The idea that one can distinguish the thesis and theory of intelligent design is puzzling While I don t have access to Jones Encyclopedia of Religion there s an entry from 2003 listed as forthcoming on Dembski s list of writings on ID Note that this is pre Kitzmiller and is typical of Dembski s writings of the time Sagan Paley and Kant Assuming that this is substantially similar to the final version there s nothing about thesis vs theory Beyond this John Carter appears to misunderstand the idea of theory There are I think perhaps several other areas of what might be called theoretical biology such as parts of astrobiology which also have a total lack of any hard evidence to indicate that they even have something real to study in that case alien life No That s not what theoretical biology is Take a look at the TOC of the Journal of Theoretical Biology Or try Acta Biotheoretica Or even check out the journal Astrobiology Theory isn t about things that lack total evidence This entire section about thesis vs theory of intelligent design appears to be based on both a misunderstanding of what Dembski was saying pre Kitzmiller when he was predicting the overthrow of materialistic science and a department of ID at a major university within a decade and a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference of what constitutes theoretical biology and how it differs from unfounded speculation and science fiction