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I am not sure what you are suggesting.

Are you arguing for an absolutely literal 6-days-of-creation? In that case, you would be opposed to everyone from William Jennings Bryan to the proponents of "intelligent design theory." Is that your position?

Darwin speaks of those who lack the natural moral sense as "unnatural monsters," who respond only to fear of punishment. What alternative explanation do you have? The Bible teaches that psychopathic children should be brought to the elders of the tribe to be stoned to death. What else do you suggest we should do with such people?

Are you suggesting that God was unable or unwilling to work his creative power through natural evolution? What would be your Biblical support for this? I can see in the Bible that God intervenes for the purposes of salvational history. But I don't see any clear indication that He has to intervene miraculously to create every "irreducibly complex" living mechanism.

Can you cite any biblical authority for your view that God is unable to work through evolutionary processes?

Any conservative rebellion against the Miers nomination should include a serious debate over what this shows about the influence of the Religious Right in the conservative movement.

The only substantive qualification attributed to Miers is that in 1979 she became a "born-again Christian." Apparently, this is what the White House has passed on to the Religious Right leaders as sufficient basis for their support.

The conservative tradition has generally agreed with Edmund Burke that "man is by constitution a religious animal," and that "religion is the basis of civil society." But this affirmation of the practical truth of religion in reinforcing good social order does not endorse the theological truth of any particular religious tradition. In fact, many conservatives have been skeptics.

Those Christian conservatives who assume that conservatism means endorsing the doctrines and practices of "born-again" Christianity are departing from the main line of conservative thought. As I have argued in my book DARWINIAN CONSERVATISM, the conservative support for the social utility of religion does not require commitment to any particular theological tradition.

Not testable? Evolutionary scientists go into their laboratories every day to test their theories. For example, evolutionary theory predicts patterns of genetic similarity that indicate common ancestry. If we discovered that species predicted to be closely related were not similar genetically, then our theory would be falsified. If there were no genetic similarity between humans and other primates, this would disprove the theory of primate evolution.

How often do the proponents of ID go into their laboratories to test their predictions about how exactly the Intelligent Designer creates "irreducibly complex" mechanisms? Isn't the answer obvious? They never do this, because they have no testable theory at all about exactly when, where, and how the Intelligent Designer does his work.

The reason why the Discovery Institute doesn't like this case is because it forces them to present ID as a positive scientific theory. This works against their rhetorical strategy of negative argumentation. They want to criticize Darwinian explanations as incomplete. But they don't want to be forced to offer their own alternative explanation.

Exactly when, where, and how did the Intelligent Designer create the "irreducibly complex" mechanisms of life? The Discovery Institute has no scientifically testable answer to that question.

I have taught college freshman with selected readings from the ORIGIN and DESCENT. They are fascinated to actually read Darwin for themselves. DESCENT takes up the moral and religious issues, which grab the attention of students.

I find that students are hungry for this. In one of my college classes, I found that half or more of my students were creationists. I asked them, "What do you do in your biology classes when evolution is discussed?" Their answer was, "We keep our mouths shut!"

This cynicism about science is corrupting.

A recent survey of high school students conducted by the state governors found that a majority of high school students complain that they are not intellectually challenged by their classes. I fear that that is especially true for science classes.

The Discovery Institute subsidized the writing of Richard Weikart's recent book FROM DARWIN TO HITLER. In my chapter on "social Darwinism" in my book, I show that Weikart's own evidence doesn't support a direct line "from Darwin to Hitler," although Hitler used vague references to survival of the fittest in some of his writings.

In correspondence with me, Weikart admitted that the title of his book is not accurate because any connection between Darwin and Hitler is very loose and indirect. The connection between Ernst Haeckel and Hitler is much more direct and clear. Weikart chose the title of his book to support the polemical purposes of the Discovery Institute.

Well, well. So I'm not the only Darwinian conservative in the world after all! Thanks to all for the welcome.

The "crevolist" looks great.

Although I am generally not persuaded by the "intelligent design" arguments, I enjoy debating the ID people. And I actually am open to allowing ID ideas into public school science classes. The best way to do this, I would say, is to "teach the controversy by teaching Darwin." Why not have high school students actually read Darwin and notice that he presents his "theory of natural selection" as the alternative to the "theory of special creation." The 3rd Edition of the Norton Critical Edition of Darwin, edited by Philip Appleman, even includes selections from Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe along with Darwin's texts.

Students reading Darwin would have to weigh Darwin's arguments against the alternative. They might actually be excited by the chance to think for themselves.

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."

Beginning with Adam Smith and Edmund Burke, the conservative intellectual tradition has been based on the claim that social order arises not from rational planning but from the spontaneous moral order of instincts and habits. Darwinian biology sustains that conservative claim by showing how the human capacity for spontaneous order arises from social instincts and a moral sense shaped by natural selection in human evolutionary history.

I don't see anything morally degrading in this. On the contrary, I see a science of human nature that supports spontaneous moral order as natural for human beings.

For example, when conservatives defend marriage and the family as natural because they are rooted in the natural human desires for sexual mating and parental care, doesn't this appeal to the biological nature of human beings?