1. Comment #12567 by RascoHeldall on December 12, 2006 at 3:31 pm

While I find it bizarre that eminent scientists could also be deeply religious, it's undeniably a boon to have these guys on board in the war against creationist lunacy.

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2. Comment #12570 by jps2285 on December 12, 2006 at 3:34 pm

It's gonna be hard to watch the rest of this after the opening prayer!!!

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3. Comment #12573 by KJC on December 12, 2006 at 3:42 pm

Why the prayer? This some sort of religious university or something? If not, then I don't see it as a time and place for a dumb prayer.

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4. Comment #12594 by jcall on December 12, 2006 at 5:12 pm

This was awesome. I finally see the advantage to having a leading scientist who is Christian- he has access to places that others do not. I was surprised to hear the biophysicist lady that did not know about Behe. He pursued a degree in the sciences so he could do "god's work" in destroying evolution and Darwin. The section on Islam is scary, but not surprising!

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5. Comment #12595 by plastictowel on December 12, 2006 at 5:13 pm

I watched this guy on colbert and really like him. Hell even he is a christian I think that only benefits the good find of keep evolution ONLY in schools.

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6. Comment #12599 by Yorker on December 12, 2006 at 5:46 pm

This is the guy whose book Dawkins recommends, I'll watch for a while -- see if it can hold my attention and keep me awake.

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7. Comment #12607 by Yorker on December 12, 2006 at 8:51 pm

So, ID is dead. Long live the new creationism named "Critical Analysis".

At least that will probably be the clarion call the ex-ID'ers use to rally the still faithful.

I have to say that Miller presented the most balanced view I've yet witnessed, of a theist's approach to Darwinism. I still cannot understand the 'dualist' brain or mindset of a theistic scientist, but that aside, it was an interesting and revealing presentation and destruction of ID by a self-confessed Roman Catholic. Almost certainly Miller will be labelled 'turncoat' by the rampant politically-motivated fundamentalists, but there's no doubt the ID brigade suffered a huge defeat. Behe especially, must have lost all credibility, not only in the eyes of his scientific peers, but in the eyes of his paymasters and taskmasters who probably tore him to shreds for failing so miserably. Miller is probably right that ID is now dead but will be supplanted by Critical Analysis (CA?), which is just another tired way of allowing for non-evidential hypotheses to creep into the teaching of biology.

It was hilarious that the foolish Pat Robertson — is 'Robertson' a generic buffoon's name — in trying to admonish the citizens of Dover, inadvertently admitted it was a religious crusade by saying they had thrown God out of their city; I imagined a big off-camera DOH!!, a few seconds later!

Miller also mentioned the danger of America losing its scientific lead if the citizenry reject science, it would allow other countries to forge ahead. I can assure him it's already too late and in one field, software engineering, it has been happening for years. The situation was summarised in a book titled "The Decline of The American Programmer", nearly ten years ago (the author's name escapes me). I worked for three software houses in the USA, two of them major players, in every case the key staff (software engineers), were mostly foreigners, people from the UK, France, Spain, Latin America and Japan, were the brains of those outfits. Just take a look at pictures of Microsoft employees for example, — you'll get the idea. Sadly its also true in the UK, software can be and does get, produced by any skilled programmer anywhere in the world, location is not a problem, the net is the perfect telecommuting highway. Guys like me cost too much money, as I found out when I returned.

I liked that fact that Miller was a strong proponent of scientific popularisation and wanted to see much more of it. However Professor Dawkins, I'm not sure you would be his ideal iconic figurehead, still, a good thing nevertheless.

It crossed my mind that sending the video, not the link, to McIntosh the 'nutty professor', might be a good idea, in fact multiple copies to LU also.

Well, I think we'll find that Critical Analysis will turn out to be a giant misnomer, neither critical nor analytical, but time will tell.

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8. Comment #12613 by Roy_H on December 12, 2006 at 10:42 pm

Brilliant!I loved every minute of it. It just shows that the wolf of Creationism is trying to hide behind the sheep that is Intelligent Design. I found myself giving him rounds of private applause as I sat in front of the computer, as he told of the "Mammal like reptiles and reptile like mammals", the evolution of the whale, where the "missing" 2 chromosomes went etc.

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9. Comment #12645 by Ole on December 13, 2006 at 4:04 am

Miller is good!

He "picked" Behe "appart" in a very good and pedagogical way.
This is a video-link we should send to all who thinks that Darwin is only for us atheists.

Yorker, send it to McIntosh! I will tell our "own" David A. Robertson about this.

Ole

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10. Comment #12670 by saneatheist on December 13, 2006 at 7:25 am

Yorker said.
It was hilarious that the foolish Pat Robertson — is 'Robertson' a generic buffoon's name.

Golly what a thought!
Robertsons jam for those who don't remember the good old days, when it wasn't politicaly uncorrect to put a gollywog on their labels.

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11. Comment #12706 by Munger on December 13, 2006 at 10:57 am

Miller may call himself a Roman Catholic, but the guy is smart as a whip and also logical. After all, if there is a god and he is all-powerful, why would he throw down thousands of bits of evidence to confuse us? Miller proves that just because you believe in a god, that doesn't require you to shut your eyes and ignore what you see around you.

I don't know how he manages the dichotomy, but he does. More importantly, he is a strong advocate of rationality and intelligence. I'd certainly find religion less offensive if all its followers were as well-educated and logical.

The key here is that Miller understands the big difference between religion and science, unlike most religious folks. He also understands enough about biology and evolution to see the evidence for it everywhere. Your average person just doesn't get that.

In the end, when we atheists rail against religion, we are railing against ignorance and unthinking acceptance of dogma. Obviously, Miller isn't in this camp. I gladly welcome "religious" folks who realize that it's okay to think and question and observe, and that the bible isn't the beginning and end of all human knowledge.

Well done, Mr. Miller. Informative and enlightening.

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12. Comment #12718 by Nazgul on December 13, 2006 at 11:34 am

If you can get by the opening prayer, and ignore Ken Miller's admission of being a thiest, this is an AWSOME lecture to watch (although I think that deep down, Mr. Miller is a cultural Catholic - closet Athiest). I thought I'd only watch a few minutes of it, but I sat throught the entire thing. I, as well as Mr. Miller, am amazed that the 2q gene discovery was not reported by the media very much. To me, that discover is paramount in convincing people of our common ansestry. Maybe that's why.. it's TOO big to report... ruffle to many feathers. I had to pause the show and take a breath about that... I had never heard it before. Also, the blood clotting aspect was good too. And his warning about a wedge driven between students and science. Lastly, it blows me away at how ID supporteds are straight faced Lairs!!!

Here's a link to red more on the chromosome Fusion:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html

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13. Comment #12726 by Yorker on December 13, 2006 at 12:08 pm

10. Comment #12670 by saneatheist

The jam "Robertson" wasn't the one I had in mind saneatheist, as I guess you know.

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14. Comment #12729 by NoLongerHaveBelief on December 13, 2006 at 12:30 pm

OOH! Careful SA! You'll have the thought police after you! :-)

Ah! Good ol' Robertsons Marmalade! If you have any of those old golly's nowadays, they'll make a fortune on ebay!

Great Video here!

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15. Comment #12747 by simaloko on December 13, 2006 at 2:46 pm

This is an amazing video, okay yes, the guy is a catholic, dont let that put you off. I'm an athiest and it nearly put me off. Incredible lecture in why intelligent design is incompatible with evolution.

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16. Comment #12816 by John Phillips on December 14, 2006 at 12:49 am

I must admit that this is not only one of the best rebuttals, well more like death blows really, of ID I have ever seen, but done in such a fashion as to leave no doubt as to the primacy of the Theory of Evolution.

I initially intended just to dip an and out to get a flavour of the lecture but without realising it two hours has past and I am now writing this in appreciation of a brilliant speaker.

As Nazgul has mentioned, after listening to Miller, I also believe that he is either simply a cultural catholic or one whose belief is a personal and private matter not to be foisted on others. His disdain for those involved in ID as well as their tactics was palpable. If there must be theists in the world let them be like him.

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17. Comment #12933 by macronencer on December 14, 2006 at 1:04 pm

I wish I had two hours to spare tonight. This will have to wait. I look forward to it, though. It will be refreshing to see the case for evolution argued by a Christian for a change.

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18. Comment #12984 by Nazgul on December 14, 2006 at 8:35 pm

I live in Kelowna BC, Canada. As far as I know, BC's, and maybe Canada's, only known bible belt. More churchs than gas stations here. And lots of Christain schools (that DO teach ID). Just because I was bored, I sent two of the Christain schools a link of Ken Millers lecture, with a question weather they taught ID. But I linked them to YouTube because if they came through here, there's no way they would watch it - sorry Richard.

P.S. - Another site with Chromosome fusion info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee_Genome_Project

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19. Comment #12988 by hopeful on December 14, 2006 at 11:34 pm

An excellent talk! Well worth watching. Even thought I don't agree with Ken Miller's religious beliefs I greatly admire his determination to prevent the corruption of science and education in general and I have a lot of respect for him after watching this.

This is compelling viewing, particularly the text-book labelling issue, and the irreducable complexity issue.

They did any excellent job of keeping their personal religious beliefs in the background and dealing with this vitally important issue in a very rational way.

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20. Comment #13016 by David A Robertson on December 15, 2006 at 4:27 am

Ole et al,

If you are going to make comments about me in my absence it would be courteous if you let me know. Why do you presume that I would disagree with Ken Miller? I think this lecture is excellent and it has encouraged me to buy his book. Mr Miller is yet another good reason why Dawkins false dictomy between religion and science just does not work.

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21. Comment #14024 by jbannon on December 20, 2006 at 7:21 pm

Excellent stuff. Well presented and funny. I sat right through it including the question & answer session. As a former Roman Catholic myself I can understand Ken Miller's religious beliefs, though needless to say I don't agree with them, and they certainly don't seem to have any effect on his critical faculties. It is good to see a theist standing up and defending critical scientific enquiry and exposing the ID agenda for what it is.

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22. Comment #14498 by Dean Morrison on December 22, 2006 at 6:22 pm

This talk was originally scheduled as a debate with ID proponent William Dembski - who simply failed to show up.

See:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/12/the_vise_strate.html

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23. Comment #16104 by Homo economicus on January 4, 2007 at 3:47 pm

Brilliant talk. Wish this guy had been my sciecne teacher.

This is a link for Judge Jones' decision:

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/051220_kitzmiller_342.pdf

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24. Comment #19254 by RichardPrins on January 26, 2007 at 12:31 am

Great video for showing what 'Intelligent Design' really is: religious pseudo-science and repackaged lies. Mind the gaps, cretinists!

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25. Comment #36569 by sane1 on May 1, 2007 at 3:31 pm

Everyone, I mean everyone, should have to watch this! Flat out brilliant. And as RD said in his 2002 TED talk , it is important in part because it is from a "christian."

http://richarddawkins.net/article,960,An-atheists-call-to-arms,Richard-Dawkins-TED-2002

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26. Comment #176233 by youmemeyou on May 7, 2008 at 1:09 am

Many of you underestimate the importance of men like him. He is not an aberration to tolerate. This is a treasure.

I hope most of you realize that you could learn a great deal more from the spirituality of our ancestors than you will learn in your fleeting lifespan. I say this as a function of the limitations of the human mind as compared to the evolutionary wisdom aggregated by societies. Men like this - those who realize that religions have still more to learn from amoebas - should be taken as permanent allies, not more temporary than our own state of mind.

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27. Comment #176299 by gcujimmy on May 7, 2008 at 6:34 am

Awesome. How refreshing to see such a reasoned rebuttal of ID from one you would expect to be on the other side of the debate. An ideal source for theist friends who will not accept your arguments against ID now they can see it from one of their own.

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28. Comment #176418 by Quine on May 7, 2008 at 9:39 am

Ken Miller gave a talk at Pepperdine University in November on Darwin and Christian Faith. I give this link out to any religious person I run across because Ken is talking directly to students of religious studies on their own turf and in their own language.

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