Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution

Rating:
Summary: Great proof of evolution, poor "proof" of God
Review: The first premise of the book is fantastic; it will no doubt convince even the most anti-evolutionist that Darwin's findings are as factual as the earth is round. BUT, the author's second premise is baffling. It's as if another person wrote this part of the book. Miller states that because science can never fully know everything (due to quantum uncertainty), that the door is left open for a clever God to have set it all up. I cannot see how Miller can embrace evolution AND the Bible stories of the Virgin Birth and other miracles associated with a Western God. I was disappointed by the flimsy logic on why he believes in God.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended reading for students of science and theology.
Review: Scientist Miller conducts a search for connections between religion and science in this title, which focuses on the debate between evolution versus creationism and which offers a solution to the issue. Darwin's insights are valid scientific observations and evolution is 'real', but doesn't necessarily negate religious perspectives. The science is intriguing and absorbing.

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Summary: Finding a good answer.
Review: This book is the best of breed in the evolution vs creationist battle. Miller covers both sides in-depth. He is a little arrogant in his treatment of the young earth group, but in all other ways very balanced. I found this an interesting read in an area where much ground has already been covered. Agree or disagree, his conclusions are scientifically sound and articulate. Whatever your starting point in this debate, this book is worth the time.

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Summary: The best defense for Darwinism I have ever read.
Review: In his book Finding Darwin's God, Kenneth R. Miller states that the reason most theists feel such animosity toward science is because scientists and naturalists continually attack them, claiming their "faith is a cop out" (to quote one reviewer below who seems to think that he somehow has access into my head and can make an objective judgement as to the state of my faith) and that theists shouldn't be hired for certain jobs because of their belief in God. If the negative attacks on Miller and his book here are to be taken seriously then it would seem that he hit the nail on the head. Having said this, I will admit that if you are atheist and cannot or will not consider the possibility that God exists, then you will not appreciate the closing chapters of this book. But that doesn't mean that you can't get somethingthing out of it, because I truly believe this is the best defense of Darwinism I have ever read. However, if you are theist and also appreciate the value of good science, then I believe you will find this book quite enlightening. Personally, I find it refreshing to know that there are scientists out there like Miller who understand that evolution, like physics, mathematics and the other sciences, is merely a tool that can be used to help us understand our world and the universe around us, and not an end all answer in of itself. In fact, I believe that anybody who honestly thinks that science is more than just a tool and is in itself the ultimate answer has turned it into nothing more than a religion. Evolution, though it may tell us how we got here, does little to cast light upon the human condition. Evolution cannot tell us, for instance, why we write poetry, or music, or carry out extravagant rituals in disposing of our dead, wage World Wars, fall in love and create complex languages. Nor can it explain the many other characteristics that are unique to humans, of all the animals that inhabit this planet. For these answers we must not only engage in sociology, anthropology, and the other soft sciences, but we must also consider philosophy, and yes, theology, in all its many manisfestations. Miller's Finding Darwin's God is brilliant for the fact that it does this very successfully. It puts forth a credible theory about human existence that adheres both to science and theology. I recommend it whole-heartedly.

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Summary: Glosses Over the Atheistic Nature of Evolution
Review: Dr. Kenneth Miller tries vainly to find a reconciliation between God and organic evolution. To begin with, he gives the standard "evolution is fact" litany, but then gives away the store when he tacitly admits that such things as the origin of life have not been shown to be explicable by organic evolution. He then argues that, in time, science will be able to. Perhaps, but this is faith in materialism on his part, not faith in God. So are his bold pro-evolutionary statements (e. g., "the gaps are filling up") which are very much open to question. Brown tries to find God in such things as aesthetics and the human sense of wonder. Trouble is, such phenomena are treated as survival-enhancing phenomena by the evolution theory he espouses, and are certainly not recognized by evolutionary theory as products of God.

Brown mischaracterizes scientific creationists when he charges them with seeking God in darkness. Actually, creationists seek God in both the light of Scripture, and in the light of empirical evidence, which is much more consistent with separate creations of living things than with a chain of evolutionary ancestry.

He creates an artificial either-or dichotomy: a constantly-intervening Creator or a totally behind-the-scenes Creator. He falsely supposes that evolutionary theory is necessary to make room for a God who allows freedom for the function of the things that He has created. But this is totally unnecessary: God, according to the Bible, does not work miracles all the time (or even most of the time), and has long since stopped creating new things. God's miraculous behavior does not nullify His non-miraculous behavior, nor does His non-miraculous behavior mullify His past miraculous behavior.

In wanting God to be part of evolution, Brown is characteristically vague as to how this is supposed to be. And he glosses over the fact that evolutionary theory rejects God as a causative agent in Earth's history--not only in the direct and miraculous sense, but also in the providential sense. In conclusion, the "Darwin's God" of Brown is, theological language aside, completely indistinguishable from a nonexistent God. Evolution is inherently atheistic, and it is time that we face this fact squarely.

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Summary: Ultimately fails its intended Christian audience
Review: I think a proper assessment of this book has to start with an understanding of the audience for which this book was written. It was written for believing Christians who think that the theory of evolution undermines their religious beliefs, and so therefore must be false, no matter what the scientific community says, or what evidence it presents. Since the theory contradicts Biblical teaching (so they believe), there must be something wrong with scientific reasoning, regardless of how compelling it might seem to observers not burdened with Biblical literalism. This is basically what Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at one of the best schools in the country, Brown University, is up against in his book. He has a profound understanding and full acceptance of the biological theory of evolution, yet he has an entirely conventional Christian faith, which he believes is not undermined by neo-Darwinism. What we have here is a man who fully accepts the contingency of history (natural as well as human), yet accepts his Christian faith on the basis that God simply "surpasses our ordinary understanding of chance and causality [p. 236]." This argument, addressed to conventional Christians, of course hinges on a certain conception of God, a conception that the atheistic evolutionist can't possibly accept, because everything the atheist understands about the nature of the universe flies in the face of that conception. So this book is not for them. My mistake was thinking that there might be something in here for me. For the first half of this book, I thought that Miller was on a track to a more mature conception of God, more in tune with a classical, mystical vision of the universe, God as the living ground of being, "the fire in the equations," as Stephen Hawkings has put it. This would be a living God, the life behind all life, but not a God that is conscious of material contingency, or who has any control over it, other than through His spiritual effect on His worshippers. This would be a God who answers prayers strictly through spiritual redemption, but not with material consequences, other than those caused by the resulting actions of the person doing the praying, when as a result of the prayer the person is spiritually moved to action because of his contact with God at a spiritual level (which is the only way we CAN have contact with God). Unfortunately, Miller simply accepts an essentially Western conception of God as a wholly other being who "somehow," in spite of the physical contingency of history and all physical events, can still throw adversity our way as "a challenge" for us to improve ourselves. He simply makes assertions that apparently fly in the face of the common sense that evolution seems to give us, without giving us any reason for believing them, other than that they are traditional Christian beliefs. He seems to feel that God can let the detailed workings of his universe develop on their own, while still providing it with an overall purposeful development, both at the biological level and at the human, historical level. It's as if God can step into the world to work his miracles anytime he wants, but mostly refrains from doing so, to allow us our freedom. I've always had trouble with this conception of God, and, ironically, so do a lot of fundamentalists. Either God is in complete control of the details, or he isn't needed at all. This is why deism has never made sense to me. This concept of God may be consistent with the mainstream Christian concept of God, but it doesn't seem informed by the modern theory of evolution. It's as if the second half of Miller's book completely ignores the first half. The book is thus a gigantic non sequitur, and it is not going to be satisfying for its intended Christian audience, if the latter is at all thoughtful about the matter. To me, the answer is obvious, but it's not going to satisfy many Christians: with his entire being, God is behind the animation of every last detail unfolding in the universe, but "the left hand knows not what the right hand does," and that is the underlying dynamic behind not only evolution, but the activity of every particle and/or organism in the universe. Where Miller is mystified why God would bother creating civilization upon civilization that lived and died without an inkling of Christ (but, inexplicably, claims he's not bothered by his mystification), this evolutionary concept of God has no problem whatsoever explaining such developments. Given the "global village" that the world has become, you'd think that it would be obvious to a person of Miller's learning that the forms and attitudes of all historical religions are contingent on their own particular histories, and that Miller would feel compelled to transcend traditional Christian dogmas and attitudes about the nature of God, and that he would allow his own understanding of evolution to inform his conception of God. Just because the only reliable method of discovering how the universe really works, science, was originally a product of the West (it currently transcends all cultures, no matter what the post-modernists think), doesn't mean that Western monotheism is the only, or even the best, path to an understanding of spiritual reality. This book is great biology. It is dismal, even depressing, theology. It mystifies me how a Christian believer could be encouraged by the last couple chapters of this book, when the full enormity of the wholly-other Christian God is laid out before us as a proper object of worship. I am once again reminded of why I lost faith in this Christian God over 30 years ago, in favor of a more mystical and internal vision.

Rating:
Summary: Faith is a cop out.
Review: I have found that is it a waste of time to argue religion, since a religous bigot will always revert to the arguement that faith answers all. When presented with logical arguements, such as Behe's incredible detailed proof that evolution could not have been responsible for the creation of man, Miller finds no concrete bilogical or chemical proof against Behe's conclusions, but resorts to typical religous views that God must have created all, because that is the way it is. A typical Kafka responce. What Miller doesn't realize is that Behe stopped short in his book (Darwin's Black Box) in proposing who or what force was responsible for the impossible construction of flagellum, blood clots, and retinal reception. The conflict between religion and science will continue forever, until we, as evolving sentient beings, bury primitive superstitions, or until we eliminate all religous fanatics who want us to believe in fluff and not in facts. I am afraid that scientific evolution will not progress in any meaningful manner until universities stop hiring such professors as Miller who fill our young children's minds with mush.

Rating:
Summary: Great start; disappointing end
Review: As many of the reviewers below have eloquently noted, the majority of Miller's book is devoted to debunking the poor science of creationists and fundamentalists who attack evolution. Miller offers an excellent presentation of the basics of evolution and refutes the arguments of several recent detractors. The story is highly readable and builds towards the inevitable conclusion that religion must conform to the truths that evolution and science in general have discovered. Along the way, Miller demonstrates the futility of stuffing God into the gaps of scientific knowledge; doing so only leads to a new crisis each time science explains what was previously thought to be the domain of God.

Having presented a compelling case for a universe that evolved according to knowable rules, Miller then attempts to show how a personal God can be consistent with our apparently Godless universe. Where does this God go? You guessed it! Into the gaps of science! In this case, it's the

indeterminacy of quantum mechanics that provides the space for Miller's God.

After such a clear explanation of the science that compels us to reject fundamentalist cosmologies, it's surprising to see Miller fall into the silly quantum mechanics mysticism of such books as "The Tao of Physics" and "The Dancing Wu Li Masters." Many aspects of quantum theory are recent and presently evolving; perhaps some yet-to-be-articulated model will explain simply what today appears indeterminate. If so, yet another gap will be filled, displacing God in exactly the way Miller decries in the first part of the book!

But even if the indeterminism of quantum mechanics remains forever a feature of the theory, there's still no reason to insert God into it. Again, after so carefully explaining the _reasons_ to reject religious dogma and creationist pseudoscience, it's jarring to see Miller assert his religious speculations with absolutely no rational justifications whatsoever. His explanation of God-in-the-quantum-indeterminacy-gap offers no hints to the nature of this God; for that, the reader apparently must turn to one of the dogmatic religions Miller has previously defenestrated.

Ultimately, Finding Darwin's God reads like the ruminations of a smart guy who is trapped by his intellect: unable to justify dogma, he accepts the material world. But unwilling to let go of the seduction of religion, he relaxes his intellectual rigor to create a little space for a God he can't otherwise find.

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Summary: "Drops" Dennets 'universal acid'..AND LIVES...(B"H..).
Review: More recently, decent books have come out to take the intellectually dim limelight away from the Creat "vs" Evol false dichotomy campaign, and detailed how neither candidates for emperor/ess were showing up for the Debates (maybe Kansas?), with all their clothes on...or to be more accurate, may have been showing up in drag; never has there been a place for scientific "proof" for, or against "religion". Its either bad science if its a claim against G-d, or bad religion if its a supposed scientific claim FOR G-d; both times the attempt is made to ask of a very human science what it can't do with out losing that defining scientific credibility; reach outside the quantitive universe, even if it is the "first three minutes" of the cosmos. What's been needed most, but published least, are books detailing the ambiguities of defining the various ways and meanings the thinkers of these thoughts can give to words like "evolution", "Divine Intervention", and what or if a "Person", [for Orth/Cath christians, PersonS] Whom is meant by the term "G-d", etc. This is one of them, though it is a side affect of the general discussion. Some other great books are the section on Creation in "G-d, Man and History" by Eliezer Berkovitz, "Science and Religion" and "Genes, Genesis and God" (the last book is from his '98 Gifford lectures; you know, Gifford lectures?..Dawkins, etal?..), by Holmes Rolston III. There are many individual pieces worth mentioning, but Stephen M. Barr's "Untangling Evolution" from the Dec. '97 ed. of First Things is fantastic (he says he's working on a book), Also Vine Deloria's essay, "If You Think About it, You Will See That it's True", from "Spirit and Reason;the Vine Deloria Reader". Lots of other things to recommend, if anyones interested, email me at [e-mail]

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Summary: For Spinoza Fans
Review: Change Miller's definition of God (Pg. 222) from the traditional Judaic-Christian-Islam transcendent God to Spinoza's immanent G-D and the book could be titled "Finding Spinoza's G-D" or even "Finding Einstein's G-D", and possibly "Finding Darwin's G-D".