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Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul

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"Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul" is all we have come to expect from noted Brown University cell biologist Kenneth R. Miller in the course of his many public debates against creationists; a sterling blend of ample wit and elegant prose coupled with his passionate sincerity in defending genuine science's methodology and data from those intellectual Vandals seeking to replace it with their delusional notion of pseudoscientific mendacious intellectual pornography known as Intelligent Design. Here, in this succinctly-worded, quite magnificent, book, Miller has rendered an elegantly stated, magisterial refutation not only of Intelligent Design's pathetic pretense of being genuine science, but of its ongoing - and regrettably still successful - effort to claim America's "scientific soul" as he has defined it, and thus, to pose a dire threat to American scientific and technological supremacy. Fanatical skeptics like Discovery Institute mendacious intellectual pornographers ("Fellows" and "Senior Fellows") Michael Behe, William Dembski, David Klinghoffer, Paul Nelson, and Jonathan Wells, among others, will scoff at Ken Miller's assertions, and accuse him of being "possessed" or "enslaved" by his "atheistic, liberal Darwinist" agenda. However, unlike them, Miller has consistently staked out views recognizing that science and religion must remain separated - despite his own devoutly held Roman Catholic religious convictions - and indeed, his cogent remarks are rather quite persuasive, and, happily, harbor the glimmerings of some hope despite their dire alarmist nature. Without question "Only A Theory" ought to serve as a clarion call to those willing to be persuaded by Miller's arguments, because the emotional, intellectual and political stakes for America's future are quite high, and among these include the survival of a vibrant, American science as a rational enterprise totally devoid of supernatural considerations (For these reasons alone, "Only A Theory" demands a wide readership, extending well beyond the battle lines of contested school districts like Dover, Pennsylvania's to the very halls of Congress, even if there are many, in Washington, D. C., unlikely to listen to Miller's warning.). Not only evolutionary biology, but geology, chemistry, and physics too would be twisted beyond recognition by the Discovery Institute's zealous band of mendacious intellectual pornographers seeking a more expansive "definition" of science that allows "research" into supernatural phenomena; a nonsensical definition endorsed by Behe, having admitted under oath at the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial, that astrology could be accepted as science.

What is America's "scientific soul" and why its survival remains in jeopardy from Intelligent Design's ongoing, vigorous - or perhaps more accurately, fanatical - assault, are among the most important, most compelling, themes examined by Miller in his elegant, terse tome. As Miller eloquently notes in the opening chapter, his recognition of a "battle for America's scientific soul" is one he has discerned only recently, in the aftermath of recent legal battles against Intelligent Design and other creationist foes. And, regrettably, it is a battle that goes well beyond shaping the future course of American secondary school science education. Miller passionately believes that our "scientific soul" is exactly the very essence that makes us Americans; a healthy disdain for authority, but one which does respect pragmatism, and demands results, in short, the very cultural environment that has been embraced, and sustained by mainstream science for centuries. A cultural environment whose revolutionary nature arose in little more than a decade during the American Revolution, according to Miller's distinguished Brown University colleague, eminent American historian Gordon Wood, when Americans transformed their society from "one little different from the hierarchal societies of European monarchies to one that took up the truly radical notion that individuals were both the source of a government's legitimacy and its greatest hope for progress."

In many respects, not only is Intelligent Design an idea that is "un-American", since its very principles are antithetical to America's defining cultural values of practicality, pragmatism and disrespect of authority, but, in its key objective of "overthrowing methodological naturalism", Intelligent Design, argues Miller, is a far more serious and dangerous threat to mainstream science than traditional creationism, since it is a revolutionary assault against the very fabric of scientific methodology ("methodological naturalism", or rather, what is commonly recognized as the scientific method comprised of hypothesis generation and testing) employed by science for centuries, transforming science into an unrecognizable entity that is as rife with relativism as the leftist-leaning social sciences criticized by philosopher Allan Bloom in his landmark tome, "The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Impoverished America's Young and Failed Its Students". Indeed Miller observes astutely that Bloom's analysis was not a conservative-leaning attack on leftist Academia, but instead, one warning how a relativistic "openness" - an uncritical embrace of all ideas - was detrimental to the survival of rational thought on college and university campuses, and, not surprisingly, Bloom contended that the sciences were the only realm of Academia unaffected by the politics of openness. However, if Intelligent Design successfully gains further acceptance amongst a sympathetic American populace, then, Miller warns, American science would be susceptible too to the same political plagues affecting the arts, humanities and social sciences (Ironically the same plagues that have been the subjects of ample discourse, mostly hysterical ridicule, from leading Intelligent Design advocates like Philip Johnson, David Klinghoffer, and Ann Coulter.). This is a warning which should be heeded by anyone who reads or hears of Miller's message, since the very essence, the very future, of American science is at stake.

If Intelligent Design is "un-American" in both its tone and temperment, then why is it gaining wider acceptance among Americans? Miller concludes one of his early chapters noting how biologists have failed to persuade the public of "the imperfections of biological design", implying that such imperfections are not, in of themselves, "proof" of evolution; an observation which Intelligent Design advocates have been quite persuasive. Moreover, by emphasizing the existence of biological design to the general public so they can ask "How come?" and noting the other "weaknesses" of evolutionary theory, Intelligent Design advocates are winning the public relations battle and, so far, the battle for America's scientific soul.

"Only A Theory" should not be viewed only as a concise, well-reasoned polemic on behalf of rational thought, and America's scientific future. It is as I have noted earlier, an elegant refutation of the mendacious intellectual pornography that is Intelligent Design. However, instead of simply refuting it, Miller examines it, asking us to look into the possibility that Intelligent Design is credible science, and therefore, a viable, truly better, alternative to contemporary evolutionary theory in explaining the structure and history of Planet Earth's biodiversity (In fairness to Miller, however, the very brevity of this book means that "Only A Theory" does not include ample discussion of issues ranging from understanding the tempo and mode of evolution, the relationship of sociobiology to contemporary theory, and the importance, if any, of neutral models of evolution; all of which have been cited by Intelligent Design advocates and creationists as solid "evidence" that evolutionary theory is an outmoded theory in "crisis", on an intellectual "death watch", awaiting its replacement by Intelligent Design. Of course, despite such delusional assertions, evolutionary theory remains a vigorous, unifying scientific theory of biology; a point Miller emphasizes in the book's conclusion.). Miller devotes much of Chapters Two and Three in reviewing the history of Intelligent Design, beginning with William Paley's work, and in explaining Behe's concept of Irreducible Complexity and Dembski's "mathematical" notion of Complex Specified Information. In evoking once more Behe's favorite mechanical mousetrap analogue as an "example" of Irreducibly Complex, Miller offers his most concise, but extensive, explanation why the mousetrap isn't, offering instead, some sly, and humorous, analogues of exaptation at work (While Miller doesn't refer specifically to the term exaptation as such - one that has gained widespread currency since the publication of a classic early 1980s paper co-authored by paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba - anyone familiar with it should recognize the mousetrap as a mechanical analogue comparable to the evolution of feathers in theropod dinosaurs originally for thermoregulation, before assuming prominent roles in powered flight in avian dinosaurs and their closely related kin.). He follows up his elegant discussion of the mousetrap with one of a real biological exaptation, the evolution of a "poison pump" in some bacteria from the bacterial flagellum (Behe's real-life favorite example -which he asserts still - of Irreducible Complexity.).

If we were "Embracing Design" (Chapter Three), then how would Intelligent Design explain the history of Earth's biodiversity? Using as an elegant example, the evolutionary history of horses, Miller shows why Intelligent Design does a poor job of it, observing that an Intelligent Designer's only consistent pattern would be the constant replacement of "designed" species due to their extinctions (Unless, of course as Miller notes, that was indeed the "design" of the Intelligent Designer after all.). On the other hand, Miller notes how evolutionary theory explains the history of Earth's biodiversity in the succeeding two chapters, noting the so-called Cambrian "Explosion" (which, he reminds us, was instead a gradual diversification of marine metazoan taxa over the span of tens of millions of years) and human evolution. Moreover, he explains how evolutionary developmental biology (`evo devo") is yielding fascinating new insights from genomic data that confirm the robustness of Darwin's ideas on "descent with modification" at the molecular level; overwhelming data denying the implications of an "Intelligent Designer" "predicted" by William Dembski in his mathematically flawed conceptions of Complex Specified Information and his so-called "Law of Conservation of Information". And last, but not least, Miller explains why evolution is not a "random" process in "The World That Knew We Were Coming" (Chapter Seven), reminding us of the importance of convergence and contingency in influencing the history of life on Planet Earth.

Other books have emphasized the danger posed by Intelligent Design to America's scientific and technological future, most notably, Niles Eldredge's "The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism", and Donald Prothero's "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters". However, none have been as eloquent or as extensive in pointing out this danger as Miller has through his compelling and persuasive reasoning. Few have devoted as much space as Miller's admirable effort in "Only A Theory" in taking seriously the "scientific" claims posed by Intelligent Design advocates, if only to demonstrate why these are not merely "bad" science - or rather mendacious intellectual pornography as I would prefer to describe them - but how they would "impoverish" the very nature of science if they were ever recognized as science. While Miller closes "Only A Theory" on a potentially optimistic note, relying on his personal anecdotal evidence drawn from giving lectures around the United States to demonstrate Americans' keen current interest in science - even if they object strongly to contemporary evolutionary theory - he recognizes that the ongoing battle for America's scientific soul will be long and arduous. Recent interest in so-called "Academic Freedom" bills promoted by the Discovery Institute in several state legislatures and the Texas State Board of Education's sympathy towards emphasizing the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories like contemporary evolutionary theory merely demonstrate just how difficult a struggle this battle shall be.

The market is crowded with books on the evolution/intelligent design "controversy," so much so that works in this area have become highly repetitious--read one, it seems, and one has read them all. This is a refreshing book in a couple of respects.

First, Miller's rhetorical approach is to err on the side of taking the claims of intelligent design more seriously than they really deserve. As a result, the book does not come across as polemical, and this gives rise to the hope that an ID creation-sympathetic reader might actually read it and learn something truly useful about the flaws of ID creationism rather than getting insulted and putting it aside in disgust. Miller initially presents the claims of design without rebuttal and acknowledges how powerful these claims--if true--are. Only after having given these claims an initially friendly treatment does he then return to them and explain just why they are unsupported by evidence.

Second, Miller argues fairly forcefully that acknowledging the facts of evolution does not compel one to reject religion, and he does so from the position of a person of faith--Miller being, himself, a Roman Catholic. He does not purport to be able to "prove" his religious faith in purely rational terms, but only to show that science does not exclude it. His arguments, being somewhat subjective in nature (e.g., the "fine-tuned universe" argument) are going to seem persuasive to some and not at all persuasive to others, but he does a splendid job of setting them out and putting the case well.

The main thesis comes toward the end, and is reflected in the subtitle, "Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul." Miller is concerned that the fight over creationism has morphed, through the political program of intelligent design, into an all-out attack upon science at its roots--and upon America's "scientific soul." Where the hard sciences have been largely untouched by the advent of extreme relativism, ID threatens to introduce that relativism to biology--a relativism which asserts that there is no real "right" or "wrong," that objective knowledge is beyond our reach, and that all points of view and ways of looking at evidence are equally valid. Such a view would of course undermine the whole foundation of science. Materialism is under attack; methodological naturalism is under attack; and if these attacks succeed, what can remain of science? Nothing good, to be sure; baraminology would have equal status with cladistics, "flood geology" equal status with real geology, and so on.

Miller's involvement in school-book publishing as the author of popular biology textbooks, his involvement in disputes over school-book choice, and his testimony as a fact and expert witness in federal trials over anti-evolution laws and ID creationism policies have given him a seat front-and-center to this battle for our scientific soul, and his hopes and fears clearly have been shaped by the fights he has seen. He ably points out the strangeness of the dispute, including the odd manner in which the relativism of the far academic left has been enlisted in the service of an agenda of the religious right--a very peculiar marriage of absolutism and relativism indeed.

If I were going to try to persuade a creationist friend to give due consideration to the theory of evolution by natural selection, this is the book I would give him. The treatment of the science is necessarily a quick one, but it is a good one if the reader has not done a lot of reading in biology lately. Miller's sincerity in his religious belief comes through strongly, and constitutes an excellent "testimony" for someone who thinks that there is a stark and unavoidable choice between Darwin and God.

What impact will this book have? It is hard to say. As positive and persuasive as it is, I think Miller's theology -- which he treats here in less detail than in Finding Darwin's God -- will seem unsatisfying to the hard-core literalists who are the strongest adherents to ID creationism. Miller sounds too much like a Deist, or a Gouldian NOMA-ist, to give much comfort to people who believe in a God who answers prayers and does miracles. Miller has elsewhere disclaimed both Deism and Gould's NOMA concept, but there is a resemblance which those who have "rapture-ready" bumper stickers will easily notice. The best hope, and one to which this work is well suited, is that people whose theology is less literal but who are nonetheless troubled by what they see as a general "godlessness" and "purposelessness" in evolution will find this book persuasive. Miller feels that Americans are characteristically practical, and it is to that pragmatic nature that he appeals; with any luck, he will win some hearts and minds.

Last year I left evangelicalism in favor of agnosticism. A major reason for my departure was twenty-four years of negative experiences within the Church. However, another important impetus was an exposure to deeper levels of science and rationality through the works of Hitchens, Dawkins, Stenger, and others. I had become tired of living with the tension between various conflicting ideas that Christianity requires of a believer, and these authors suggested a more rational alternative. One area of tension in particular was the dissonance between evolution and intelligent design (ID). "Only A Theory" addresses this battle, and it's one of the best and most tactful books I've read on the subject. Indeed, it should act as the obsolescence notice that ID has needed for a long time.

"Only A Theory" focuses on the American battlefront concerning evolution and ID. The two foes recently went head-to-head in Pennsylvania, where both camps were put on trial as a result of the Dover Board of Education's desire to add ID instruction in public school. After hearing testimony from both sides (including the author and ID proponent Michael Behe) and examining the evidence, the court ruled that ID was another name for religious creationism, and it was thrown out of the academic setting. Mr. Miller was encouraged by science's courtroom triumph, but given the strength and righteous indignation of the ID movement, he fears for the future of evolution and the scientific method. The title of this book reflects that concern, since one of ID's biggest catchphrases is that evolution is "only a theory," and therefore other competing "theories" like ID deserve equal hearing.

The author has reason to be afraid. As a former evangelical Christian and seminary graduate, I can affirm that ID is a user-friendly term for a faith-based system of thought that stands at odds with rational science. I've seen "Darwinism" portrayed by the Church as a subtle tool of satanic forces arrayed against God's faithful. Rationalism is considered a slippery slope to atheism and moral relativism, as exemplified by Nietzsche, Nazism, and Communism. To counter this darkness, believers such as Henry Morris responded with scientific creationism. However, that term sounded too religious, so the name was changed to the more palatable "intelligent design." ID star Michael Behe wrote books advocating ID-centric ideas like "irreducible complexity" (IC) to show that gradual evolution could not have produced complex biological organs or processes. Do the proponents of ID have a point, or are they simply in over their heads?

The author argues the latter. He categorically rejects the idea that ID has any scientific merit, and correctly labels it as a philosophical branch of evangelical Christianity. However, far from the polemic statements made by Dawkins and Hitchens, Mr. Miller presents the facts underlying modern science and evolution in a non-inflammatory way. Although he acknowledges that individuals can be biased, he casts science as a non-ideological truth-seeking discipline because of its reliance on natural laws, provable facts, and repeatable results that are independent of political leaning. With that in mind, he's not afraid of demolishing irreducible complexity by citing recent scientific discoveries about its favorite examples, such as the eye, blood clotting, and bacterial flagellum.

But the author is most concerned with ID's dual fatal flaws, two gaping logical holes that would damage American leadership in science and rational progress if ID supplanted evolution as a basis of life's origin. First he shows that ID is really just a fancy term for creationism by quoting ID documents and statements made by its proponents. Bottom line, ID ultimately relies on untestable and unrepeatable supernatural influence vs. testable and repeatable processes based on natural laws. Second, Mr. Miller is convinced that ID encourages laziness of thought, as demonstrated by irreducible complexity. IC makes it easy to view an evolutionary difficulty not as a knowledge barrier to overcome, but as a demonstration of God's creative ability that might as well be left unchallenged. That's a dangerous attitude because it discourages rigorous scientific investigation, ironically by introducing a relativist religious bent based on one faith's concept of God.

This approach was exemplified by my last Christian mentor, who sternly told me that I should simply have faith and accept the writings of Josh McDowell and C. S. Lewis - or face God's corrective "2x4 and lightning bolts." Needless to say, I was not impressed with his line of "reasoning." This "don't ask questions" attitude permeates ID (not to mention church dogma), and flies in the face of rational thought and proven scientific methods. If science merely accepted past findings and failed to innovate, we'd still be riding horse and buggy and living without electricity (much as the Amish faithful do today). I couldn't live with checking my brain at the church door, so I parted ways with my teacher and my faith.

My above experience enables me to identify with the author's fears for the future of science and rationalism, especially due to the rise of conservative evangelicalism in America. As a former evangelical, I know how tenaciously Christians cleave to their belief system. Even thoughtful and well-meaning believers tend to ask safe questions and avoid confronting the holes in ID and church dogma because they fear God's wrath or loss of Christian fellowship. But as in the movie "300," I hope that the advocates of rationality will triumph over the forces of mysticism. Well-written and thoughtful books like "Only a Theory" will certainly help, and it has my highest recommendation. Other good books that deal with science and faith are "Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design," by Michael Shermer; "God: The Failed Hypothesis," by Victor J. Stenger; and "The Reluctant Mr. Darwin" by David Quammen.

It's a question that I have pondered before, "How can America be one of the most scientifically advanced nations when such a scientific idea as evolution is so widely doubted compared to other countries?"

But for the more economically thoughtful among us the answer is probably more obvious than not. The incredible -- and ironically rather Darwinistic -- powers and capabilities of competitive capitalism lie at the heart of America's soul. Consequentially, business is not the only place where such factors are present in the United States, for science is home to them as well. The result, then, is that just as good and bad products come and go before really great ones succeed in the niche of popular demand, scientific ideas (even so called ones) are in a manner of speaking subject to the same experience.

But there's a little bit of problem here, as Kenneth Miller elaborates on in his new book "Only a Theory". While the more competitive nature of science in the States has given fertile ground to great ideas, the arbiters of what constitutes good scientific ideas worth being taught in the curriculum have too often not been scientists! Rather political ideologues have attempted to interject what is somewhere between poor science and not-science to be either taught along with genuine science (at best...) if not to its detriment (at worst). With these concerns as the foundation of his book, Miller describes the problems that could confront America's scientific eminence if such aforementioned political forces were to gain further power.

To fulfill his duty to ensure that more people become educated, and therefore hopefully able to make better decisions when it comes to the scientific education of our children, Miller, for three chapters, engages in a powerful but honest assault on the (so-called) alternative scientific ideas that were argued over in the 2005 Dover trial. This is probably the best part of the book and undoubtedly the reason why many, if not most, will read it. Much of this portion of the book reads like a version 2.0 of his previous book "Finding Darwin's God". Miller takes on once again the claims surrounding the sacred icon of the recent "Intelligent Design" movement: the bacterial flagellum. He also again addresses the argument of irreducible complexity as it relates to the blood-clotting cascade. Beyond this, Miller references a couple of examples of observed evolution-in-action with regards to synthetic compounds, and looks at our genetic relationship with the chimps. Suffice it to say Miller does, as we've come to expect, an excellent job dealing with the science and making his case. Michael Behe's newer work "The Edge of Evolution" even gets a little addressing.

It is perhaps a bit misguided to think that this book is all but a screed of scientific arguments. In fact, although it contains the scientific arguments, it's also more than that. Miller explores how the educational system is, in fact, facilitating the "closing of the American mind", referencing Allan Bloom's criticisms of America's academic approach, and citing relativism as a culprit in the successes the ID movement has had on the PR front. Miller also spares some words regarding God and faith, which I found enjoyable.
Ultimately, while this book is not quite the powerhouse of scientific arguments that "Finding Darwin's God" was (after all, we've been there done that), it is another admirable and timely book (I've been anticipating Miller's next book) that excellently addresses the current issues of the debate.

ADDED IN EDIT: After further consideration of Miller's argument regarding the nature of science education, it has occurred to me that the following consideration may in fact require Miller to amend his argument about how evolution, and science as a whole, should be taught: the Soviet Union was very much a nation captivated by science, and even placed far more of the nation's expenditures into science programs and research than the United States, yet it was the latter that clearly took the lead while the former remained stagnant. If this is proof that capitalism via competition is better for science than uniformity, then such implications must be considered in terms of their application to education of science in America. In any case, I'll leave the reader to decide for him or herself how this point does or does not affect, to some degree, Miller's argument. I personally think it might.

The book briefly discusses the genetic evidence for common descent, and describes the consequences of trying to take the Intelligent Design stuff as serious science. But he also tries to explain why evolution gets such a chilly reception in the U.S. Part of this is the American tradition of distrusting authority, in this case scientists. But the heart of the religious objection is that evolution as frequently explained says that human beings are an accident. I think this interpretation is a problem for traditional religious belief. But the author thinks that this interpretation has gotten too much attention. He uses the principles of evolutionary convergence and constraints to argue that the eventual arrival of self-aware beings may actually have been somewhat inevitable. Hence, a divine being can work through evolution. The idea that God can work through evolution is hardly new, but he author makes an attempt to flesh it out somewhat from the scientific end.

I'm not sure about the inevitability of self-aware beings, but it's an interesting counter-point to the usual suggestion that evolution is affected so much by contingency (Stephen J. Gould being the most well-known advocate). But I think that making such grand conclusions about evolution, whether using contingency or convergence, is misguided. We just don't know. It also means that the religious objections to evolution are unclear. I think this leaves the door open to people who are inclined to believe that God works through evolution.

In my mind, this book is divided into three sections (though not physically separated as such in the table of contents). The first section (chapters 1-4) is an overview of the tenets of Intelligent Design (ID) and a rebuttal to all of the claims ID advocates make. The second section (chapters 5-6) argues for meaning in life despite ID's claim that evolution produces an amoral, meaningless society. The third section (chapters 7-8) discusses the real goals of ID and the methods being employed to achieve these goals.

The first section is fantastic. No prior knowledge of ID is required, because Miller describes the tenets of ID very well, and then proceeds to prove every one of them false based on evidence produced by science. This is clearly one of the main purposes of reading this book -- to see how scientists can (rather easily) destroy ID as a scientific theory.

The third section is also good because it's the other reason you might read this book (and gets into the topic suggested by the book's subtitle). This section discusses ID's "Wedge document," the founding document which states ID's purpose of effectively "wedging" itself into the foundations of science in order to collapse science as we know it and redefine it to allow for supernatural explanations. This is the most frightening part of the book, because it shows exactly how well ID has succeeded on the public relations front to get out its message.

Now, the second section I wasn't so thrilled with. In this section, Miller seems to diverge a bit from the topics at hand and he seeks to find a way to explain how, even if evolution is accepted, we can still find meaning in life, that we don't necessarily have to be amoral creatures, and even that perhaps we *were* intended to be the product of evolution, or at least that in some sense evolution almost necessarily led to us. For my tastes, this section sounded a little too religious still, or at least spiritual (he calls his belief "evolutionary cosmology"). It's understandable and admirable that Miller might want to address this concern that people have about evolution being "bad" for these reasons (and I have no doubt he believes these things himself, given that this is the subject of his other book, "Finding Darwin's God"), but I couldn't help but feel that this was some desperate attempt to address ID's claims that ID is the "meaningful" theory, while evolution is "meaningless." In some sense, I simply want to say, "Yeah, so what? We *aren't* special and we *don't* have some preordained purpose. Big deal!" but apparently that's just not a good enough answer. But to use evolution and science in order to justify our existence seems like a bit of a stretch. You'll notice in these chapters that the scientific data of the previous chapters has disappeared. This is more of a discussion section.

In fact, this section almost seems unnecessary in that it seeks to justify our existence on Earth in the face of a so-called indifferent process of evolution. What Miller seems to overlook, though, is that evolution is simply a theory on how species have evolved over time. It does *not* attempt to explain how life was created to begin with. But in this section, Miller expands his focus to include the creation of life. In trying to defend evolution, he seems to unnecessarily reach beyond the limits of what evolution even claims to describe.

But overall, it's an excellent refutation of ID, as well as a very eye-opening discussion of just what the ID movement is *really* trying to do to science. Great reading for anyone interested in these topics.

According to Kenneth Miller, science in his country is in trouble. He's not alone in that. It's a rare book on science today that doesn't set aside paragraphs or pages to discuss the issue. Once the threat was confined to books on biology as "creationists" sought to dismantle Charles Darwin's dangerous idea of life's workings - evolution by natural selection. The menace, according to the author, has now expanded into many realms, going beyond biology alone. The challenge today deals with how science works. With so many other disciplines supporting the premise that life changes over time, "anti-Darwinism" in the US has morphed into a more encompassing anti-science outlook. The title, "Only A Theory" addresses the common lack of understanding of how science actually works. In this excellent overview, Miller shows how many US traditions helped construct a negative view of science - in a nation leading the world in Nobel Awards.

"Creationists" are a sad lot, hardly an example to hold up to our young people. Its (you talk about creationists - so it should be "their or you have to repeat creationism) tactics shift and vary as its challenges change, yet it remains dangerous. Beginning early in the last century, legislation in various states blocked the teaching of evolution. A string of court cases identified the laws as supportive of religion, which contravenes the famous "Establishment" clause of the US Constitution. In their effort to overcome this obstacle, the "creationists" redefined their approach by manipulating or fabricating information that would seem to provide their campaign with a scientific basis. Ironically, the creationists used the foundation of natural selection - adaptation - in response to a limiting environment of law to become a new social life form. Creationism added "scientific" to its appellation to grant itself new credibility and to appear to fit in to a wider social mainstream. It smacks of a "virus of the mind" - in Richard Dawkins' terms, retaining basic features while modifying its visible exterior to seem different. Now, having been forced to drop the deity as the underlying force behind life, they have substituted a "designer" and re-entered the lists. It is this latest speciation event that Ken Miller addresses in this book - the "Intelligent Design" scenario.

Miller, who's a scientist and no doctrinaire, describes the fallacious ideas of the new movement with consummate skill. He examines closely both the assertions and the tactics to forward them. Today's ID falls back on what its proponent Michael Behe deems "irreducible complexity" - aspects of life, such as the bacterial flagella, must be "designed" [by something that remains unidentified]. If one part of the system is lost, the entire structure breaks down. At Dover, Pennsylvania, this concept was aired and Miller recounts how he was able to quietly and effectively demolish it. He explained how the flagella has too many forms to be "irreducibly complex" and provided an evolutionary pathway for its development. The trial should have been the extinction event of this dangerous infestation.

Miller, however, is fully aware that the ID virus remains alive and well. Worse, it has a once healthy body to continue to infect - the North American public. He asks why a nation that leads the world in Nobel laureates should be developing an anti-science stance. To the author, this is a revolutionary movement challenging the heritage built up over two centuries. He reminds readers that it is success in science which allowed his nation to take a leading position in the world. The science foundation on which the US rests has extensive roots - its loss to a devious group promoting an insubstantial concept must necessarily be a catastrophe. It must be brought to a halt, and quickly. His aim with this book is to awaken North Americans to the threat and meet it head-on. Scientists who have considered ID to be a noisy and empty-headed mob of fanatics must be brought into the fray. And the rest of us must support them in every way possible. Few nations have had the strength to keep religion out of the classroom. Any erosion of that example is a danger to us all. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Although the lack of supervisory design is a key feature of evolution, I have no complaint with those who would prefer the system to have been set up and monitored by God - if they would just leave it at that. Unfortunately, the ID people have a much broader agenda that could legitimately be called a conspiracy theory. The Discovery Institute is a highly organized and well-funded think-tank that would re-define science, assert that scientific evidence is no more valid than any other point of view, and make evolution versus their religious notions into a merchandizing campaign. Once they owned the public soul on the issue of evolution, they would direct their attention to other sciences that, in their view, wreak havoc for family values in our nation. Their own eloquent summary betrays their conspiracy in a "Wedge" document, leaked to the outside world some years ago and reproduced in this book. In order to protect our educational system from religious frenzy, Kenneth Miller - himself a devout Catholic - has spent the last 20 years studying and opposing the creationist and intelligent design movements. "Only a Theory" is his latest offering.

Chapter 1: "Only a theory:" What ranks higher than a theory in science? Nothing! A theory is the top of the food chain. Unfortunately the word has a different common usage that plays right into the hands of those who would distort intended meanings.

Chapter 2: "Eden's Draftsmen:" "Irreducible Complexity" is Behe's trademark phrase and is my pet peeve. Since when does science throw up its hands and say, "it can't be done." About this, Miller says, "Taking what is unknown, unexplained, or undiscovered today and claiming that it will remain forever beyond our understanding isn't just poor logic - it's a lousy bet, considering the rate at which science continues to advance."

*Science chapter - Chapter 3: "Embracing Design:" To Behe, the mousetrap is irreducibly complex. If it's missing any part, it won't work. Miller, however, remembered an incident from his past when students on the lower floor of a small auditorium used part of a mousetrap as a spitball catapault to hit the more strategically situated students in the balcony. Maybe not a perfect analogy, but neither was Behe's. Adding further modifications, Miller goes on to make other uses of mousetrap parts: a tie clip, a clipboard, a refrigerator magnet, a toothpick. I guess the mousetrap isn't so irreducibly complex after all.

*Science chapter - Chapter 4: Most mammals can make vitamin C, including most primates - except humans, gorillas, and chimps. Instead, we higher apes need it in our diets. It takes five enzymes to make vitamin C, but humans, gorillas and chimps only have four, lacking GLO. We have the gene for GLO on chromosome #8 - same location for other mammals, but it has accumulated several mutations, rendering it inactive. These mutations on GLO occurred in the ancestor common to humans, gorillas and chimps. The retained errors (mutations) in DNA leave thousands of trails just like this one that betray our descent from lower animals.

*Science chapter - Chapter 5: "Life's Grand Design:" More science and the history of the squirmishes with creationism. In an off-handed compliment, Miller says, "If I had to give a prize for the best idea that anyone in the antievolution movement has ever had, I'd award it to whomever came up with the term 'intelligent design'...no matter how you look at it, coining the phrase has been a winning strategy for the antievolutionists."

Chapter 6: "The World That Knew We Were Coming:" Miller says, "Advocates of creationism and ID word their attacks on evolution so as to make it seem that the principal purpose of teaching evolution in our schools is to demoralize our young people by telling them that their lives are without meaning." But science searches for truth wherever it can be found, following the evidence. As Miller explains, "knowledge is preferable to ignorance."

Evolution builds on what already exists but constraints on design are built in - novelty in body structure has its limits. Molecules and enzymes that are arranged as a poison injection system might be hi-jacked to power a flagellum. The core genes that create a flipper in one "kind" are used to make an arm in another - largely by mutation and natural selection.

Chapter 7: "Closing The American Scientific Mind:" In this great essay, Miller tells us why he bothers. The Discovery Institute is borrowing ideology from the post-modern left to question science as a valid endeavor - when they think it threatens their value system. This type of thinking is what caused the first Congress to put their famous freedom of (and from) religion clause in the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

Chapter 8: "Devil In The Details:" A graph on page 214 reflects a 2005 survey of industrialized countries where citizens answered true, false, or not sure to this statement: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." Only forty percent from the United States answered "true," a lower score than any of the 33 other industrialized nations, except for last-place Turkey - a country facing the Muslim version of intelligent design.

This is a terrific book in which evolution comes out the winner against an incompetent competitor. Miller gives the competition more credence than I would. A comfortable and nurturing religion is undoubtedly a good and necessary thing for many Americans, but it has no business putting its world view in opposition to science. After all, isn't religion supposed to be taken on faith? Many, many believers see no conflict, and evolution has the advantage of being true.

Professor Miller's "Embrace Design" approach to debunking ID is absolutely brilliant and he thoroughly hands ID proponents their pigus in this excellent book. Unfortunately, he sounds a little too convincing when he "role plays" the Pro-ID position, which exposes a huge vein of out-of-context quotes to be mined by the IDiot crowd. Of course, they would quote mine him anyway, so it doesn't really matter. :^)

Also nice is the fact that Prof. Miller is a theist (of the Catholic persuasion, I believe). Having a believer demolish ID makes the book that much sweeter. But again, in their ever persistent state of denial, IDiots will claim Prof. Miller is not a "True Christian" because he supports "Evilution".

Anyway, I really enjoyed the book, especially the debunking of the "irreducibly complex" mousetrap and the study hall antics (the spitball catapult was genius).

Highly recommended!

I find it laughable that the ID reviewers of this book claim it is full of "misrepresentations" and "misquotes." Miller has explained the theory of evolution plainly and truthfully why exposing every fanciful ID concept presented at the Dover trial as the unscientific gibberish it is. I had the experience of paging through one of Behe's books and was disgusted with the sheer volume of misrepresentation and misquotes of Darwin and other scientists. Most ID proponents simply don't understand the theory of evolution and scientific method. However, I believe Behe and his friends at the so-called Discovery Institute have the mental capacity to grasp both. Rather than misunderstand it, they are threatened by it. Their fundamentalist Christian beliefs (that's right, I used the "F" word) can't cope with the concept that the world may not revolve around humanity. For them to deliberately misrepresent evolution, pervert science in general, and build a publicity campaign to malign truth as they have is absolutely despicable.

In this book Miller walks through the details of the Dover trial where it was shown plainly how Behe and his cohorts had indeed launched this public relations campaign to replace scientific theory which has been tried and true for over 150 years with their fundamentalist christian belief system. I'm amazed how supposedly educated people can turn their backs on vast amounts of empirical evidence and embrace a literal translation of the Bible. But as a believer in God myself I am disgusted with people who would subvert the truth and claim the religious high ground at the same time.

Miller warns of the dangers of ignoring evolution and the life sciences. And these dangers don't stop at severely compromising our ability to combat disease based on constantly evolving microbes and viruses. Science as a whole would be stifled and discovery (real discovery - not the perversion of the word as used by the "Discovery Institute") would stagnate. If we allow someone to subvert the truth in the science class with their own agenda, then what is there to stop that same party from rewriting history books or burning literature. If the ID agenda comes to fruition we not only lose our future, but we could lose our past.

Miller also explains the beauty of the reality that the theory of evolution teaches us. We have a common ancestry with nearly every living thing on this immensely biologically diverse Earth. So far despite grim odds, among the numerous species to walk this planet, we are counted among the less than 10 percent to avoid extinction. And we are the sole species to develop the intellectual capacity to discover and understand these truths. The ID proponents need to feel they have a stamp on their foot from God that says "You are special above all others, and I have a plan for you - a destiny." Well no individual and certainly no species has a destiny. Rather than a source for despair, evolution shows us how awe inspiring our existence today is. As for our destiny as a species, that is entirely in our hands.