Evolution and sacrifice: Cooperation as a scientific principle
Followers of the media furor about evolution and God imagine that they have to choose between Darwinian theory and belief in divine providence. The most vociferous current contestants in this debate are either atheistic supporters of evolutionary theory or Christian supporters of the riposte position known as intelligent design. I suggest that there is a way to avoid this false disjunction altogether. New discoveries about the phenomenon known to evolutionary theorists as cooperation give us fresh reasons to regard evolutionary theory and classic Christian theism as entirely compatible—indeed, richly and convincingly so.