ID made no sense in the face of the evidence - even less sense if the designer was assumed to be good rather than evil - and he found a powerful alternative, natural selection, that could fully account for all aspects of evolution, including complexity and fitness of design, without requiring any intelligent designer at all.
Creationists like to present ID as their response to Darwin, but historically Darwin was fully aware of the ID argument and tested it to destruction. We even know that this process caused him great distress, not least because he was an admirer of Paley's classic presentation of the argument for Intelligent Design. Darwin travelled from religious belief to disbelief as a consequence of his findings, not a cause of them. Darwin …more Maybe the point of the question is to enquire if Darwin arrived at his theory because he was an atheist. Written for the general reader, in a style which combines the rigour of science with the subtlety of literature, The Origin of Species remains one of the founding documents of the modern age.moreĭomhnall Maybe the point of the question is to enquire if Darwin arrived at his theory because he was an atheist. Yet The Origin of Species (1859) is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological interrelatedness, revealing the complex mutual interdependencies between animal and plant life, climate and physical environment, and-by implication-within the human world. Yet The Origin of Species (1859) is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological interrelatedness, reveal Darwin's theory of natural selection issued a profound challenge to orthodox thought and belief: no being or species has been specifically created all are locked into a pitiless struggle for existence, with extinction looming for those not fitted for the task.
Darwin's theory of natural selection issued a profound challenge to orthodox thought and belief: no being or species has been specifically created all are locked into a pitiless struggle for existence, with extinction looming for those not fitted for the task.