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 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