I was reading about evolution and related concepts when I came across a reference to Charles Babbage. Although his opinion on where species came from is certainly not accurate, I think it shows something very interesting about his sophistication as a proto-computer scientist.
In 1837, responding to the official eight Bridgewater Treatises On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation, he published his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise putting forward the thesis that God had the omnipotence and foresight to create as a divine legislator, making laws (or programs) which then produced species at the appropriate times, rather than continually interfering with ad hoc miracles each time a new species was required.
