Darwin’s Doctrine of Intelligent Design: Science and Religion

: It is commonly believed that Darwin rejected God and Intelligent Design, and replaced them with Natural Selection based on Random Mutations. A study of the Origin of Species, however, reveals a different picture. Darwin rejected neither God nor intelligent design, but argued that natural selection was God's intelligent method of design. Natural selection did not work on random mutations, but on variations which appeared according to laws. Darwin's enemy in Origin was not intelligent design, but the doctrine of independent creation, according to which God created each species and variety independently of the others. This was un-intelligent design. Like every thinking person, Darwin changed his mind about some things as he grew older. Changes can be found in his Autobiography and in various notes and letters. He came to raise skeptical questions about God. But Origin was his great synthesis of field biology, plant and animal breeding, religion, philosophy of science. He carefully polished Origin through six editions. It is important to study the later writings, but they are not the painstakingly developed doctrine which he presented to the world. Although Verma's arguments, in the context of Darwin, against mixing science and religion, go against a long philosophical tradition, I conclude in Verma's favour, because such a mixture can unfairly weaken religion.