The Design of Evolution

Stephen M. Barr in First Things

By saying that "neo-Darwinism" is "synonymous" with "'evolution' as used by mainstream biologists," [Cardinal] Schonborn indicates that he means the term as commonly understood among scientists. As so understood, neo-Darwinism is based on the idea that the mainspring of evolution is natural selection acting on random genetic variation. Elsewhere in his article, however, the cardinal gives another definition: "evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense [is] an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection." This is the central misstep of Cardinal Schonborn's article. He has slipped into the definition of a scientific theory, neo-Darwinism, the words "unplanned" and "unguided," which are fraught with theological meaning.