That was precisely my argument. TRUE scientists are pragmatists. Alas some who claim they are scientists use "science" to promote their ideology. Galton and eugenics, leading to the Nazis, is one example. Much of what passes for "social science" similarly is more based on ideology than science, since they ignore complex parameters that contaminate their data.
Evolution neither denies nor affirms a Creator. It is a scientific observation.
Darwinian evolution, however, uses an observation and inserts religion into it's thesis. (Darwin started his search with the question of how things could exist without God: Not as an indifferent scientist).
Darwin insists blind chance was behind evolution. But evidence shows there is a tendency toward complexity in nature. Systems evolve into complex systems in leaps, not gradually. This tendency toward complexity is not necessarily due to a god. But it could be. That is why Darwinians continue to ignore more modern theories like information theory or Chaos theory.
Similarly, like other ideologues, this author is using "science" to destroy a belief system-- to destroy religion. Sorry, but science has neither proven nor disproven the existence of God. As Rummy would say: the absence of evidence is not the same as the evidence of absense. There has so far been no adequate experiment devised to detect if God exists or not. On the other hand, things like beauty, absolute truth, and love cannot be proven scientifically to exist.
You know this is ad hominem (to the man) and therefore irrelevent. Evolution stands or falls on its own merits, not the motivation of its proponents. The same is true for proponents of "Intelligent Design." Of course their agenda is to prove God. So? ID stands or falls on the evidence they bring to the table. In that department they have a lot of work to do.
But why do you lay this at Darwin's feet? It is the purpose of science to find quantifiable explanations for natural phenomena. Back in Newton's day, people honestly believed that the planets moved in their courses because angels were pushing them around by hand. Newton came along and demonstrated that gravity was sufficient to explain all planetary motion, and as a result, Newton "banished God from the heavens themselves", as has been said. Why don't I see you railing against him? The distinction is political.
So OK, maybe the development of life is a series of divine miracles. But please don't call that science, and don't whine if science nevertheless tries to find rational explanations. That's what science is for. That's what science is. Calling something a supernatural miracle is a refusal to search for a rational explanation. It is a last resort after every possible rational explanation has been tried and disproven. It is a throwing up of the hands and an abdication of the goals and purposes of science.
That may seem to you like an appropriate response to the daunting complexities of life on Earth, but you are way out of line in chiding scientists for not feeling the same way. Science is what we do. Other people's belief systems can't be permitted to influence our research. The fact that basic biology offends your political sensibilities is of no more consequence than the offense some tribal shaman might take at the atomic theory of matter.
Quite true, there are many things which science cannot know of. Materialism is one of the silliest philosophies around, it denies the possibility of intelligence, logic, art, mathematics, geometry, conscience and much more - just about everything which makes humans human.
Could you post a reference where Darwin says this is his starting point?