Book Review: Finding Miller’s God

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A Book Review of Kenneth Miller’s “Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution (Harper Perennial, 1999, ISBN 0-06-017593-1)”

By the Editors of localhost/muslim

Kenneth Miller’s book ‘Finding Darwin’s God’ engages with probably one of the most contentious debates in modern science, if not society on the whole, namely, the conflict between the theological and scientific explanations of the origin of human species and life on the planet Earth. In the words of Ernst Mayer, “Every modern discussion of man’s future, the population explosion, the struggle for existence, the purpose of man and the universe, and man’s place in nature rests on Darwin.”

Darwin’s Origin of Species is clearly where Miller’s intellectual loyalties lie. But he makes an important – and, in its depth and thoroughness, an almost singular – contribution that ably strikes a balance between the religious and the scientific, giving due share to both his impressive command of biological knowledge and the depth of his religious conviction.

Miller begins in the Preface by making his biases quite clear. He is a man of religious conviction – a devout Christian – and perhaps in a relative minority among the scientific elite of the world today. At one place in the book, he even acknowledges that the status of religion in today’s academy, is almost like something one is ‘supposed to grow out of’ as one comes of intellectual age. Yet, Miller finds no conflict between his religious beliefs and Darwin’s theory of Evolution. Neither, he believes, would Mr. Darwin himself.

For an audience that is tuned to view the two faces of the coin, as being in constant and intense conflict, this is a very intriguing place to begin an intellectual journey, that Miller is about to embark upon with them. He first lays out why this is an important matter to debate and discuss. He notes that he is about to ‘attempt something that is generally avoided…ask a question that most of [his] colleagues shy away from, and to attack head-on the defenses that many of us have built up in our unwillingness to reconcile the two different answers to the question of “Who made us?” The question is whether or not God and evolution can coexist.’

The question, wrongly addressed or debated, can have serious even dangerous implications, for both science and faith.

Miller begins by laying out the basic scientific arguments that form Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. These are, perhaps, not as dangerous, individually, as they are collectively and when they are put together to produce more philosophical implications, particularly about human evolution. In fact, he notes that many ordinary people – even religious people – tend to agree with the basic ideas that form Darwin’s theory but reject its implications for human evolution and the nature of life itself. Collectively, Darwin’s theory and its philosophical implications may be ground breaking and earth shattering in its true sense. In the words of philosopher Daniel Dennett:

“If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had, I’d give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law. But it is not just a wonderful scientific idea. It is a dangerous idea.”

True to his scientific credentials, Miller starts off by taking, one by one, the various creationist and non-scientific hypothesis and marshalling an impressive array of scientific data and fact to demolish each. In doing so, Miller quickly presents the basic hypothesis under consideration, quickly reduces it to its bare minimum core, and marshalls an array of scientific fact, to demolish that core.

The first case Miller presents is that of those who take a very literal interpretation of the Bible’s story of creation. One of the corollaries of that belief, is the idea that Earth (and the Universe) is only as old as events described in the Bible make it to be, which comes out to be around 10,000 years. In order to hold on to their literal interpretation, the aptly named young earth creationists, reject every scientific belief fact, that contradicts their religious belief – the most glaring being the age of the Earth. Marshalling scientific facts that put Earth’s age at around 7-10 Billion years, Miller asks an important question: if Earth was really much younger, why would science lead to a radically different conclusion? In other words, why would God create a world and set its clock back a million times earlier than its real age? Miller asserts that in order to hold on to their literalist interpretation of the Bible, these overenthusiastic fellows have created an image of god that is based purely on theoretical grounds, without any empirical or scientific evidence to back it up.

Next is intelligent design. Miller takes on Philip Johnson’s work, Darwin on Trial (1999), as a flag-bearer of this line of reasoning and takes it apart, piece by piece, by presenting evidence that demonstrates that the kind of complexity seen in the biological life around the world, does not fit in with the idea of an intelligent designer, who is constantly working to create new pieces of biological art. It is not worthy of God’s powers, Miller says, that he must personally supervise the creation of millions – if not billion of species – and particularly if one considers the distinctiveness and novelty of intelligent life.

To Miller, Michael Behe’s argument for the need of an intelligent designer embodied in the concept of ‘irreducible complexity,’ is worthy of a serious consideration. But a rebuttal based on scientific evidence follows. Behe claims that most biological life is so complex that it order for it to work and survive, several different pieces of this complex puzzle co-evolve at the same time. In other words, for a complex biological life form to exist, it must either exist all at once or none at all i.e. it requires instantaneous design rather than gradual evolution. Miller’s response to Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity, appears to be quite effective on the surface. Miller cites several examples from the scientific literature, that seem to describe the emergence of irreducibly complex systems, strictly by natural processes.

Miller, although himself a staunch evolutionist, keeps his mind open all along for alternative scientific evidence, that might one day be unearthed to modify or demolish Darwin’s important theory but, asserts that thus far, such evidence has not been found. In fact, gradual accumulation of evidence over the years, has strengthened the case for a Darwinian process of evolution, than vice versa. So what does Miller have to say to people who insist that evolution is just ‘a theory’ and not fact:

“Does this mean that our current ideas about evolution might be modified, updated, or even thrown out altogether by a crusading underdog? Absolutely. Evolution is an exceptionally important scientific idea, but it is still just a scientific idea—subject to testing, possible disproof, and even replacement by a new and superior scientific theory. For that to happen, we’d need more than just a lone crusader. We’d need a crusader against evolution who can marshal the evidence to show that he or she is right.”

As somebody reads through more than 80% of Miller’s thesis, one keeps on wondering how Miller – a self-professed believer and devout Christian – would ultimately reconcile his own faith with his scientific views. Miller does a masterful job of building suspense through the first 250+ pages of this 300-odd page book. Many a times, as one goes through chapter by chapter of Miller demolishing the creationist argument, the reader is tempted to skip chapters to read the silver bullet that seals the deal for Miller – the believing evolutionist. The final answer may surprise many but probably not all. It is in this final part of the book where, we believe, Miller is on the shakiest of the grounds. But perhaps that is the nature of the conversation that science and religion must have, in order to achieve some degree of harmony between evidence and faith.

Miller, however, is adamant that science is the only way to reach and fully appreciate the magnificence of God. In fact, it is the ultimate weapon of knowledge that God wanted His creation to acquire, to set him free from dogma and superstition and achieve mastery of the Universe through true appreciation of His creation. He closes by noting:

“It is high time that we grew up and left the Garden. We are indeed Eden’s children, yet it is time to place Genesis alongside the geocentric myth in the basket of stories that once, in a world of intellectual naivete, made helpful sense. As we walk through the gates, aware of the dazzling richness of the genuine biological world, there might even be a smile on the Creator’s face—that at long last His creatures have learned enough to understand His world as it truly is”

What does this mean for the Muslim faith? The Muslim faith advocates belief in a single God, who is behind all creation, without argument. Miller’s attempt to bring about a reconciliation between science and his Christian beliefs (he constantly refers to the three Abrahamic faiths), should give Muslims some food for thought. Some progressive Muslim scientists and even scholars, may find Miller’s position quite amenable although, others may find putting bounds on God’s ability and Will, even though they may be self-imposed, as offensive.

It is nevertheless, a conversation, that needs to be had within the Islamic World, if true science and scientific thinking must flourish in this important part of the world.

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