I may be wrong about this, but I thought Victor had posted on this topic before, and at HuffPo, too. Never mind, for it’s good to be reminded that most Americans who accept evolution accept a form of evolution that scientists don’t buy.
That is theistic evolution: the notion that somehow God guided the process. The scenario takes different forms, from the Catholic church’s insistence that evolution indeed occurred, but that humans were special in being the only recipients of God-installed “souls” (but the Church’s believes in a literal Adam and Eve, too!); to the idea, buttressed by people like philosopher Elliott Sober, that God might have made special but undetectable mutations allowing the evolution of H. sapiens; to the view that God set up evolution and then didn’t intervene, but planned it so that that humans would result.
All of this comes from the religiously-based view that humans are special: made in the image of God.
In his 2006 bestseller The Language of God, in a section on “Theistic Evolution,” Collins writes:
“God, who is not limited in space or time, created the universe and established natural laws that govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanics, of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek fellowship with Him (pp. 200-201, first edition).”
He doesn’t tell us how he knows all this.
Most scientists and science organizations in America wish to stay on good terms with the believing majority, and so the fundamental incompatibility between random evolution — which is what science says happened — and divinely-guided evolution — for which no evidence exists — is kept under wraps. However, the time has come for scientists and their societies to face up to the fundamental incompatibility between naturalist and theistic evolution.