“Darwinian Evolution”

Well, the subject will resurface again indefinitely. IDists think the fundamental thing they are refuting is the claim “teleology is undetectable in evolution”. Not “evolution”. Not “common descent”.

Darwin’s theory is the first sort to discredit the notion there is teleology in evolution. Dawkins more recently repeats this notion in The Blind Watchmaker, and calls this specific take on evolution “Darwinism”, claiming it is the only coherent evolutionary theory. Thus, IDists, perhaps without too much mystery, choose “Darwinism” to denote the specific theory they are refuting.

Now, everyone is up in arms with using the term “Darwinism” because it is now for some reason solely associated with creationism. Apparently, no mainstream scientist uses the term to refer to the specifically undirected kind of evolution that ID seeks to empirically refute.

In which case, in the interest of clear communication that does not devolve into semantic debates, we need a new term to denote “teleology is undetectable in evolution”. Unfortunately, “dysteleology” does not cut it, because there is another position commonly called “theistic evolution” (abbreviate to TE) that claims both to be consistent with “teleology is undetectable in evolution” AND “evolution is teleological”. This group can thus claim both “dysteleology” AND “teleology”, since they claim at the emipirical level evolution appears to be “dysteleological” but at the religious level it is “teleological” since evolution is undetectably guided by God.

THEREFORE, if ID claims to be refuting “dysteleology”, then TE will pipe up and say, “hey we’ve already got you covered, evolution is indeed teleological due to God’s direction, no need to refute dysteleology”. This is why we need a term other than “dysteleology” to designate that which ID seeks to refute. BECAUSE, the fact of the matter is ID has a legitimate goal that is not covered by the TE’s positing of undetectable divine guidance, namely that said guidance may indeed be empirically detectable, and that we should at least try to find out!

Hopefully, it is now clear to you that which I intend to communicate by my displeasure with the term “dysteleology” as a replacement for “Darwinism”.