It has been 80 years since the Scopes Monkey Trial, but the debate between science and religion has never been as heated as it is now. Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University, is a pre-eminent evolutionary scientist—and the author of the most widely used high school biology textbook in America.
Miller was the lead witness in the Pennsylvania “intelligent design” case, which was the first direct challenge brought in United States federal courts against a public school district that required the presentation of “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution to explain the origin of life.
The case involved a group of parents who were suing the school district for requiring high school biology teachers to read a four-paragraph statement to students that casts doubt on Darwin's theory of evolution.
On the stand, Miller noted that virtually every prominent scientific organization in the United States has upheld Darwin's theory of evolution as an unshakeable pillar of science and that "intelligent design" is "a form of creationism." The ruling sided with the parents and barred intelligent design from being taught in Pennsylvania’s Middle District public school science classrooms.
Miller is also the author of the acclaimed book Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution, a lively and cutting-edge analysis of the key issues that seem to divide science and religion. He contends that, properly understood, evolution adds depth and meaning not only to a strictly scientific view of the world, but also to a spiritual one.
Miller is a firm believer in evolution, he is one of America's foremost experts on the subject, but he also believes in God—and he doesn't think the two beliefs to be mutually exclusive.
Bruce Alberts, the president of the National Academy of Sciences, says that Miller "convincingly argues that science and religion offer different, but compatible, ways of viewing the world." Miller has written major articles for numerous scientific journals and magazines, including Nature, Scientific American, Cell, and Discover. He has also appeared on PBS as a scientific commentator.
"Finding Darwin's God is an artfully constructed argument against both those who deny evolution and those using science to justify a materialist worldview. Yet it is a book for all readers. I know of no other that would surpass it in being mindful of different views, while still [being] forceful."
– Francisco Ayala