Darwinian Struggle

One key to the movement's success has been the decision to take no position on how species originated. This made ID a tent big enough to hold everything from old-fashioned creationists to New Agers who believe a "vital force" drives evolution. But one result is that ID simply isn't what its Ohio supporters and various journalists have called it--an "alternative" to Darwinism. Darwinism offers an explanation of how we got here. Any "theory" that offers no such explanation can't compete--much less win.

It isn't even clear that ID can outdo Darwinism in the realm of spiritual consolation. Some of ID's leading figures push God way back in evolutionary time. The philosopher and Baylor University professor William Dembski argues in mathematical language that natural selection, to create life as we know it, must have received some kind of external input. But he allows that this input could be something quite abstract, embedded in the early context of evolution--perhaps in "boundary conditions" that "constrain" genetic mutation.

But if early, abstract and arguably divine input is what you're after, plain old Darwinism leaves room for that. No one knows how DNA began to replicate or how the universe got built in such a way that replication was possible. It's not crazy to think that such initial conditions were set by some intelligence for an overarching purpose that is still unfolding. After all, look at the spiritually rich products of evolution so far: consciousness, love, the human conscience, morally consequential choice.

ID adherents may be right to say that some sort of divinity got the evolutionary ball rolling, and that principles designed by that divinity keep it rolling. But they're wrong to think they have to attack poor Charles Darwin in order to make this claim.