Hell Hath No Fury Like a Scorned Creationist

I had planned on finishing up my review of Finding Darwin’s God by Ken Miller this evening (it’s been sitting in my drafts half finished for a week now), but as it turns out, Miller surfaced over the weekend for another reason.

Last month the folks at Uncommon Descent quoted Ken Miller, giving the impression that he was secretly a supporter of intelligent design. (Miller is a prominent proponent of theistic evolution.) The way it normally works at U.D. when Dembski puts something up is that he pastes emails which are from anonymous friends, colleagues, secret undercover agents, etc. And such was the case here, which he labeled as an “edited report” of Ken Miller’s talk at Texas Tech. Whoever this friend was, he quoted Miller thusly:

The most interesting part of the talk for me came at the end when the following question was posed: “Since biologists don’t really have a good grasp on the origin of life itself, and since life has clearly resulted some kind of self-organization to go from a bunch of chemicals to the point where we are today, couldn’t the origin of life be the point at which God’s involvement in creation was direct?” As this question was posed, at least a third of the students in the crowd nodded their heads yes. The professors in the crowd just looked confused; and scared. To my surprise however, Dr. Miller said, “absolutely!” That made the professors look even more confused.

Well, the truth is a pesky detail, and it’s surfaced. Ken Miller has written a response, and has the actual audio recording of the Q & A. The question, as it’s paraphrased above by Bill and friends was quoted fairly enough. The answer however is a complete fabrication.

Question: On the idea of the origin of life from the very beginning… That’s one of the problems ..[unintelligible].. It’s difficult to understand at this point how life got established. But my question would be is that if it was organized , you know, self-organized by proteins or whatever, then the idea that it’s even self-organizing and that life from them on seemed to be self-organizing, you know, through random mutation, however you want to look at it, does not that sound very similar to design, or some form of hand involved in the original that allowed it to unfold?

Answer: Now, since he spoke from the back, I think everyone heard him, so I won’t repeat that.

The answer is Yes, it does. And in a way, the very use of the word “design” to label the current anti-evolution movement is a brilliant piece of public relations. And the reason for that is that any person who sees meaning and purpose and order to the universe — and I certainly do — in a sense believes in a kind of “design,” that things sort of make sense. Einstein told us that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it seems to be comprehensible, and that’s an extraordinary statement to make. So that’s a kind of “design.”

But the interesting thing is that in the context of the public debate in the United States today, what you described is actually not what is called “intelligent design,” and here’s the way in which I would put it. I, and I think all other evolutionists, would point to the fact that the capacity for life is inherent in matter. Matter is…. Life is a chemical and physical phenomenon. I think that the universe does have a “design,” and that the design is so grand that it makes the evolution of life not only possible but almost inevitable.

The ironic thing is that the proponents of intelligent design actually don’t think that. Because they don’t think that the universe is well enough designed to make the evolution of life inevitable. They think constant intervention on the part of the creator is required to bring about the first life, the first living cell, the first chordate, the first insect, the first bird. In other words, the designer or the creator had to keep tinkering with it. So, in away, In think most biologists look at the universe and have a grander appreciation for the orderliness of the universe based on what many of us regard as the almost inevitability of the evolution of living things.

Now having been caught red handed, their response is to attack Miller and insist that their paraphrase was accurate enough. Somehow they can’t see why the difference between a four paragraphed nuanced answer where a Christian biologist explains his position on the “design” of the universe is any different from the unequivocal answer “Absolutely!”.

Naturally others have commented on this distasteful behavior. I point you to two good Christian responses.

What I’m interested in is why creationists (and I certainly include intelligent design proponents in this group, despite their shrieks to the contrary) show such outright venom to Christians who don’t have a problem enjoying science and worshipping God as part of an integrated worldview. You’ll notice in the first post at Uncommon Descent, Miller and Francis Collins (another scientist quoted) are approvingly spoken of for expressing their belief in God. Yet, when the ID folks are caught telling lies, the tone changes drastically.

I think I’ve figured out the reason. You see, the only credibility creationists have (and I know, the word credibility has got some people spitting up their drink right now) is that they point to those in science who’s worldviews don’t include God, and ask the question to their followers, “Do you want to believe in that?” To a very real degree, their only currency is convincing people that you can’t trust God and accept evolution.

Take this currency away and the fury begins. For the creationist, the scientist who believes in God is a far greater threat than the one who doesn’t. For in a very real, tangible way, his very existence makes the creationist a liar.

In a way it’s kind of scary. Is this really what awaits a Christian who chooses to pursue science? Have things really gotten this bad? That even lying about what someone said is acceptable, as long as they belong to the side of the evolutionary boogeyman? Sadly, I fear it is. And about the only thing I can do is keeping pointing it out and keep appreciating that not all Christians have it this wrong.