Kenneth R. Miller Quotes & Sayings

Evolution isn't just a take-it-or-leave-it story about where we came from. It's an epic at the centre of life itself. It tells us we are part of nature in every respect. — Kenneth R. Miller

For much of history it was possible to believe that the great diversity of life on Earth was a fixed creation, that the living world had never changed. But when the first stirrings of industry demanded that fuel be dug from the earth and hillsides be leveled for roads and railways, the Earth's true past was dug up in abundance. — Kenneth R. Miller

We believe the ice sheet was not around all the time. It was only around during cool snaps of the climate. — Kenneth R. Miller

No other acoustic instrument can match the piano's expressive range, and no electric instrument can match its mystery. — Kenneth R. Miller

Modern science developed in the context of western religious thought, was nurtured in universities first established for religious reasons, and owes some of its greatest discoveries and advances to scientists who themselves were deeply religious. — Kenneth R. Miller

As you know, the fossil record includes not only the ancestors of crocodiles and whales, but also the ancestors of human beings. And this, of course, is why evolution remains controversial. — Kenneth R. Miller

Biology is far from understanding exactly how a single cell develops into a baby, but research suggests that human development can ultimately be explained in terms of biochemistry and molecular biology. Most scientists would make a similar statement about evolution. — Kenneth R. Miller

Evolution isn't just a story about where we came from. It's an epic at the center of life itself. Far from robbing our lives of meaning, it instills an appreciation for the beautiful, enduring, and ultimately triumphant fabric of life that covers our planet. Understanding that doesn't demean human life - it enhances it. — Kenneth R. Miller

There is no controversy within science over the core proposition of evolutionary theory. — Kenneth R. Miller

Any suggestion that science and religion are incompatible flies in the face of history, logic, and common sense. — Kenneth R. Miller

Like many other scientists who hold the Catholic faith, I see the Creator's plan and purpose fulfilled in our universe. I see a planet bursting with evolutionary possibilities, a continuing creation in which the Divine providence is manifest in every living thing. I see a science that tells us there is indeed a design to life. — Kenneth R. Miller

The new strategy is to teach intelligent design without calling it intelligent design. — Kenneth R. Miller

What evolution tells us is that we are part of a grand, dynamic, and ever-changing fabric of life that covers our planet. Even to a person of faith, in fact especially to a person of faith, an understanding of the evolutionary process should only deepen their appreciation of the scope and wisdom of the creator's work. — Kenneth R. Miller

The piano is able to communicate the subtlest universal truths by means of wood, metal and vibrating air. — Kenneth R. Miller

We humans have a tendency to see ourselves as completely different from other animals, and the way in which large segments of the public continue to reject the theory of evolution is just one symptom of that malaise. — Kenneth R. Miller

The piano's world encompasses glass-nerved virtuos and stomping barrel-housers in fedoras; it is a world of pasture and storm, of perfumed smoke, of liquid mathematics. — Kenneth R. Miller

'Intelligent Design,' the relabeled, repackaged form of American creationism, has always had a problem. It just can't seem to produce any evidence. — Kenneth R. Miller

Although each egg cell produced by a woman carries a single X chromosome, the sperm cells produced by a man carry either an X or a Y. This means, in very simple terms, that the sperm cell determines a baby's sex. — Kenneth R. Miller

The anti-evolution forces have been searching for a new strategy that would accomplish the same end. That purpose is, if not to get evolution out of the schools altogether, then at least undermine it as much as possible in the minds of students. — Kenneth R. Miller

We know from astronomy that the universe had a beginning, from physics that the future is both open and unpredictable, from geology and paleontology that the whole of life has been a process of change and transformation. From biology we know that our tissues are not impenetrable reservoirs of vital magic, but a stunning matrix of complex wonders, ultimately explicable in terms of biochemistry and molecular biology. With such knowledge we can see, perhaps for the first time, why a Creator would have allowed our species to be fashioned by the process of evolution. — Kenneth R. Miller

Being a Christian, I'm eager to introduce people to Jesus. I just don't think I should do it in the science classroom. — Kenneth R. Miller

Our own genomes carry the story of evolution, written in DNA, the language of molecular genetics, and the narrative is unmistakable. — Kenneth R. Miller

America's got a Darwin problem - and it matters. According to a 2009 Gallup poll taken on the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, fewer than 40% of Americans are willing to say that they 'believe in evolution.' — Kenneth R. Miller

From Roger Bacon, the 13th century Franciscan who pioneered the scientific method, to George Lemaitre, the 20th century Belgian priest who first developed a mathematical foundation for the 'Big Bang,' people of faith have played a key role in advancing scientific understanding. — Kenneth R. Miller

The scientific argument advanced for intelligent design at the Dover trial, those arguments collapsed, scientifically and intellectually. — Kenneth R. Miller

Whether conservative or liberal, fundamentalist or agnostic, the more students learn of biology, the more they accept evolution. — Kenneth R. Miller

Science is about nature. And God, if he exists, transcends nature. — Kenneth R. Miller

It is high time that we grew up and left the Garden. We are indeed Eden's children, yet it is time to place Genesis alongside the geocentric myth in the basket of stories that once, in a world of intellectual naivete, made helpful sense. As we walk through the gates, aware of the dazzling richness of the genuine biological world, there might even be a smile on the Creator's face - that at long last His creatures have learned enough to understand His world as it truly is. — Kenneth R. Miller

The American creationist movement has entirely bypassed the scientific forum and has concentrated instead on political lobbying and on taking its case to a fair-minded electorate ... The reason for this strategy is overwhelmingly apparent: no scientific case can be made for the theories they advance. — Kenneth R. Miller

In an age of molecular genomics, it is ever more apparent that the fingerprints of evolution are pressed deeply into human DNA, just as they are into the genomes of every other organism. Biologists understand this, and so do students who study the science of life. — Kenneth R. Miller

I wouldn't want the federal government dictating how I use my cameras, every community has their own issues and their own dynamics. — Kenneth R. Miller

All too often, the word 'religion' has become identified with those promoting a frankly anti-scientific view of nature and of our place in the natural world. — Kenneth R. Miller

If taken at face value, the miraculous explanation would tell us that science is not worth the trouble, that it will never yield the answers we seek, and that nature will forever be beyond all human understanding. Sterile and nonproductive in its consequences, the claim of miracle would put a lid on curiosity, experimentation, and the human creative imagination. — Kenneth R. Miller

Once upon a time, growing up male gave little boys a sense of certainty about the natural order of things. We had short hair, wore pants, and played baseball. Girls had long hair, wore skirts, and, no matter how hard they tried, always threw a baseball just like a girl. — Kenneth R. Miller

Most scientists who are religious look for God in what science does understand and has explained. So the way in which my view is different from the creationists or intelligent design proponents is that I find knowledge a compelling reason to believe in God. They find ignorance a compelling reason to believe in God. — Kenneth R. Miller

The argument for intelligent design basically depends on saying, 'You haven't answered every question with evolution,' ... Well, guess what? Science can't answer every question. — Kenneth R. Miller

We don't regard any scientific theory as the absolute truth. — Kenneth R. Miller

A true conservative is on the side of science. — Kenneth R. Miller

I am always struck by the fact that human awareness of our place in nature, like so much of modern science, began with the Industrial Revolution. — Kenneth R. Miller