More on Ken Miller's KU talk...

Is posted by Jack Krebs over at Panda's Thumb: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/09/ken_millers_tal.html

including some sound files.

Thanks Jack!

Also check out http://angryastronomer.blogspot.com/2006/09/miller-at-ku-part-1.html

What is consciousness?

In a great illustration of how scientific knowledge changes and upsets our preconceptions, an investigation reported in the Chicago Tribune into the so called vegetative state, suggests that at least some vegetative state patients may show higher brain functions characteristic of consciousness. The patient in the study, had been in a coma but then later progressed to a vegetative state. This means, she was awake and not aware of her surroundings and with no obvious "conscious volition."

But MRI studies of her brain activity showed that her brain centers were activated in response to questions and requests in a way very similar to a conscious person.

" 'I was absolutely stunned,' Adrian Owen, a British neurologist who led the research team, told the Washington Post. 'We had no idea whether she would understand our instructions. But this showed that she is aware.' "

So is this patient conscious and totally unable to communicate? Or is awareness not really the same thing as consciousness? At the very least, the study suggests that MRI's may be an important tool in assessing brain states for patients in a vegetative state.

As pointed out in the article, this patient is not comparable to Terri Schiavo, since Ms Schiavo was much more seriously injured.

A tip of the antennae to Jack Krebs for this find.

Other links

Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness:
http://assc.caltech.edu/index.htm

Links from Science to more background material:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/5792/1395

Consciousness: Entry from the Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/cons/consciousness.htm

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Catholicism and Evolution Take 2.

Ken Miller spoke tonight at the University of Kansas as part of KU's Difficult Dialogues at The Commons series. As noted earlier Dr. Miller is a Catholic and a theistic evolutionist who sees no conflict between religion and science. There was a lot in his talk; he reviewed some of the recent evolution controversies such as Kansas and the recent Dover PA court case and had some really amusing things to say about certain intelligent design advocates such as Michael Behe. The big take home message was that the anti evolution movement is nationwide and world wide. He pointed out that acceptance of evolution is not that much different in England than in the United States.

He says we should draw two lessons from the results of the Dover case: first that intelligent design has collapsed as any sort of scientific theory and second, that intelligent design is really a religious doctrine. He noted for instance that the infamous creationist text Panda's and People was repackaged as an intelligent design text when the Supreme Court ruled the teaching of Creationism in public schools to be unconstitutional. He illustrated the collapse of intelligent design with numerous examples of the power of evolutionary thinking and how it contradicts notions of intelligent design.

Then he discussed the definition of science and noted that in cross examination in the Dover trial, Michael Behe was forced to concede that any definition of science that included intelligent design also would render astrology a scientific subject. He pointed out that the change in the definition of science to eliminate natural explanations in Kansas was in some sense quite radical.

He then examined why evolution is under attack. His assertion is the attack is due to the belief that evolution is seen as the foundation for anything that is wrong with our society. The key weapon of the antievolutionists is the notion that evolution is antitheistic, a notion reinforced by evolutionists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. Miller very boldly I think claimed that saying science can lead us to a deep understanding of the purpose of existence has no more standing scientific than faith based statements. Neither are testable.

Miller next argued that religious people make a mistake when they attack evolution when what they should do is argue against the notion that evolution necessarily leads to an antitheistic interpretation of evolution. This is a really interesting idea and Miller believes that a discussion of this may lead to some sort of peace between science and religion. Science has limitations in that it doesn't carry people "as deep into the mysteries of life as we want to go". At the same time, following St. Augustine's "On the Literal Meaning of Genesis", Miller argued that using scripture to interpret science is a mistake as well.

Faith and reason in Miller's view are both gifts from God and should complement each other. Indeed he argues that faith gives reason to pursue science because it provides at least in Abrahamic religions the notion that nature can be understood. Faith after all has to be grounded in reason. In an analysis very similar to Stanley Jaki's Savior of Science he noted that science is also a child of faith because science require the human being to step back from nature, a notion quite different from the notion in Eastern religions that man and nature are one. I asked him about this after the talk and he was no familiar with Jaki's arguments about the origin of science.

Ken Miller's the handsome one on the left. On the right is some local Kansas Blogger.

A questioner asked if all faiths are equally valid and can science help us choose. Miller's answer was quite interesting. No all faiths are not equal. Saying that they are implies "a failure to choose." At the same time science is not much help either and since we are "severely limited" in our ability to comprehend the world we are required to respect the choices of others.

Most of the audience was friendly but I did catch the infamous Tom Willis who was active in drafting the Kansas 1999 creationist designed 'science' standards. Here he is smoozing with a reporter. One can only wonder what spin he is going to put on Miller's talk.




Update! Additional insight into Miller's talk is at Red State Rabble.
http://redstaterabble.blogspot.com/2006/09/creationists-biologist-ken-miller-told.html


Transcript of Dover case-recommended by Miller.
http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf#search=%22Dover%20PA%22

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No Change in Church Position.

According to an article in Catholic News, there will probably not be any shift in Church teaching about evolution. According to Father Joseph Fessio, a participant in the seminar, intelligent design did not come up as a topic. Sounds like we can expect a clarification of the Church's current position according to other participants at the Pope's seminar. The article reports that the published minutes will show that theologins see no conflict between divine creation and evolution.

See also:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-09-06-benedict-seminar_x.htm

Interesting article about Fr. Fessio:
http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2002/may2002p9_993.html

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A Catholic Creationist

From time to time in Catholic circles the name Dominque Tassot crops up as being an influence on Pope Benedict's thinking about evolution. John Allen at the National Catholic Reporter has a revealing interview with this behind the scenes player in the development of Benedict's thinking about evolution.

Key points:

1. Tassot is a creationist-he denies it saying that he is not a creationist because he is not "committed" to a literal interpretation of the Bible. But like many creationists he does not accept macroevolution claiming that there is no scientific basis for it or for the concept of geological time.

For instance, about the principle of Superposition Tassot says:

"But if you think about it, the question of what's on top and what's on bottom doesn't necessarilyhave anything to do with comparative ages. If you pour mercury, oil and water into a glass, the mercury will end up on the bottom, and not because it's older. Physical principles operate. Density is the causal factor that determines position; chronology has nothing to do with it. The same thing applies to the different strata of sedimentary remains. The strata have been deposited where they are, and it's not necessarily the case that the oldest material is on the bottom. That's akin to thinking that the sediments basically fell from the sky. "

2. Tassot defines macroevolution as "the appearence of an organ in the offspring that did not exist in the parent". Clearly he has absolutely no concept of how evolution operates, and his arguement sounds a lot like the old canard that evolution can't lead to novel structure, just expressed very badly.

3. He parts company with the intelligent design crowd by claiming that the designer can be known through religion, and so at least he doesn't pretend that ID is somehow scientific.

So Tassot is more akin to a young Earth creationist in that he doesn't accept the scientific basis for geological time and does not accept macro-evolution. He concludes the interview with a little speculation as to what the Pope will do. He thinks that the Pope will issue a statement about evolution basically through Cardinal Schonborn since they know each other well.

I just pray that the Pope get's exposed to someone who really understands evolution.



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Catholicism and Evolution

Ken Miller a prominent theistic evolutionist, who by the way will be at the University of Kansas this week has posted a good commentary on Catholics and Evolution in the Guardian. Miller correctly points out that the Church's problem is not so much with evolution but with the false "nihilistic" philosophies that are incorrectly attached to evolution, sometimes I might point out by proponents but also by opponents to evolution.

Update! Brief summary of Miller's KU talk is here.

Addressing the current concern about the outcome of Pope Benedict's evolution seminar, Miller says:

"Far from reducing humanity to the random result of pointless molecular collisions, evolution unites us with every living being in a fabric of life and change in which our emergence, and the continuing creative power of our universe, is the product of the Creator's will and love. There is indeed a design to life - and the name of that design is evolution. Look deeply enough, and I am sure that the Holy Father and his students will come to the same conclusion."

I hope Miller is right!

A tip of the antennae to Pat Hayes over at Red State Rabble for pointing the Miller article out. See his commentary here.

On another note apparently the Pope will publish a chat, actually minutes of the recent Papal Seminar on evolution according to a story in the Register. The article quotes Father Joseph Fessio as saying the conclusion that God created the universe is philosophical not scientific and that:

"There's a controversy in the United States because there is a lack of awareness of a thing called philosophy. Evangelicals and creationists generally lack it and Catholics have it."

Ouch! Of course some Catholics are creationists as well, so I guess they are not aware of philosophy either. I can buy that!

The Force will be covering Dr. Miller's talk on Thursday as will several other Kansas Bloggers I am sure!


Other links:

Open Letter to Pope Benedict
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/catholic/papal-letter.html

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Bee excitement at School

No Killer bees, but last Friday I was prowling around campus looking for something to blog on and found a wonderful patch of bright blue Salvia that had been just planted by our landscaping staff. So I wondered over to see what insects were visiting and was excited to find the plants being visited what for a second I thought were yellow jackets that turned out to be these wonderful yellow and black Anthidium bees, at least what I think is Anthidium.



The actual bee is a bit under 10mm long and quite fast so I was lucky to get these shots. At first I thought these were Anthidium manicatum, an introduced species from Europe, but I don't think so. Knowing the danger of trying to identify insects from pictures I wanted to catch one for keying out. Since I didn't have an insect net, I caught one in a plastic bag used to line a trash can and it only took me five tries to perfect the technique of catching a bee in a trash bag on a windy day all the time hoping I didn't get busted by campus security.

The bee is safely in my freezer awaiting a chance to key it out and maybe a visit to KU's bee collection to check my ID. The mint, according to our greenhouse people is Blue Victoria Sage, Salvia farinacea.

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Mendel's Garden # 5 is out!

My wife and I celebrated our anniversary with a little 2 day trip to a B&B in Missouri and I am glad to note the Mendel's Garden #5 is out at Evolgen. Rich has harvested a delightful sampling of genetics delights for us this week. Mendel's Garden #6 will be at The Voltage Gate on September 15.

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