At the suggestion of Clara, one of my former students, I attended Dr. Kenneth Miller’s lecture on Finding Darwin’s God and Only a Theory (referring to Intelligent Design) last night at St. Kate’s in St. Paul.  Amazing talk.  Wow, if you’ve never heard him speak, do so.  He talked for almost an hour and a half straight, and I never once wondered what time it was.  He makes things crystal-clear with a multimedia presentation, and although he doesn’t leave much time for you to digest things, he’s perfectly understandable.

It made me want to go back to school.  There are so many remarkable and astonishing things happening right now in science, and I’m so far removed from it now, being a stay-at-home mother and author.  I’ve added Discover to my list of magazines.  Can’t believe it’s not already there.  I must stay current!

Anyway, I’ve not read Miller’s books yet.  I will.

Below you’ll find snippets of the night.

Miller has a love for how evolution explains things, as I do.  Someone asked him near the end if he thought evolution was provable or highly probable.  Miller responded, “Science can’t prove anything.  What we do is come up with a set of hypotheses, then we start to disprove.  All we can do is disprove.”

Another asked him how he could have God and evolution, too.  He quoted from Theodosius Dobzhansky’s “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense in Light of Evolution.”  [Dobzhansky was a noted geneticist and evolutionary biologist and a God-fearing man.]  Here’s the quote: “I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God’s, or Nature’s method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way.”  I’d never heard of the article or the quote before.  If you want to read Dobzhansky’s entire article, you can read it here.

First, may I say that this is a loaded topic in America.  Once I understood the basic tenets of evolution, I could never understand why it was so hated, disputed.  Why would we want to limit how God works?  Why wouldn’t we want to learn all we can about the natural world…and hypothesize how things work?  Do we think God will be offended…or worse, angry?  Do we understand the poetical creation account at the beginning of Genesis as literal time and method?  Are we willing to concede that none of us know what happened way back when?

Second, the stickler for most (religious) people is the Beginning of Time.  Oh, yeah, and the monkey-to-man thingamajig.  Miller pointed out that you can only go one of two ways regarding the Beginning.  To get everything started, nature needed some outside source of energy, so if you’re an atheist, you might believe in a form of higher energy coming from somewhere.  If you’re a religious person, you might believe that it came in the form of God.  Either way, something happened, and they’re both unprovable.  [I’ve always wondered where God came from.]

I cannot reproduce Miller’s fascinating discussion of the monkey-to-man issue.  You’ll have to read the book to find out.  It’s not a far jump at all, and the more honestly you look at it, you’ll find that it’s not a contemptible idea.  If you value animals and humans, you’ll know that God loves all his creation.  Exactly how we became spiritual beings is a mystery.

Miller referred to religion at the end.  He recommended the book On Human Nature by E. O. Wilson, in which Wilson says that religion may be evolutionary, in the sense that we have an impulse toward religion.  He argues this is not a bad thing.  We have an impulse toward science.  We have an impulse toward art.  Does that make either thing invalid or untrue?  No.  Same with religion.  We have an impulse, and for some of us, it defines who we are, how we want to live our lives.  But bottom line: we cannot explain or prove anything.

On my list of things to view: NOVA’s Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial (of which Miller was a part).  You can view here, if you’re interested.

There was a gentleman at the end who had a question for Miller.  His posture was so defensive and so antagonistic, I thought, “Here we go.”  But Miller begged him to stop interrupting, and gave a response so lucid and thoughtful, that I was quite proud of him.

Part of my blogging on these controversial things is that I don’t know of anyone else who is (although I’m sure you’re out there somewhere).  Please, as you’re reading this, check your posture.  Does this post make you angry?  Defensive?  Frightened?  This is a warning sign.  This means you are unable to simply listen and absorb.  True?  Once you’re able to listen and think meaningfully about something you might disagree with (meaning, you’re processing in a healthy way), then you’ll know you’re learning…which is always a good thing.

I’m not a Creationist, but I’ve read reams of Creationist books.  I had to, to write Eve. I respect their opinions.  I don’t understand how they got to their conclusions, but I’m willing to listen in a non-judgmental way.

Isn’t it fascinating to learn of various ways people process the same information?  I think so.