Brian Miller

Research Coordinator, Center for Science and Culture

Dr. Brian Miller is Research Coordinator for the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute. He holds a B.S. in physics with a minor in engineering from MIT and a Ph.D. in physics from Duke University. He speaks internationally on the topics of intelligent design and the impact of worldviews on society, and helps manage the ID 3.0 Research Program, having been a primary organizer of the Conference on Engineering in the Life Sciences (CELS). He also has consulted on organizational development and strategic planning, and he is a technical consultant for TheStartup, a virtual incubator dedicated to bringing innovation to the marketplace. He has contributed to multiple books and journals covering the debate over intelligent design, including The Mystery of Life's Origin: The Continuing Controversy, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, and Inference Review. He is a regular contributor to Evolution News & Science Today, and the ID the Future Podcast.

Archives

The Return of Natural Theology

Brian Miller
August 28, 2023
Influenced by a long line of materialist thinkers, Charles Darwin proposed the mechanism of natural selection as a substitute for God. But how does his theory’s explanatory power measure up to recent scientific discoveries? On this ID The Future, physicist Brian Miller discusses the resurgence of natural theology in modern science with Pat Flynn, co-host of the Philosophy for the People podcast. Natural theology advances arguments for God based on reason and the discoveries of science. It’s an ancient pursuit that fell out of favor in the 19th century as a materialist account of life’s origins took center stage. But scientific findings of the last century point to mind, not a mindless process, as the likeliest explanation for a life-friendly universe. As a result, the pendulum is swinging back to teleology, ushering in a new heyday for natural theology. In addition to giving an historical overview of natural theology, Dr. Miller and Flynn also discuss fundamental problems in origin of life studies that demand a better explanation than materialists can offer. Miller speaks plainly about the problem: “Here’s the fundamental challenge,” he says. “All natural processes tend to create greater disorder (entropy)…The origin of life requires chemicals to go into a state of both high order and high energy. That never happens without help!” This is Part 1 of a 2-part discussion. With thanks to Pat Flynn and the Philosophy for the People podcast for permission to share this interview.

How Modern Physics Reveals Purpose in the Universe

Brian Miller
August 16, 2023
Scientists agree that our universe is finely tuned for the existence of life. But is the fine-tuning a happy accident or the result of foresight? On this ID The Future, host Brian Miller continues his conversation with Rabbi Elie Feder and Rabbi Aaron Zimmer, hosts of the Physics to God podcast. Feder has a PhD in mathematics and has published articles on graph theory. Zimmer has training in physics, and has studied mathematics, philosophy, and psychology. Both men also have extensive rabbinical training. Through their podcast, Feder and Zimmer invite both secular and religious listeners on a journey through modern physics as they offer rational arguments for an intelligent cause of the universe. In the conclusion to their discussion, Feder and Zimmer explain why the cosmological constant is one of their favorite examples of fine-tuning. They also share the importance of exploring the teleological causes, or purposes, of natural phenomena. To help listeners grasp the difference between efficient causes and teleological causes, they give the example of a carpenter who builds a table. Is the carpenter the cause of the existence of the table? Or is the idea of the table in the carpenter's mind the cause? Or both? Using modern physics, say Feder and Zimmer, an objective justification for the purpose of the universe can be made. Enjoy this provocative and illuminating discussion! Don't miss Part 1 of the conversation, available here: https://idthefuture.com/1787/

Physics to God: Rational Arguments for Design in the Universe

Brian Miller
August 14, 2023
Do you recognize the number 1/137.035999206? It might seem arbitrary, but if the fine structure constant were any higher or lower than it is, you might not exist! On this episode of ID The Future, host Brian Miller kicks off an engaging conversation with Rabbi Elie Feder and Rabbi Aaron Zimmer, hosts of the Physics to God podcast. Feder has a PhD in mathematics and has published articles on graph theory. Zimmer has training in physics, and has studied mathematics, philosophy, and psychology. Both men also have extensive rabbinical training. Through their podcast, Feder and Zimmer invite both secular and religious listeners on a journey through modern physics as they offer rational arguments for an intelligent cause of the universe. In Part 1 of a two-part discussion, Feder and Zimmer share their background and the inspiration for their podcast. They also explain their focus on the constants of physics - specific numbers and values built into the laws of nature that are the same everywhere. What do these numbers mean? How are they measured? Why are they important? Do they hint at design, or are they "magic numbers that come to us with no understanding," as noted physicist Richard Feynman put it? A physicist himself, Miller is the perfect host to unpack the efforts of Feder and Zimmer. It's time to get more intimately acquainted with the strange and wonderful numbers that hold our universe together!

This Sandgrouse Just Took the Royal Society to Design School

Brian Miller
May 3, 2023
Today’s ID the Future takes a look at how scientists from MIT and Johns Hopkins University are picking up clever engineering tricks by studying the feather design of the Namaqua sandgrouse. Ordinary bird feathers are already a master class in ingenious design, but as Jochen Mueller and Lorna Gibson show in a recent Royal Society Interface paper, the males of this desert-dwelling sandgrouse from southwestern Africa “have specially adapted feathers on their bellies that hold water, even during flight, allowing the birds to transport water back to the chicks at the nest.” Episode guest Brian Miller details the ingenious design of these feathers and tells how they are inspiring human inventions, one of which could help desert communities collect water from the air more efficiently. From there Miller takes listeners through a flyover of other inventions inspired by ingenious designs in biology and discusses how this invention strategy is proving so fruitful that it’s now treated as an interdisciplinary subdiscipline known as biomimetics. For more from Miller about this exciting field and how it repeatedly highlights evidence of intelligent design in biology, see his chapter in the new book Science and Faith in Dialogue, available as a free digital download.

Yes, a New Design-Based Paradigm is Emerging in Biology

Brian Miller
April 12, 2023
On today’s ID the Future, physicist and engineer Brian Miller continues his two-part conversation with host Casey Luskin about an exciting paradigm emerging in biology wherein organisms and their parts are approached as near-optimally engineered systems. Under this framework, the scientist seeks to better understand biological structures in the same way one might try to unravel the workings of some unfamiliar advanced human technology one came across in a field. This design-centric paradigm is reshaping multiple areas of biology. One involves our understanding of biological mutations. While some mutations are indeed random, as the neo-Darwinian paradigm assumes, some appear to be the product of what is known as preprogrammed phenotypic plasticity, as if a thoughtful designer had programmed various species with the ability to quickly evolve within limits in the face of changing environmental conditions. According to Miller there are many such examples of this phenomenon, including in cichlids and stickleback fish. He argues that the new engineering-oriented paradigm fares better than modern evolutionary theory in making sense of the similarities and differences among various life forms on planet Earth (the field of systematics). And he says it’s proving fruitful in origin-of-life studies and astrobiology. To learn more tune in to this episode and check out Miller’s chapter in the new open-access book from AOSIS Press, Science and Faith in Dialogue.