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Creationism and Evolution

This research examines issue fronts that arise around creationism and evolution as methods of explaining the emergence of life in the universe in general and on earth in particular. The research will set forth the basic features of each strand of thought and then discuss why creationism is inadequate to the task of accounting for the existence of the universe and for the nature of life on the earth.

Controversy has surrounded the theory of evolution since the time it first achieved wide resonance, with the publication of British naturalist Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species in 1859. In that book he systematically presented evidence that living organisms evolve, over geological time, by adopting behavior and assuming, at random, physical characteristics that increase their survivability in their environment. Adaptation and assumption are not conscious choices but features of natural selection, which describes the random interplay of organisms and environment that enables the organisms to survive (Sagan 26-7). Darwinian theory was linked with facets of existence and experience ranging from industry to philosophy. Or, as Lowenberg comments, "evolution germinated ideas wherever it penetrated, and it penetrated everywhere" (Lowenberg, 1941, p. 339).

But penetration did not imply acceptance. Quite the reverse. What has to be appreciated is that Anglo-American culture of the 19th century was programmatically Christian and that the culture's dominant account of the natural world was part of what Kuhn (57) refers to as a theological paradigm, specifically the content of the biblical story of creation in the book of Genesis. What made Darwinian evolutionary theory revolutionary as well was that it accounted for the evolution of life in terms of nature, not in terms of faith. The theory, says Kuhn, "recognized no goal set either by God or nature" (171).

Instead, natural selection, operating in the given environment and with t...

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Creationism and Evolution. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 02:15, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1682698.html