Research Topics. Here are five facts about evolution and faith: 1 The Roman Catholic Church has long accepted — or at least not objected to — evolutionary theory. Share this link:. Facts are more important than ever. Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham: Are evolution and religion at odds? Catholics mirror general public on views of inequality. Follow Us. There is a wealth of very good information available about Charles Darwin and his ideas. Here we will very briefly address three questions:.
Who was Charles Darwin and what formed the background of his theory? He was the son of Robert Darwin, who was a physician, and Susannah Wedgwood Darwin, who died when he was eight years old. At age sixteen, Darwin left Shrewsbury to study medicine at Edinburgh University. Repelled by the sight of surgery performed without anaesthesia, he eventually went to Cambridge University to prepare to become a clergyman in the Church of England.
After receiving his degree, Darwin accepted an invitation to serve as a "gentleman companion" to the captain on the H. Beagle, a British science 'around the world' expedition, which departed on a five-year expedition to the Pacific coast of South America in Later through the journey he took over the naturalist's responsibilities where he gathered many specimen that he later researched.
In South America Darwin found fossils of extinct animals that were similar to modern species. On the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean he noticed many variations among plants and animals of the same general type as those in South America.
The expedition visited places around the world, and Darwin studied plants and animals everywhere he went, collecting specimens for further study. Darwin's theory of evolutionary selection holds that variation within species occurs randomly and that the survival or extinction of each organism is determined by how well that organism is adapted to its environment.
After publication of the "Origin of Species", Darwin continued to write on botany, geology, and zoology until his death in He is buried in Westminster Abbey. Charles Darwin developed his theory in a country that was facing unprecedented turmoil in economics, philosophy, social organisation and religion.
The young Darwin lived in a society that had a passion for nature's way, which was fuelled by romantic poetry i. Wordsworth and Milton. Public piety was very strong throughout the 19th century, with some books of church sermons being best sellers. At the same time many public figures, such as Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and Ernest Dowson, turned away from the faith.
With the rise of industry, England also began to experience a social blight previously unknown. Children were forced to work long hours and there was a high infant mortality rate, the result of underfed mothers forced to work long hours in factories.
A large number of working class families lived well below subsistence level. Social reformers were often outspoken heretics and some of their very successful improvements in education public health and other areas also aimed to change minds. The Anglican Church was mainly staffed by young clergymen, whose main concern was a secure living. Secular intellectuals resented Anglicanism with its immense social power. But the social milieu was changing and Christianity was losing ground.
What is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution? Darwin has been praised and reviled more than any other scientist since Galileo. First he demonstrated the fact of evolution. He amassed convincing evidence that all life on Earth has evolved out of other forms that can be traced back to some ancestral matter in a warm pool.
Darwin did not exclude mankind from this evolution, describing humans as the descendents of "hairy, tailed quadrupeds" and "probably arboreal in its habits". This statement came as a shock to Darwin's contemporaries as he removed humans from the centre of living things in the world, and gave them a new place in the cosmic order, very much like Copernicus did when he moved the Earth from the centre of the universe.
Secondly, Darwin discovered the mechanism by which evolution works on plants and animals through differences in their reproductive success, i. He supported his conclusion through three facts: exponential growth - the tendency of all living things to increase rapidly in numbers, variation - within each populations exists a small variation from one individual to another and inheritance - all living things inherit traits of their parents.
Building on these three observations Darwin formed his theory of evolution, which says that a population will grow until it reaches the limit of its resources. In the resulting struggle for existence that results, individuals with traits that help them to overcome the adverse forces of the environment are more likely to survive and have offspring. At least some of the offspring will inherit these new traits and carry them on to the following generations.
Offspring with less favourable traits will slowly diminish and over the course of many generations this process will preserve some traits while reducing others, gradually transforming species. Why is there a controversy about modern Darwinism? The explanation of evolution according to Charles Darwin appears to be straightforward and easily understood. Subsequent researchers have gone on to add to his extensive body of evidence for evolution.
The rediscovery of Mendel's work on inheritance provided a mechanism for heredity that was not available to Darwin, and scientists continue to add to our understanding of genetics and molecular biology. The new data that have been added have caused controversy amongst the scientific community. For example, we now know that evolution does not always occur by the mechanism of natural selection. Early eukaryotic cells first appeared as a result of endosymbiosis , with the result that the cells thus formed acquired a set of features instantaneously rather than by the slow, gradual process that Darwin envisaged.
In fact, the speed of evolution - but NOT the fact of evolution itself - has been the subject of healthy debate among evolutionary biologists. While Darwinian evolution assumes the gradual evolution of traits, in some circumstances evolutionary events may occur very rapidly and are then followed by long periods of stasis, a phenomenon known as punctuated equilibrium.
Fossil fraud, has also contributed to a flawing of Darwin's ideas. The very lucrative business of fossil trading has resulted in some cases proving to be hoaxes that undermine the work of many honest and hard working evolutionary biologists.
The existing debates within the field of evolutionary biology are a part of the normal scientific process. Indeed, for the reasons described in this booklet, evolutionary science provides one of the best examples of a deep understanding based on scientific reasoning. This contention that nobody has seen evolution occurring further ignores the overwhelming evidence that evolution has taken place and is continuing to occur. The annual changes in influenza viruses and the emergence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics are both products of evolutionary forces.
Another example of ongoing evolution is the appearance of mosquitoes resistant to various insecticides, which has contributed to a resurgence of malaria in Africa and elsewhere.
The transitional fossils that have been found in abundance since Darwin's time reveal how species continually give rise to successor species that, over time, produce radically changed body forms and functions.
It also is possible to directly observe many of the specific processes by which evolution occurs. Scientists regularly do experiments using microbes and other model systems that directly test evolutionary hypotheses.
Creationists reject such scientific facts in part because they do not accept evidence drawn from natural processes that they consider to be at odds with the Bible. But science cannot test supernatural possibilities. To young Earth creationists, no amount of empirical evidence that the Earth is billions of years old is likely to refute their claim that the world is actually young but that God simply made it appear to be old.
Because such appeals to the supernatural are not testable using the rules and processes of scientific inquiry, they cannot be a part of science.
Some members of a newer school of creationists have temporarily set aside the question of whether the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe are billions or just thousands of years old. But these creationists unite in contending that the physical universe and living things show evidence of "intelligent design. If one component is missing or changed, the device will fail to operate properly.
Because even such "simple" biological structures as the flagellum of a bacterium are so complex, proponents of intelligent design creationism argue that the probability of all of their components being produced and simultaneously available through random processes of mutation are infinitesimally small. The appearance of more complex biological structures such as the vertebrate eye or functions such as the immune system is impossible through natural processes, according to this view, and so must be attributed to a transcendent intelligent designer.
However, the claims of intelligent design creationists are disproven by the findings of modern biology. Biologists have examined each of the molecular systems claimed to be the products of design and have shown how they could have arisen through natural processes.
For example, in the case of the bacterial flagellum, there is no single, uniform structure that is found in all flagellar bacteria.
There are many types of flagella, some simpler than others, and many species of bacteria do not have flagella to aid in their movement. Thus, other components of bacterial cell membranes are likely the precursors of the proteins found in various flagella.
In addition, some bacteria inject toxins into other cells through proteins that are secreted from the bacterium and that are very similar in their molecular structure to the proteins in parts of flagella. This similarity indicates a common evolutionary origin, where small changes in the structure and organization of secretory proteins could serve as the basis for flagellar proteins.
Thus, flagellar proteins are not irreducibly complex. Evolutionary biologists also have demonstrated how complex biochemical mechanisms, such as the clotting of blood or the mammalian immune system, could have evolved from simpler precursor systems.
With the clotting of blood, some of the components of the mammalian system were present in earlier organisms, as demonstrated by the organisms living today such as fish, reptiles, and birds that are descended from these mammalian precursors. Mammalian clotting systems have built on these earlier components.
Existing systems also can acquire new functions. For example, a particular system might have one task in a cell and then become adapted through evolutionary processes for different use. The Hox genes described in the box on page 30 are a prime example of evolution finding new uses for existing systems. Molecular biologists have discovered that a particularly important mechanism through which biological systems acquire additional functions is gene duplication.
Segments of DNA are frequently duplicated when cells divide, so that a cell has multiple copies of one or more genes. If these multiple copies are passed on to offspring, one copy of a gene can serve the original function in a cell while the other copy is able to accumulate changes that ultimately result in a new function. The biochemical mechanisms responsible for many cellular processes show clear evidence for historical duplications of DNA regions.
In addition to its scientific failings, this and other standard creationist arguments are fallacious in that they are based on a false dichotomy.
Even if their negative arguments against evolution were correct, that would not establish the creationists' claims. There may be alternative explanations. For example, it would be incorrect to conclude that because there is no evidence that it is raining outside, it must be sunny. Other explanations also might be possible. Science requires testable evidence for a hypothesis, not just challenges against one's opponent.
Intelligent design is not a scientific concept because it cannot be empirically tested. Creationists sometimes claim that scientists have a vested interest in the concept of biological evolution and are unwilling to consider other possibilities.
But this claim, too, misrepresents science. Scientists continually test their ideas against observations and submit their work to their colleagues for critical peer review of ideas, evidence, and conclusions before a scientific paper is published in any respected scientific journal. Unexplained observations are eagerly pursued because they can be signs of important new science or problems with an existing hypothesis or theory.
History is replete with scientists challenging accepted theory by offering new evidence and more comprehensive explanations to account for natural phenomena.
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