A recent article was released which talks about the many theories of evolution. The article is a good introduction to the variety of evolutionary theories that different people think – both inside and outside of ID. I wanted to talk about several aspects of that article in separate posts here on UD.
The first aspect I wanted to talk about is this – is there really a consensus on evolution? Here’s the quote from the article I especially want to discuss:
In the debate over origins, there has been such an effort to paint science as being decidedly evolutionary that the actual interesting details of the question get lost. What does one mean by evolution? Is evolution a sequence or a mechanism? If it is a mechanism, what is the mechanism? If two people disagree on both the sequence and the mechanism, to what extent should their opinions be taken to represent the same idea? Might there be fascinating ideas which are not being heard simply because they are being pushed into the background of the overly generalized term “evolution?”
The part in bold is especially what I want to discuss. There are numerous different ideas for the sequences of which organisms came before or followed which other organisms. There are also numerous different ideas for the mechanisms by which this might have happened. If any sequence and any mechanism can be considered “evolution”, then what does the word evolution even mean? If the word “evolution” is taken to be mutually exclusive with ID (as most in the media would have you believe), then what does evolution even mean except “Materialism”? If it means anything more than “materialism”, how can it be a consensus if the mechanism and the sequence aren’t agreed upon?