Introduction
For several years, the theory of evolution had been a big issue. Evolution versus creation is viewed as contradicting but somehow related topics. Science indeed provides evidences for evolution but creation is also backed up by the writings on the Bible. Hence, evolution and creation is normally a debate and various arguments are revealed through the quest for the origins. Although today, it is quite accepted that both sides of the theories are essential for the development of each creature in the world. Primarily, creation is viewed to be a historical view which maintains a design made by the creator while evolution postulates the multifaceted design that pervades all the things which signifies the product of accident and time or also known as the atheistic explanation (Pennock, 2003).
The issue of creation and evolution is the crossroad of where science and religion collides head-on. Genesis is one of many myths that attempt to explain the origin of Earth, its life, and its people. There is no evidence that makes the Book of Genesis any more reliable than any other creation myths from other cultures. The book of genesis is a myth and simply just that. It rests its belief upon the Bible and nothing else. Throughout the years, the studies of scientific evidence have given us the opportunity to explore beyond what we would have expected thousands of years ago. Science provides evidences that support the idea of evolution which outweighs the Book of Genesis version of creation myths. As the intelligent designs movement slowly emerges, many Christians abandon the idea of young-earth creation.
Creationism disperses into many categories. For the Young-Earth creationists, they believe that God created the world in six days and they believe that this so-called divine act occurred about 6,000-10,000 years ago. Along with the Young-Earth creationists, there are, of course, the Old-Earth creationists. Old-Earth creationism can be broken down into three types: Gap Creationism, Progressive Creationism, and Day-Age Creationism. Old-Earth creationism recognizes scientific evidence that Earth was created over 13.7 billion years ago, but it still adheres to the literacy of the Bible (“Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences”).
Theistic creationists or evolutionary creationists, on the other hand, believe that God somehow uses evolution to create. Theistic creationism and the idea of intelligent design are very much alike. Intelligent designs first attracted public attention when Darwin on Trial was published by Phillip Johnson, a law professor at University of California. “Intelligent designs is the successor to old-fashioned creationism but dressed in a new coat—its hair cut, its beard trimmed, and its clock set back 10 to 15 billion years” (Young and Edis, 2004). Along with Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe and William Dembski are also the leaders in this movement. Intelligent design creationists believe that a species may evolve within its own microscopic scale, but it may not evolve into another species on a macroscopic level.
Behe is a biochemist. In his book, Darwin’s Black Box, he claims that certain biochemical structures are so complex that it could not have evolved by the means of natural selection and therefore he introduces the irreducibly complex. Behe juxtaposes a mousetrap to irreducibly complex (Behe, 2006). If any of the components of the mousetrap is removed, then the mouse trap will not function at all (Pennock, 2001). In the aspect of physics and information theory, Dembski’s view on intelligent design is quite different from Behe; he develops his design theory based on 3 fundamental concepts: contingency, complexity, specification. His main arguments involve coin tosses. He then concludes that a contingent pattern that must be described beyond a specific capacity cannot form by chance (Korthof, 2000).
Science indeed provides evidences for evolution but still those are seen to be theories and facts should still be provided by the evolutionists. Controversies with regard to the contradicting propositions of evolution versus creation paved the way for various critics to define the multifaceted grounds for evolution and creation and come out with a just description for each ideal. However, in the world today, creation falls under the beliefs of religions while evolution is more the field of science that makes people’s perplexities.
Discussion
Further explanations are needed for the distinction between the theories of evolution and creation. How life started on earth is indeed confusing and yet implies many arguments.
What is theistic evolution?
This simply depicts the description of the modern evolution made by God and argues with the accidental processes of creating change. Also, theistic evolution states that God is the center of the natural process of life creation and this is what some religions propose. However, in a worldly scientific community, the belief for the theistic evolution is little and the idea that God created life is not accepted. Thus, it apparently leads to the debate of the issues such as God does not link with science and vice versa and grow into a more complicated a more argumentative origin of life. In addition to the scientific critics, a lot of theologians argue with the scriptural back up of theistic evolution. Some theistic evolutionist caters to particular stories in the Bible like the parables, though it indeed depicts the moral of the story and not its literal description. Genesis indeed accounts for the specific time of creation and the rest of the book is not described through the metaphorical illustrations.
Basically, the debate on theistic evolution is that science has provided facts with regard to the biological principles and determines the age of the universe. Thus, the religion somehow has to go with the principles of the modern science. This issue though is imperfect because science is not able to give an accurate measure of neither the age of the earth nor the step by step scientific process of evolution. Supposedly, the age of the earth has viewed to be older on how the scientists realized the multifaceted way of life. DNA and discoveries with regard to genetics have stated the possibility of random evolution but many questions are left unanswered. To think that the confirmed theories reveal factual information, it still appears to be because those are inclined with the belief of the scientists and supposing that the Bible is just next to the scientific evidences of evolution.
According to Pennock (2003), theistic evolution is actually a philosophy that discharges the biblical perspectives in favor of the scientific theories. It supposes that present-day science should be right and should not be doubted. But of course the credibility of the scientists should be put on a highlight considering that they are only humans and great thinkers of the past sometimes commit mistakes. Claiming that the sun revolves around the earth, transmitting blood is dangerous and many other statements are just examples that were proven incorrect. Hence, it depicts that modern scientists could also do the same.
What is Darwinian evolution?
Charles Darwin proposed a theory that accounts for the evolution of man. Darwin though is not the one who initiated the theory of evolution because a lot of ancient Greek philosophers have written about the idea of life that came out of non-life. However, Darwin is viewed to pave the way of modern scientific principles. Taking account from his observations, He proposed that all life such as man, animals, plants and many more, came from only one predecessor. He theorized that life indeed did not occur and out of non-existence, life came. Vague it may seem but according to him, once life started, it evolves though the natural processes which begins with the very first single celled organisms by the process of mutation. Darwin argued with the idea of theistic evolution where there is a creator of life. He believed that only in a succession of auspicious variation approved by the nature for survival and need as well (Darwin, 1993).
Darwinian evolution has grounds that need to be considered like its presumptions with regard to the ideals and philosophy of the theory. According to this theory, the genetic mutation is important for the process of survival of any kinds of life or it is believed that life is a continuous phase of change and evolves constantly. An organism will evolve over time and change into different specie. But most of the scientists concur with the idea that life does get used to fit various climates and terrain and hence propositions of the geniuses developing into another has not prevailed to be factual (Kutschera and Niklas, 2004).
Another theory of Darwinian evolution is the suggestion that plants and animals replicates in a geometric manner. This theory depicts that a pair of animals will be having far more offspring than is essential to put back themselves such as fishes, which could produce millions of eggs through their life span. And to think that each egg will produce another millions of eggs, the population of that certain specie will keep the balance system that should be in place.
Darwinian’s theory of evolution also reveals a checks and balance theory where in the number of individuals in a specie stays reasonably constant. As Darwin observed that species does not drastically reproduce or vanish. Taking account for the large numbers of the offspring of species, it apparently fails to reach maturity and the reason falls into the food competitions and way of reproductions (Darwin, 1993). Thus, this theory is more popular with the term survival of the fittest though as the philosopher put on a highlight, the environment alters constantly and hence the description for the fittest as well alters over the time.
Charles Darwin also proposed that the constant evolution takes its place progressively. Darwinian evolution caters to the proposed beliefs although some thinkers critics that the observations of Darwin do not come up with an affirmative theory but still, certain aspects indeed points to, not afar from a creator.
This is primarily the basis of evolution as the major principle that many scientists perceived in defining evidences for evolution. But the issues that man came from an ape are somehow dismissed by a lot of people because it is not accepted that humans have the same level of thinking as of the animals, though it had been revealed in science that humans are the highest form of animals.
Evidences against Evolution
Evolution viewed in the previous context is regarded as a broad manner. Evolution in fact does not exist because proofs are not yet validated. Hence, theories for are then referred to as the perspectives for macroevolution. Evidences against evolution include various approaches and revelation from many writings of the critics. Initially, life is seen to have distinct designs where in adaptation to the changes in the environment of the species can not be justified by the proposed theories of a broad explanation of evolution. It is stated that there is no chance of occurring because all life forms came from the original life. Even so, the evolutionists have hypothesized an illustration of life that describes how life forms are developed. If these illustrations affirmative, many forms of life would have been viewed to exist between the ancestor and the time of its offspring. In the recent time, after 150 years of looking for fossils considering Darwin’s propositions, no intermediary fossils have been established out of the millions of fossils gathered. Substantiating this lack of evidence depicts the persistence of paleontology (Numbers, 2006).
Modern advances in microbiology have revealed the complexity of DNA and the living cell. Human DNA is vital for the specification of each individual and DNA molecules makes up the human genome. Advanced knowledge with regard to the cell is not paralleled with the ideas of random origin. A cell is tremendously intricate and the way it functions is the same as a complicated factory. How DNA and RNA works and its patterns profoundly needs a designer. Science has proofs against a random evolution. Many scientists prevailed that the brain and mind are different and has distinguishing entities. Brain and mind may overtly work in a linking manner but the distinction between the two provides an evidence of a masterpiece.
Another evidence against evolution falls under the second law of thermodynamics or the law of entropy. It implies not only for the usable energy but also to the system and how things vanish. The natural flow is from nothing to something, order to chaos or perhaps new to old. This idea is seen to be in each individual’s lives. The energy together with intelligence is vital in order to repeal the ascending entropy of creation.
Evidences for Creation
Basically, evidences for creation may mean discrediting the theories of evolution and giving recognition to the ideas of creation. Some of the creation evidences runs through the lack of transitional fossils, lack of natural mechanism, time constraints and unacceptable ideals of origins. 150 years had past, no evidence of transition was found and hence appeared to be far in the records of fossils and this argues with what Darwin stated in his Origin of Species (Darwin, 1993). The hypothesis for the natural selection of Darwin is said to be a mechanism where in an original simple-celled organism could have transformed into all species are seen today through plants and animals. As Darwin describes evolution as the decline with modification, natural selection nevertheless is regard to be a conventional process and not a channel for the development of complexity from being simple (Darwin, 1993). With the people’s advanced comprehension of genetics, natural selection juxtaposes with the genetic mutation tolerated for the development of all kinds of species from the same precursor. Although, theoretical issues arise since beneficial mutations has still to be observed (Dewey, 1994).
Creation and evolution somehow agree that ample amount of time is needed for the affirmation of the hypotheses with regard to evolution. Though at first it was viewed by the evolutionists with all the needed time, the life of earth is seemed to be very young compared to what the scientist declared (Pennock, 2003). Discoveries are said to be segregated by limiting factors that puts restriction on the earth’s probable age. Big bang theory on the other hand is one of the accepted sources of origins by the evolutionists but it does not justify many things and details the answers to the questions such as the uneven distribution of matter which apparently voids or retrospect the action that should break the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum (Dewey, 1994). In addition to, big bang theory does not indeed answer all the questions regarding the matter of evolution.
On the other hand, creation is also backed up by scientific evidences from different areas. As such, DNA and the genetic codes serve as the examples of intelligence of the creator. DNA makes evidence that they were primarily formed by an intelligent designer. It was overtly defined earlier that the second law of thermodynamics is one of the evidences against evolution and hence supports creation (Barry, 2001). This significantly states that this law comprehends with how the systems are organized and apparently leads to disorder (Forrest and Gross, 2005). And in human anatomy, the design of human’s physical appearance greatly calls for a designer because one’s face accounts for perfect positions and questions such as why humans have two eyes, why such senses are placed on their respective positions and what not. Thus, all merely states that there is a designer and a random theory is somehow vague.
Conclusion
Indeed, evolution and creation are issues that raise a great debate and unanswered questions are left hanging. Scientifically, this certainly must undergo multifaceted investigations and should reveal string evidences. Many critics said that evolution should therefore conclude the burden of revealing strong evidences because creation has been historically revealed and basically had been part of many cultures and religion’s beliefs. But some scientists said that the burden of justifications should go to the creationists because a creator should be heard and seen and this directly implies that a creator must be real. A lot of arguments had been proposed by both parties and both profoundly have back ups for each statement that they prevail. Evolution is through science and creation is through the hands of God. Scientists of both parties strongly depends each other’s sides that consider the previous studies and writings to support their hypothesis. Evolutionist actually supports their theories explicitly but they fail to provide solid proofs such as complete fossils for determining the origins of species in the sense of evolution. Theorizing that universe came from nothing and is conceptualized through the big bang theory. But if evolution is supported by a scientific theory, creation does. Creation is supported by the second law of thermodynamics and provides a call for a creator.
Generally, evolution is viewed to be a theory and not as a fact and relatively leads to the normal misinterpretation about the real definition of a theory that the scientists use. Commonly, a theory gives speculations, hypotheses and propositions for a topic like evolution. But as how science defines theory quite differs because it requires an accepted idea to be able justify an observable fact. Considering this issue, Gould (1981) contributes the ideas that evolution depicts theories and a fact is different from a theory. Facts are referred to as those which can be collected from the real world while theories are frameworks of principles that justify the gathered facts. Thus, this gives the foundation of considering the Bible as a theory for creation while the propositions of scientists or evolutionists for evolution as theories on how life started on earth and where everything came from.
A lot of people behind the belief of creation somehow block the perspectives of evolution and vice versa. The real answer with regard to the hanging question of existence still cannot be defined by the theories of evolution and creation because both significantly contributes for the knowledge of how life on earth began though they work in a contradicting way. It is just a matter of belief and how people perceive the ideas of the two propositions because a definite answer cannot be revealed until a fact such as the occurrence of the creator or designer for the side of creation and a complete fact of fossils for the side of evolution appears in the real world.
References
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