I disagree with those who argue that evolutionary biology and the existence of God are incompatible.

Scientists often seek predictively accurate models, rather than models that are true.

Deism claims that God creates the universe and the laws of nature and then is hands-off, with everything that subsequently happens in nature being due to natural processes.

Another way to test hypotheses about adaptation is to consider trait variation across a group of species instead of focusing on the trait of a single species. Rather than seeking to explain why polar bears have fur of a certain thickness, one tries to explain why bears in colder climates have thicker fur than bears in warmer climates. The former problem is hard to solve, since it is hard to say exactly what fur thickness polar bears should have if natural selection guided the evolution of that trait.

When one theory is simpler than its competitor, this fact is relevant to saying what the world is like.

Unfortunately, philosophers of science usually regard scientific realism and scientific anti-realism as monistic doctrines. The assumption is that there is one goal of all scientific inference - finding propositions that are true, or finding propositions that are predictively accurate. In fact, there are multiple goals. Sometimes realism is the right interpretation of a scientific problem, while at other times instrumentalism is.

It is an interesting fact about model selection that the evidence at hand can indicate that a model known to be false will be more predictively accurate than a model known to be true. This opens the door to a kind of instrumentalism.