Book Review: “Finding Darwin’s God” by Kenneth Miller

After reading Johnson and Behe, I thought I had done enough reading to step out of my “evolution is irrelevant” camp, and begin taking some shots at Darwinism. Nothing spectacular, just saying that it’s not unreasonable to reject Darwinism, and Johnson and Behe provide no small amount of ammo for some modest attacks on everyday evolutionists, Christian and not.

Well, it didn’t take long for someone to challenge me to read the other guy’s side of the story, and Miller is an excellent read. Here you have a Biology Professor at Brown University, and a Catholic by faith. He is a well-qualified, full blown Theistic Evolutionist, a view I considered to be too much of a Chimera to be plausible.

Much to my surprise, I found many of my presuppositions challenged by this book, and I’m very glad I read it.

The Scientific Case for Evolution

By and large, I found Miller’s case thorough, well-reasoned, and persuasive. It caused me no little amount of stress to come to terms with just how forceful the case for evolution really is. That being said, like my experience of reading Johnson and Behe, I found myself lost in the details of the science, unqualified to evaluate what I’m reading.

The biggest question raised in my mind was about the fossil record. Johnson made an excellent case for the fossil record being a problem for evolution. Miller repeatedly claims that the fossil record is evolution’s greatest supporter. Neither Johnson or Miller are paleontologists, and so both are speaking outside of their area of expertise: who am I to trust? They are both well-read in the field.

Here I simply need to do more homework. As I have explored online resources on this topic, I’m a little vexed at how eager evolutionists are to point to “artist’s renditions” of the fossil record. I’m not willing to settle for a bunch of doodles of apes turning into people, or dogs turning into whales. I would like to see the bones, be told where they were found, and what the strata they were found in says about their dates. I’m looking for science, not a propaganda picture book.

The other thing is, I’m wondering if Johnson and Miller are speaking to different criteria of proof? Johnson wants transitionary fossils. Miller is looking at a bigger theme of “common descent”: are there general common traits between fossils? The paleontological evidence as far as these two men present it, seems to be this: there’s enough evidence for believers in evolution to find support, and little enough evidence for skeptics to be justified in unbelief. If that’s true, Miller is overstating his case, and Johnson's objection that the data isn't sufficient to justify the conclusion is sound.

As Miller clearly writes, paleontological evidence is based on morphology: The shape of animal A is similar to animal B, so it’s reasonable to conclude that over millions of years, animal A turned into animal B. If that’s the gist of the science, I don’t see the big deal in either affirming or denying the theory. It’s just not a weighty area of knowledge.

Apparently the best attested fossil records are for the horse, the whale, and the elephant. So say we have fossils of small horses, and gradually we have a succession of fossils of horses getting larger, with moderate changes in bone structure. I can accept that, it’s no different than a chihuahua turning into a great Dane, and despite these dog’s great morphological difference, we know they share a common gene pool. Does this warrant the assumption that all life went from a puddle of goo to the enormous diversity we see today? I find that a bit hard to swallow, and it stretches the evidence if all we have are some bones for three species. But at the same time, given we see this occurrence with three species, is this positive evidence against all life evolving from a puddle? Just as forcefully, no. Johnson provides nothing to say that it couldn’t have happened that way, simply that there is insufficient evidence to baptize Darwinism as the only way it could have happened. Why should anyone get all hot and bothered if someone makes a commitment one way or the other?

Theism and Evolution

Theistic Evolution is one of those two-headed monster views that I think the Creationist camp views as compromising the faith, and which Skeptics regard as a compromise of science. Certainly some versions of Theistic Evolution fit that description. I myself would consider Miller’s version a compromised Christianity, but that’s judging Miller by the criteria of my conservative Evangelicalism. Miller is a Catholic, and ever since Vatican II, it’s been very unclear as to what is really means to be “Catholic” anyways. I don’t mean that as a thoughtless protestant shot at Catholics -I have heard far more disillusionment and confusion about Vatican II from Catholics than from Protestants, but that’s a subject for another post. I simply wanted to draw attention to the fact that “theistic evolution” is acceptable in certain quarters of Christendom, and regarded with suspicion in others. My personal take is suspicion, and I simply desire to put my cards on the table.

For example, Miller defends the idea that science and religion are different ways of knowing. Science occupies one sphere, religion another, and it’s not that these contradict each other: it’s just that they deal with different subject matter to such an extent that they rarely interact with one another. Roughly speaking, Miller claims science explores knowing physical reality, whereas religion deals with the sphere of ethics.

This all sounds good on paper. This view is heartily endorsed by many scientists and scientific organizations. This view attempts to give religion dignity to speak to its field of expertise without claiming a priestly role over science. This also gives freedom to scientists, keeping religion out of the laboratory, and allowing scientists the academic liberty to pursue their studies without the restraints of religious dogma, or ecclesiastical politics. Everyone wins, right?

But ironically, I think the logical outflow of this view is to put religion in a domineering position over science. According to Miller, religion’s magisterium is Ethics. Ethics comprises an awful lot. I wonder if Miller would endorse the view that the “ethics” magisterium also must include the ethics of knowing? In other words, religion claims the sphere of telling people how to know. This hardly seems objectionable, any good Christian would affirm such axioms as: “Don’t overstate your case”; “form your beliefs according to the evidence”; “Give each side a proper hearing.” Religion is a welcome companion to science in this sense.

This is all fine and dandy for science if religious ethics restricts their ethics of knowledge to “how to know.” But I’m not aware of any religion that restricts itself in this way. All of the major western religions also lay claim to what people are to know, including historical facts. All religions I’m familiar with, eastern and western, lay an ethical burden upon believers to adhere to certain beliefs. For a Christian, they ought to believe in Jesus. A Muslim ought to believe in the Koran. As regards the bible, if a simple literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11 is historically true, it is obligatory upon Christians to believe in a young universe, created in 7 days, roughly 6000 years ago.

A find this “magisterium” distinction unhelpful and confusing. Education is largely a matter of acquiring new information and experience, and synthesizing this new knowledge with existing knowledge. Putting a partitioning wall between ethics and science seems to me to be a simple act of compartmentalizing one’s mind to the point where you’re unable to coherently integrate your thoughts. If religion claims the sphere of ethics, then religion also claims the right to dictate to science not just how to believe, but what to believe.

Newton’s Last Stand

I have a lot of respect for Miller: throughout this book, I was struck by the personality of a man who has an intense love for science. Once I finished the book, I was simply buzzing with appreciation for the scientific enterprise. Miller’s attitude is infectious. Miller is a biologist, but his scientific interests go beyond simple cells.

Most interesting to me scientifically in the midst of the debate this book addresses, was Miller’s forays into Quantum theory. (I feel smarter just writing that.) In a nutshell, he presents what we know about the behaviour of atoms, and demonstrates that life on the atomic level is unpredictable. We cannot predict with any accuracy how atoms will behave: the more we study and test, the more we confirm that atomic movements are “inherently and absolutely unpredictable”.

Thus, Miller raises a significant challenge to “scientism”, or views of the world espoused by the likes of a Dawkins or a Dennet, that try to cow science into supporting the notion that life is all a determined ball of cause and effect, with set, discoverable laws that tell how everything has and will happen. Miller says this is basically Newton’s view of science which Quantum theory has sufficiently demonstrated to be false. At the heart of the structure of the universe is chaos and randomness, not predictability.

So we look hard at the microscope, and we find no God: but neither do we find law or order. Miller speculates that God has so wired the universe as to make himself undiscoverable through a microscope: we will never find an atom with God’s signature on it to settle our debates. But, the Deity has so wired the universe as to leave room for Himself to imperceptibly guide the creation. It wouldn’t be hard for an omnipotent, omniscient being to be shifting the random atomic forces about in such a way that, millions of years down the road, out come a pair of hominids to which God reveals himself and bestows upon them a soul. (Or so Miller speculates) God’s current active involvement and creation of the universe is not the least challenged by science: what is challenged is a Newtonian view of science, which is still being propped up by those who wish to enlist science in their diatribes against God.

Summary

I’m still chewing on Miller’s arguments. He presents a very forceful case for evolution, and a fine-sounding harmonization between his faith and his science. Unfortunately, he spends hardly any time interpreting the bible, where issues of interpretation is the main source of the contention between science and faith. I’m not terribly bent out of shape if someone is persuaded that Genesis 1-11 is not meant to be interpreted literally. There exist good literary reasons for interpreting it that way. However, if someone decides Genesis 1-11 is meant to interpreted literally, but is false because scientific orthodoxy says so, then you’ve put science as having magisterial power over religion. This results in a position that does not allow a faith tradition to speak on its own authority, but only within the bounds of science. Again, not a happy match. What little he does say about the bible, I find unacceptable, and the “magisterium” distinction he makes just doesn’t work. I'm left with more questions, but a better idea of where to find answers, where I need more knowledge, and which proposed solutions are not the way to go.