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evolution vs. creation

Ringo Starr played Atouk in the 1981 film Caveman. Not as big or fierce as the other cavemen, Atouk becomes an outcast from his tribe, and joins with other exiled cavemen to form a new tribe of misfits. However, the misfits use their brains to create fire and defeat dinosaurs, proving that brains trump brawn in the grand scheme of history.

 

evolution vs. creation

Portrayal of women in prehistory

cavewoman.jpgOne of the most fascinating discussions in my Theory course last semester was about how ancient women have been described in the archaeological literature and how such portrayals are a reflection of the decidedly sexist history of academic archaeology. While much progress has been made since the days of “man the hunter,” a Salon.com piece published today revisits the debate and how many portrayals of “cavewomen” in the popular media continue to be a caricature of reality. Accounts of man the hunter, woman the gatherer have become so entrenched in our culture that it still passes as the way things were. The Salon.com article discusses a new book by James Adovasio (of Meadowcroft Rockshelter fame) et al. entitled The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory that should prove to be an enlightening read. An excerpt from the article:

The lifestyles of the female and prehistoric are a surprisingly frequent topic of conversation, especially when you consider that Paleolithic women didn’t have corporate careers to abandon in favor of becoming stay-at-home moms or the disposable income to buy Jimmy Choo sandals. As with their educated upper-middle-class sisters of today, people think they understand exactly how prehistoric women lived, even though these notions often turn out to be more cartoon than reality. And I mean that literally, since single-panel cartoons in the New Yorker featuring shaggy cavemen in one-shoulder bearskin outfits dragging their consorts by the hair probably represent the sum of what most of us know about the lives of our (very) distant ancestors.

 

evolution vs. creation

 

evolution vs. creation

Loana is undoubtably the only character you remember from the 1966 movie One Million Years B.C. All it took was Raquel Welch in a leather bikini to make it a hit.

Actually, what’s astonishing is how much the members of the peanut gallery think they know about such things, considering how few sureties real paleoanthropologists will swear to. “The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory,” by J.M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer and Jake Page, promises to lay out everything the most current research has established about archaic women, and the truth is that it’s pretty thin gruel. The authors can point out some embarrassing mistakes made by past experts and suggest some intriguing alternative interpretations of various facts and artifacts, but even so there’s a lot of padding and extraneous material in this book’s 300 pages.

 

evolution vs. creation

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an English naturalist who published on a variety of biological subjects. When he began his education in Cambridge, he was studying to become a clergyman for the Anglican Church. In his pursuit of knowledge about where species come from and how they are related, Darwin traveled the globe making detailed observations of plant and animal life.

 

evolution vs. creation

Charles Darwin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

evolution vs. creation

Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882). At the age of 51, Charles Darwin had just published On the Origin of Species.

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882). At the age of 51, Charles Darwin had just published
On the Origin of Species.
Born 12 February 1809(1809-02-12)
Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England
Died 19 April 1882 (aged 73)
Down House, Downe, Kent, England
Residence England
Nationality British
Fields Naturalist
Institutions Royal Geographical Society
Alma mater University of Edinburgh
University of Cambridge
Academic advisors Adam Sedgwick
John Stevens Henslow
Known for The Voyage of the Beagle
On The Origin of Species
Natural selection
Influences Charles Lyell
Influenced Thomas Henry Huxley
George John Romanes
Notable awards Royal Medal (1853)
Wollaston Medal (1859)
Copley Medal (1864)
Religious stance Church of England, though Unitarian family background, Agnostic after 1851.
Signature
Charles Darwin’s signature
Notes
He was a grandson of Erasmus Darwin and a grandson of Josiah Wedgwood.

 

evolution vs. creation

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist,[I] eminent as a collector and geologist, who proposed and provided scientific evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection.[1] The fact that evolution occurs became accepted by the scientific community and the general public in his lifetime, while his theory of natural selection came to be widely seen as the primary explanation of the process of evolution in the 1930’s,[1] and now forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory. In modified form, Darwin’s scientific discovery remains the foundation of biology, as it provides a unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life.[2]

Darwin developed his interest in natural history while studying first medicine at Edinburgh University, then theology at Cambridge.[3] His five-year voyage on the Beagle established him as a geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell’s uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author. Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin investigated the transmutation of species and conceived his theory of natural selection in 1838.[4] Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority.[5] He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay which described a similar theory, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories.[6]

His 1859 book On the Origin of Species established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.[7]

In recognition of Darwin’s pre-eminence, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.[8]

Inception of Darwin’s evolutionary theory

For more details on this topic, see Inception of Darwin’s theory.

While still a young man, Charles Darwin joined the scientific élite.
While still a young man, Charles Darwin joined the scientific élite.

While Darwin was still on the voyage, Henslow fostered his former pupil’s reputation by giving selected naturalists access to the fossil specimens and a pamphlet of Darwin’s geological letters.[41] When the Beagle returned on 2 October 1836, Darwin was a celebrity in scientific circles. After visiting his home in Shrewsbury and seeing relatives, Darwin hurried to Cambridge to see Henslow, who advised on finding naturalists available to describe and catalogue the collections, and agreed to take on the botanical specimens. Darwin’s father organised investments, enabling his son to be a self-funded gentleman scientist, and an excited Darwin went round the London institutions being fêted and seeking experts to describe the collections. Zoologists had a huge backlog of work, and there was a danger of specimens just being left in storage.[42]

An eager Charles Lyell met Darwin for the first time on 29 October and soon introduced him to the up-and-coming anatomist Richard Owen, who had the facilities of the Royal College of Surgeons at his disposal to work on the fossil bones collected by Darwin. Owen’s surprising results included gigantic sloths, a hippopotamus-like skull from the extinct rodent Toxodon, and armour fragments from a huge extinct armadillo (Glyptodon), as Darwin had initially surmised.[43] The fossil creatures were unrelated to African animals, but closely related to living species in South America.[44]

In mid-December, Darwin moved to Cambridge to organise work on his collections and rewrite his Journal.[45] He wrote his first paper, showing that the South American landmass was slowly rising, and with Lyell’s enthusiastic backing read it to the Geological Society of London on 4 January 1837. On the same day, he presented his mammal and bird specimens to the Zoological Society. The ornithologist John Gould soon revealed that the Galapagos birds that Darwin had thought a mixture of blackbirds, “gros-beaks” and finches, were, in fact, twelve separate species of finches. On 17 February 1837, Darwin was elected to the Council of the Geographical Society, and in his presidential address, Lyell presented Owen’s findings on Darwin’s fossils, stressing geographical continuity of species as supporting his uniformitarian ideas.[46]
Darwin’s first sketch of an evolutionary tree from his First Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837)
Darwin’s first sketch of an evolutionary tree from his First Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837)

On 6 March 1837, Darwin moved to London to be close to this work, and joined the social whirl around scientists and savants such as Charles Babbage, who thought that God preordained life by natural laws rather than ad hoc miraculous creations. Darwin lived near his freethinking brother Erasmus, who was part of this Whig circle and whose close friend the writer Harriet Martineau promoted the ideas of Thomas Malthus underlying the Whig “Poor Law reforms” aimed at discouraging the poor from breeding beyond available food supplies. John Herschel’s question on the origin of species was widely discussed. Medical men even joined Grant in endorsing transmutation of species, but to Darwin’s scientist friends such radical heresy attacked the divine basis of the social order already under threat from recession and riots.[47]

Gould now revealed that the Galapagos mockingbirds from different islands were separate species, not just varieties, and the “wrens” were yet another species of finches. Darwin had not kept track of which islands the finch specimens were from, but found information from the notes of others on the Beagle, including FitzRoy, who had more carefully recorded their own collections. The zoologist Thomas Bell showed that the Galápagos tortoises were native to the islands. By mid-March, Darwin was convinced that creatures arriving in the islands had become altered in some way to form new species on the different islands, and investigated transmutation while noting his speculations in his “Red Notebook” which he had begun on the Beagle. In mid-July, he began his secret “B” notebook on transmutation, and on page 36 wrote “I think” above his first sketch of an evolutionary tree.[48]

Reaction to the publication

For more details on this topic, see Reaction to Darwin’s theory.

There was wide public interest in Charles Darwin’s book and a controversy which he monitored closely, keeping press cuttings of reviews, articles, satires, parodies and caricatures.[94] Critical reviewers were quick to pick out the unstated implications of “men from monkeys”, while amongst favourable responses Huxley’s reviews included swipes at Richard Owen, leader of the scientific establishment Huxley was trying to overthrow. Owen responded in April in a review which condemned the book.[95]

The Church of England scientific establishment, including Darwin’s old Cambridge tutors Sedgwick and Henslow, reacted against the book, though it was well received by a younger generation of professional naturalists. In 1860, the publication of Essays and Reviews by seven liberal Anglican theologians diverted clerical attention away from Darwin. An explanation of higher criticism and other heresies, it included the argument that miracles broke God’s laws, so belief in them was atheistic—and praise for “Mr Darwin’s masterly volume [supporting] the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature”.[96]

The most famous confrontation took place at the public 1860 Oxford evolution debate during a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Professor John William Draper delivered a long lecture about Darwin and social progress, then Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, argued against Darwin. In the ensuing debate Joseph Hooker argued strongly for Darwin and Thomas Huxley established himself as “Darwin’s bulldog” – the fiercest defender of evolutionary theory on the Victorian stage. Both sides came away feeling victorious, but Huxley went on to make much of his claim that on being asked by Wilberforce whether he was descended from monkeys on his grandfather’s side or his grandmother’s side, Huxley muttered: “The Lord has delivered him into my hands” and replied that he “would rather be descended from an ape than from a cultivated man who used his gifts of culture and eloquence in the service of prejudice and falsehood”.[97]
Down House Entrance.
Down House Entrance.

Darwin’s illness kept him away from the public debates, though he read eagerly about them and mustered support through correspondence. Asa Gray persuaded a publisher in the United States to pay royalties, and Darwin imported and distributed Gray’s pamphlet Natural Selection is not inconsistent with Natural Theology.[98] In Britain, friends including Hooker[99] and Lyell[100] took part in the scientific debates which Huxley pugnaciously led to overturn the dominance of clergymen and aristocratic amateurs under Owen in favour of a new generation of professional scientists. Owen made the mistake of (wrongly) claiming certain anatomical differences between ape and human brains, and accusing Huxley of advocating “Ape Origin of Man”. Huxley gladly did just that, and his campaign over two years was devastatingly successful in ousting Owen and the “old guard”.[101] Darwin’s friends formed The X Club and helped to gain him the honour of the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in 1864.[100]

Broader public interest had already been stimulated by Vestiges, and the Origin of Species was translated into many languages and went through numerous reprints, becoming a staple scientific text accessible both to a newly curious middle class and to “working men” who flocked to Huxley’s lectures.[102] Darwin’s theory also resonated with various movements at the time[III] and became a key fixture of popular culture.[IV]

Descent of Man, sexual selection, and botany

More detailed articles cover Darwin’s life from Orchids to Variation, from Descent of Man to Emotions and from Insectivorous plants to Worms

Julia Margaret Cameron’s portrait of Darwin
Julia Margaret Cameron’s portrait of Darwin

Despite repeated bouts of illness during the last twenty-two years of his life, Darwin pressed on with his work. He had published an abstract of his theory, but more controversial aspects of his “big book” were still incomplete, including explicit evidence of humankind’s descent from earlier animals, and exploration of possible causes underlying the development of society and of human mental abilities. He had yet to explain features with no obvious utility other than decorative beauty. His experiments, research and writing continued.

When Darwin’s daughter fell ill, he set aside his experiments with seedlings and domestic animals to accompany her to a seaside resort where he became interested in wild orchids. This developed into an innovative study of how their beautiful flowers served to control insect pollination and ensure cross fertilisation. As with the barnacles, homologous parts served different functions in different species. Back at home, he lay on his sickbed in a room filled with experiments on climbing plants. A reverent Ernst Haeckel who had spread a version of Darwinismus in Germany visited him.[103] Wallace remained supportive, though he increasingly turned to Spiritualism.[104]

Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication, the first part of Darwin’s planned “big book” (expanding on his “abstract” published as The Origin of Species), grew to two huge volumes, forcing him to leave out human evolution and sexual selection, and sold briskly despite its size.[105] A further book of evidence, dealing with natural selection in the same style, was largely written, but remained unpublished until transcribed in 1975.[106]
Punch’s almanac for 1882, published shortly before Darwin’s death, depicts him amidst evolution from chaos to Victorian gentleman with the title Man Is But A Worm.
Punch’s almanac for 1882, published shortly before Darwin’s death, depicts him amidst evolution from chaos to Victorian gentleman with the title Man Is But A Worm.

The question of human evolution had been taken up by his supporters (and detractors) shortly after the publication of The Origin of Species,[107] but Darwin’s own contribution to the subject came more than ten years later with the two-volume The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex published in 1871. In the second volume, Darwin introduced in full his concept of sexual selection to explain the evolution of human culture, the differences between the human sexes, and the differentiation of human races, as well as the beautiful (and seemingly non-adaptive) plumage of birds.[108] A year later Darwin published his last major work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, which focused on the evolution of human psychology and its continuity with the behaviour of animals. He developed his ideas that the human mind and cultures were developed by natural and sexual selection,[109] an approach which has been revived in the last three decades with the emergence of evolutionary psychology.[110] As he concluded in Descent of Man, Darwin felt that, despite all of humankind’s “noble qualities” and “exalted powers”: “Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”[111]

His evolution-related experiments and investigations culminated in books on the movement of climbing plants, insectivorous plants, the effects of cross and self fertilisation of plants, different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, and The Power of Movement in Plants. In his last book, he returned to the effect earthworms have on soil formation.

He died in Downe, Kent, England, on 19 April 1882. He had expected to be buried in St Mary’s churchyard at Downe, but at the request of Darwin’s colleagues, William Spottiswoode (President of the Royal Society) arranged for Darwin to be given a state funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.[112]

For more details on this topic, see Charles Darwin’s views on religion.

Though Charles Darwin’s family background was Nonconformist, and his father, grandfather and brother were Freethinkers,[118] at first he did not doubt the literal truth of the Bible.[119] He attended a Church of England school, then at Cambridge studied Anglican theology to become a clergyman.[120] He was convinced by William Paley’s teleological argument that design in nature proved the existence of God,[121] but during the Beagle voyage he questioned, for example, why beautiful deep-ocean creatures had been created where no one could see them,[122] or the problem of evil of how the ichneumon wasp paralysing caterpillars as live food for its eggs could be reconciled with Paley’s vision of beneficent design.[123] He was still quite orthodox and would quote the Bible as an authority on morality, but was critical of the history in the Old Testament.[124]
The 1851 death of Darwin’s daughter, Annie, marked the end of his dwindling faith in Christianity.
The 1851 death of Darwin’s daughter, Annie, marked the end of his dwindling faith in Christianity.

When investigating transmutation of species he knew that his naturalist friends thought this a bestial heresy undermining miraculous justifications for the social order, the kind of radical argument then being used by Dissenters and atheists to attack the Church of England’s privileged position as the established church.[125] Though Darwin wrote of religion as a tribal survival strategy, he still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver.[126] His belief dwindled, and his grief at the death of his daughter Annie in 1851 made him more certain in his scepticism.[127] He continued to help the local church with parish work, but on Sundays would go for a walk while his family attended church.[128] He now thought it better to look at pain and suffering as the result of general laws rather than direct intervention by God.[129] When asked about his religious views, he wrote that he had never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God, and that generally “an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.”[130]

The “Lady Hope Story”, published in 1915, claimed that Darwin had reverted back to Christianity on his sickbed. The claims were refuted by Darwin’s children and have been dismissed as false by historians.[131] His daughter, Henrietta, who was at his deathbed, said that he did not convert to Christianity.[132] His last words were, in fact, directed at Emma: “Remember what a good wife you have been.”[133]

First account - “Creation week”

See Genesis 1:1-2:3

The creation week narrative consists of eight divine commands executed over six days, followed by a seventh day of rest:

* Introit: “In the beginning of God’s preparing the heavens and the earth, the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters, and God saith, Let light be!”[2]
* First day: God creates light (”Let Light be!”) - the first divine command. The light is divided from the darkness, and “day” and “night” are named.
* Second day: God creates a firmament (”Let a firmament be…!”) - the second command - to divide the waters above from the waters below. The firmament is named “heavens”.
* Third day: God commands the waters to be gathered together in one place, and dry land to appear (the third command). “Earth” and “sea” are named. God commands the earth to bring forth grass, plants, and fruit-bearing trees (the fourth command).
* Fourth day: God creates lights in the firmament (the fifth command) to separate light from darkness and to mark days, seasons and years. Two great lights are made (most likely the Sun and Moon, but not named), and the stars.
* Fifth day: God commands the sea to “teem with living creatures”, and birds to fly across the heavens (sixth command); He creates birds and sea creatures, and commands them to be fruitful and multiply.
* Sixth day: God commands the land to bring forth living creatures (seventh command); He makes wild beasts, livestock and reptiles. He then creates Man and Woman in His “image” and “likeness” (eighth command). They are told to “be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it.” Humans and animals are given plants to eat. The totality of creation is described by God as “very good.”
* Seventh day: God, having completed the heavens and the earth, rests from His work, and blesses and sanctifies the seventh day.

 

evolution vs. creation

Exegetical points

[edit] “In the beginning…”

The first word of Genesis 1 in Hebrew, “in the beginning” (Heb. berēšît), provides the traditional Jewish title for the book. The ambiguity of the Hebrew grammar in this verse gives rise to two alternative translations, the first implying that God’s first act of creation was heaven and earth, the second that “heaven and earth” already existed in a “formless and void” state, to which God brings form and order:[18]

1. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void…God said, Let there be light!” (King James Version).
2. “At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth, when the earth was (or the earth being) unformed and void . . . God said, Let there be light!” (Rashi, also with variations Ibn Ezra and Bereshith Rabba).

[edit] The name of God

Two names of God are used, Elohim in the first account and Yahweh Elohim in the second account. This difference, plus differences in the styles of the two chapters and a number of discrepancies between them, formed one of the earliest pieces of evidence that the Pentateuch had multiple origins, and was instrumental in the development of source criticism and the documentary hypothesis.

“Formless and Void”

The phrase traditionally translated in English “formless and void” is tōhû wābōhû (Hebrew: תהו ובהו). In most Bibles the phrase is translated by various combinations of adjectives with which translators attempt to capture the flavor of the primeval terrestrial moment which tōhû wābōhû describes. This phrase is shrouded in ancient obscurity, and although it has some limited traffic in Modern Hebrew, is deemed to be a deeply mystical concept.[19]. The Greek Septuagint (LXX) rendered this term as “unsightly and unfurnished” (Greek: ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος), paralleling the Greek concept of Chaos.

The rûach of God

Some English translations have “the spirit of God,” others “a wind from God.” The Hebrew rûach has the meanings “wind, spirit, breath,” but the traditional Jewish interpretation here is “wind,” as “spirit” would imply a living supernatural presence co-extent with yet separate from God at Creation. This, however, is the sense in which rûach was understood by the early Christian church in developing the doctrine of the Trinity, in which this passage plays a central role.[20]

The “deep”

Main article: tehom

The “deep” (Heb. tehôm), a formless body of water, is a mythological term referring to the chaotic primordial ocean that, through the creation event, became locked within the underworld or abyss. These waters are later said to be released during the great flood, when “all the fountains of the great deep (tehôm) burst forth” (Genesis 7:11).[4] The word is cognate with the Babylonian Tiamat.[4]

The firmament of heaven

The “firmament” (Heb. rāqîa) of heaven, created on the second day of creation and populated by luminaries on the fourth day, denotes a solid ceiling[12] which separated the earth below from the heavens and their waters above. The term is etymologically derived from the verb rāqa, used for the act of beating metal into thin plates.[4][21]

Great sea monsters

Heb. tanninim is the classification of creatures to which the chaos-monsters Leviathan and Rahab belong (cf. Isaiah 27:1, Isaiah 51:9, Psalm 74:13-14).[22]] In Gen 1.21, the proper noun Leviathan is missing and only the class noun tanninim appears. The tannînim are associated with mythological sea creatures such as Lotan (the Ugaritic counterpart of the biblical Leviathan) which were considered deities by other ancient near eastern cultures; the author of Genesis 1 asserts the sovereignty of Elohim over such entities.[21] The NJV translates it as “sea monsters”.

The number seven

Seven was regarded as a significant number in the ancient Near East. It has been argued that the author of Genesis 1:1-2:3 has intentionally embedded it into the text in a number of ways, besides the obvious seven-day framework: the word “God” occurs 35 times (7 × 5) and “earth” 21 times (7 × 3). The phrases “and it was so” and “God saw that it was good” occur 7 times each. The first sentence of Genesis 1 contains 7 Hebrew words, and the second sentence contains 14 words, while the verses about the seventh day (2:1-3) contain 35 words in total.[23]

Man and the image of God

Main article: Image of God

The meaning of the phrase “image and likeness of God” has been much debated. The great medieval Jewish scholar Rashi believed it referred to “a sort of conceptual archetype, model, or blueprint that God had previously made for man;” his colleague Maimonides suggested it referred to man’s free will.[24] Modern scholarship still debates whether the image of God was represented symmetrically in Adam and Eve, or whether Adam possessed the image more fully than the woman.

Structure and composition

Composition

According to Jewish tradition the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses. Opinions differed among the rabbis on just how Genesis fitted into the picture, some saying God revealed it to Moses on Sinai, others holding that Moses compiled it in Egypt from writings left by the Patriarchs, with an account from Adam providing details on the Creation.[28] The tradition of Mosaic authorship was adopted by the earliest Christians and is still held by many believers today, most notably among Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians.[29]

Today virtually all scholars accept that the Pentateuch “was in reality a composite work, the product of many hands and periods.”[30] In the first half of the 20th century the dominant theory regarding the origins of the Pentateuch was the documentary hypothesis. This supposes that the Torah was produced about 450 BC by combining four distinct, complete and coherent documents, known as the Yahwist (“Y” or “J”, from the German spelling of Yahweh), the Elohist (“E”), the Deuteronomist (“D”), and the Priestly source (“P”). Genesis 1 is from P, and Genesis 2 from J.[31]

Some scholars believe that the Genesis account is a single report of creation, which is divided into two parts, written from different perspectives: the first part, from Genesis 1:1–2:3, describes the creation of the Earth from God’s perspective; the second part, from Genesis 2:4-24, describes the creation of the Garden of Eden from Humanity’s perspective. One such scholar wrote, “[T]he strictly complementary nature of the accounts is plain enough: Genesis 1 mentions the creation of man as the last of a series, and without any details, whereas in Genesis 2 man is the center of interest and more specific details are given about him and his setting” (Kitchen 116-117).

Other scholars, particularly those ascribing to textual criticism and the Documentary hypothesis, believe that the first two chapters of Genesis are two separate accounts of the creation. (They agree that the “first chapter” should include the first three verses and the first half of the fourth verse of chapter 2.) One such scholar wrote: “The book of Genesis, like the other books of the Hexateuch, was not the production of one author. A definite plan may be traced in the book, but the structure of the work forbids us to consider it as the production of one writer.” (Spurell xv). For some religious writers, such as Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the existence of two separate creation stories is beyond doubt, and thus needs to be interpreted as having divine importance.[citation needed]

Some of the issues involved in the single vs. dual acount debate include:

* Genesis 1 has creation in the order: plants; sea creatures and birds; land animals; man and woman (together); in Genesis 2 the sequence is: man; plants; land animals and birds; woman.
* Genesis 1 refers to God as Elohim, Genesis 2 uses the composite name Yahweh Elohim (Yahweh is often translated “LORD,” but does not have this meaning in Hebrew - it is, rather, the name of the God of Israel). Single account advocates assert that Hebrew scriptures use different names for God throughout, depending on the characteristics of God which the author wished to emphasize. They argue that across the Hebrew scriptures, the use of Elohim in the first segment suggests “strength,” focusing on God as the mighty Creator of the universe, while the use of Yahweh in the second segment suggested moral and spiritual natures of deity, particularly in relationship to the man.[32] Dual account advocates assert that the two segments using different words for God indicates different authorship and two distinct narratives, in accord with the Documentary hypothesis.
* Though not so obvious in translation, the Hebrew text of the two sections differ both in the type of words used and in stylistic qualities. The first section flows smoothly, whereas the second is more interested in pointing out side details, and does so in a more point of fact style.[citation needed] One of the principles of textual criticism is that large differences in the type of words used, and in the stylistic qualities of the text, should be taken as support for the existence of two different authors. Proponents of the two-account hypothesis point to the attempts (e.g., The Book of J, by Harold Bloom, translated by David Rosenberg) to separate the various authors of the Torah claimed by the Documentary Hypothesis into distinct and sometimes contradictory accounts.[citation needed]

Proponents of the single account argue that style differences need not be indicative of multiple authors, but may simply indicate the purpose of different passages. For example, Kenneth Kitchen, a retired Archaeology Professor of the University of Liverpool, has argued (1966) that stylistic differences are meaningless, and reflect different subject matter. He supports this with the evidence of a biographical inscription of an Egyptian official in 2400 B.C., which reflects at least four different styles, but which is uniformly supposed to possess unity of authorship.

 

evolution vs. creation

Objections to evolution have been raised since various evolutionary ideas came to be debated around the start of the nineteenth century.[1] The ideas gained vast popular audiences, and when Charles Darwin brought out his 1859 book The Origin of Species he gradually convinced most of the scientific community that evolution was a valid hypothesis. In the 1930s Darwin’s theory of natural selection came to be seen as the primary explanation of the process of evolution.[2] The existence of evolutionary processes, and the ideas of the modern evolutionary synthesis that explain them, although opposed by creationists, have since been uncontroversial among biologists.[3]

Since then, nearly all criticisms of evolution have come from religious, rather than scientific, sources.[4] However, most Christians believe in God as Creator, while also accepting scientific evolution as a natural process.[5] A minority of Christians rejected evolution from its outset as “heresy”, but most attempted to reconcile scientific evolution with Biblical accounts of creation.[6] Islam accepts the natural evolution of plants and animals, but the origin of man is contested and no consensus has emerged.[7] The resultant creation-evolution controversy has been a recurring point of conflict between religion and science, most prevalent in certain, generally more conservative, regions of the United States.

In contrast to earlier objections to evolution that were either strictly scientific or explicitly religious, recent objections to evolution have frequently blurred the distinction. Movements such as Creation Science and Intelligent Design attack the scientific basis of evolution and argue that there is greater scientific evidence for the design of life by God or another intelligent being. Many of the arguments against evolution have become widespread, including objections to evolution’s evidence, methodology, plausibility, morality, and scientific acceptance. However, these arguments are not accepted by the scientific community.[8]

 

evolution vs. creation

Life is too unlikely to arise by chance

Further information: Teleological argument, Watchmaker analogy, Evolutionary argument against naturalism

Because the theory of evolution is often thought of as the idea that life arose “by chance”, design arguments such as William Paley’s watchmaker analogy have been popular objections to the theory since Darwin’s day.
Because the theory of evolution is often thought of as the idea that life arose “by chance”, design arguments such as William Paley’s watchmaker analogy have been popular objections to the theory since Darwin’s day.[74]

An exceedingly prevalent objection to evolution is that it is simply too unlikely for life, in all its complexity and apparent “design”, to have arisen “by chance”. It is argued that the odds of life having arisen without a deliberate intelligence guiding it are so astronomically low that it is unreasonable to not infer an intelligent designer from the natural world, and specifically from the diversity of life.[75] A more extreme version of this argument is that evolution cannot create complex structures. The idea that it is simply too implausible for life to have evolved on Earth is often encapsulated with a quotation that the “probability of life originating on earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane sweeping through a scrap-yard would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747″ (a claim attributed to astrophysicist Fred Hoyle and known as Hoyle’s fallacy[76]).

This view is thus invariably justified with arguments from analogy. The basic idea of this argument for a designer is the teleological argument, an argument for the existence of God based on the perceived order or purposefulness of the universe. A common way of using this as an objection to evolution is by appealing to the 18th-century philosopher William Paley’s watchmaker analogy, which argues that certain natural phenomena are analogical to a watch (in that they are ordered, or complex, or purposeful), which means that, like a watch, they must have been designed by a “watchmaker” — an intelligent agent. This argument forms the core of intelligent design, a neocreationist movement seeking to establish certain variants of the design argument as legitimate science, rather than as philosophy or theology, and have them be taught alongside evolution.[25]

This objection is fundamentally an argument by lack of imagination, or argument from incredulity: a certain explanation is seen as being counter-intuitive, and therefore an alternate, more intuitive explanation is appealed to instead. Supporters of evolution generally respond by arguing that evolution is not based on “chance”, but on predictable chemical interactions: natural processes, rather than supernatural beings, are the “designer”. Although the process involves some random elements, it is the non-random selection of survival-enhancing genes that drives evolution along an ordered trajectory. The fact that the results are ordered and seem “designed” is no more evidence for a supernatural intelligence than the apparent design of snowflakes is.[77] It is also argued that there is insufficient evidence to make statements about the plausibility or implausibility of abiogenesis, that certain structures demonstrate poor design, and that the implausibility of life evolving exactly as it did is no more evidence for an intelligence than the implausibility of a deck of cards being shuffled and dealt in a certain random order.[25][74]

It has also been noted that arguments against some form of life arising “by chance” are really objections to nontheistic abiogenesis, not to evolution. Indeed, many arguments against “evolution” are based on the misconception that abiogenesis is a component of, or necessary precursor to, evolution. Similar objections sometimes conflate the Big Bang with evolution.[9]

Christian apologist and philosopher Alvin Plantinga, a supporter of intelligent design, has formalized and revised the improbability argument as the evolutionary argument against naturalism, which asserts that it is irrational to reject a supernatural, intelligent creator because the apparent probability of certain faculties evolving is so low. Specifically, Plantinga claims that evolution cannot account for the rise of reliable reasoning faculties. Plantinga argues that whereas a God would be expected to create beings with reliable reasoning faculties, evolution would be just as likely to lead to unreliable ones, meaning that if evolution is true, it is irrational to trust whatever reasoning one relies on to conclude that it is true.[78] This novel epistemological argument has been criticized similarly to other probabilistic design arguments. It has also been argued that rationality, if conducive to survival, is more likely to be selected for than irrationality, making the natural development of reliable cognitive faculties more likely than unreliable ones.[79][80]

Evolution does not explain certain human behaviors

It is frequently argued that a great weakness of evolutionary theory is that it does not, or cannot, explain a certain aspect of the natural world. Although there is broad agreement that certain aspects of life remain unexplained, some creationists go one step further and argue that evolution should be abandoned altogether because of the phenomena it doesn’t explain. Many argue that an alternative explanation, such as intelligent design, can explain the things which evolution cannot. For example, Michael Behe has argued that current evolutionary theory can’t account for certain complex structures, particularly in microbiology. On this basis, Behe argues that such structures were “purposely arranged by an intelligent agent” (see evolution is too implausible and argument from incredulity).[81]

In addition to complex structures and systems, among the many phenomena that critics variously claim evolution cannot explain are consciousness, free will, instincts, emotions, metamorphosis, photosynthesis, homosexuality, music, language, religion, morality, and altruism (see altruism in animals).[82] Some of these have, in fact, been well-explained by evolution, while others remain largely mysterious, or only have preliminary explanations. However, supporters of evolution contend that no alternative explanation has been able to adequately explain the biological origin of these phenomena either.

 

evolution vs. creation

In some cases, creationists argue against evolution on the grounds that it can’t explain certain non-evolutionary processes, such as abiogenesis, the Big Bang, or the meaning of life. In such instances, evolution is being redefined to refer to the entire history of the universe, and it is argued that if one aspect of the universe is seemingly inexplicable, the entire body of scientific theories must be baseless. At this point, objections leave the arena of evolutionary biology and become general scientific or philosophical disputes.