A Richard Pimentel essay on Darwinian Evolution and Atheism can be found over at Philosophy News. It's a short introductory discussion on the relationship between evolutionary theory and atheism. Though ID attacks on evoutionary theory seem to be motivated by christian conservatives, many evolutionists have responded by defending a consistency between certain scientific and religious beliefs. Pimentel cites Mark Vuletic and his essay In Defense of Evolution in support of such a position. On the other hand, W. Harland Dilbeck argues in his essay, Theistic Evolution or Atheism?, for the incompatibility of belief in evolution and belief in God. Both presentations are rather weak in that they depend heavily on pointing out what famous people have believed or what the majority believe. Not much of an argument in that. But then Pimentel leaves us with this:

The book, Darwin's God, written by Cornelius Hunter in 2001, adds an interesting twist to this issue. Hunter claims that Darwinism not only relies on scientific observations but on religious presuppositions as well. Hunter states, "Darwin's theory goes far beyond scientific observations, interpretation, and experimentation. It includes religious presuppositions outside of science.... It is important to understand that evolution relies on religious premises, but it is even more important to understand that evolutionists do not acknowledge this reliance on metaphysical ideas." Throughout his book, Hunter offers evidence for the religious dimension of Darwinian evolution because, as he claims, Darwin's theory was hatched not just from observation and experimentation but from Darwin's concern with natural evil. Hunter claims that evolution was Darwin's solution to the problem of evil. If Hunter is correct, then maybe evolution is not just about common ancestry, genetic mutations, and natural selection but maybe, as Hunter wrote, "Ultimately, evolution is about God."

Many scholars have debated Darwin's motivations for developing and promoting evolutionary theory, but this is clearly irrelevant to the content of the theory, its predictive power, and the evidence we have for accepting it. Whether evolutionary theory could be used as a solution to the problem of evil is an interesting question--though I don't see much promise there. But whether Darwin used "religious presuppositions" to "hatch" the theory is irrelevant to the power and accuracy of evolutionary theory. In short, to suggest that "evolution is about God" is just wrong, even if it can be used to generate a solution to a problem posed by theism.

Like any scientific theory, evolutionary theory is about a limited range of phenomena. Darwinian evolution, in particular, is about speciation--how does nature produce to number and diversity of species? It has nothing to say about where the stuff of life came from and in that sense it is compatible with a theistic response to some questions. If we think of evolutionary theory more broadly, however, as a "universal Darwinism' or algorithm for change, then we will see that we can use evolutionary principles (in conjunction with other theses) to explain phenomena that are not merely biological. The origin and nature of mind, morality, and meaning might be explained in naturalistic terms without reference to a mind-first (theistic) metaphysics. Or at least these explanations look promising. So promising, I would suggest, that while evolutionary thinking is compatible with theism, it makes the god-hypothesis obsolete. Remember that theism doesn't explain mind, meaning and morality very well at all, so the potential of a naturalistic explanation is welcome (or should be). Evolutionary theory does not prove or require atheism; it just makes for a very hospitable environment.

DARWINIAN EVOLUTION AND ATHEISM

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