Biologist Kenneth Miller, a Professor at Brown University, has made a parallel career of cutting down creationism/'intelligent design.' He was an expert witness in Kitzmiller, and has actually been on Colbert before (it was before my time), and I would love to tell you all about that, but I can't get the video to play. Anyway, one of his things is that he believes in God -- he's a Roman Catholic. But that may not come up in discussion tonight. No, who am I kidding: of course it will. But hopefully they'll talk more about the science.
His new book is Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul. Amazon and Barnes & Noble have other reviews, and I found somerecent interviews as well. Here's a good summary:
In Only A Theory, Miller, the lead witness for the prosecution in the landmark evolution case in Dover, Pa., in 2005, demolishes the assertions of advocates of Intelligent Design. Given the vast number of extinct species, he writes, their designer seems persistent but not very skillful. Citing an avalanche of evidence, Miller demonstrates that systems identified by I.D. as "irreducibly complex" aren't. Though I.D. trumpets its connections to information theory, biochemistry and molecular biology, Miller concludes, as did Judge John Jones in Kitzmiller v. Dover, it rests, ultimately, on ignorance. Extending an olive branch to religious Americans, Miller suggests that evolution and faith aren't really in conflict because all of nature is part of God's providential plan. In this sense, he believes, the conviction that "the universe had us in mind from the very beginning" is a "perfectly valid metaphor."
No idea whether this'll be worth fighting off sleep to watch.
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