I’ve now listened to a recording of Miller’s talk in Kansas. I like it even less.

Miller is an excellent speaker. He’s persuasive, he’s clear, he knows his science well, and he was an impressive participant in the conflict at Dover…and he was on the correct side. Here’s the problem: he’s wrong now.

What he does is an insightful and lucid analysis of the problems with creationism, and then tries to wrap it up by identifying the source of the problem. Unfortunately, he places the blame in the laps of atheists, which is simply absurd. We’ve got fundamentalists straining to insert religious nonsense in the school curricula, and Miller’s response is turn around and put the fault on those godless secular people who have antagonized good Christian folk, giving them perfectly reasonable cause to fear for their immortal souls. How dare we? It’s only understandable that Kansans would object to godless interpretations of science!

There are so many ways in which this is wrong:

[Read more…]

Red State Rabble has an account of Ken Miller’s talk at the University of Kansas.

“Creationists,” biologist Ken Miller, told a large, receptive audience at the University of Kansas last night, “are shooting at the wrong target.”

Showing a slide of the cover art of “The Lie,” an anti-evolution tract by Ken Ham, that prominently features a serpent tempting us with a poisoned apple labeled evolution, Miller said creationists mistakenly take aim at Darwin’s theory because they believe science to be anti-religious.

Evolution isn’t anti-religious, said Miller. Rather, it’s the non-scientific philosophical interpretations some humanists, such as Richard Dawkins, draw from the evidence that challenges the role of religion.

If that account is accurate (I trust Pat Hayes to be accurate, and I also have independent confirmation^*), then that was a shot at the majority of biologists, and a declaration of common cause with creationists. They are “shooting at the wrong target,” but who is the right target? Why, those humanists, people like Richard Dawkins and anyone who challenges the role of religion. Go get ’em, Kansans! Hound those wicked atheists—they aren’t the real scientists, after all. Real scientists believe in God and spirits and magic and etheric essences infused into souls by a phantasmal hominid, just like you do.

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?

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.

In fact, many scientists, said Miller, a practicing Catholic, draw the opposite conclusion from the evidence for evolution.

“Faith and reason are both gifts from God,” said Miller. “It is faith that gives scientists a reason to pursue science.”

So all those atheist scientists who have no faith, who actively deny gods…what reason do they have for pursuing science? Hmmm? Why should we believe this immaterial god of yours gives any kind of “gift” at all? There is a non sequitur there: 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.

Neither the philosophical or theological interpretations of the nature of existence, its purpose, meaning, or lack of it, are scientific, said Miller, because they are not testable.

Claims that a god operates in the natural world are not testable. They lack evidence in support. They make no predictions. They guide no hypotheses. They add nothing to any explanations of the natural world. They are contradicted by an absence of evidence.

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. Barring the presentation of any positive evidence, a scientist should provisionally reject the existence of a postulated force that does nothing, is indetectable, and that even its proponents argue would exert only actions that are indistinguishable from what would occur in its absence.

The only unscientific opinion being offered is the bizarre idea that a magical being might have miraculously created humans or jump-started the Cambrian explosion, two suggestions Miller makes in his book, Finding Darwin’s God.

---

^*The Lawrence Journal-World reports the same thing.

But Miller said the root of the portrayal of religion and evolution as opposites may come from scientists who have an “anti-theistic interpretation of evolution,” a stance he disagrees with.

“People of faith are shooting at the wrong target. They should not be shooting at evolution itself,” he said.

…

Instead of attacking evolutionary theory, the argument should be against the anti-theistic interpretation of evolution, he said.

I’d say he was pandering to a bunch of bible-walloping yahoos, except I think he honestly believes that nonsense himself. It still doesn’t excuse suggesting that everyone needs to start shooting at the godless, and he should realize that what he’s doing with that kind of argument is antagonizing a rather large subset of the scientific community.

---

I’ve put more shooting at Miller here.

There’s no official declaration of the Pope’s recent consult on evolution, but news is leaking out…and the good news is that Intelligent Design is not going to have a place at the table, and didn’t figure in the discussions at all. Catholic News has one source:

A participant at the Pope’s closed door symposium on creation and evolution, Jesuit Fr Joseph Fessio, has denied speculation about a change in the Church’s teaching on evolution, saying nothing presented at the meeting broke new ground and that American debates on Intelligent Design did not feature in discussions.

Declan Butler, in this week’s Nature, also reports on the impression of the only biologist at the meeting (isn’t that peculiar in itself, that they’d have a conference on the status of evolution in the church, and only have one informed attendee?):

Schönborn was one of four invited speakers at the meeting, which also included Robert Spaemann, a conservative German philosopher, and Paul Erbrich, a Jesuit priest who questions the random nature of evolution. The fourth speaker, the only working scientist present, was Peter Schuster, a molecular biologist and president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

In a break with tradition, the proceedings of the meeting will be published later this year, says Schuster, with a preface written by the Pope. The message will be to promote dialogue between faith and reason, Schuster says. Given the power struggles within the Church, however, the precise outcome of the overall debate is impossible to predict, he says: “We have to wait.”

But discussions at the meeting suggest that the Church will probably affirm a form of theistic evolution, which posits the general principle that biological evolution is valid, although set in motion by God. At the same time, it seems likely to reject the fundamental intelligent-design principle that God was a watchmaker, intervening in the details. “Intelligent design as an intervention of God during evolution will not be an outcome,” predicts Schuster. “I got the impression that there was general agreement that evolutionary biology is a undeniable science and not a hypothesis.”

A few thoughts on the decision:

• It is good news that ID is not going to get any official endorsement from the Catholic church. The Discovery Institute has taken a beating lately, and this is not the time to slacken the pressure or give them any succor; we need to throttle that toxic weed until it is dead.
• Backing a form of theistic evolution, while still insupportable nonsense, is the best we could hope for from the Pope, I suppose. My dream that Ratzi would go into a conclave and emerge to announce that it was all a mistake, the papacy was dissolved, and good Catholics should all embrace an enlightened materialistic naturalism hasn’t come true just yet.
• While we can be pleased that the Vatican hasn’t found common cause with another institutional enemy of good science, ultimately their decision is irrelevant. “Eppur si muove,” and all that—the world keeps spinning, the alleles keep changing, biological history has happened, and all the dogma of old men in funny hats won’t change that.

Butler, D (2006) When science and theology meet. Nature 443:10-11.

Poor Francis Collins: now his book has been panned in New Scientist…by Steve Fuller. That Steve Fuller, the pompous pseudo-post-modernist who testified for Intelligent Design creationism in Dover. His criticism has an interesting angle, though. Collins is just like Richard Dawkins. Who knew?

[Read more…]

William Dembski sadly reports that Answers in Genesis is handing out a “$50,000” prize^* for a creationist essay…for which no Intelligent Design advocates need reply. He moans that ID doesn’t have anywhere near the resources of the traditional creationists (which is true—AiG is bigger, but the DI has just gotten more press), and then uses this to make the argument that he really wishes they could have made at Dover:

This contest demonstrates that creationism and ID are charting separate paths.

No, not exactly. Separate strategies, maybe, but the same goals. There are substantial differences in dogma between different creationist groups, but they’re all anti-evolution and anti-science and belong to the same general category of science kooks. Answers in Genesis is a Young Earth Creationist organization led by Ken Ham, and they don’t get along with Old Earth Creationist Hugh Ross’s Reasons to Believe; a follower of Hugh Ross would not qualify for the “$50,000” prize, either, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a creationist. William “intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory” Dembski is just a leader in one sectarian branch of the rotten creationist tree, as is Hugh “Starting about 2 to 4 million years ago, God began creating man-like mammals or ‘hominids’…Then, about 10 to 25 thousand years ago, God replaced them with Adam and Eve” Ross and Ken “Genesis is true” Ham—or Harun “The carbon atom, like everything else, has been created by Allah” Yahya. Same difference. It doesn’t matter what little, transient cult they belong to, they hold ignorance in common.

^*Not really. It’s a scholarship for $50,000 to Liberty University. Yeah, being shackled to stupid people and forced to memorize dogma is a real prize. Since the cost of housing someone in a prison is about $20K/year, maybe I should get a gun and rob a gas station for a chance at winning a $200,000 prize!

David Berlinski, that Prince of Pomposity and Lackey of the Discovery Institute, is trying to get a letter published in Science, complaining about the study that showed America’s poor showing in understanding evolution. It’s more of an opaque, cranky whine, something Berlinski specializes in, so I rather doubt it will ever get in—the editors there are going to be as respectful of creationist nonsense as I am. Of course, one thing I can do that the editors wouldn’t is rip into his letter and tear it to pieces in public…

[Read more…]

John A. Davison has started a new blog. You may recall his previous blog, or the one before that. His technique is to post one article, invite comments, and when he gets tired of them, move on…not to a new article, a new blog. His first got 881 comments (many of them consisting of Davis wondering where everyone was, or arguing with DaveScot); this is the only article there.

I have my own blog now, only because I have been banned from just about all the others. Since I am computer illiterate, don’t expect very much from me. I welcome any comments about my published papers including my unpublished “An Evolutionary Manifesto: A New Hypothesis For Organic Change.” I will tend to ignore any denigrations either of myself or my distinguished sources. I will also not take seriously comments from anonymous posters although I will respond provided they are civil.

That’s it, demonstrating that at least he was honest in saying he was computer illiterate. The second got 651 comments, again more of the same, and here’s all the content on it:

The original Prescribed Evolution blog got pretty cluttered so I am starting a new one. Hopefully I will be able to better manage this one than the original.

Whoops, no, he wasn’t any better at it. So now he has moved on, and the current one has 7 comments, on an article that says just this:

I have abandoned both of my earlier blogs, leaving their contents as living testimony to the nature and tactics of my adversaries. Since I am now convinced that creative evolution is no longer in progress I have chosen the above title. I quite busy right now posting at other forums, chiefly Uncommon Descent and ISCID’s ” brainstorms” so I will spend little time here but I welcome any constructive criticism of my several papers and my evolutionary views in general.

A testimony to the tactics of his adversaries? Be still, O My Precious Irony Meter. Let’s let this new blog die a sad, lonely death, OK?

I will say that Davison is certainly the parfait creationist—completely vacuous and so damn righteous in his ignorance.

(via Ooblog)