Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

You searched for Ken miller

Search Results

Are Ken Miller and Francis Collins ID proponents when it comes to the Origin of Life?

Here is an edited report on Ken Miller’s talk that he gave at Texas Tech back in March 2006 (go here) as well as a portion of a keynote address given by Francis Collins at the 2002 ASA meeting in Malibu (go here): Ken Miller’s talk was well attended — the auditorium was stacked (400+) with biology professors and their compulsory biology students (for extra credit). The talk was surprisingly fair on the subject of God, but it was terribly unfair (and disjointed) on the subject of Intelligent Design. Almost no facts were given and nearly all of his argument dealt with the Dover v. Kitzmiller trial in which he testified. As usual, Intelligent Design was conflated with creationism. The Read More ›

A Response to Ken Miller & Judge Jones’s Straw Tests of Irreducible Complexity for the Bacterial Flagellum

Do Car Engines Run on Lugnuts? A Response to Ken Miller & Judge Jones’s Straw Tests of Irreducible Complexity for the Bacterial Flagellum http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000630.html by Casey Luskin Abstract: In Kitzmiller v. Dover, Judge John E. Jones ruled harshly against the scientific validity of intelligent design. Judge Jones ruled that the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum, as argued by intelligent design proponents during the trial, was refuted by the testimony of the plaintiffs’ expert biology witness, Dr. Kenneth Miller. Dr. Miller misconstrued design theorist Michael Behe’s definition of irreducible complexity by presenting and subsequently refuting only a straw-characterization of the argument. Accordingly, Miller claimed that irreducible complexity is refuted if a separate function can be found for any sub-system of Read More ›

IDEA co-founder disembowels Ken Miller’s strawman

If Miller ever makes an appearance in a public event to criticize ID, during the Q&A session, IDers should call him into account for why he misrepresented Michael Behe’s ideas under oath in Kitzmiller vs. Dover.

Casey Luskin, IDEA co-founder and attorney at the Discovery Institute, exposed the misrepresentations which Miller used in the trial. These misrepresentations were used by Judge Jones to unjustly criticize Michael Behe and Scott Minnich’s testimony.

Here is the link: Do Car Engines Run on Lugnuts?

Read More ›

[quote mine] Ken Miller : “physics has rescued religion”

This [quantum uncertainty] is something biologists, almost universally, have not yet come to grips with. And its consequences are enormous. It certainly means that we should wonder more than we currently do about the saying that life is made of “mere” matter….

This means that absolute materialism, a view that control and predictability and ultimate explanation are possible, breaks down in a way that is biologically significant. Read More ›

[quote mine] Ken Miller: “much of the problem lies with atheists”

In the fine tradition of quote mining (just kidding), I’d like to periodically dig up a provocative quote and observe the reaction on the net.


Genesis 1:26 tells us something very different. We are assured that our efforts to understand nature are valid, because our hearts and minds are fashioned in the likeness of God. Read More ›

Ken Miller and Chicken Little — The Sky Continues to Fall!

Perhaps Miller & Co. need to cut to the chase and take out a contract on key ID players. As I recall from the three years I lived in Rhode Island (I went to a prep school there), Providence, the city in which Brown University (Miller’s employer) is located, has an effective mob presence. “Why is this a big deal?” asked Miller. The answer, according to Miller, is the future of science in America. We are raising a generation of people who are going to be suspicious of science, and that has huge implications for scientific fields. Other countries will be moving ahead in science, leaving the United States behind. “What is at stake is, literally, everything,” said Miller. MORE

Ken Miller and I on the BBC

Ken Miller and I had a brief five minute radio debate on the BBC on Friday, December 16th. He made two point which I could not address because the BBC host did not give me the opportunity, but which I wish to address briefly now: (1) The main weakness of evolution is that it is science (yes, Miller actually did say this and went on so long about it that the BBC host could not give me my closing comment as he had intended to) and (2) ID’s main fault is that it proceeds by negative argumentation. Read More ›

Ken Miller on Chromosomal Fusion in Humans

Here’s a report from a colleague on Ken Miller’s talk yesterday evening at Sacred Heart University (“Intelligent Design and the Battle for America’s Schools: Why Darwin Still Matters” — go here for the press release):

Earlier tonight I attended a presentation by Ken Miller at Sacred Heart University. It appears he got a pretty good turnout. I could only attend for about 45 min and I didn’t take any notes. Here are a few quick thoughts about the style and substance of his talk.

As far as style goes, Miller gave a good and entertaining presentation. It was very professional, slick, and colorful; he makes very effective use of various technological and visual aides; at times he was even funny. Indeed, on several occasions he had the audience cracking up. The only annoying part of his talk, in terms of style (more on substance momentarily), was his continual bragging about his credentials, how many books he has written, his qualifications, etc. I’ve never seen so many pictures and slides of the presenter! Overall I’d have to say he put on a darn good show. Read More ›

Design Disquisitions: Critic’s Corner-Kenneth Miller

This week’s post at Design Disquisitions is the first in a series of articles entitled ‘Critic’s Corner’ where I focus on a critic of ID. The main purpose of these posts is to document their work relevant to ID and also to document the direct responses to the particular critic in question, by those sympathetic to ID. These posts will be a useful resource for anyone wanting to find responses to a particular ID critic. This first one is on the work of Kenneth Miller (no stranger to anyone involved in this debate of course). If there are any articles I have missed, do let me know and I shall add it to the page.

Ken “we suck” Miller wrong again — peer reviewed article obliterates Miller’s claims

Lamenting the fact Darwinist have a hard time persuading the public, Darwinist Ken Miller once said of himself and his colleagues”WE SUCK“. Curiously, Jerry Coyne said the same thing, “WE SUCK“. Egg surely is now on Ken Miller’s face in light of new scientific developments. But first, what did Miller claim: “Intelligent design cannot explain the presence of a nonfunctional pseudogene, unless it is willing to allow that the designer made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles. Evolution, however, can explain them easily. Pseudogenes are nothing more than chance experiments in gene duplication that have failed, and they persist in the genome as evolutionary remnants of the past history… Ken Read More ›

Kenneth Miller: “Intelligent people can sometimes be wrong.”

This from the SPECTATOR. Melanie Phillips is also quite the favorite at RichardDawkins.net. ——————————————————————————————— Creating an Insult to Intelligence By Melanie Phillips Wednesday, 29th April 2009 www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips…insult-to-intelligence Listening to the Today programme this morning, I was irritated once again by yet another misrepresentation of Intelligent Design as a form of Creationism. In an item on the growing popularity of Intelligent Design, John Humphrys interviewed Professor Ken Miller of Brown University in the US who spoke on the subject last evening at the Faraday Institute, Cambridge. Humphrys suggested that Intelligent Design might be considered a kind of middle ground between Darwinism and Creationism. Miller agreed but went further, saying that Intelligent Design was nothing more than an attempt to repackage good Read More ›

Mike Behe talks about Kenneth Miller’s book

From Mike Behe’s Amazon blog an article on Kenneth Miller’s book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul

Once More With Feeling
11:11 AM PDT, June 16, 2008

Dear Readers,
Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University, has written a new book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, in which he defends Darwinism, attacks intelligent design, and makes a case for theistic evolution (defined as something like “God used Darwinian evolution to make life”). In all this, it’s pretty much a re-run of his previous book published over a decade ago, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution. So if you read that book, you’ll have a very good idea of what 90% of the new book concerns. For people who think that a mousetrap is not irreducibly complex because parts of it can be used as a paperweight or tie clip, and so would be easy to evolve by chance, Miller is their man. Despite the doubts of many — perhaps most — evolutionary biologists of the power of the Darwinian mechanism, to Miller’s easy imagination evolving any complex system by chance plus selection is a piece of cake, and intermediates are to be found behind every door. A purer devotee of Darwinian wishful thinking would be hard to find.

Read More ›

Open Letter by Kenneth Miller

From: Kenneth Miller [mailto:Kenneth_Miller@Brown.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: Some other questions…

Dear Friend,

You are one of scores of people who have written messages to me as a result of my scientific testimony at trial in Harrisburg, PA. I hope you will forgive the fact that I cannot possibly reply to each of you individually. While I appreciate your comments and respect you right to hold views with which I disagree, I thought it might be helpful to make a few things clear. Read More ›