The first five names were of men who were most likely dead by the time Darwin and Mendel popped out. Don't give me those names, as they knew nothing of synthetic evolution. Not even Darwin and Mendel knew of Synthetic Evolution.
Of the others, Faraday believed in spontaneous generation of life through physico-chemical stimulation. Babbage and Kelvin were a theistic evolutionist, believing that evolution was true, but was guided/supervised by God. Joule and Kelvin used the Law of Thermodynamics to determine that the sun was too young for evolution to have occurred, but they didn't know that the had a massive fusion reactor in its core to create energy; they just thought it was a burning ball of gas. Pasteur accepted evolution, and (like scientists today) merely quibbled about particulars.
Maxwell opposed evolution insofar as molecules don't grow or decay. Fortunately for evolution, he was wrong, and modern science has shown that with all the discoveries of modern chemistry. Von Braun liked to teach intelligent design, but he could not disprove evolution, that I'm aware. That he liked to teach untestable hypotheses in a science classroom is questionable, but he did good science. Note that of all the names you listed, only Werner von Braun was alive to see Synthetic Evolution arise as a theory, and he never disputed it; but rather supported ID as an alternative to the equally unscientific supposition that evolution just happens because it can.
I like how the book you've quoted says exactly what I've been saying: "Synthetic Evolution Theory is today underpinned by a vast number of experimental findings. It's validity has been confirmed so many times that it now must be regarded as the fundamental theory of biology." You can't get any more plain and simple than that.
A bio major friend of mine likened evolution to gravity. The notion that life forms evolve, and that all that have been found on earth have genes made of dna and/or rna is irrefutable. All evidence supports it, and no evidence disproves it. Werner von Braun could have said that gravity occurs because God will mass to be attracted to mass, possibly even by designing physical qualities of the universe that make it so. That would not have disproved gravity. Von Braun has done the same with evolution. It is merely the suggestion that whatever mechanics and physical laws drive evolution were put there by God.
If you want to believe that, fine by me. Just don't get your beliefs confused with fact. Evolution happens. Gravity happens. Neither theory says whether they happen by design or just because they do.
