Jason Rosenhouse finds this, from Kenneth Miller’s Only A Theory, to be lacking:

Turning our attention to the special case of our own species, we can be fairly confident, just as Gould tells us, that our peculiar natural history would not repeat, and that self-awareness would not emerge from the primates. Indeed, we would have no reason to suppose that primates, mammals, or even vertebrates would emerge in a second running of the tape. But as life reexplored adaptive space, could we be certain that our niche would not be occupied? I would argue that we could be almost certain that it would be — that eventually evolution would produce an intelligent, self-aware, reflective creature endowed with a nervous system large enough to solve the very same questions that we have, and capable of discovering the very process that produced it, the process of evolution.

[Link: EvolutionBlog : My Review of Only a Theory]

Miller, a strong opponent of Intelligent Design, takes the position that God and evolution are compatible features of the universe. He particularly defended, in Finding Darwin’s God, the idea that evolution is undirected. Kenneth claims to believe in Christianity (he’s a Roman Catholic) but also believes the course evolution has taken was not guided by God. I’ve been scratching my head over that one since I read Finding Darwin’s God. The Bible is chock-full of statements of God planning things out well in advance (Ephesians 2:10, for example). To believe in undirected evolution is to believe in something other than the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.

Rosenhouse is no theist and no friend of Intelligent Design, but he is right to question Miller about this:

Actually, to argue otherwise is simply to acknowledge that Darwinian natural selection driving animals to fill adaptive niches is not the only thing that goes on during evolution. It was not just the relentless march of natural selection that made possible our appearance on this planet. There were also numerous mass extinctions to open up large numbers of new niches….

I don’t agree with Rosenhouse’s full conclusions, but it sure seems that he’s being more consistent to his underlying theory than Miller is. Either accept that God exists and cares about life on earth, or set aside the whole idea of God entirely. Miller seems to be trying to keep one foot in Christian theism and another foot unguided, undirected evolution. But that’s like trying to keep one foot on the dock and one foot on the rowboat–when the rowboat’s mooring lines have been thrown off, and the current is flowing away from the dock.