An hour with Kenneth Miller

from the kansas union ballroom at the university of kansas kbr presents an hour with kenneth miller i'm kate mcintyre kenneth miller is a professor of biology at brown university is the author of finding darwin's god a scientist search for common ground between god and evolution in which he takes issue with the idea that evolution and faith are incompatible he was recently the lead witness for paris in the two thousand five dover pennsylvania intelligent design case and he frequently speaks on the issue of teaching intelligent design in the classroom he's also the author of several well known biology textbooks used by high school and college students throughout the united states kenneth miller is appearance is the first in a series of difficult dialect of the commons now it's a joint venture and now i'd like to thank all of you for coming tonight if it's up it's a pleasure

to be back in kansas and it's a great honor to speak here on the campus of kansas university on the title of my talk tonight is the opening slideshows is god darwin and design or creationism six second coming but the theme for this whole series i think could be summed up on the slide and that is that we live in interesting times no place in the united states knows how interesting those times are as much as the good people of kansas i recall in nineteen ninety nine as the slide shows your board of education decided that evolution such a troublesome concept they would simply take it out of the biology curriculum and what happened as you know is the next summer on the voters got a chance to register with the board of education what they thought of that and it won't all they didn't think much of it and they vote in large numbers of the the board about installing a pro science board

early in two thousand that reinstituted evolution of the credit what goes around comes around i don't have to tell us the most of you but a few years later the pendulum swung the other way and this time an entire sofa it's like evolution majority was elected to the state board of education we wrote the standards yet again carried out a series of hearings and of course most recently only a few weeks ago once again kansans got a chance to say what they thought of their board of education and it looks like ending the november elections your head change the composition of that board yet again there's a there's an old saying about the balkans of the balkan states and europe and that is that they generate more history than they can consume locally and in this in this particular case with respect to evolution i think it's only fair to say that kansas has become the great generator of history on the issue of evolution for all of the fifty states but you're not the only one in just

the last two years have been major federal trials in georgia and in pennsylvania you know it has been a school board issue in this day but also you may not notice in the state of ohio where occupied a large part of the board of education says that as a few color and just the stakes in which anti evolution measure has passed house of the state legislature or been reported out of committee you color in this many states and if you look for states in which there's been organized anti abortion activity it's forty two out of the fifty states so this is not original not geographical but a nationwide phenomenon later on in this lecture series you're going to hear speaker who why wal mart made now but you'll figure out who is uncle who is probably going to imply that this is a uniquely american phenomenon and something is just wrong with our english speaking cousins on this side of the pond because of this and in a country like this for example they're such

rationality that this obviously would not be additional maybe so but it turns out the bbc about six months ago did a series on what it called the evolution wars in america as a good series to i want my british friends of the dvd i enjoyed watching as it appeared on this conduct in this country i hope it will on what's up four they released they decide to do something believe it or not there has never been done in britain and that is to hold the british people and asked them we think of evolution and they asked people in the uk do you think that creationism intelligent design should be taught in the schools alongside evolution five out of ten americans say yes to that question when the brits say yes four out of ten it's not that different so it turns out the principal difference between these two countries i would argue is the great american tradition of disrespect for authority combined with local control of education which doesn't exist in europe and i think that's the principal issue and as it turns out the anti evolution sentiment is found literally

everywhere in europe including in the netherlands in france and even in germany now i'm one of the things that happens as you all know is a few months ago about a year ago a major trial begin federal trial in pennsylvania on the issue of evolution and intelligent design the precipitating event for that trial was the decision of a small town board of education dover pennsylvania to instruct the teachers to begin to prepare an intelligent design curricula the morning after the school board voted that way this was the scoreboard outside the high school was intelligent design one darwin nothing i remember when i saw that is as a as a baseball player an umpire i didn't have to worry about that because i figured okay look the other teams get a few runs early on as long as you get to bat in the bottom of the ninth and it turns out we got to bat in the bottom of the ninth well what happened was interesting the teachers in dover came back to the board of education and they told i had two responses they're both great

responses the first was a bureaucratic response and that was all you want to teach creationism or the chair of the science department pointed out that none of the teachers were board certified to teach creationism so they would have to go somewhere to get certification to teach this before they could do it but the other response was a principled one to the other response was to point out that to become a teacher in pennsylvania you have to sign on to something called a pennsylvania teacher code of ethics one provision of that is a promise that the teacher makes that says i will never knowingly present false information to spain i said this is false information we would violate our office if we actually talk to stop well at the risk of being fired they did this the board didn't fire them the board finally was reduced to instruct it the superintendent to go into the biology class trips while the teachers that outside in the hallway and read the intelligent design lessons to the students on the day in which they did this on a group of parents got together and decided to file a lawsuit they then filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the board had tried to establish

a religion there by violating our first amendment rights this case went to court almost exactly you're going to lessen your go trial began in pennsylvania and i had the honor to what to call it that of being the lead witness for the plaintiffs for the eleven parents suing the board of education it was an interesting experience nothing in my professional career societies as ever prepared me for the stress of being deposed and then spending time on the witness stand i figured i was going to dress target on monday of mice for classes on tuesday i've heard amr going on paula testify in the morning i'll be cross examined be a freedom of why don't all teach my tuesday afternoon lecture in cell biology didn't work out that way the cross examination went on and on and on and it was clear on tuesday i was just another day in the witness stand so i had to do something i've never done in thirty years of college teaching just to cancel a scheduled lectures so this class of small enough that i emailed all my students and i said here's number one i sent a copy of the science magazine article about the trial so that although the profit was not off like

skiing or something i was doing something useful and i thought not that impressed them a little bit isolated the reporting about my testimony vineyard time said that that was ok but it didn't really impress until they noticed that the trial was actually been covered in what i'm sure all young people they would turn the greek is really the ultimate news source and you know what the ultimate news that was being covered in the daily show that that gave a legitimacy and as it turns out when the trial was over in january this year things got even weirder and the reason for that it is i welled up believe it or not as a guest on the cold beer report and fourth quarter reports are on and i will show you a little bit of clip from that appearance to serve see how these things go well while the trial was going on it turns out the dover had a board of education election there were nine members of the board

and they made the same decision that many people in kansas now which is that they had had enough and in the elections of november last year they throw out the entire board of education and seeded a pro science board which included three of the plaintiffs in the last now what happened in the trial however is something that beer is reported another theme of the top of this lecture series is difficult dialogues the trial was a truly difficult dialogue and what's a little bit of what went on the trial because i think it bears on the issue in general and especially on the situation in kansas but before i do that i would come back to where we are now to kansas and one of the things that happened is you know if your board of education decided to re write your state science standards beginning in two thousand for there was a sharp debate on the issue of evolution on and what happened is that the supporters of something called intelligent design on the kansas board didn't make the mistake that the board to nineteen ninety nine in tech evolution they left evolution but what they did in a way

was more radical then that they re wrote the very definition of science itself not sure many of you know the details of this but i'll just point to one sentence that crystallized for me the previous four had what i think is a very good and very straightforward and common sense definition of science which is that science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we see in the world around us make sense to me but youre current board didn't like that and they crossed out the word natural explanations and in fact the word natural explanations natural forces natural phenomena appeared twenty one places in the old standard they deleted every single one of it like what do they put in their place that science is a method of doing all these things that leads to more explanations of natural phenomena doesn't sound that big first why war was met with were adequate the explanation as members of the board were happy to explain is to make room in science for what they call non

naturalistic explanations on what's a non naturalistic explanation only that you figure out but being a fan of the boston red sox i believe in non naturalistic explanation because i can think of no natural explanation for the two thousand and four world series and if the red sox managed to make the playoffs this year with the month they've had in august i will also be unable to think of anything except a supernatural explanation so we'll see how that goes but the point i want to make is that what happened in kansas in the offshoot of this was in many ways a prologue to the trial in dover pennsylvania as you know your board of education decided have a series of hearings in which a carefully selected subcommittee of the board all of them announced intelligent design supporters decided they would your perils of scientists on both sides of the issue i have to confess i was one of the scientists who was invited to come and present the revolutionary side of things was pulled up by a staff member from your state board that i said nice things about

it is that we thought you'd be the perfect person to present the mainstream view of sciences really nice but we're all the respect there must be a thousand people in the state of kansas who could present the mainstream view of science why don't always use goes to get made and after prolonged conversations the essential the answer was well we don't have a non credentialed intelligent design supporters the state kansas and those we have to bring in from all over the country especially from the discovery institute in seattle therefore to sort of cover that we're gonna bring the scientist in from everywhere as well that's what i realized that i was being invited basically two eighth with a goal of that and i declined in every other scientists on the side of evolution declined as well now the property but from this i think most of you were exposed to and that is the propaganda was the people on the side of evolution are sure they won't defend their ideas in public they're afraid of cross examination one of the leading lights of the

intelligent design a fellow named william density fantasized about this and said that's exactly the problem darwin us are always trying to get away from being cross examined and on his blog and he published this in may of last year eighty thousand five he fantasized about the time when they can actually get the darwin is under oath get where they had to answer the questions and here's what he wrote this is really quite interesting i await the day when the hearings are voluntary but the ones in kansas but compulsory and we can depose interrogate these people on like there are ways for this to happen on wheels are in motion and the wheels were in motion in dover pennsylvania what i propose is a strategy for interrogating the darwin is to squeeze the truth out and just in case the language is a literal love you can't make this stuff up these are the pictures the density put on his website he didn't folks i didn't little charles

darwin balls being squeezed in the fights in order to get the truth out of now a funny thing happened on the way to the deposition and when he said things are in motion to interrogate to darwin's he was right what was in motion was the losses on intelligent design in dover pennsylvania win that lawsuit was filed on the intelligent design side the discovery institute named think tank in favor of intelligent design a big funder of radio commercials in your recent school board primary elections and they'd presented a slave hovel of eight expert witnesses who were ago the dover be deposed be cross examined and support the board of education they included michael b you did testify the trial and will be here in the series bill density stephen meyer the director the discoveries of all these wonderful intelligent design science what guess what happened the day came for density to be deposed the lawyers walked

into the room it was empty building cities lawyer walked in and said i'm sorry doctor density has withdrawn from the case one after another after another the intelligent design advocates and experts would final this expert and filed reports declined to be to pulse until the eight expert witnesses were down to three so dense who fantasize can't wait to get the darkness in cross examination as soon as he realized he was going to be cross examination janet he react and he still has lots of properties website gets into like to say what happened what happened in the trial i'm sure all of you know the judge issued opinions that was a stinging rebuke of intelligent design and the judge's decision which i would urge all of you to read it's easy to download from the internet it's a hundred thirty seven pages sounds like a lot that page double spaced folks to worry about it is written in astonishingly plain english you're going to hear a judge jones in the series when the decision came

out on the supporters of intelligent design a lot of them said well that's what's the matter with this country from these liberal activist judges that might have worked in forty nine states but in pennsylvania they actually know this guy jon jones is a lifelong republican he's a political protege of governor tom ray edge in pennsylvania who was george bush's first secretary homeland security he was supportive for the federal bench recommended for them to get ready for this by senator rick santorum and he was appointed to the bench by president george w bush during his confirmation hearings he was praised as a judicial conservative and a strict construction's and you know what that's exactly what he has but that's exactly what we needed on the bench in the case because it turns out what extra constructions police is that the constitution means only what it sets and nothing more or first amendment says the stage a lot establish a religion that's all we needed in a judge was to see that that in fact what was was what was going on until all the trial itself was an extraordinary

experience and this is a caricature of be testifying at the trial appeared in a great article in the new yorker magazine there were plenty of high powered opposing counsel on both sides this is erica ruff child a private attorney who took the case for the plaintiffs pro bono this is richard thompson the director of the thomas more legal center which defends the year religious freaks pressure rights of questions he took this on the side of the board of education he lost of course and he won but what i want to talk about are the lessons from the trial and i think on the basis of being there for a time reading the transcripts and reading every word of the decision there are two the first is the complete collapse of intelligent design as anything even remotely resembling a scientific theory and then the second point is the exposure of intelligent design is a religious doctrine not just religious but the particular religious doctrine pretending to be science psychology of the first one first since i'm a scientist and that interested me more than anything else one of the things that the other side tried

was to argue that there are gaps and problems in the fossil record for evolution but these arguments failed and they failed in a rather spectacular way kevin haiti a paleontologist from berkeley was one of the expert witnesses for our site and kevin pointed out but even the national academy of sciences has said that the supposedly missing intermediate or transitional forms are actually there in abundance there are so many intermediate forbes between fish in and fabian is unfitted reptiles along the primate line of descent that you often can't tell when the transition occurs from one to another species and that's a very very common stake in one paleontologist but i thought i should show you something a little more specific and we have known for a longtime charles darwin actually speculated first attention swimming mammals like whales dolphins are descended from land now it's an affect the very first fossils will to be discovered an organism called castle source is a true transitional for as a pelvic bone sometimes has rudimentary legs it doesn't have a blowhole binaries is still the tip of the

snout had moved back in evolution but critics of evolution of often said well maybe so but you i have an awful lot of intermediate force or if this really happened and sometimes they even have gone so waves of producing caricature is showing with this supposedly intermediate form would look like an argument that an animal that was really intermediate between islam and now will and only available one had been very good in the water and wouldn't have been very good on lands we couldn't possibly have survived in that niche know that's always struck me as a strange argument especially because you go to places in florida and their animals are kind of like the intermediate between women were they do very well going to take your leg off if you're not careful when you're walking around but nonetheless that was a fair criticism but caricaturist like this stop stop then about fifteen years ago when paleontologist begin to dig up skeletons of animals that looked remarkably like the intermediate forms the creationist said could not have possibly exist this skeleton fact is one

called ulysses if you're up on your leg you know that you won't see this means the walking whale and nato ones who swipes this is the walking will sweat so does this mean we found the intermediate formed we've answered the question but we found a lot more than once a paleontologist discovered where this transition took place which was in the middle east they started dating like crazy and then they found another and then they found another and to this day we have not one not two but five transitional forms that document brilliantly how the transition from land to water took place so again if you're a critic of evolution you might think oh i found these fossils were never declared victory but science doesn't work that way science is enormously self critical if this is a real revolutionary transition something remarkable must have happened inside the skulls of these organisms the reason i say that is because if any of you have ever done scuba

diving horse been diving know the underwater your hearing is allows it really socks underwear you can hear sounds but she can't tell where they come from whales and dolphins have such good hearing underwater that they can actually using a sonar what's the difference in the arrangement of the middle ear bones is different we have a middle tier system adapted for the air they got one adapted for the water if this is real we ought to be able to dissect the skulls of the intermediates we want to be able to see the bones change it from one form to another guess what they do this as a paper from nature published two years ago in which scientists used cat scans to get inside these fossils stalls and they were able to document in in a very very rich white exactly how these future media forums worth work of these balls are rearranged how the intermediate forms were put together the discovery of intermediate fossils tracing the path of evolution is a constant and it continues for example after the trial ended in april of this year here's a report from that

noted that left wing liberal propaganda should the wall street journal talking about two major discoveries in evolutionary theory that that field trials in evolution rather one was biochemical and the other one was structurally other one was a fossil oh showing an incredible interviewed for the documents exactly how excuse me the vertebrate for land evolved from the front finn's of local fin fish muriel series of intermediate forms along these lines now we have more so the fossil arguments failed it being the biochemist and cell biologist in the group i testified in court on molecular arguments on any particular right before the trial started in if you need proof of the existence of god this is the two weeks before the trial started nature published the sequence for the chimpanzee genomes as soon as i opened it i really this was such a great gift we had to bring it into court and the authors of the article said basically the charles

darwin could not have imagined a better confirmation that our species as a common ancestry with the other great apes and the data in this issue on the chimpanzee genomes what was quite complicated and we had to figure out two weeks how we gonna make this so simple that even a judge can understand and when judge jones comes here please don't tell myself i also promise to tell you why the trial showed that intelligent design was in fact the religious doctrine masquerading as science of adorable were crafted this statement which the superintendent had to read to stones and we'll see if you can read that was your speed readers and right up front but i want to assure you that in these for paris doesn't mention genesis doesn't mention god nothing about jesus nothing about the bible and they said because of that it's non religious but the interesting thing is remember there were three expert witnesses for the trial for the other side or to their credit did not withdraw from the case and did have the courage to come to court daughter b was one of those people for which i get great to

read and what happened in the waters told me this was it told to our expert witnesses we didn't need you guys to show them that intelligent design was really just we used the other guys to show that intelligent design was rigorous religious and this is this is from the ugly the judge's opinion expert witnesses confirmed that a supernatural designer is a whole world of applied to a doctor be he said it's implausible unbelievable that the designer is a natural candidate so it's got the supernatural it's got neck from idaho said that for it to be considered science we haven't changed the ground rules of science teams it so that supernatural forces can be considered and the third expert witness before said that the whole idea of it is to change the ground rules of science to to include the supernatural so our attitude was just keep talking just tell us all about what ideas project is and that in essence made the case a lot of the other

amazing things that happened in the trial you might ask yourself is what happens if this is actually considered science and the first time i read this testimony i was not in the court the time i was floored that his doctor b he was he was pointed out to him that by changing the ground rules of science to include the supernatural you would also allow us rollicking to be considered to be a sign to fix up the subject and to my absolute amazement he said yes i am not rain is a scientific subject and in fact on it he suggested that his definition was so was the astrology would that be agreed with that and the exchange prompted laughter from the court so every time i've had a chance to go in front for example public educators and talk about the challenge of intelligent design i've argued that one of the things you should never lock the people in your community or your board of education forget is that when the leading expert for intelligent design was cross examined under oath he says that intelligent design for intelligent design to be considered scientific to change the ground rules of science in

such a way that astrology would be considered science as well and that is ultimately where the intelligent design projects now how about this religion thing a textbook was proposed for the dover aboard for the dover schools and they bought sixty copies for their kids it was called penis in people we executed that lawyers executed a subpoena to the publishers of innocent people in essence could you give us an old edition's earlier publications page through stuff like that i told not to bother because you know it wouldn't be around lawyers call me up and said guess what can these guys didn't learn anything from the nixon administration they did they didn't burn any of this stuff it's all still here and i want to show you what they thought this is a paragraph from innocent people it's the definition the definition of intelligent design intelligent design these various forms of light began abruptly through intelligent agent distinctive features already intact fish with fins and scales pursue further speaks of rhythm song

then we look at an earlier edition of this book this book was about creation science look at this in this case creation means the various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent korea just think it's the same paragraph all these guys did was to take a word processor to a book on creation change create a design change creator to intelligent designer and thereby to say it's an intelligent design but so when people say intelligent design is not different from creationism this is what they're talking about now how representative is this pair of your love that's barbara forest from louis southwestern louisiana university she had the ungodly task of wading through all these things and counting the numbers of times the words of creation curator apparent read an intelligent design he appeared there and look in the early editions of this book almost nothing about intelligent design and about a hundred mentions of

creation creationism creator and so they watch this look what happened at the end of the book these two things reverse and they reversed dramatically in nineteen eighty seven and what that tells you is that clearly something remarkable happened in nineteen eighty seven i wonder how many of you know as a quest what is participation what happened in nineteen eighty six excellent well done edwards forces are toward the supreme court united states struck down creationism identified as religious doctrine that's exactly when this switch took place this is a timeline of litigation on the issue of evolution the case was edwards' vs og a lard was in nineteen eighty seven two months after the decision they grab the manuscript they fired up a word processor and they change creator to designer and they said long ball now we have an intelligent design but boy does make an impression on the judge he said it's astonishing the definition

for creation science is identical to the definition for it there's a hundred hundred fifty words which and the changes occurred right after the supreme court said creation sciences is unconstitutional and therefore i have a very clear demonstration relationship between intelligent design and creation science now let's step back for a second i think there's a deeper question and on the issue of dialogue which is the theme of this lecture series i think it's important to ask that deeper question and a question i want to ask is why is evolution under attack this booklet that you see or evolution the line and it has a personal story for me i was on i teach my freshman class in a large lecture hall right across the college green from her campus chapel a lecture monday wednesday friday eleven i finish my wednesday lecture is running time at rose was ash wednesday a walk across the degree the campus chapel with ash wednesday services on the way out i see one of my students still lots of election see the ghost is that what you do in here i said saving your and she said what you can and

i said well you know they hired the year they told me i was free to come and go around campus i think i think i'm allowed to do this and she said no i'll give you a baltimore that will explain why and this book evolution the lie argues that evolution is ultimately and profoundly contradictory of christianity an end to any person is a biologist and evolution is the central theory biology and is also a christian to see evolution depicted as the apple in the mouth of the serpent that's a pretty offensive image that's pretty strong stuff so why is evolution under attack i don't think it's because of shaky science i think there's a deeper reason that about your own board of education particular take your biology has many subjects if you take something out of a biology curriculum wanna take of cell biology wanna take our physiology for god's sakes why not take an organic chemistry these are these are real possibilities fox well the user um can be given in the

answers in genesis website same guys who publish that book and i hope you can see this they regard revolutionize a shaky scientific theory they were gordon is rock solid they regarded as the foundation of everything that's wrong with society lawlessness homosexuality pornography and abortion that's the problem not that's not graphic enough for you or one show you this which is from the same website and depicts the battle between evolution and creation the name of the founder of evolution it's given right over here look closely folks that is not going down there and somebody else it flies the flag of humanism you probably can't read the balloons with the balloons up here on the evolution castle or racism abortion pornography divorce and euthanasia so short and that's what you get when you get with evolution and it's important to know that whenever you get a critical discussion of evolution one of the very first issues to come up is in fact the issue of religion i promise you i showed a

little bit of the interview from the colbert report and i made it into this a little bit cause i don't want to take a full six minutes but watch how quickly steven kolb your comes to the question of evolution and religion emily as i was by let me ask you something walk me through how you shot here blame evolution from the primordial soup to how i got here today in my limo as tick got their sense of we call basically what evolution tells

us is that we are united will put together the fabric of life with every other with our own up until about oh two three hundred years ago people thought that life on earth you'd never change but at it we became aware of the end of the seventies and eighteenth century of life had changed and the process of change explaining that has been won a biologist biggest projects for the last hundred years and that explanation is a luge this i gather also that he forgot to create jesus through him all things were made for us and for our celebration are the they just think that the opponents of evolution have going for them is affection software and that is the idea that evolution religion have to be an opposition to china in a sense is that i have a higher opinion of got there the people who favor intelligent design because they think he sort of old snow pedestrian god with lychee tricks

he had designed this was what extent he designed that it would take me fossil museums of the world are filled with business that's my view is a liar and that this is a guy who was so clever that he set a process in motion that gave rise to everything on this planet and you andy and it even though all right you really could be so involved his only x men and you think god is that clever i think i was so clever that he just made it look like to the fossil record or not really to sort of put all those dine elbows down and it gives you usually been here for a while is that existed before i was born so that your theory is essentially what i would call the state more theory of evolution which is that these things that are just the show was he's a wild and crazy

and i don't reject it for scientific reasons i rejected for theological switches i don't choose to believe in a deceptive create a similar we've come back that a gun that will you please come back another show explains meters hole sun doesn't go around the earth as though i was younger because it's funny and also because it shows you how quickly any discussion of evolution the issue of religion comes up and in fact i find that a key weapon against science is the presumption that evolution is anti religious type evolution versus creation into google you go to websites with graphics like this week wei evolution of creation against each other it's an excuse me it's either one or the other piece of evidence in favor of evolution is a blow against guardian vice versa my co author jody knows i use this image and call me a couple months ago i said can't

you'll never guess the picture that i found on the web site of a christian school in the midwest we see emailed me the picture there's the picture and there is the biology teacher and he says look what he's way it's our biology book annie's weigh it against the bible is arguing it's either or joe did take a certain satisfaction from the fact that apparently it takes two bibles we thought we thought that was pretty good olive talk about the trial of talked about what the trial exposed the anti evolution movement as part of their endurance strategy says that it is important to portray evolution as being anti got philip johnson the godfather of the intelligent design movement has written this in many places including his book the witch of truth and what i what johnson wrote the objective of our strategy is to convince people that darwinism is inherently atheist that'll shift the debate from creation vs evolution to the existence of god versus the non existence of god from their week in interviews people to the truth of the bible the question of sin and finally we can

introduce them to jesus now being a christian i wouldn't want to introduce people to jesus i just wouldn't want to do it under the guise of science which is exactly what johnson want to but you may say isn't that what evolution tells us is in darwin's legacy that we are just pointless purposeless molecules that were here is the result of accidental can look at collisions and our lives are without meaning there is in fact no shortage of scientists were willing to say pretty much exactly that david hall of years ago writing in nature put it this way what ever the da implied by evolutionary theory of natural history may be why he's not the protestant god of waste not want not he's not a loving god who cares about his productions he isn't even the awful got portrayed in the book of job the god of the galapagos the god of evolution is careless wasteful indifferent almost diabolical he certainly is not the sort of god to anyone would be inclined to press in short evolution tells us that if god exists he's a very

nasty fellow later on this semester you're going to hear from richard dawkins who is in my opinion the most brilliant and the most incisive writer and evolutionary theory a lot i have enormous respect for dawkins his book the selfish gene i think is the greatest book on evolution written in the twentieth century nonetheless dawkins takes this bleak view of what evolutionary science tells us by the world about the world the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design no purpose no evil and no good nothing but lines pitiless indifference i was wondering how does richard managed to get up in the morning this is what he thinks but the irony of this is he says this universe tells us that there is no purpose i don't know of anyone who lives his life with more drive and purpose and richard dawkins and that's the point to be made about the nature of this point you

know all these assertions niger shown have something built into them that i think sometimes their advocates are unaware but you should be aware that assertion is that science all can lead us to truth regarding the purpose of existence which is of course it does not have a purpose that's a bleak message but the argument again is that science is the only road to truth and the reality of those days is that states like that or philosophical not scientifically nature philosophical doesn't mean wrong it simply means not testicle by the methods of signs and they actually have no more scientific standing in a statement that i might make about the purpose of existence on the basis of my own pst points of view what's going on what's behind the un ending back and forth warfare that we see it everywhere in this country and we see it exemplified in the rising at adding types of evolution and

creation in a state like kansas here's what i think is going on and this is my contribution to the difficult elements of a style we have a biological theory called evolution which deals with the origin of species by mature your processes many people dawkins among them daniel dennett many others draw a conclusion from evolutionary theory which is fundamentally the anti theists a philosophical interpretation that having immature origin for living things denies meaning and purpose to our lives and denies the deity most recently last two months two major blocs have come out that are you exactly this point the god delusion by richard dawkins and breaking the spell religion choosing as a natural phenomena by daniel dennett of tufts university faced with such unremitting hostility to religion and that's exactly what these books i separate exemplify i think the advocates of religion react and they react in a

predictable way the creation scientists for example decided we've got to do something about this their solution however was to ignore this interpretation and to go after evolution itself so all the arguments from the old creation science think are designed to attack the validity of evolution the logic being if we can just companies out from evolution this interpretation will wither on the vine one of the reasons why people in the scientific community immediately recognize that intelligent design was just the same as creationism is when it came along intelligent design sought to do exactly the same thing to attack evolution in the hopes that this interpretation would go away the contribution or the suggestion that i would like to make his dialogue is pretty simple and that is that people of faith are shooting at the wrong target and that instead what they should be shooting at is not evolution itself which has turned out to be

remarkably robust following a hundred and fifty years of attacks upon since the publication of origin species it still standing but rather the airtight theistic interpretation of evolution and that i am convinced is alternately the road to piece the way in which these two disputation scripts can be brought together in states like kansas and elsewhere in the united states and this is the argument that i would like to make tonight so for example what we can draw from the evolution certainly includes the anti ballistic interpretations that i've mentioned but it is also possible and i think necessary to draw atheistic interpretation of evolution one that the mercurial origins of ours another species reveal meaning purpose and the deal to ensure that they are consistent with religion now the key question that i think all of us have to face regardless of her views about science and religion is whether or

not science carries us is deeply into the mystery of life as we truly wish to go and that's a question i think everyone should grapple with i would say that people of faith would argue that it does not that science is useful as it is doesn't answer the alternate questions of existence that this is not a rejection of science and scientists have devoted my life to science i don't reject science but i think i recognize the limitations of science and many other scientists do as well and i would argue that appreciation of the validity of these chores you have to agree with it uses simply have to say that's a valid choice i might not but other people clearly do is really the first step in making a genuine peace between science and religion now is what i'm saying that we should take the bible as a scientific text well the answer that is no of course not but i want you know i'm not the first person to say that and i point to the writings of st augustus

augusta is was one of the most prolific of the early christian writers he's accepted by the by protestants and catholics alike as an authority in early christianity and he wrote a remarkable book called on the literal meaning of genesis if a boston were here in this room he'd tell us that he's a biblical literalist meeting the genesis means exactly what it says but he also say those savings require interpretation and i want to read and i think these letters are big enough so i think most of you can read it but as you read it i am going to translate on the fly into what i think is twenty first century english this is a remarkable story agustin says that's my translation even a nonbeliever can study geology astronomy the zoology botany and other sciences and can gain scientific knowledge from observation an experiment now the most dangerous thing that could happen would be for that non believer to your christian presumably telling the meaning of the bible talking nonsense on the seas

scientific topics and we should do everything we can to prevent the embarrassment of people showing signs of ignorance a christian and laughing at to score look at what customers said if you use scripture to make conclusions about astronomy biology zoology you're making a mistake because if those conclusions are wrong the nonbeliever will see that you're wrong and will disregard the real message of scripture which is your spiritual salvation and dustin would have thought that would be a great tragedy when i lecture to site of the group's usually the really happy with me until i start talking about say dust and i can see i'm sort of moving around and thinking wow what kind of science are we going to get if we listen to miller's advice i mean what would we expect of the science really weird fifth century mystic what's in augusta i think that's a fair question and i think it deserves a fair answer what kind of science do you get if you follow augustinian presents an example for this guy was a

priest in the august in order actually is a religious order that follows the precepts of saint augusta and he did very well in the priesthood he was ordained he became a schoolteacher and ultimately he became the end of the august and ian was furious eight thomas and brian in what is today the czech republic at one point in his life this august any and got interested in what today we would identify as a scientific quest you want to know how plants test their characteristics along from one generation to another now did he read the bible we know we did had read every day for the roman office the prairie we know he did he lead the monastery in prayer but at the scientific answer your we did he went into the garden and he gave he did expired and from those experiments this priest whose name was gregor mendel concocted a science that today we call genetics gregor mendel the august it increases the founder of the modern science of genetics what kind of science do you get if you follow

orders danny and preserves the answers you get damn good science good genetics and i think that is as profound a statement as anyone can make about the compatibility between science and religion in my book this is the argument that i met and that is that by choosing evolution as his way to fashion the living world god emphasized her mature nature for unity with other forms of life he made the world today contingent on events of the past he made our choices matter our actions generalizing that important in the final analysis used evolution as the tool to set us freight and by speaking out of the scientific mainstream when i say this look in this week's issue of the journal nature the most prestigious scientific journal was a letter in there and the letter points out that tia dorsey as dom since get one of the most famous evolutionary geneticist who ever lived was in fact a committed christian and dubs inskeep in describing his religious beliefs in nineteen seventy three articles he said it is wrong the whole creation

evolution special exclusive i am a creationist an evolutionist evolution is god's word nature's method of creation he said he believes that the creator has created the living world not by countries are intelligent design but by evolution propelled by natural selection and it's worth noting that one of jobs and squeezed the christians the christians most lot of longtime productive and profound collaborators was first in the air the atheist one of the great revolutionary theory is years of the twentieth century and a christian scientists and an atheist scientists work together of course that is what makes science special is it provides an intellectual common ground that can unite people regardless of their nationalities their ethnic backgrounds their genders or their religious beliefs but once again is it just me and dom since dr alam well that's if he was on the lam it real happy to be there but the answer is no and this is also an article

from this week's nature and it talks about genetics literary weighs in on human face with a whole is the genetics luminary jack stewart is francis collins one of the most famous scientists in the united states the leader of the human genome project he was one of the two people given primaries organizational credit for the human genome project francis he was an evangelical christian has just published a new book called the language of god a scientist presents evolution evidence for belief is francis collins an evolutionist you bet he is an uncompromising evolutionist but also a person of faith to drive the point home still further acquits i want you to guess who wrote this point i can't read all this stuff so i'll read it rather quickly one of my geneticist friends emailed me despair couple months ago said can i want you to guess who wrote this i didn't quite get it really really close to him quite get along and i just came through according to a widely accepted scientific account universe are up to fifteen billion years ago the big

ben our own solar system earth for the four have billion years ago there's little consensus about the origin of life came about but there's general agreement first orgasm twelve has planted three billion years ago since it has been demonstrated they're all living organisms on earth are genetically related is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organ that's as good an account of the natural history this planet has ever seen and the church leave you know who wrote it but here's the guy partly but not quite joseph cardinal ratzinger now pope benedict the sixteenth or the isaac asimov was equally good guess is it is contained in a two thousand and four a vatican document called communion and stewardship and whatever else you think about this guy no one would argue that he doesn't take religion seriously and this is a point this is a paragraph sixty three from this account to wash a pair of sixty nine because

the pope i didn't write this he actually chaired the commission that road but he nonetheless this comes out over his under his signature of any says according he's talking about evolution and says many neo darwinian scientist people who say that evolution denies got as well as their critics intelligent design people conclude that if evolution is a radically contingent random material process driven by natural selection genetic variation that there's no place in for divine providential close out no place for god to be says women according to our understanding true contingency randomness in the creative order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process that's exactly what evolution is can nonetheless fall within god's providential plan for creation don't have to buy into that but you do have to at all this is a person who has a serious person of faith who certainly comes to this conclusion and it's worth noting the catholic church has really been kicking around the issue of

evolution in january the vatican newspaper published an article and invited article condemning intelligent design as being very bad science even worse theology many of you know that last week and the pope is former phd students were taking this idea around and it looks like the outcome of this meeting may be that the charge and this is from today maybe church may be ready to reject the idea of intelligent design and i think that would be a good move for both science and perfect leslie i want to emphasize that this view that evolution and religion are compatible is widely shared on this is a an excerpt from a wonderful book by john hawkes who's a professor of theology at georgetown university and was also what the expert witnesses at the dover trial and i wish i'd say i love the way the jackpot this old world evolution doesn't follow a strict plan but is nonetheless given its be a value and meaning like god's vision for the god of evolution doesn't fix things in advance or hord selfishly the joy of creating instead

that god shares with all creatures their own openness to an indeterminate future could have put it better myself what's the right way to understand the message of evolution is evolution a depressing message is it is it a message of nature read into thin cloth is it a message that tells us that our allies are pointless for purpose was or that the world is a utilitarian world that has no beauty i don't think so i think the best way to describe the evolution can be given in one sentence by the person who kept this notebook page and i had heard about this page this sketch you can see the top of an open page it says i think that underneath this is a sketch was written eighteen forty nine it was the first sketch of this type that anybody ever put down if you go to the american museum of natural history in new york city you may actually be able to see this page and when i saw it it would just it shivers down my spine how the guy who kept his notebook put

i think no one has ever put it any better and what he said with respect evolution is not that it was a depressing fashion what the country what he said is there is grandeur in this view of life with its several powers having been originally breathed by the creator into a few former and forms or into one and that while this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed laws of gravity from so simple a beginning endless forms most wonderful and most beautiful have been and are being evolved that's the concluding seconds of the origin of species by charles darwin words to live by it you've just heard this before the september seventh two thousand synthetic kansas union ballroom at the university of kansas it was a presentation of katie's whole center for the humanities and the biodiversity institute the recording engineer was tubby smith

and kate mcintyre k pierre presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas the

man yeah that is