stevestory
Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005
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I think it is very important to point out that the key quote that Casey Luskin makes in his article doesn’t show the context in which Miller was writing. Here is the quote:
“Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.” (Biology: Discovering Life, by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st edition, D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; emphases in original)
Actually when one reads the statement in its context (see http://telicthoughts.com/?p=792), which Mr. Luskin does not give us, one comes to see that what Miller was doing was writing about the anxiety that Darwin sensed as he prepared to publish “Origin of Species.” Miller goes on to explain almost the exact reverse of what the quotation seems to say. Miller concludes this section by saying, “Like religious scientists of many faiths today, he found no less wonder in a god that directed the laws of nature than in one that circumvented them.”
I’m not sure that Mr. Luskin has fairly represented Miller. When I first read the quote, I felt a sense of dismay that Miller, a professed theist, would write something like this. However, further investigation shows that what he really said was the exact reverse of what he had been purported to have said.
Seems to me that we’re capable of making a few mistakes of our own.
Comment by darrel falk — July 7, 2006 @
5:07 pm
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Darrel's cruising for a bruising.
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