psychology being what it is, IDers regard TErs as closet materialists, whereas TErs see IDers as closet supernaturalists. It's a nice family drama, all right. Carlos

Thanks, Dr Ken! I know what side you're on, now…it's you and the creationists, best friends 4ever! Did they promise to let you strike the match at the atheist-burning? If that doesn't make it clear it's not about science for them nothing will. tribune7

I guess the Creationist vs ID has its counterpart in Materialistic Naturalism vs "Religion friendly" Evolution. jpark320