Whoa! You'd better do some homework there, dr_lew.
The original purpose of evolution was to find a way to explain origins WITHOUT miracles...........to debunk Genesis.
That's not 'reason.' That's agenda.
This characterization fits geology more closely than biology. Thomas Burnet's SACRED THEORY OF THE EARTH gave a naturalistic, but pious, account of earth history drawing on the assumption of a cataclysm corresponding to the Noachic Flood. He was a contemporary of Newton, and his mixing of naturalism with scripture was condemned as atheistic, and his church career foundered. By the time of Lyell, in the mid 1800's, the diluvialists were making their final stand.