Mayr, Darwinism and anticreationism

In discussing the definition of Darwinism, Mayr (in One Long Argument) cites one defnition of "darwinism as anticreationism." He writes as follows:

“This is the Darwinism which denied the constancy of species and, in particular, special creation, that is, the separate creation of every feature in the inanimate and living world. There were two very different groups of anticreationists. The deists maintained a belief in God but made him a rather remote lawgiver, who did not interfere with any specific happening in this world, having already arranged for everything through his laws. Whatever happened during evolution was the result of these laws. The thought made evolution palatable to a number of Christian scientists such as Charles Lyell and Asa Gray. However, only transformational evolution—the orderly change in lineage over time, directed toward the goal of perfect adaptation—is susceptible to this deistic interpretation. Darwin’s variational evolution, with its random components at the level of both genetic recombination and selection, cannot be instrumented by strict laws. The agnostic anticreationists explained all evolutionary phenomena without invoking any supernatural agents.” (94).

There is a very important point being made here for those who would argue that evolution and religion are perfectly compatible. What religious person, let alone a Christian, would really accept that the human race may never have come into existence? What sense, even metaphorically, can one make of such statements as man was created in the image of god, if one accepts that man was not only not created by god, but that he was not even a necessary product of evolution? One can see the possibility for theoretically reconciling the concept of transformational evolution with religion—the human race is the inevitable product of the working out of god’s laws. But in what way can one reconcile Darwin’s theory of evolution with religious belief?

There is indeed a direct conflict between the teachings of science and evolution and the beliefs of religion, a fact that is indeed obvious but many scientists would still deny. There is a certain intellectual dishonesty involved in attempting to claim that religion and science can peacefully coexist. In fact, any religious concept that is not completely vacuous comes eventually into direct conflict with scientific explanations. One is left simply with the idea that maybe god exists, but “he” has no effect on anything, is unobservable, and therefore has no relevance—that is, he is a vacuous concept, devoid of all content. For once one posits some content, then this content can be explored, and refuted, scientifically. For some reason I imagine that there are very few religious people who would accept this concept of god, and if they do then they have ceased to become religious in anything but the name.