Today the Cultural Enhancement series has scheduled a speaker who impacted the way scientific education is performed in our school systems.

Kenneth Miller will be in Downing University Center to deliver a lecture titled “Only a Theory,” and will deal with the arguments against Evolutionary Theory, said Larry Snyder, associate dean of Potter College.

Miller was one of the key witnesses of the Intelligent Design case in Pennsylvania.

The talk won’t be technical and should be accessible to all people, students and faculty alike, he said.

Miller is scheduled to speak at 7:30 p.m. tonight at DUC Theater.

On Sept. 27, 2005, Miller, a biology professor at Brown University, testified to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania that Intelligent Design wasn’t a testable theory and, as such, isn’t accepted by the scientific community.

This statement, among others proclaimed among the plaintiffs of the case, helped overturn a decision that was passed among the school board demanding that Intelligent Design should be taught alongside Evolutionary Theory in science courses.

Miller, who’s known throughout the scientific community as a staunch evolutionist, is also a dedicated Roman Catholic. He is among the leading proponents of a synthesis of Christian religion and Evolutionary theory.

In his book, “Finding Darwin’s God” Miller examines the arguments that were put forth by the defense at the Dover trials, and through a step by step process, examines and dissects the arguments that Michael Behe and others have established as flaws in Evolutionary Theory.

“Miller is a really good public advocate of evolution, and what science is or isn’t,” Associate Biology Professor Kinchel Doerner said.

Intelligent Design is a theory that is based on the idea that there is a grand designer behind the world. What some supporters use as proof of design is the “irreducible complexity” argument. This argument was first presented by Behe, a biochemistry professor at Lehigh University.

The argument states that there are certain biological systems that are too complex to have simply evolved from much smaller less complete predecessors, showing that the randomness of a mutation is too great to have happened by mere chance.

An example given by Behe is that the eye is a product of an intelligent designer, based off the complexity of all the parts working together to form an intricate organ.?

In contrast, Evolutionary Theory is the study of all life forms and how they change over time.

There are two types of Evolutionary Theory; the first is evolution via natural selection, which brings the more prominent traits of a species to have a higher rate of reoccurrence, while weeding out the bad traits.

The second type is genetic drift, a seemingly random occurrence that produces prominent traits in a species. Evolutionary Theory was brought to light in the scientific community in 1859 with the publication of “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin, a British naturalist. ?

Intelligent Design and Evolutionary Theory come into conflict over what constitutes the randomness in evolution. Evolution proposes that random occurrences happen sporadically, while the supporters of Intelligent Design challenge this by stating that there is a greater force behind it. Through their premises they reach the conclusion that there is a grand creator. To some, this would be considered God.?

Intelligent Design’s main supporters are people of religious backgrounds, who view evolution as anti-theistic. The view that Intelligent Design persists is that evolution takes God out of the picture, and brings it toward a more atheistic world view.

“Evolutionary theory is an established scientific approach, and Intelligent Design is not,” Snyder said. “Intelligent Design is not science.”

That’s not to say that Intelligent Design and Creationism don’t have their places, Snyder said. It’s just not in a science classroom.

One of the problems of evolution is that many people are unsure of exactly what is the randomness that occurs, and that’s where many of them get confused, Doerner said.

“Miller is one of the only evolutionary scientists that I am aware of that is trying to grapple with the randomness of Evolutionary Theory,” he said.

Mina Doerner of Potter College, said that one of the reasons for inviting Miller to Western was to commemorate the birth of Darwin, whose 200th birthday will be next year.

“One of the things we try to do with the Cultural Enhancement series is to bring in people who are linked to current events in the news,” she said.

She went on to explain that Miller recently had been making headlines because of the rise in debates regarding intelligent design and evolution.