Re: [asa] Ken Miller: Evolangelist

On 11/29/07, John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> I think the key takeaways from last night and ID in general is that
> they overplayed their hand scientifically and they used it as an
> offensive weapon instead of defensive and because of guys like Ken
> Miller, that has backfired on them. Ironically, excepting the special
> creation distinction that Miller drew about ID and IR, all the rest
> of his presentation and his personal testimony strongly affirmed the
> general principle of a Designer, so just like on this list, I regret
> seeing the concept of Design being disparaged in total. Because these
> terms and concepts are used carelessly and interchangeably even by
> Miller, I hope and pray that all the young students left there last
> night having had a good time and having a good laugh at the expense of
> some they perceive as small minded and anti-science theocrats and
> rejoicing in their downfall, but hopefully not rejecting the
> underlying Truth as a result. And I pray that Miller is aware of this
> risk as well and is being wise enough to avoid abetting this cause.

 Behe and Miller debated at a 1995 meeting of the ASA. (
http://www.asa3.org/aSA/docs/asa_doc8.txt,
http://www.arn.org/docs/asa795rpt.htm) At that point Miller considered the
ASA as a hostile audience. In Paul Nelson's account it is interesting to
note that opposing methodological naturalism is the raison detre of Pandas
and "fixing" Pandas by removing said opposition was not tolerable. Miller's
critique of Pandas in 1995 that it minced words with respect to the age of
the Earth still holds and in my opinion is the primary reason why outsiders
still conflate ID and YEC. Quoting Miller at the time in the Apr/May 1995
ASA newsletter (http://www.asa3.org/asa/docs/asa_doc22.txt):

> "misstates evolutionary theory, skims over the enormous wealth of the
> fossil record. and ignores the sophistication of radiometric dating. The
> most compelling reason to keep this book out of the biology classroom is
> that it is bad science. pure and simple."
>
>
From the same newsletter:

> Eugenie Scott. director of the National Center for Science Education.
> discounts
> the argument over whether evolution took place, emphasizing that the
> scientific
> debate is about *how* it happened. To Scott, PANDAS disguises religion as
> science and she questions the honesty of not being more forthright about
> its
> intelligent designer. Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson agrees that
> the
> *underlying motivation of belief in a Creator cannot be ignored and that a
> more
> explicit expression of such intentions is in order*. However, he
> countered: "The
> fact is they're working against enormous prejudice here, and enormous
> bigotry.
> And they're *vying to put it in terms that the courts and science will
> allow to
> exist*." [emphasis mine]

Contrast this with the Discovery Institute's request for intervention in
Kitzmiller. The answerer is Jon Buell:

> Q. Do you support the book of Pandas and People to advance a religious
> agenda?
> A. Oh, no. We've opposed that throughout the sale or throughout the --
> both edition of Pandas.
>
> ...
>
> Q. Now, the plaintiffs in their lawsuit have alleged that this policy of
> Dover's had a religious agenda or motive. Do you have a religious agenda or
> motvie for the booke Pandas and People?
> A. No, I don't.
>
> ...
> Q. How does that differ from Dover's interest in this case?
> A. Well, I think that the comments that I heard about, you know, from the
> Dover press reports of comments indicate religous purposes to me.
>
> ...
> Q. Now, you testified today that the Foundation does not have a religious
> agenda or motive, correct?
> A. That's right.
>
>

When the Discovery Institute asked Judge Jones to distinguish themselves
from the Dover School Board as a separate defendent he really had no choice
to turn them down because ID protesteth too much and didn't come clean on
their religious purpose. In general, I see ID not strongly and publically
affirming what they are doing both in terms of religious purpose and their
belief in an Old Earth as causing a great deal of suspicion from friends and
foes alike.

One reason why I oppose ID is their sublimating their task of proving
intelligent design to the political objectives above. My -- or I suspect Ken
Miller's -- opposition is not due to their advancement of the intelligent
design argument -- when properly made. Let me show you why I believe MIller
agrees with me below. Hopefully this puts the comments Miller made recently
in a proper perspective.

As result of the debate Pandas was not improved, but Biology was. Behe found
the following passage in Miller's biology written by co-author Levine:

> "In many ways, each animal phylum represents an experiment in the design
> of
> body structures to perform the tasks necessary for survival. Of course,
> there has never been any kind of plan to these experiments because
> evolution
> works without either plan or purpose."
>

When presented with this, Miller stated that this was a mistake and struck
it from future versions of the textbook. But it appears that Behe didn't
forward the part of Miller acceding to his argument to the lawyers. When
asked about this on the stand in Kitzmiller he said:

> Q. On the second page of that under the 30-2 subheading, it has in bold
> "Evolution is random and undirected." Do you see that?
>
> A. Yes, I do.
>
> Q. Is that a scientific statement or philosophical statement?
>
> A. I took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
> truth, and I will tell you the truth, which is I think that's a
> philosophical statement, and I don't think it belongs in the book.
>
> Q. Have you subsequently removed that statement from your book?
>
> A. Is this copied from the 2004 edition?
>
> Q. My understanding is it's been copied from the 1995 edition?
>
> A. Oh, excuse me, I didn't quite understand when you introduced this
> exhibit which book this was from. So the dragonfly book, which is the book
> that is under consideration in Dover, is an entirely different book from
> this one. This book is generally known as the elephant book, and the animal
> on the cover is not a trivial matter. This is a book that was written in the
> early 1990s. This is – as I said, this is a statement with which I do not
> agree, and when you say have I removed the statement from the book, the
> dragonfly book is written on metaphorically speaking a blank sheet of paper.
> So it's not as though we took this old book and edited it to produce the new
> one. We wrote it from scratch.
>
> I would be very much surprised if you could produce any statements from
> our current book, either the 2002, 2004 or the 2006 copyrights that say
> anything like this. Can you?
>
> Q. Well, the way this works is I get to ask the questions and not you, but
> I appreciate what your concerns are. Let me ask you about with regard to
> that statement that's in the 1995 edition –
>
> A. Now, again, let me qualify that. It is the previous book. It's a
> different book. It's not just a different edition. Okay.
>
> Q. Did that comment receive any criticism that you're aware of?
>
> A. Yes, it received criticism from me as soon as it was published.
>
> Q. So you didn't have a part in putting that sentence in there?
>
> A. This particular chapter was written by my coauthor, Joe Levine. Joe and
> I write the book together. We edit each other's chapters, and I have to say
> that in the pressure of getting the book ready for press I don't always read
> what my coauthor has written as carefully and as thoroughly as I should. But
> as soon as a number of people pointed out [RDB note: including Michael Behe
> in the 1995 ASA debate] the existence of these statements, I told my
> coauthor under no uncertain terms I was not happy with philosophical
> statements of this sort being in our textbook, and I know that no such
> statements appears in any of the books that we've published for the past
> four or five years, and I can't remember exactly when we managed – which
> printing we managed to get this removed from this book, but I know it's no
> longer in the latest version of this particular book. And again, this is a
> different book from the one that is being used in Dover.
>

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Received on Fri, 30 Nov 2007 11:03:28 -0700