Prominent intelligent design critic Kenneth R. Miller visited Oberlin on Saturday to lecture and campaign for two Ohio political candidates, each of whom opposes the teaching of intelligent design theory in public school science classes. Miller, a Brown University biologist, was an expert witness in the landmark Dover, Pennsylvania trial last year. The trial led to what Miller called “a stinging rebuke of intelligent design” from a federal judge after a school board included the doctrine in its curriculum.

With Miller were Martha Wise, a self-avowed moderate Republican and departing Board of Education member running for State Senate, and John Bender, a Democrat with a degree in Biology Education running for her seat on the Board in Tuesday’s election.

Miller spoke to about 45 people at First Church about “Science, God & Intelligent Design: Why All These Matter in Ohio’s 2006 School Board Elections.” He lectured on the compatibility of science and religion and the debate over whether to teach intelligent design in Ohio, which puts the state “at the front of…a war on science education.”

Until earlier this year, he said, “Ohio had an intelligent design creationist-inspired lesson plan in its curriculum.” According to Miller, “It is only the actions of Martha Wise that kept your Board of Education out of court” by removing the lesson plan before it was challenged as a violation of the separation of church and state.

Though Wise describes herself as a creationist because she believes that “God created,” she has opposed including intelligent design in Ohio’s science standards since 2002, when Miller participated in a public debate held by the Board. “I believe that discussion should take place somewhere else, not in a science classroom,” she said Saturday.

Miller, himself a devout Catholic who wrote about religion in his book Finding Darwin’s God, also spoke about his view that science and religion answer different questions. He traced “the notion of not using scripture for science” back to Saint Augustine in the fifth century.

He believes that there are also topics which science does not address directly. “For people of faith,” he said, “science doesn’t answer all the questions we have about living things.”

Miller’s Oberlin visit was the last in a six-stop lecture tour on behalf of School Board candidates that took him across the state of Ohio. He came to Oberlin partly due to the involvement of Carter McAdam, an Oberlin dance professor who teaches a first-year seminar on anti-evolutionism.

His talks were organized by Help Ohio Public Education, a group recently formed by three Ohio scientists to provide voters with information on Board of Education candidates. According to co-founder Patricia Princehouse, lecturer in philosophy and evolutionary biology at Case Western Reserve University, HOPE aims to “raise the visibility” of frequently neglected Board of Education races. HOPE has endorsed candidates in each of five Board races, among them John Bender in District 2, which includes Lorain County.