The Third Way of Evolution is a group of non-Darwinian or minimally Darwinian evolutionary biologists.
From Tom Heneghan at Religion News:
Since scientists succeeded in sequencing the genome in the late 1990s, they have found that epigenetic markers that regulate patterns of gene expression can reflect outside influences on a body.
Even simpler living objects such as plants contain a complex internal genetic system that governs their growth according to information they receive from outside.
To theologians who see a “new biology” emerging, this knowledge points to a more holistic system than scientists have traditionally seen, one more open to some divine inspiration for life.
In this view, the fact that epigenetic markers can bring outside pressures to bear on the genome deep inside a human means genetics is not a closed system, but part of the wider sweep of nature in which they, as religious thinkers, also see God’s hand.More.
Someone mentioned epigenetics? Wow.
Design theorist Michael Behe, author of Edge of Evolution, writes to say,
It strikes me as just pussyfooting around the verboten topic of intelligent design. Either the “holistic” organism could have arisen by unguided natural processes or it couldn’t. In the former case you have some variation or extension of Darwinism. In the latter you have intelligent design.
Possibly, Behe is too demanding here. To get past “Jesus loves Darwin and so should you!” so as to notice what is actually going on in studies of evolution today puts these people far out ahead of salaried, tenured, and unionized colleagues.
“Nature is so complex and rich and that prompts questions about why on earth is this the case? If you’re an atheist, how do you explain a universe that seems to have the capacity to produce these things in the first place?” asked Alister McGrath, an Oxford theologian who is director of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion that hosted the conference. More.
Ah, a question we can easily answer: They don’t need to explain it; like Google, they just need to enforce it against people who ask. After all, only an enemy would question the system.
See also: Dawkins: Maybe the hard problem of consciousness can never be solved Unless one’s idea of solving the problem is burbling up fresh trivia.
Tales of the Tone Deaf, featuring dim profs writing in dozy journals about why people doubt Science and how to fix them.
Cosmic inflation theory loses hangups about the scientific method: What if naturalism changes the role of a science program? Perhaps stubbornly contrary evidence merely shows the need for more drive and zeal in generating new naturalist theories, not more reflection and evaluation of that direction.
On Third Way approaches: Paradigm Shifters by Suzan Mazur