“Teaching the controversy” aims to support dialog between the challengers and advocates of the Genesis account, a forum long known as “The Great Debate.”
Challengers to the biblical accounts view Genesis as a soft target. The Genesis even-day supernatural account clashes with natural vast-time explanations. While the challengers’ reasoning seems logical, the scientific evidence increasingly tells a different story.
When the Genesis account is challenged, an opportunity to advance the target to the scientific evidence. When confronted with idolizers of nature, Isaiah was coached on how to change the target –
This scholarly open-ended questioning approach advances the target to the physical evidence. By the fifteenth century, it emerged as the method to drive a scientific revolution.
Successful dialogs begin with relevant and engaging questioning.
Natural Laws
Just as Isaac Newton had discovered the natural laws of gravity, Darwin searched for the natural laws of evolution. However, as eminent evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr eventually conceded in an interview with Scientific American –
“Biology, even though it has all the other legitimate properties of a science, still is not a science like the physical sciences.”
In the search for laws governing evolution, evolution scientists will introduce “new insights” into evolution, As a result, views over what drives evolution has been a revolving door.
Critics of the Genesis account agree on a general philosophical framework of evolution, However, no scientific organization in the past two decades have endorsed any laws governing evolution, including natural selection.
In fact, the field of biological evolution is crowded with conflicting, even contradictory theories.
Conflicting Views
Interestingly, studies performed by evolution scientists often present the best arguments undermining how evolution works. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne at the University of Chicago wrote in “Why Evolution is True” acknowledged –
“We must stop pretending we understand the course of natural selection.”
Coyne is not alone. According to Niles Eldredge (pictured left), curator at the American Museum of Natural History –
“In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a false term; but who ever objected to chemists speaking of the elective affinities of the various elements?”
Eugene V. Koonin (pictured right) of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), in The Logic of Chance, the Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution, argued –
“The genomic revolution… effectively overturned the central metaphor of evolutionary biology, the Tree of Life.”
Technological and scientific advances in the twenty-first century have brought into focus the distinct uniqueness of each life form, rather than “innumerable” transitional links developing from a common ancestor.
Teaching the Controversy
Teaching the controversy on Darwin, Then and Now aims to support cordial engagements between the challengers and advocates of the Genesis account. The scope of material available is outlined in the About page.
Darwin Then and Now is an educational resource on the intersection of evolution and science and the challenges facing the theory of evolution.
Links
- Glossary defines terms associated with explaining the theory of biological evolution.
- Understanding Evolution is a journey that showcases how different investigative approaches play a pivotal role in enriching our understanding of the process, leading to diverse conclusions.
- Studying Evolution delves into the terms species and natural selection and how they have changed since The Origin of Species was published in 1859.
- What is Science investigates Charles Darwin’s approach to science and how the principles of modern science are used for different investigative purposes.
- The Evolution and Science category features articles studying how the intersection of evolution and science influences the current understanding of evolution.
- The Theory and Consensus category features articles examining how scientific findings are influencing the scientific consensus on the essential tenets of evolution, including Natural Selection.
