The Continuing Retreat from Reality's Onslaught

I've recently finished Dr Kenneth Miller's book from mid-2008, Only a Theory, in which he - once more, with feeling - comes out and properly savages the Intelligent Design crowd. But, despite having had to deal first-hand with the legal ramifications of ID (which is more than, for example, William Dembski or Steven Meyer have ever done - at least, not at Dover), Dr Miller's book has a hopeful tone to it. He isn't interested in shutting the door on good debate, or on destroying all religion. He's merely insistent that science be left to its own devices, which have worked very well for the past 200 years, thank you very much.

Naturally, who has emerged from the shadows to tax Dr Miller and his swanky "fact-based argument" with his nipping incisors? Yes, Sir Casey of Luskin, Attack Mouse of Ye Noble Knyghtes of Discouveree. (I hear that they live high in a tower in yon distant village of Seattle... perhaps in that 'Space Needle' we hear so much about? Erm... perhaps not).

D'you know how sometimes you hear people talking as though they were still fighting various wars of the past? Pick practically any war in history, and there will be someone who still takes it personally. Which is understandable for those wars which fall in the realm of Living Memory, but even I have managed to get over the Battle of Milvian Bridge, so I don't see why everyone else can't too. Well, despite it being more than three years since Intelligent Design was shown the door and asked to return the towels that it had nicked from the hotel, Mr Luskin appears to still be fighting the Battle of Dover.

Of course, reliving old conflicts as a manner by which to while away the slow trickle of the years is anybody's right. Attempting to rewrite history by employing every deceptive and devious canard imaginable, however, is not.

The Disco's answer to the Dover decision came out in a short, bitter book called Traipsing into Evolution, co-authored by Sir Casey and other Disco notables. Sadly I don't have it to hand, and have only a few notes from what I managed to read before it was due back (stupid idea of mine, thinking I'd be able to read it while the kids were on holiday and there were toys to be put together), but most of what I remember is the tone of the book. My notes even say: "imagine how differently this book would have been written had the DI won!" The exultation and euphoria would have been so thick that you might have served it on scones with jam. The commensurate sulkiness of the volume as a result of the loss of the legal challenge is proportionately inflated.

Recently, however, in battling the ghosts and the demons which he seems to see all around him, Mr Luskin has started to go after Dr Miller, stating, in part:

But an analysis of Miller's arguments demonstrates that he refuted Behe in no way whatsoever, and that in fact it was Behe who refuted Miller at trial, although Judge Jones ignored Behe's testimony. Miller continues (I am told) to go around lecturing on this topic, claiming that the blood-clotting cascade of lower vertebrates demonstrate that Behe was wrong and that the blood-clotting cascade is amenable to explanation by Darwinian evolution. Like many Darwinist claims of refutation of Behe, this one is based on smoke and mirrors.

-- Evolution News & Views (WARNING: Links to the Disco!), 24 december 2008

You don't really have to read the rest of it, but it makes for a good exercise in playing "spot the mendacity". And the "(I am told)" is a textbook example of how to be parenthetically catty.

I've formed a mental impression of Dr Miller as a man who is rather difficult to annoy. Really, I have no idea if this is an accurate impression, it's just the sense of the man that I get from his writing and the various interviews with him which I've had the pleasure of viewing or auditing. But it seems that, at long last, Sir Casey has well and truly narked Dr Miller. Normally, the latter doesn't enter into the blogosphere (or at least, he doesn't seem to have been assimilated by the Seed Magazine Collective yet...) however, he now has indulged in a long post, courtesy of Carl Zimmer over at the Loom. And Dr Miller's posting is... well, you just have to read it. Go on. Read it now. Take a bit, then come back. I can wait.

[Pauses. Imagines some light music. Nibbles a biscuit and pours another cup of tea.]

Ah. That was fun, wasn't it? I believe that, in the youthspeak of today, what Dr Miller just administered is known as "a spanking". With a dirty great cricket bat.

I have a question, which I pose in full and certain hope of honest answers. If you believe in intelligent design, on what are you basing your faith? Because, honestly, just between us, I won't breathe a word to anyone, I promise... it isn't science, is it? And it has nothing to do with science, has it? It's everything to do with control. It's back to the same tiresome old fundamentalist schtick of telling other people how they can live their lives, isn't it?

So why do we care? Why is this important to someone who, for example, works in a field completely divorced from science and technology? I'll try to give my own imperfect and halting answer.

Do you care about truth? Do you care about growing old in a nation that still has enough sense to keep its machines running and its infrastructure standing, to continue to develop new medicines, new answers to problems, and new fixes to the things that previous generations got wrong?

If you do, then you're going to want science to be around, unfettered, fit, and ready to have a bash at whatever ails you, us, a nation or a world.

Because honestly, if you're left to relying on prayer, then you really haven't got one.

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[With thanks to the blog Life, Craftiness, and Everything else, which to my bemusement had exactly the mouse image that I was hoping for. Thank you, and please don't be cross.]