How much do biologists understand about the origins of life and what do they not yet understand? What are the main forms of evidence used to try to explain the origins of life? The origin of life on earth is one question that humans have been asking for many years. Its one mystery of science that has yet to be fully comprehended. Many cultures and ancient civilizations have their own theories as to how life began on earth.
f. Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a book challenging humankind’s concept of life on earth and our universe. (1859) g. Darwin called the pressure of an organism to compete, survive and reproduce as “natural selection” or “survival of the fittest.” 3. The New Challenges
Scientist developed many of their own personal opinions about creation. In the early 19th century there were three views of earth history: Catastrophists, Uniformitarians and the Scriptural Geologists (T. Mortenson, 2003). The article points out that the Scriptural Geologists studied the earth and Biblical scripture extensively while forming their theory on earth’s creation and debunking old-earth theories. Scriptural Geologists believe the Bible is an accurate account of the earth’s six twenty-four hour day creation. The article further contends that scientist opinions are based on their individual worldviews.
A Critical Book Review The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks (2008) By Jan Zalasiewicz The Earth After Us by Jan Zalasiewicz uses geological science to ask the question ‘what precisely will mankind’s legacy be 100 million years hence ?’ (Page, 2009). The Earth After Us uses Geological science to explain the legacy of the human race. The book has wider geographical significance than geological science alone as it encompasses some of the major environmental and climate change issues humans currently face. The cover of the book shows the earth but on closer inspection it is apparent that this is an earth of the future, the land masses not being in their current state but having moved to form one land mass. (Edgeworth, 2009).
The Scientific Revolution was a period in the 1500’s and 1600’s in which scientific thinkees challenged traditional ideas from the Catholic Church and relied on observation and experiments. They also believed that God controlled everything. European scholars accepted the theory of the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. Ptolemy taught that the Earth was the center of the universe. Which is what the Catholic church also believed.
EVOLUTION REVEALS THE TRUTHS Evolution is a debatable issue and it will be argued for many years, because it is in contradiction with creationism. Evolution explains that all living creatures come from same ancestors and evolutionary change leads to new species. These species should be the fittest for the surroundings to survive and they continue to mutate. It is life or death struggle. However, creationism says that the world and living things was created by God.
There have been many conflicts during the centuries between religion and science. In the seventeenth century there was the “Galileo affair” in which Galileo argued against the prevailing Ptolemaic-Aristotelian system by stating the sun was at the center of the universe (Levinson, 2006). In the eighteenth century came another conflict between religion and science with the geology and biblical chronology which disputed the age of the
Charles Darwin was famous for his controversial theory that animals evolved by means of natural selection. He produced a book about his theory, implicating that humans were not especially created, but had evolved. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/darwin_charles.shtml) Darwin developed his theory of natural selection in 1837. Before this, it was generally believed that every species was specially created by God, and could not be altered. Up until his voyage on the HMS Beagle, Darwin, like all others, believed in a traditional Biblical creation of all life forms.
Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society, Volume II, 9th Edition. Wadsworth Publishing). Darwin’s theory of evolution has also challenged the fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith by denouncing the idea that man was created in the image of God’s
Some of the concerns still creating controversy include matters dealing with how life began and evolved, relations and sex, and various research methods. Life’s beginnings and the way it evolved have two different points-of-view according to science and religion. The religious belief is the concept of creationism, that all things, including humans, were created and put on the earth by God. The scientific belief is that the universe was created by a concept called the Big Bang, which in simple terms was a giant explosion that created all of the planets, stars, living creatures, etc. Science also believes that humans were not around at the beginning of life, but that they later evolved from various animals after adapting adaptations to help better suit them to the environment.