Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

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

William Dembski
September 9, 2006
Darwinism, Evolution, Science
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Paul Myers, no longer content to shoot himself in the foot, is now focusing on more vital parts of his anatomy. Check out the following: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/09/ken_miller_creationist.php. Ken Miller is the best friend Myers and his merry band of atheists ever had, putting a veneer of respectability and religious tolerance over the village atheism of Darwin’s most ardent followers.

Comments
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
September 10, 2006
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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
September 10, 2006
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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 hereAlan Fox
September 10, 2006
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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
September 10, 2006
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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
September 10, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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. --WmADWilliam Dembski
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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.phpidnet.com.au
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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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
September 9, 2006
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I guess the Creationist vs ID has its counterpart in Materialistic Naturalism vs "Religion friendly" Evolution.jpark320
September 9, 2006
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