Kenneth R. Miller Quotes

Actually no school teaches that. What they did teach when covering Evolution was that some modern apes (chimpanzees and bonobos) and humans were both descended from a common ancestor. The Congressman was at that point an evangelical Christian fundamentalist, Later, DeLay was convicted and sentenced to jail for money laundering and illegally spending and raising campaign funds. He was also reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee for unethical methods of fund raising for other earlier actions.

Conflict between religion and evolution does not exist in most churches. There are exceptions of some orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. However, in this case the highest prelate of the American Episcopal Church not only sees no conflict but urges that evolution be taught in schools.

This is an important quotation for several reasons. First, it demonstrates the extreme diversity of religion in America. To Swaggart, Evolution is a “Satanic Theory”. However, to most American religious leaders, Evolution, per se, is not problematic. The Roman Catholic Church has no trouble with Evolution; Catholic Universities teach Evolution as a basic part of their science curricula. Jews have no theological problems with Evolution. None of the main-line Protestant Churches have any theological opposition to Evolution per se. Yet there are other Protestant denominations who find that Evolution is in contradiction to a literal interpretation of the Bible and hence do not accept it. Second, it shows the extreme level of vituperation and disrespect that is given differing points of view by some of the extreme fundamentalists who do not have the traditional American religious tolerance for differing belief structures. Here Swaggart accuses the hundreds of millions of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist and other clerics and laypeople who see Evolution as a well-established explanation of much of science, of being not only atheists but atheists in league with the Devil. A third factor is that this quotation is an example of a Minister telling people what is or is not science and scientifically demonstrated. If a scientist without any religious training of study were ever to render judgments on theology, most of us would laugh and see it as ridiculous. However when a cleric like Swaggert, untutored and ignorant of even basic science, makes scientific pronouncements, he (and many other fundamentalists) find that reasonable.

This quotation is important and memorable for several reasons. First, the Congressman is one of the relatively few highly educated Americans who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. Most Christians and Jews do not interpret the ancient scripture literally. Most Christian and Jewish religious organizations, including the Roman Catholic Church, have no problem at all with evolution and the big bang theory. As a matter of fact, the scientist who developed the mathematics to explain the big bang was a Catholic Priest. Even some religious people who do not believe that that evolution is not an accurate interpretation, rarely claim that the Earth is only 9,000 years old. It is actually over 13 Billion years old. An anti-scientific view of the world is certainly within an American’s right, but the fact that this congressman was assigned by The Republican Party leadership to be a Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology given his belief structure is amazing, If the earth were only 9,000 years old, there is no way the global positioning satellites could tell us where we are, our nuclear arsenal would be unstable and dangerous, radiation medicine would not help anyone get well just for a few examples. A second noteworthy aspect is that the Congressman is not just stating that the millions of scientists and science teachers are wrong—in error. He accuses each and every one of them of acting as agents of Satan and that their motivation in studying and doing science is to undermine his and others faith in God and that none of them has any belief in or desire for a personal Savior. It is rare that this type of un-American behavior is found in a member of Congress who claims that any person who disagrees with his religions views or has different Biblical interpretations is an agent from Hell. The founding fathers created the First Amendment to cope with and even tolerate the few who had the extreme and unrealistic views of this Congressmen.

The school board had been pressured by religious fundamentalists throughout the state of Georgia to affix these stickers ({586989}) to all textbooks as there were no textbooks that met curricular standards that did not teach evolution. As soon as they started this practice, a suit was filed in the Federal District Court which ordered the stickers to be removed.

A teacher had been arrested and threatened with jail because he had taught Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in a high school science class. The ACLU paid for famed attorney, Clarence Darrow, to defend Scopes in the famous trial that exposed the ignorance and bias of the schools that prohibited teaching about evolution as it contravened the Protestant fundamentalist Biblical version of the creation of humans. While the ACLU had a major victory, even today many school systems—mostly in the South—still prohibit such teaching and while no teacher can be jailed, they can be fired for not following the curriculum of the local school board.

This is a very important quotation regarding the issue of whether Intelligent Design should be taught in science classes in public schools. Opponents claim that there is no scientific validity to Intelligent Design and those school boards and state agencies who rule that it must be taught along side of Evolution, do so only because they are trying to promote a particular religious viewpoints. This quotation lends support to those objections. Generally, the Federal Courts have ruled that because of this religious purpose and other factors, Intelligent Design may not be taught in science classes. (It could be taught as culture or theology to show what some people believe, but it may not be taught as science or as an alternative scientific approach to Evolution.

of the creation of the Universe

This quotation is a good example of what a substantial number of Americans believe and the classic errors they make in acting on their views. The vast majority of the religions in America have no conflict with evolution. To them evolution is the method that God chose to create the life on earth. Some fundamentalists take the Old Testament versions of the creation of the earth and man (there are 2 of them that conflict) literally by which they conclude that the earth is 6,000 years old or so. In reality, the earth is over 10 Billlion years old but the scientific evidence that proves this as well as evolution via natural selection is almost always not known to them. It is not as if they have studied it an rejected evolution. Almost all have never studied it. As a result they think that the word “Theory” means an unproven hypothesis which is the lay, non scientific meaning of the word. But in science, a theory is large set of related proven laws or principles, that has been tested over and over again and for which there has NEVER been a counterexample proven. A theory does not explain everything in the area and additional hypotheses are constantly being tested and if they stand up are added to the theory. And there are areas that are not explained by a theory, and these may or may not be in the future, but no theory does or can explain everything. Brattin, who sadly has never been educated about the science of biology, believes that it is a scientific theory is a “belief structure” like a religion. However, to qualify as part of an established scientific theory the statements must have been subjected to demonstrative proof, usually by many different scientists typically using many different methods. And these results must be replicated over and over again. No religion can be proved the way a scientific theory can be and that should not surprise anyone as religion is in the domain of faith where science has not the methodology to validate or invalidate people’s religious beliefs. Likewise, religion has not the methodology to prove or disprove science not should it be expected to. Many scientists are religious and many are not. Many religious people are scientists and many are not. They have little to do with each other.