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I keep pestering Jay to read this book, so I thought I'd post the review I had to write on it for my Biology class last semester. I thought I expressed both what I liked and disliked in the book reasonably well in this essay, so you can see where I'm coming from. Anyway, here goeth:
---------- When I was first recommended the book Finding Darwin’s God I was intrigued by the argument being made by the author, Kenneth Miller. I’d never really had any issues with the concept of Evolution, but I knew many religious people in my rural Arkansas high school whose reactions to Darwin’s theories ranged from disbelief to anger. As a Latter-day Saint I was always comfortable believing that Evolution fit in with God’s design for His children on Earth, even if I might not fully understand how. I didn’t have a fully developed opinion on Evolution, and either way the world turned out to work, I did not think that it would not have an effect on my testimony. My classmates, however, seemed to feel that Evolution and God were mutually exclusive, and if they believed in one to be true, the other had to be completely false. The fact that Miller argues that the two can, and should, complement each other is what drew me toward the book in the first place.
Today, political issues are putting religious believers on one side and nonbelievers in another, with very few exceptions on either side. An issue like stem-cell research has people arguing from a scientific view while most of the dissent comes from people who hold religious beliefs and values. The gap between science and religion seems to be widening farther than ever before, and Kenneth Miller showed through Finding Darwin’s God that a bridge could be built between them.
Miller’s early chapters discuss how Darwin’s theories on evolution were handled in his education and when he first read them in 1966. He writes that several of his science teachers completely ignored the theory of evolution in their lessons, and friend and family members would often tell him what a dangerous book The Origin of Species was on religious grounds. Alternately, he also discusses how science has brought about the subject of God and religion, and the idea that intellectualism is usually associated with agnosticism or atheism, citing examples from both his colleagues and the students he teaches. He states his firm belief in both sides, saying, “Darwinian evolution does not preclude the existence of God,” but notes how “remarkably consistent evolution is with religion, even with the most traditional of Western religions.”
The next chapters discuss how some scholars have tried to disprove evolution. He briefly describes anti-evolutionist concepts like intelligent design and young earth creationism, explaining some of the arguments they have used to combat evolution and disproving them one by one.
Arguments made by young earth creationists try to disprove the fossil record by attributing the placement of seemingly evolved creatures in the record to a worldwide flood; saying that less-developed creatures would have been unable to swim to the surface. They also use the idea of “appearance of age” to discount radioactive dating. Miller uses flowering plants in the fossil record to disprove the flood hypothesis, and rejects the “appearance of age” theory due to what he thinks it would do to the nature of God – he goes so far as to say that the Creator in this theory “has negated science by rigging the universe with fiction and deception.”
Miller discounts the theory of intelligent design, saying, “anti-evolutionists fail to see the damage they have done philosophically and theologically by invoking design as a universal alternative to evolution.” He devotes an entire chapter to the work of Michael Behe and his theory of irreducible complexity in chapter 5, “God the Mechanic”. The theory states that evolution cannot account for complexities in microbiology or the human eye. Miller responds to Behe’s claims by showing that other scientists have observed that these complexities can, in fact, be a result of natural selection “by using the tools of molecular genetics to wipe out an existing multipart system and then see if evolution can come to the rescue with a system to replace it.” In particular he alludes to Barry Hall’s experiment with the bacterial gene for galactosidase – Hall destroyed the structural gene in several of the cells, held them in an environment of lactose, and challenged them to grow. The cells eventually formed mutated strains that could process the lactose.
His final chapters are devoted to writing about how belief in God is compatible with the theory of evolution. He discusses how the universe from the big bang seems perfectly suited to sustain life, and even slight discrepancies in the laws of physics would mean that life would be impossible. He expresses his disagreement in Daniel Dennett’s idea of multiple universes that reproduce in a way similar to natural selection, describing it as “a way to contain the looming theological problems posed by the anthropic principle.” He also states clearly that evolution is only a biological theory and nothing else. His final sentiments are declarations of faith, proclaiming that he has a firm belief in a God who gives His creatures free will through evolution.
The argument made in chapter 5 has since been refuted by Michael Behe in his article “A True Acid Test: Response to Ken Miller” (2000). Behe argues that rather than affirm evolution, the results of Hall’s experiment “fit most naturally within a framework of irreducible complexity and intelligent design”. According to Behe, Hall’s cells could not grow in a completely lactose environment; only when the cells were cultured with small amounts of useable nutrients could the bacteria mutate, and even then only after the useable nutrients were depleted. Even then, the mutants needed an inducing agent to process lactose. Outside of a laboratory, Behe says, the cells would be unable to use lactose. He maintains that “the admirably-careful work of Hall involved a series of micromutations stitched together by intelligent intervention.”
Behe makes pointed remarks on Miller’s writing style, describing it as “bombadistic” and “relentlessly emphatic. I tend to agree with his sentiments. Miller’s book made several good points, in my opinion, but he uses such vitriolic language to tear down the arguments of anti-evolutionists that his actual logic and reasoning is lost in the rhetoric. He gives veiled insults to those who hold to the theories of Creationism and Intelligent design, saying that the theories destroy both religion and science. He also presumes to speculate on the nature of God and decrees that evolution is the only outcome where God is put in a position worthy of worship by anyone.
He also tries to reconcile the idea that man is created in God’s image by expressing his belief that God is a nonmaterial being who reveals Himself in many ways – as a burning bush, a dove, tongues of fire. A nonmaterial being could take away any form, even the form of a specific person, but theologians have long maintained that any vision of God as a physical person of a particular age, dress, and appearance is necessarily in error. If we were made in the image of God, it must be in some way that transcends physical appearance.
While I think that this eloquent argument makes sense to Miller’s Catholic beliefs, as a believing Latter-day Saint I must reject his premise and conclude that his argument is invalid. Ether 3:6 in the Book of Mormon reads, “And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood.” God is not an immaterial being, but has a body that human beings are literally made in the image of.
Miller does, however, make an excellent theological point about the theory of evolution. He speculates that God allowed for evolution, even at the cost of the destruction of other creatures in the process of natural selection, “as a consequence of the gift of human freedom. The ability to do good means nothing without freedom to do evil…some will always choose the latter, and their actions form an unfortunate backdrop to which the moral choices of virtue, charity, and honesty stand in contrast.” The concept of agency is one that I hold dear, and with Miller’s help I can see how evolution fits into God’s plan for opposition in all things. I could easily conclude that a world without evolution is a world where Satan’s plan was accepted, and there would be no good or evil in the world.
References: Miller, K. Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientific Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution. United States: Harper Collins.
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I got the impression Darwin did believe in God but knew the shockwaves his theory would bring, both to theology and scientific orthodoxy. He was finally forced into publishing when Alfred Russel Wallace began to close on him. It seems like some freak accident, like a fire in Wallace's laboratory, also enabled him to stand alone at the head of evolution.
Also, we just like to make one lonely intellect the hero in our mythology of scientific discovery. "Victorian" is generally associated with uptight prudes, but it is also the society that produced the two men that developed the theory of evolution working independently. At least, that's the mythology I have absorbed.
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