When We Oversimplify Darwin

“Charles Darwin himself was quite wary of the metaphysical or religious implications of his discoveries.”

“Books lie, he said.
God dont lie.
No, said the judge. He does not. And these are his words.
He held up a chunk of rock.
He speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things.”

– Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

Was Darwin wrong? Did life really arise and evolve as a consequence of blind natural forces?

For most evolutionary biologists (and most modern educated people) what we call Darwinism is, “settled science.”  Darwinism is nothing less than one of the great intellectual pillars of the modern, secular world.

But skeptics persist, and not simply religious fundamentalists. A small but perhaps growing minority of evolutionary biologists and other scientists insist that Darwinism as commonly understood is incapable of explaining the phenomenally complex nature of the universe in general and of living forms in particular. The theory of Intelligent Design argues that the closer we look—for example—at the molecular biology of a living cell, the more it appears to have been designed. But designed when and designed by whom? And how is asking these questions at all amenable to science?

To affirm that life on earth has been around for hundreds of millions of years is well supported by scientific evidence. To assert that biological species seem to have evolved from a common ancestor is also well-supported by scientific evidence. These kinds of facts are not particularly in question, even by advocates of Intelligent Design.