"I am skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." (A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism signed by me) 

I think the cumulative evidence points towards a combination of old earth and common ancestry with saltational development. The latter I consider as quantum computations based on entangled DNA that collapses into non-random adaptive macro-mutations, which because of their survival value populate and propagate more branches of the wave function. Intelligent Design is instantiated not by supernatural interventions within spacetime but by fine-tuned initial conditions, fine-tuned laws of nature, and a fine-tuned fitness landscape. The fitness landscape of evolutionary biology is a discernible set of alternative possibilities and as such a subset of Hilbert space of the universal wave function in quantum mechanics. Due to entanglement the wave function of the universe represents a single integrated information state that is equivalent with a universal consciousness (based on Tononi's IIT). Universal wave function (platonic abstract objects) and universal mind (consciousness) are co-dependent in a strange loop: The universal wave function "lives" in the universal mind, and the universal mind is based on the integrated information of this wave function. This unifies Neoplatonism with objective (monistic) idealism and (panen)theism. Spacetime emerges from entangled quantum information and thus from universal consciousness (mind at large).

Other prominent ID proponents, who's views resonate best with mine, would be Bruce Gordon (idealist), Richard von Sternberg (Neoplatonist), and Michael Denton (structuralist). With Rob Koons, Michael Chaberek, and Michael Egnor I share an interest and sympathy for Aristotelian-Thomist hylemorphism. In my view, hylemorphism can be well reconciled with quantum idealism, if prime matter is considered to be the field of universal consciousness and subsistent form is considered to be its actual informational structure or content, where none of both can exist without the other.

I see myself in the long German tradition of idealistic morphology (typology) and Goethian nature philosophy, neo-vitalism and non-mechanistic biology (Driesch, Portmann, Uexküll), and the saltationist paleontologists (Beurlen, Dacqué, von Huehne, Schindewolf), as well as an orthogenetic and teleological approach to evolution (Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin). In the wake of the anti-materialist revolution in physics these ideas deserve a revival in biology.

My Anti-Darwinian views:

Neo-Darwinian macroevolution has been decisively refuted by modern science and is demonstrably failing to be a feasible explanation. Furthermore, phenomena like the origin of life and of complex biological novelties, the origin and fine-tuning of the universe, and the origin and nature of consciousness all suggest that mechanistic and materialistic theories fail to explain the evidence, which is better explained by an intelligent cause or at least an influx of information from outside the system. In spite of all attempts for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, in my humble opinion Neo-Darwinism was the only conceivable option for a materialistic and mechanistic bottom-up explanation of biological origins, which is why a refutation of Neo-Darwinism implies a refutation of materialism as well. I arrived at this conclusion exclusively based on scientific evidence, totally independent from any metaphysical or even religious background beliefs.

Instead of Neo-Darwinism, I endorse a modern version of saltationism, mutationism, and orthogenesis, based on non-random adaptive macro-mutations (analogous to Schindewolf's and Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster" hypothesis, more recently endorsed by Rieppel 2017), correlated with the spatiotemporal instantiation of non-material and eternal templates (platonic forms) that function as attractors ("special transformism" sensu Chaberek 2017), and are quasi "downloaded from the cloud". I also consider front-loaded design in terms of process structuralism (fine-tuned laws of form and fine-tuned fitness landscape), but this cannot explain complex adaptations (what Dawkins called "apparent design"). I definitely do affirm that every organism (apart from the first living cell) was produced / born from a biological parent organism and thus did not pop into being ex nihilo. I also affirm microevolutionary speciation within biological kinds through Neo-Darwinian processes. However, these never generate new specified complex information, but mostly represent minor variation, devolution, and reshuffling of pre-existing information (e.g., homozygosity from heterozygosity, deactivation or detioration of genes, polyploidy, gene duplication, horizontal gene transfer, hybridogenesis). All macroevolutionary transitions happened abruptly and required a flow (or "downloading") of information from outside of the system.

I do not see convincing scientific reasons to dispute the conventional dating of the age of the universe and Earth, or the mainstream explanations for the origin of the geological column and the fossil record. I also consider so-called Flood Geology of Young Earth Creationists as a failed endeavour. Even though much of the evidence for common descent is weaker than claimed by popularizer of Darwinism such as Richard Dawkins, who tend to ignore or downplay substantial conflicting evidence, I still think that the cumulative total evidence is most elegantly explained by common descent with modification.

Reasons:

As a scientist, who should follow the evidence wherever it leads, I came to doubt the materialistic paradigm of Neo-Darwinian macroevolution via a purely mechanistic process of chance (random mutation, sexual recombination, genetic drift) and necessity (natural and sexual selection), even when supplemented with more modern concepts like symbiogenesis, multilevel (group) selection, epigenetic inheritance, evolvability, natural genetic engineering, phenotypic plasticity, and niche construction, as suggested by the proponents of an extended evolutionary synthesis ("Third Way of Evolution", "Evolution 2.0"). None of these phenomena can sufficiently explain the origin of complex biological novelty, and some of them (e.g., natural genetic engineering, phenotypic plasticity, and evolvability) require finetuning and specified information themselves. Therefore, I signed the "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" list.

Even before my sympathy for intelligent design theory, I became convinced that only a goal-directed (teleological) process, either with laws of biological form (structuralism) or with non-random adaptive macro-mutations, can explain the evidence. This assumption is also compatible with and supported by the discontinuous fossil record, which contradicts the gradualistic predictions of Neo-Darwinism and strongly suggests saltational origins. Therefore, I largely agree with the views in Stephen C. Meyer's book "Darwin's Doubt".

My rejection of Neo-Darwinian macroevolution was not motivated by religion, but by some very convincing and still unrefuted scientific arguments from intelligent design proponents, based on information theory (William Dembski, Stephen C. Meyer), population genetics (Richard Sternberg), molecular machines (Michael Behe), new proteins (Douglas Axe), and causal circularity (Ann Gauger, Richard Sternberg)). These arguments emphasize the discontinuities of the fossil record, the prohibitive waiting time for coordinated mutations, the problem of new specified complex information in the genetic code and irreducible complexity of molecular machines, the isolated islands of functionality (folding proteins) in the vast search space of possible aminoacid sequences, which all strongly limit the feasibility of Neo-Darwinian processes.

Concerning the origin of life and the first replicator I consider all materialistic explanations as wanting and inadequate, and support the critical arguments and conclusions presented by Stephen C. Meyer in his excellent book "Signature in the Cell". When non-material sources of information are required to get life even started, then I see no reason to exclude such non-material explanations as possible cause for the origin of biological novelties in the subsequent history of life.

Why I sympathize with Intelligent Design Theory and consider it as a legitimate scientific approach

Since intelligent design theory is not based on scripture or religious faith, but is a purely empirical inference to the best explanation. It is definitely not creationism in a cheap tuxedo. ID theory just provides a scientific method to identify phenomena in nature that cannot be sufficiently explained with chance and necessity (laws of nature), but require either an intelligent cause or at least an introduction of information from outside of the system. I therefore concur with the atheist philosophers Thomas Nagel and Bradley Monton that Intelligent Design is not religion but a valid scientific approach. Other thinkers, who are not ID proponents themselves but still support the approach of ID theory as legit scientific enterprise include David Berlinski and David Gelernter (see here).

Intelligent design theory in principle cannot (and does not have to) elucidate the identity and motivation of the intelligent cause. It is fully compatible with naturalistic designers like space aliens or the matrix hypothesis, which are even acceptable for skeptics like Richard Dawkins or Neil deGrasse Tyson, even though such naturalistic designers would only shift the problem and create an infinite regress. Also, ID does not imply any commitment to special creation rather than universal common descent. Thus, ID makes no claim to supernatural explanations for empirical data, even though it is of course compatible with theistic interpretations. The derogative propaganda label "ID creationism" is therefore wholly inappropriate.

Personally, I distinguish between three different meanings of intelligent design theory:

1. ID as empirical method: this refers to the design inference (see above) using Dembski’s explanatory filter with an inference to the best explanation (abductive reasoning). If chance and necessity or a combination thereof can be excluded, then the cause must be intelligent design (also because we positively know that only intelligence can generate specified information beyond a certain threshold, which in our universe this is about 500 bit due to its limited probabilistic resources).
2. ID as scientific research program: there is no reason to a priori exclude the scientific detectability of design signals in natural phenomena (after all the same method is totally uncontroversial in forensics, archaeology, or SETI research). This question should only be decided by empirical evidence and we should follow the evidence wherever it leads.
3. ID as explanatory hypothesis: the claim that some phenomena indeed are best explained by an intelligent cause (or at least by a flow of information from outside the system).

 My views concerning intelligent design theory and a non-Darwinian saltational history of life were greatly influenced by the following scientists, philosophers, and authors:

Sri Aurobindo, Douglas Axe, Luke Barnes, Francis J. Beckwith, Michael Behe, Lev Berg, Henri Bergson, David Berlinski, Karl Beurlen, Fr. Michael Chaberek, Deepak Chopra, John B. Cobb jr., George Cuvier, Edgar Dacqué, John A. Davison, William Dembski, Michael Denton, Hans Driesch, Michael Egnor, Steve Fuller, Ann Gauger, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Richard Goldschmidt, Guillermo Gonzalez, Bruce Gordon, Amit Goswami, Pierre Grassé, David Ray Griffin, Ernst Haeckel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Edwin Hennig, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Mike Hockney, Donald Hoffman, Friedrich von Huehne, Cornelius Hunter, Thomas Huxley, Joachim Illies, Bernardo Kastrup, Albert von Kölliker, Robert Lanza, Ervin Laszlo, Søren Løvtrup, Lynn Margulis, Robert J. Marks II, Perry Marshall, Jonathan McLatchie, Mark McMenamin, Stephen C. Meyer, Brian Miller, St. George Jackson Mivart, Bradley John Monton, J.P. Moreland, Simon Conway Morris, Thomas Nagel, Paul Nelson, David Oderberg, Alvin Plantinga, Nancy Pearcey, Michael Polanyi, Adolf Portmann, Johanan Raatz, Jay Wesley Richards, Olivier Rieppel, Otto Schindewolf, Siegfried Scherer, Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, Rupert Sheldrake, David Snoke, Hans Spemann, Richard von Sternberg, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, René Thom, Jakob Johann von Uexküll, Alfred Russel Wallace, Erich Wasmann, Jonathan Wells, Alfred North Whitehead, Ken Wilber, John Christopher Willis, Arne Wyller.

I strictly separated all my activities against Neo-Darwinism and materialism from my professional work when I still worked as a museum scientist at SMNS.

My critique of Neo-Darwinism is exclusively my private point of view and is neither shared by my former colleagues at SMNS nor by the co-authors of my paleontological publications, who to my best knowledge generally subscribe to the mainstream evolutionary paradigm of Neo-Darwinism (aka Modern Synthesis)!

After resigning from my job at SMNS in December 2016 I am still actively working as a paleontologist and publish my research in peer-reviewed scientific journals. My Darwinism-critical work is published in appropriate media that are open to teleological and design conclusions.