"There is no necessary conflict between Darwinian science and religious belief."
I suppose that depends what your religious beliefs are. A Christian, for example, can believe the Bible is literally true and also in Micro-evolution (variation within species). This is what the Bible means when it says, "God created according to kind."
That is where it would stop, however. The Bible teaches that God formed man unique as a seperate act, and blew His breathe into the man. Man has a soul, different than the soul of a chimp. That's why men write poems and have a desire for meaning, and monkeys don't.
Also, regarding Jesus the Messiah and paul the apostle, they referred to the Creation account, and/or Adam and Eve as literal. If Jesus and Paul were wrong about that, maybe they were wrong about salvation, too?
Evolution must stand or fall on it's own evidence, but it is not compatable with a Christian's literal interpretation of the Bible.
As a scientist, Darwin could not affirm the specific theological doctrines of Christianity. But he could acknowledge God as First Cause and "the laws impressed on matter by the Creator." He could also speak of the powers of life as "originally breathed by the Creator."
As conservatives, we should agree on the moral importance of religion in shaping social order, which Darwin does. But as conservatives, we cannot agree on specific theological doctrines. After all there are Jewish conservatives, Catholic conservatives, Protestant conservatives, and even skeptical conservatives. A skeptical conservative like Friedrich Hayek would say that "life has no purpose other than itself," and yet he could also recognize the importance of religion as the "guardian of tradition."
Since evolution stands on literally millions of data points, with numerous successful predictions under its belt, and no significant data/evidence led dissent about its truth within the worldwide scientific community for more than a century then I guess "a Christian's literal interpretation of the Bible" must be false.
You create the dichotomy, and you've got to live with the conclusion that must be drawn.
Evolution must stand or fall on it's own evidence, but it is not compatable with a Christian's literal interpretation of the Bible.
With genuine respect, may I say that at the time of Galilleo, the Church held precisely the position you make here, but about the 'controversarial' claim of science that the earth orbited the sun rather than, as the Bible seemed to state, the other way around. The Church believed then that was a heresy and tried to (brutally) suppress it, on exactly the same grounds that you have given here: if science says something contrary to a literal reading of the Bible, then the whole edifice of Christian belief was threatened.
Well, science was right about the heliocentric model--and the Church survived, came to terms with it: the earth does indeed circle the sun after all, and that does nothing to undermine or invalidate the teachings of Jesus or Paul or any of the other early Church Fathers about the path to spiritual salvation. And why should it? Jesus did not say anything that was contingent upon the sun circling the earth.
I will grant you that science does appear, in places, to rule out a 'literal' reading of Scripture--but there are several points to be made about this:
Much of physics (particularly quantum mechanics) is even more at odds with literal scripture, but does not give rise to the 'controversy' that evolutionary biology does because it is very difficult to begin to comprehend without advanced mathematics. Evolutionary biology is also a complex and demanding area of study, but large numbers of laymen think they understand it (as they think they understand Einstein's Theory of Relativity) on the basis of popular oversimplifications. The arguments 'against' are in fact directed at the popularised oversimplifications, and simply don't hold up
I am certainly no theologian (and the nature of my own religious belief is of no interest or consequence to anyone else, in any event), but it seems clear enough to me that the whole problem over the Evolution/Intelligent Design issue is nothing to do with science (which has established an overwhelming preponderance of data in favour of evoltuionary theory), but everything to do with a literal reading of scripture. By all means, have that argument/discussion in religious arenas, but please, it doesn't belong in the science classroom!
A final note (not directed at you personally, rightfielder): I am always surprised to encounter Christians who argue for a literal reading of Scripture but who themselves cannot read either Hebrew or Greek, the original languages of the Bible. If arguments about the literal readings were conducted within the framework of the original languages, much confusion would be avoided. But ultimately, the choice between literal and symbolic readings of the Bible are theological, not scientific matters
Final emphasis: most Christians do not insist on a literal reading of the Bible!