Evolutionist's come in a wide variety of religious flavors. Even in the Christian wing of evolution-dom, the details of how God and evolution are to be understood vary. There is, for example the bottom-up view where God controls the world via sub-atomic particles all working together to effect macro events. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, there is the top-down view where God controls events in a way analogous to the way humans perceive their willed actions. From my perspective, I simply move my arm. I do not initiate nerve impulses in order to activate muscle contractions leading to appendage movement. It's almost difficult to find a view that doesn't fit into the spectrum somewhere. But once again evolutionist Jerry Coyne demonstrates what can be done when facts don't matter.

Evolutionists who are Christian hold to a variety of views of how God used evolution. But there is one view to which they do not hold. They do not believe God used evolution in the way that a sculptor uses a chisel. They do not believe that God precisely and exactly controlled the evolutionary process to achieve a preconceived design. For that would mean that God intended for this gritty world.

As Roman Catholic Nicholas Malebranche hypothesized in the early days of modern science, God limited divine action to secondary causes--creation's natural laws. God preferred the simplicity of such blunt creation instruments to more complex, detailed intervention, even if it meant inefficiencies and evil. Better to believe in divine self limitation than in a God who would create this contemptable world.

Malebranche's seventeenth century system was one of several traditions (mostly Anglican and Lutheran) mandating a strictly naturalistic creation narrative which laid the foundation of modern evolutionary thought.

Creationists view evolutionary thought as atheism is disguise, and atheists such as Coyne view it as creation in disguise. It is neither.

Evolutionists who are Christian hold to a variety of views, but they are not creationists in disguise. Nonetheless, Coyne manages to conclude that evolutionists such as Kenneth Miller, Karl Giberson and Francis Collins are creationists. Of them he writes:

Yes, they do accept that our species changed genetically over time, but they see God as having pulled the strings. That’s not the way evolution works. The graph labels these 48% as believers in intelligent design, and that’s exactly what they are, for they see God as nudging human evolution toward some preconceived goal. We’re designed. These people are creationists: selective creationists.

To count them as allies means we make company with those who accept evolution in a superficial sense but reject it in the deepest sense. After all, the big revolution in thought wrought by Darwin was the recognition that the appearance of design—thought for centuries to be proof of God—could stem from purely natural processes. When we cede human evolution to God, then, we abandon that revolution. That’s why I see selective creationists like Kenneth Miller, Karl Giberson and Francis Collins as parting company with modern biological thought.

One consequence of the naturalistic mandate in evolutionary thought is that divine action cannot be scientifically detectable. As Coyne writes, the appearance of design can stem from purely natural processes. How, and whether or not, God worked via those laws becomes irrelevant. "Let each man hope and believe what he can," as Darwin put it.

But what they may not believe is that design is detectable. They may believe in design, but not that it is detectable. Blinded by his atheistic zeal, Coyne misses this subtlety.

Divine intention is the crux of the argument. If God did not intend for the specifics of this world, but rather merely created natural laws which act on their own, then God is justified and design is not detectable. But if design is detectable, then by definition natural laws are insufficient to explain creation. That means God controlled the process more precisely than we can accept.

Darwin brought forth example after example of designs that made no sense. They must have evolved, and evolution must be true. Today, the story from molecular biology is the same. Junk DNA, regardless of whether some oddball function is found, for evolutionists simply makes no sense on design.

The evolutionary drumbeat that Darwin's idea must be a fact is not a scientific conclusion based on empirical findings in a metaphysical vacuum. Yes there are plenty of empirical findings, but they are viewed through evolutionary spectacles, with all of its rich metaphysical history. It isn't atheism, it isn't creationism, it isn't design, and it isn't empirical science.

Miller, Giberson, Collins and rest are not intelligent design advocates or selective creationists, as Coyne erroneously describes them. Though specifics vary, these Christians are very much in the evolutionary traditions from the Enlightment and before. Today's dominant paradigm did not begin in 1859 and Coyne's new finding that theism is not allowed is absurd. It is also hypocritical since, in typical fashion, Coyne relies on those same theistic arguments (you can see examples here, here, here, here and here).

Another school year is set to begin at high schools and colleges where the next round of biology students will be filled with evolutionary misinformation. At the center of this propaganda campaign are the many biology textbooks used to indoctrinate young minds with old dogma. These textbooks contain the latest evolutionary newspeak, but the underlying message is no different.

In their text The Living World (Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2008) evolutionists George Johnson and Jonathan Losos rehearse the usual teachings. Students are told that “Microevolution Leads to Macroevolution” with the giraffe’s neck serving as the example of how small change is supposed to accumulate to the large-scale change evolution needs.

Of course this is a long-standing, well-known problem for evolution. Mechanisms for large-scale change are speculative for it does not appear merely to be the result of repeated rounds of microevolution. Johnson and Losos, of course, inform the student of none of this.

The giraffe example is also useful in explaining evolution’s concept of biological variation. The text explains that according to evolution variation arises independent of need or experience via mechanisms such as random mutation.

Contrary to such evolutionary dogma, it has been known for decades that variation is sensitive to experience and need. Evolutionists have resisted this and the text again leaves the student ignorant of the science.

Such misrepresentations of science, as damaging as they are, pale in comparison to Johnson’s and Losos’ next move. The apologists make a failed attempt to enlist the fossil record as powerful evidence for evolution, and end up with only the usual metaphysics. They write:

If the theory of evolution is not correct, on the other hand, then such orderly change is not expected.

Very interesting. And how do evolutionists know so much? From where did Johnson and Losos learn such ultimate truths? If evolution is not correct then such orderly change is not expected? Tell us more.

What are all the possibilities aside from evolution and why do none of them predict “such orderly change”? Why is it that evolution, and only evolution, predicts such an outcome? This is truly fascinating. If and only if evolution is true would we see such orderly change. Johnson and Losos are real geniuses—they have knowledge of all possible causes.

You cannot make this stuff up. In two and half pages the text's chapter on evolution has gone from misleading to absurd. What will come next?

But this is nothing new in evolutionary circles. Only evolutionists teach such a biased version of science.

Evolutionists claim evolution is a fact as much as gravity is a fact. As with gravity, we may not yet understand the details of evolution, but evolution in one way or another is an undeniable fact. Well is it? One evolutionist is certain and wrote this to me:

Do I need to recount for you the instances of observed evolution, past and present? You already have rejected short-term examples of the phenomenon, but when the exact same pseudogene for Vitamin C is broken in the exact same place in humans and chimpanzees, indicating we inherited it from a common ancestor, what else do you say it is other than a fact that we evolved from that common ancestor? If you have read the authors you claim to have, how many more examples of evolution in action do you want? You say that it's "immediately obvious from the evolution genre...that while evolutionists consistently make this claim, it is nowhere demonstrated." It baffles me how you can make that statement. How gilded do you insist the lily be?

I like this comment because it is a succinct example of evolutionary thinking. Can you see the metaphysics at work?

Yes there are scientific problems. Cases of observed evolution are of limited value in proving evolution to be a fact, unless we equivocate on evolution. In fact, they reveal complex response mechanisms at work which evolutionists have resisted acknowledging.

But these problems are inconsequential, for evolutionists have metaphysical certainty. If you can see the metaphysics at work, then you understand the evolution genre.