Those looking for a concise discussion of the differences between Theistic Evolution (TE) and Intelligent Design (ID) will find a post by Thomas Cudworth at Uncommon Descent helpful. Cudworth expands upon a piece by Karl Giberson at Biologos (a TE website) which calls upon both sides to explore the things they have in common and to use these as a way of turning down the heat of the rhetoric between them.
Cudworth picks up on Giberson's suggestion and pens a helpful exploration of those commonalities. He writes, for instance that:
TE is the belief that God guided or at least planned evolution; ID is the belief that design in nature is detectable. TE as such says nothing either way about the detectability of design, and ID as such says nothing either way about the occurrence or non-occurrence of evolution. Therefore, neither group needs, on definitional grounds, to deny the core belief of the other. It is only those ID people who insist on rejecting evolution on principle, and only those TE people who insist that God's design must not be detectable, that have no common ground. But in between, there is an overlap zone, which I think that neither TEs nor ID people have fully explored, because of reckless past charges on both sides which have generated great mutual distrust. I think we should be exploring this overlap zone, and I therefore welcome Dr. Giberson's non-dogmatic approach.
The whole piece is worth a read by anyone interested in this issue. The same is true of Giberson's post at Biologos.
RLC
