Some people believe that if they accept evolution, they cannot be religious because evolution does not agree with the story of Genesis. Actually, evolution does not explain the theory of origins, but explains what has occurred to all living beings after the first life form on earth formed. To compare creationism and evolution to one another is like comparing apples to oranges. Creationism is a non-scientific Christian belief that seeks to explain how God created life, while evolution is a scientific explanation of how life has changed through the thousands of years since it originated.
Throughout the most of history science and religion have existed peacefully together, with only a few major bumps in the roads. The most famous bump is the trial of Galileo in 1633. Galileo was accused of heresy and ordered to a lifetime of house arrested and banned from teaching the theory of a heliocentric universe. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Pope John Paul II made an official statement admitting that the Church made mistakes, that Galileo was finally accepted by the church, and that his writings were removed from the Church’s black list. A great book that examines the science verses religion book is Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction edited by Gary B. Ferngren.
Intelligent Design (ID) is another form of creationism. One of the biggest advocate for ID is Michael Behe who’s 1996 (2006 second edition) book Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, pushed ID into the American public. Behe claims that certain biological systems are too complex to have just evolved from a simpler form, but were created by an intelligent designer. He coined the term irreducible complexity to describe this claim.
The theory of evolution and the theory of origins are two completely separated theories. The theory of origins seeks to explain how life began on earth, while the theory of evolution explains how life has changed through the years.
Natural selection is one of the main mechanisms of evolution. It is a process in which favorable heritable traits become more common within a population. Evolution is the whole concept of how changes in how an organisms functions are inherited through time.
No, you cannot avoid teaching evolution by teaching human heredity and reproduction concepts. Evolution is the main and underlying concept in each and every aspect of biology class. For more information about effective teaching strategies please read the papers of Craig E. Nelson, a professor at Indiana University who has extensively researched effective strategies for teaching evolution.
The gene responsible for the development of tails in mammals does exist in the human genome. Scientist believes that tails eventually disappeared in our lineage because of simple mutations that stopped that gene from being expressed accumulated over time. There have been many well documented cases of newborn babies born with tails, which further supports this hypothesis. For more information on the human tail please visit www.talkorigins.com.
Well, it’s a little more complicated then that. Speciation has two main causes. The first is geographic isolation. Geographic isolation can occur many ways; a river might change course, mountains could form, eggs could be caught in the wind or wash up on shore. Since the new population of animals is separated from the parent population, it will eventually form its own unique gene pool and then be considered a new species.
The second cause of speciation is the reduction of gene flow. This can occur when a species is stretched over a large range, and the opposite ends of the range don’t breed together often. For a more in-depth explanation of the different types of speciation please refer to the University of Berkeley website at http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/VSpeciation.shtml.
Creationism is not a scientific theory, but rather a religious explanation of the beginning of life on earth. That’s why our courts have ruled that it should not be taught in science classes in public schools.
Many people have the misconception that humans are not animals, but that’s wrong. Yes, humans are unique in the animal kingdom, but we are still animals. Our closest relative is the chimpanzee. In fact, we are so similar that we have the same that our principle hemoglobin, the protein that makes our blood red is identical to a chimp (Diamond 1992). For more reading about the similarities and differences of chimpanzees and humans please read Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee.
Intelligent Design is a form “creationism undercover” and should not be considered a compromise for evolution. Intelligent Design is the idea that certain biological systems are too complex to have occurred through evolution that there was a designer or creator who developed these systems. Science is strictly a discipline that seeks to explain events in the natural realm of life, using a designer or creator to explain the event is not considered science.
Science is the discipline that is constantly trying to disprove its theories. Combining evolution with creationism and calling it intelligent design is not a scientific endeavor.
Social Darwinism is the misconstrued idea that you can apply Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection to the social evolution of human societies. This way of thinking led to eugenics in the 19th century, the Holocaust, and other forms of racism. For more information check out: http://www.dnalc.org/home.html.
Written by Erika Storbeck and Rebecca M. Price