@jeeprs,
I had a look at the book review (of Dwedney) on Amazon. He is not arguing that, and I don't know of anybody who would argue that. His approach is similar to Platonism (and I am all too aware of how limited my reading is of Platonism). But anyway, Plato believed that the world of Forms and Universals, of which number was an instance, was 'the reality', and this mortal world is just a shadow, emanation, or copy of the Forms. Individual things only exist by virtue of being an instance of a form of some type. This is the idea of archetypes, ideal forms, and the rest, which has had an enormous influence on Western civilization. I think it was with this in mind that Whitehead said the history of Western philosophy is simply a series of footnotes to Plato.
Of course the major objection to this idea is simply that there is no such realm. Aristotle rejected much of this thinking as 'dangerous to science'. And indeed, it seems completely impossible, if you try to imagine 'a realm' in which there are real mathematical forms, and so on. My understanding is that there is no such 'realm' as such, but that the forms and indeed the mathematical regularities of the cosmos were embedded in the fabric of the universe at the time it was created; so indeed they are like 'the divine ideas'. So this realm really is transcendent. It is not something consisting of objects in three (or four) dimensional space. This is why you can't imagine it; it truly is 'meta-physical', the basis of how physical reality is manifested. However, the 'active intellect' is able to 'apprehend the Forms', through something that is really very close to 'the divine vision' (see
The Shape of Ancient Thought by Thomas McEvilly, for a comparison of Greek, Hindu and Buddhist ideas of the higher reality.) This is very much the spiritual side of Platonism and Neo-platonism, which was imported into Christianity via Augustine and pseudo-Dionysius (and largely jettisoned by The Empiricists.)
The Forms mean that things are inclined to manifest in certain ways - development is not actually random, but a process whereby nature reveals the actual underlying Forms: of Man, Cat, Horse, and so on. Prior to Darwinian theory, this was all quite respectable. But it is quite incompatiible with the idea of 'random progressions' and is largely rejected now. (I do wonder, however, whether something like this might underlie Gould's 'punctuated equilibrium' theory.)
It also means that certain ratios and spatial relationships are fundamental to anything that exists (such as the Golden Mean.) This element is from Pythagoras who was predecessor to Plato; indeed there was a carving on the Academy which said 'no man who does not understand geometry may enter here'. Pythagoras, as is well known, said that 'everything is number'. I am starting to understand what he meant. And I really think Modern Science would not have started were it not for the heritage that came from this way of thinking. (After all, it didn't start in India or China.)
So in the Classical world, this is the way in which the divine intellect was uinderstood to 'inform creation'. It is quite different to the idea of 'Intelligent Design' but quite compatible with your idea of Intelligent Evolution. (I will have more to say on the topic after I have received Lovejoy's
Great Chain of Being from Amazon.)
Now all of this is my own, very idosyncratic interpretation of Platonism. And Platonism has been thoroughly criticized by many great philosophers over the centuries. Most people nowadays would think it was basically a mythic vision, or something similar. Modern philosophers would generally regard it as of interest to scholars of medieval or ancient philosophy. But I am not so sure. The relationship between 'information' and 'form' was noted in the OP.
I think it is in the idea of the 'randomness' of evolution that modern science has actually become irrational. I am sure Plato and Aristotle would have loved the Descent of Species had they known of it, and would have regarded it as a splendid illustration of the rational nature of creation. As to the idea that this preceded 'by chance adaption', they would probably have a quiet laugh. But otherwise, I am sure it is a completely compatible theory.
Or maybe I am dreamin' :bigsmile:
Interestingly he does recognise therefore that 'religions' are testable, albeit for him in a very nebulous sense. Creationists for example can explain fossils older than 10 thousand years as, 'the work of the devil who planted them there to trick us'. Though this does parallel dawkins trick of focussing upon very simplistic and antagonistic spiritual replies to science and evolution, which of course is what the fundamentalist scientists almost want more of, it seems to me..... contrary to their claims.