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during the Beagle’s famous voyage to the Galápagos, he had studied the types of coral reefs Charles Lyell described in Principles of Geology. Darwin reasoned that the different examples of coral reefs did not represent different types, each of which needed a different causal explanation; rather, the different examples represented different stages of development of coral reefs, for which only a single cause was needed. Darwin considered this a triumph of theory in driving scientific investigation: Theoretical prediction was followed by observational verification, whereby “I had therefore only to verify and extend my views by a careful examination of coral reefs.”3 In this case, the theory came first, then the data.

The publication of the Origin of Species triggered a roaring debate about the relative roles of data and theory in science. Darwin’s “bulldog” defender, Thomas Henry Huxley, erupted in a paroxysm against those who pontificated on science but had never practiced it themselves: “There cannot be a doubt that the method of inquiry which Mr. Darwin has adopted is not only rigorously in accord with the canons of scientific logic, but that it is the only adequate method,” Huxley wrote. Those “critics exclusively trained in classics or in mathematics, who have never determined a scientific fact in their lives by induction from experiment or observation, prate learnedly about Mr. Darwin’s method,” he bellowed, “which is not inductive enough, not Baconian enough, forsooth for them.”4

Darwin insisted that theory comes to and from the facts, not from political or philosophical beliefs, whether from God or the godfather of scientific empiricism. It is a point he voiced succinctly in his cautions to a young scientist. The facts speak for themselves, he said, advising “the advantage, at present, of being very sparing in introducing theory in your papers; let theory guide your observations, but till your reputation is well established, be sparing of publishing theory. It makes persons doubt your observations.”5 Once Darwin’s reputation was well established, he published his book that so well demonstrated the power of theory. As he noted in his autobiography, “some of my critics have said, ‘Oh, he is a good observer, but has no power of reasoning.’ I do not think that this can be true, for the Origin of Species is one long argument from the beginning to the end, and it has convinced not a few able men.”6

Against Some View

Darwin’s “one long argument” was with the theologian William Paley and the theory Paley posited in his 1802 book, Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature. Sound eerily familiar? The scholarly agenda of this first brand of Intelligent Design was to correlate the works of God (nature) with the words of God (the Bible). Natural theology kicked off with John Ray’s 1691 Wisdom of God Manifested in Works of the Creation, which itself was inspired by Psalms 19:11: “The Heavens declare the Glory of the Lord and the Firmament sheweth his handy work.” John Ray, in what still stands as a playbook for creationism, explains the analogy between human and divine creations: If a “curious Edifice or machine” leads us to “infer the being and operation of some intelligent Architect or Engineer,” shouldn’t the same be said of “the Works of nature, that Grandeur and magnificence, that excellent contrivance for Beauty, Order, use, &c. which is observable in them, wherein they do as much transcend the Efforts of human Art and infinite Power and Wisdom exceeds finite” to make us “infer the existence and efficiency of an Omnipotent and All-wise Creator?”7

Paley advanced Ray’s work through the accumulated knowledge of a century of scientific exploration. The opening passage of Paley’s Natural Theology has become annealed into our culture as the winningly accessible and thus appealing “watchmaker” argument:

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there. I might possibly answer, that, for