Your initial response should be at least 250 words.Evolution and Intelligent Design Define evolution and then discuss the theory of evolution by natural selection. What are the most common criticisms...

Volume 63 (2006): 220-222 Theological £??ß^ ^ Today Table Talk Darwin and "Intelligent Design" WILLIAM E. PHIPPS rom the White House to the schoolhouse in America the issue of Darwin­ Fian evolution has been focused on "intelligent design," and public school boards in several states have been fighting over it. Its advocates want to re­ quire doctrine about God included in science curricula, often to the disparage­ ment of Darwinism, because they are convinced that Charles Darwin's theory is irreconcilable with religious belief. The term "intelligent design" is used to avoid overtly theological terminology that the Supreme Court has ruled as not permissible for public schools. n this context a look at Darwin's own outlook on the relationship between Ireligion and evolution sheds light. In researching for my book Darwin 's Re­ ligious Odyssey, I studied everything he had written on this subject.1 Out of this probe I am convinced that he viewed his theory as supplementing—not supplanting—intelligent design, even though he recognized that faith-based matters were outside the province of science. Unlike the antiscientific cre­ ationists or the reductionist naturalists, he had a both/and rather than an ei­ ther/or mentality on sources of truth. To show that he had no antagonism toward religion, Darwin prefaced The Origin of Species with quotes from two eminent English theologians and one philosopher. The Reverend William Whewell claimed that "Divine power" is re­ sponsible for the establishment of general laws, not particular cases, in the mate­ rial world. Bishop Joseph Butler commented that nature "presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so." Francis Bacon, one of the earliest champions of empirical science, commended "the book of God's word" and "the book of God's William E. Phipps is professor emeritus of religion and philosophy at Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia. He has written articles on theology and evolution in the...