Next week the University of Oklahoma Department of Philosophy is hosting evolutionist Elliott Sober who will explain that the strong arguments used by Darwin are not from adaptive designs (i.e., designs that increase fitness), but rather useless or even deleterious designs. In what Sober has labeled Darwin's Principle, the evolutionary argument is not that the evidence makes common ancestry probable but that it makes the creation concept of separate ancestry improbable.
Sober will not mention that this means the argument entails religious premises. And the OU evolutionists will avoid asking about such awkwardness. There may be questions about how it is possible that informed people can fail to accept evolution. Or there may be polite questions about just how true is evolution. Is it as certain as gravity, or is heliocentrism a better analogy?
But no questions that matter will be posed, and no inconvenient truths will be considered. They will depart with increased assurances that evolution is our great discovery and wonder about how they can better teach this truth to their students. Religion drives science and it matters.
