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Ken Miller — A Wasted Life?

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Over at evolutionnews.org Casey Luskin blogs about how Ken Miller, in a BBC documentary entitled A War on Science, distorts and misrepresents Bill Dembski’s methods for inferring intelligent design.

Ken’s constant distortion of ID theory is very revealing. He can’t address the real arguments, evidence, or logic, so he makes stuff up. It’s like what Judge Jones said regarding irreducible complexity, that Behe ignores co-option, as though co-option is a real phenomenon and not just a made-up story that defies evidence and logic. Miller continues this silly tradition with reference to the Type 3 secretory system, as if this should end all debate about the power of Darwinian mechanisms to produce highly complex and functionally integrated biological machinery.

Personally, I don’t think that Ken is insincere. I think that his entire professional life, and sense of purpose in life, is so invested in Darwinism that he can’t imagine that this philosophy might be wrong. If it turns out that it is wrong, Ken’s life will have been a wasted effort, and no one wants that engraved on his tombstone.

Comments
1. He’s distorting on purpose because he’s deathly afraid of ID. 2. He’s not smart enough to understand what Dembski is saying.
There is a third possibility. 3. In his own mind his reasoning must be correct and true, because Darwinism has been established as an indisputable axiom.GilDodgen
March 23, 2007
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"If it turns out that it is wrong, Ken’s life will have been a wasted effort, and no one wants that engraved on his tombstone." I echo what TerryL has already said. If he has indeed based his life on such a foolish idea as blind watchmaker Darwinism, and it's wrong, then a major part of his life will have been wasted. If however, BWD is correct, then his entire life is meaningless anyway. I tend to think though that many people such as Miller, maybe even Dawkins, will come to realize BWD is wrong. As far as the whole "not wasted as long as you're 'passionate' about something" argument goes, if BWD is correct, that word has no meaning. "Personally, I don’t think that Ken is insincere." I do. I read about this yesterday, and I could only come up with two possible explanations: 1. He's distorting on purpose because he's deathly afraid of ID. 2. He's not smart enough to understand what Dembski is saying. I can't believe number two is correct.shaner74
March 23, 2007
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micahsparacio, Perhaps I should have been more specific and said that Ken's professional life -- all the writing, teaching, traveling, lecturing, appearing on television, etc., in defense of blind-watchmaker Darwinism and attacking ID and its proponents -- will have been a wasted effort. But this seems to represent a huge portion of his life in general, indeed, virtually his raison d'être. If blind-watchmaker Darwinism is false and ID is true, this huge and vitally significant portion of his life will have been wasted.GilDodgen
March 23, 2007
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Micah: Will his life have been a wasted effort for being wrong about what he’s passionate about? Now that is a slippery slope! Micah: Are we to say that only those people who are correct have lived lives of worth? I would say "no" because it may be that the incorrect people helped the other people become correct. IOW their "incorrectness" was the impetus for people to look for themselves and see that "man behind the curtain". And in the end science is about reality. That is science is the search for the truth, ie the reality (behind the existence of that we are investigating), via our never ending quest for knowledge. And you cannot define science to arbitrarily pick-n-choose reality.
In any case, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out, debate about methodological rules of science often forms part of the practice of science, especially during times when established paradigms are being challenged. Those who reject the "teach the controversy" model on the grounds that ID violates the current rules of scientific practice only beg the question. The present regime of methodological rules cannot prevent the controversy for the simple reason that those rules may themselves be one of the subjects of scientific controversy. page xxv of Darwinism, Design and Public Education (bold added)
Do deniers of reality lead wasted lives? Possibly, but if they don't harm anything, and don't force their opinions on others, would anyone notice?Joseph
March 23, 2007
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PhilVaz, "Ken Miller supports ID at the cosmological level, but not the biological level." Man is a biological entity, of course, and the Bible says there are angels, demons, and that the cross of Christ was planned before the world was. So does he think man was planned before the world was or not? If so, it would seem to me that it is impossible to maintain any sort of blind watchmaker thesis when it comes to man.mike1962
March 23, 2007
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Ken Miller supports ID at the cosmological level, but not the biological level. "Nonetheless, in his book [Finding Darwin's God] he argues that the universe was indeed designed, using the fine-tuning of cosmological constants as his primary evidence. He also finds scope for God's action in quantum indeterminacy and argues that miracles can occur, but that science can say nothing about them...." (Michael Behe, from "A Catholic Scientist Looks at Darwinism" in Uncommon Dissent edited by Dembski, page 143-144) Phil PPhilVaz
March 23, 2007
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Seems to me that if he's right--that ID is pseudoscience; that life is the result of blind, unguided, wholly naturalistic processes; and that the universe is the result of a massive cosmic accident--his life has been pretty much wasted anyway. I find it difficult to find meaning and purpose in an accidental universe. Without meaning and purpose, isn't ALL life ultimately wasted? We live; we die; and what does it matter?TerryL
March 23, 2007
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The concept of a "wasted life" is foreign to science. A scientist whose life-long hypothesis is disproved by his students will die happy.mgarelick
March 23, 2007
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Will his life have been a wasted effort for being wrong about what he's passionate about? That seems a bit harsh. Lots of people are passionate about views that contradict each other. The consequence of your argument is that lots of people are living wasted lives because of inherent epistemic limitations. That may be the case. But it doesn't seem right to me. It presumes that the value of a life is tied up in the achievement of something totally non-human: being right about the beliefs that one is passionate about. Clearly there are lots of people who try very hard to pursue the truth yet come to contradicting viewpoints. Are we to say that only those people who are correct have lived lives of worth?micahsparacio
March 23, 2007
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This is just another reason why I doubt Dr. Miller is a Christian. IOW anyone can say they are a "Christian" but in the end "actions speak louder than words." And Miller's actions make it clear, to me anyway, that he uses "Christian" as lip service only.Joseph
March 23, 2007
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