Science, Religion or a Combination – Theology Essay
Some people claim the Christian Bible to be not only the true word of God in complete disregard for other religions beliefs they also consider it to be a book of science; that holds absolute truth about Mankind, the Earth, and the Universe. Religious fanatics have been trying to discredit evolution ever since Charles Darwin published
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, these fanatics once defeat which they have been countless times always go back to the drawing board and produce the same thing as before usually just with a different name and some minimal revisions and the zealots attack evolution with renewed fervor. In recent year thought the reoccurring debate has become political, as creationist struggle to force schools to abandon evolution and adopt creationism. This continued debate is unique for an industrialized country such as the united states thou it is pretty commonplace in the unindustrialized world consequently America is setting a bad example for countries that are struggling to break the grips of religious fundamentalists and embrace free thought and a more rational way of thinking. Although evolution is imperfect it is much better explained then creationism and is able to withstand attacks as it has done for over a century now and continues to be the only theory widely accepted by scientist.
Evolution tells that all life not just humans at one time in the past shared a common ancestor. The theory has three major points first; the common descent of all organisms formed from a single ancestor, second the appearance of important traits in a lineage or through time, and the mechanisms that cause some traits to persist while others perish. These three ideas make up the backbone of evolutionary theory. All living organisms share common traits, which would mean that all life comes from an extreme distance common ancestor. Back in Darwin’s’ day only simple observations could be made to verify his and others hypothesis that all life developed from the same origin. Now with the major breakthrough of genetics in the 1980s it is now known that every living being makes use of nucleic acids as its genetic material, and uses the same twenty amino acids as the building blocks for proteins. Also almost all of living organisms use the same genetic code to convert nucleic acid sequences in proteins. Because the selection of these traits is somewhat arbitrary, they strongly suggest common ancestry.* fossilization is very important to understanding the history of the earth and life that once existed moreover fossilization is very rare requiring an animal to die where sediments are being deposited therefore the fossil record can only provide sparse information on the evolution of species. But fossils have been found all over the world of prehistoric organisms their age is identified by radiometric dating; which is a technique used to date materials based on a knowledge of the decay rates of naturally occurring isotopes, and the current abundances. There are many different dating methods used by geologists for example, Radiocarbon dating, this technique measures the decay of Carbon-14 in organic material (plant macrofossils).Other methods are used for dating rocks and bones. Furthermore the materialization of some traits while others fail. When evolutionary theory was first supposed only direct observations could be made and it was believed that just basic chance was the determining factor. Now we know it to be much more complex then ever imagined before with mutations occurring to DNA or RNA that usually happens when coping errors are made during cell division and can also be caused by exposure to radiation, chemical, or viruses. These changes can effect the person or person in a positive or negative way and frequently are acted upon by natural selection thou most of the time there are only minor alterations and don’t have any noticeable effect on the person. Natural selection is the main function that allows certain inheritance of some genes rather than others.