Grandeur for Grandeur's Sake

There is an interesting discussion going on at Times and Seasons about Alma and whether all things denote there is a God. There have been some good comments; I especially have enjoyed Otto's and was struck by this one:

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[Eric Robert Paul’s Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology] suggests that for Mormons science is inherently a spiritual undertaking (and the implication that I take from that is that for many if not most Mormon scientists, that inherent spiritual content obviates the need to dress science in religious rhetoric or bend it to religious ends).

I'm sure it is not uncommon for Mormon scientists to feel pressure to do just such a thing--at least when talking to other LDS non-scientists. To those open to new ideas, making religion connections can be fun. But sometimes it feels like a requirement to certify orthodoxy and as cheap and empty as a televangelist saying "praise Jesus!"

Darwin's Origin of Species ends with this sentence:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

The first version did not contain the words "by the Creator." I read somewhere that it was added later to mollify religious critics.

Such is life, I guess.