It goes downhill from there. If I were a Darwinian, I would be embarrassed by this stuff.
From Jeremy E Sherman at Psychology Today:
I’m an atheist with a PhD. in evolutionary theory. I spend much of my time encouraging a new relationship with religion and spirituality modeled on our relationship with fiction.
For example, I wish that Christians believed in Christ the way they believe in Santa Claus, as a fictional character based loosely on a historical one, reconfigured to embody a first-cut simplification of Christian values for kids that remains vivid and valued by nostalgic and conscientious adults.
Most of the world, for whatever reason, continues to distinguish between apparent truth and admitted fiction. Now, as to Sherman’s main point: He thinks that there isn’t yet a valid scientific explanation for agency
What do I mean by agency? Agency is the behavior of agents like you and me though not just of humans. Agency is evident in any living being, any organism making an effort for its own benefit, effort fitted to circumstances. You are an agent but so is a bug, begonia or bacterium. All organisms try to stay alive. Trying is the heart of agency.
Most organisms don’t know they’re trying, don’t feel like trying and aren’t trying to try better. Still, they try to stay alive. That’s agency.
And so?
So how does ID explain agency? Beautifully from a poetic fictional perspective. From a scientific perspective, they offer no explanation at all.
According to ID (and theology and spirituality in general) agency doesn’t need explaining because it’s the fundamental property of the universe, present in God before the origin of the physical universe. More.
Sherman does not source his claims about ID theory to anyone in particular and gives no sense of having read books by ID theorists (who don’t talk this way). By all means, read his column if you wish, but it says something about psychology today in general that – in Psychology Today – unsourced, poetically inspired opinion is welcomed in place of factual analysis and interviews with representative actual subjects.
See also: Psychologist offers a drive-by psychiatric diagnosis of ID guys. Those who cannot deal with a fact base often build an elaborate drama around why it doesn’t really exist or else doesn’t mean what it means, conscripting key players into unfamiliar roles and generalizing about the rest.
and
Facts are shaking the foundations of psychology