"the dismissal of 'God' by modern evolutionary naturalists,
and the rejection of evolution by creationists and 'intelligent design' devotees, is often a result of their shared observation that the Darwinian
world fails to conform to simplistic notions of design and order. There is no need here to enter into a
thorough discussion of creationism and intelligent design. It is well known that their antipathy to
evolution is rooted in the assumption that a world filled with accidents or
contingencies is too noisy to be rendered compatible with their idea of a
designing deity. But it is also worth
noting that the atheistic ideas of the renowned evolutionist Richard Dawkins
and many other evolutionists are also based on the same assumption: namely, that any God deserving of the name
would also have to be a designer in the same sense as 'intelligent design' proponents understand the ultimate cause of living complexity. In his obsession with the deadhorse of
design, Dawkins insists that any reasonable affirmation of God’s existence
would require that living organisms exhibit perfect engineering. So Dawkins' implicit theological assumptions
are essentially identical to those of his 'intelligent design' opponents."
John F. Haught, "Information, theology, and the universe," in Information and the nature of reality:
from physics to metaphysics, ed. Paul Davies and Niels Henrik
Gregerson (Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), 308 (301-318). Haught goes on to cite Newman on Paley (his "lecture in the School of Medicine" on "Christianity and physical science" in The idea of a university) against his fellow Christians, though I would have to re-read that more closely to be convinced that he does so in all fairness to the current representatives of "intelligent design."
"in the history of the mind as in that of towns, the ruins [of a civilization] expose the bedrock [(les fondations)] that, in the case of man, is a matter not of what he constructed, but of what is innate."
