How do evolution and creationism clash?

Answer 1

Creation

Cosmological Origins & Evolution

Cause

God was the Cause

For every effect, there is a cause. This argument is intuitively clear.

Evolution is not cosmology or asronomy - it makes no statement either way about how the universe began.

Origin

The universe was spoken into existence by God's Word.

Intuitive argument

As above; evolution does not deal with the origin of the universe.

Energy

We are devolving

Energy goes from a state of usable energy to less usable energy

Laws of Thermodynamics are not violated.

We are evolving biologically but universally entropy is increasing. Biological evolution is not happening in a closed system.

The Laws of Thermodynamics are not violated.

Space

Earth created first (day 1)

Stars came afterwards (day 4) with the sun and moon.As above; evolution makes no statement regarding space, the other planets, the sun or any other celestial object.

Earth's

Covering

Water, prior to God forming the earth out of chaos

Earth formed from the accretion disk of rocky material orbiting the young sun. Originally molten rock, cooled to provide solid suface and oceans can form.

Time Constraints

6 Days - The creation of the World was finished in six days and is no longer taking place. Based on faith in Biblical account.

Cosmic time-frame. Expansion 15 billion years ago; earth formed by natural processes 4.6 billion years ago. The world is in a continuous process of change. Based on interpretation of available evidence.

Quality

Very Good

Mysterious, Violent, Able to be manipulated and studied.

Planning of

Life

By design

Random processes combined with constraints of available materials and energies.

Origin of

Life

God

Life comes from life (intuitive and observable), no known exceptions.

Forces of Nature

It is possible for life to come from non-life (not observable outside of geological time-frames).

Time needed

for Life

2 Days (Faith based) - all animal/human life was created on day 5 and 6.

Undetermined time; at least millions of years. Process is not fully known but a matter of continued research. Evidence driven.

Species

Kind begets kind. This is intuitively sound.

Organisms can be modified significantly over time, genotypically and phenotypically. Conclusions derived from evidence

Animal Life

Birds first, then

Reptiles

Reptiles first, then

Birds

Human Life

Man was created on day six

Man is made in the image of God.

Mammalian life becomes dominant 65 mya. Primates appear >10 mya. Homo genus diverges 5 to 7 mya. Homo sapiensappears 200 tya.

Beginning

of Death

After Adam sinned, not a process of creation - it is a product of man's sin.

Always present, part of the natural process. What is not observable (condition after death) cannot be known.

Cause of

Death

Sin. There was no death before Adam sinned (plant life not included), the breath of life was breathed into animals but not plants.

Natural process, existed from the beginning of life

Spiritual

Death

Both physical and spiritual, you will give an account of your life after you die.

Physical only; accountability is of no account from perspective of natural science. Many scientists are deeply religious, from every possible faith. But questions of Spiritual death are not within the realm of natural science. No clash with creationism.

Sediment Layers,

Canyons

Form rapidly (liquefaction). Witnessed during Mt. St. Helens. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.

Form at various speeds, but generally slowly. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.

Fossil Creation

Catastrophic events, rapid burial in water.Catastrohpic events, rapid burial in water followed by silt cover. Encapsulation in amber, or submersion in tar or other hydrocarbons.

Marine fossils on

Mountains

Global flood, Genesis account

Rapid 40 day/night event

Springs of the deep broken up

All creation perished

All mountains covered by at least 20 ft.

About 200 legends from cultures all over the world.

Local floods, earth sinking into the ocean and rising again, or original mountain formation from ocean floors or tidal basins.

Trees through

layers

Fossilized trees spanning many layers indicates rapid burial by water, observable with Mt. St. Helens. Can be created in one week.

Over many years plant life died, sank into the earth, and coal formed. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.

Coal, Oil,

Petrified

Wood

Coal, Oil, Petrified Wood, can all be made in a matter of weeks.

Coal, Oil, Petrified Wood take millions of years to form in nature. This cannot occur naturally in weeks. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.

Biblical Day

Recognize that the Biblical day means 24 hours and accept it as fact

Hebrew word "Yom", in all cases, means short period of time

defined to be evening and morning

days are distinguished between seasons and years (Genesis 1:14)

God's own word (Exodus 10:11)

writing style of Genesis is narrative, not poetic

genealogy of human race given

Some believe that the Biblical day means 24 hours but consider biblical accounts to be literary and non-scientific. Those who reconcile science and creation interpret Biblical days to mean millions of years. The actual length of the day changes throughout the year. The 24 hour period defined as mean (average) solar day. Astronomical evidence strongly suggests that the earth is slowing down over time, and days were considerably shorter than 24 hours in the earliest days of the planet.

Evolution and Creationism (often called Intelligent Design or ID) are two separate hypotheses describing how the world began. Neither Creation nor Evolution has been directly observed. Proponents of ID insist that not enough time has elapsed for any naturalist theory to account for the variety of life that has existed on earth. They do not hold to the Young Earth ideas of scriptural fundamentalists, so they are open to an understanding that the earth and the universe may be billions of years old. Science is based on experimentation and on man's observations of the physical universe, and as such, elements of the theory can be experimentally ruled out, but the theory itself cannot be proven. Most fundamental theories of science cannot be proven beyond all doubt. Evolution must be judged against the best available evidence and its interpretation, what could be called naturalist faith. Creationism must ultimately be taken on religious faith.

Creationism is the belief that the world was created (made from nothing) by God. According to The Bible, He spoke the world and life (plants, animals, insects, etc.) on the earth into existence during the course of six days [for those who hold to the Young Earth concept, a concept held in contempt by ID scientists]. Creationism is the belief of many Christians and is based on the first two chapters of Genesis, which detail God's firsthand account of creation as given to Moses through divine inspiration.

Evolution is the theory that the world's living things, even many that appear too diverse from one another to be related, have descended from some common ancestors far in the past. Over many millions of years, current life forms developed by way of the impact of electrical, biochemical, genetic and enviromental forces. Evolution itself addresses the diversity of life forms on earth and not origins of life itself. Various branches of organic chemistry and biochemistry are combining with physics and evolution theorists to explore various pathways to the origins of life. The theory of evolution was introduced by Charles Darwin in his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Evolution is currently the accepted theory of diversity by naturalists and humanists and by the great majority of scientists.

Choosing what to believe is often difficult. With little effort one may find information and 'proofs' on either side of the issue. This particular decision is further complicated by the fact that people from each position will examine the very same data and come to radically different conclusions from it. Creationists often challenge the methods used by field scientists in gathering dating or assembling of fossil and geological materials, and the ways of estimating the current age of the earth or of the universe.

Answer 2:

There are many who believe there is no clash between science and the Bible. If God created everything, including giving man the intellect to discover the sciences, then science and religion must agree or else one is in error. If each 'day' of creation in the Bible is viewed as a geological Age/Eon, there is NO conflict (with the exception of the sun, which appeared before the planet Earth).

Answer 3:The clash between the two has more to do with ideologies than with science or religion per se. Science is a convenient backdrop for the clash/debate. Proponents of ID (Intelligent Design) have an agenda (The Wedge Strategy) to bring God into prominence, particularly in the US, throughout the fields of education, research and politics. This is publicly and widely known. The ID spokespeople are engaged in a campaign to bring what they see as various shortcomings and inadequacies in evolutionary Biology and cosmology before the public forum for exposure and debate. They are introducing concepts like 'irreducible complexity' in an attempt to prove to the generalpublic that design (and ultimately God) is responsible for all of creation and most importantly life. [This is a crude example of IC, and may not be currently held as such by ID proponents: Consider the eyeball and the specialized area of the brain needed to turn optical signals into vision. ID proponents might argue that the eye and the specialized brain area are different organs; how could one evolve without the other already existing? The conclusion of ID: this is an absolute, unchallengeable example of intelligent design, because all the structures needed to mediate vision comprise a system which is irreducibly complex.] The ID specialists are also attempting to develop a mathematical model, presented by Dembski (its inventor) as an explanatory filter, incapable of generating false negatives (see discussion) according to Dembski, for the detection of design that cannot have come about by natural means. These ideas are shown to be deeply flawed by professional statisticians, mathematicians, logicians and scientists in their published critiques.

More importantly, after 10 or 15 years there is no substantial history of professional research papers, peer reviewed, backing up any of their claims. There are many popular books that are successfully enticing the uninformed public into questioning a lot of science that requires more than a layman's grasp to understand. Yet these scientists continue to stir the public, more to gain political advantage rather than to advance science.

Writing books that claim to contain the author's laws of intelligent design, and that these laws should be considered by the scientific community as equal to the laws of thermodynamics, takes more than a little ego. Professional scientists would lose their careers for making such claims in the arena of actual replicatable research and professional peer review. But these materials are not written to or for professionals, and are not written in support of ID or Creationism as science. They are written to demolish current evolution-based theories in the minds of the public. Their conclusion is that if there are flaws in evolutionary theory, or biological theory in general, then the only alternative is creation by God. This is a serious logical fallacy. There are issues and problems in every single intellectual endeavor, including science. New understanding comes to light as a result of research-- that is what science is; that is how it operates.

The clash comes by way of ideology, and the essential desire of The Wedge to dominate public policy.

Answer 2

It is easy to describe how evolution and creationism differ and, arguably, easy to explain why evolution is a more rational explanation for life as we know it. To explain that they 'clash' is to explain that there are powerful emotional forces driving a real conflict of opinions.

It would be fair to say that any emotional disagreement between the two points of view have originated with the proponents of creationism. The proponents of evolution simply stated their case and sought review by peers and others, to see whether that case stood up to reasoned criticism.

The proponents of creationism saw that the evidence for evolution might undermine public support for a literal interpretation of the Bible. This is exemplified by the reaction of the wife of the Bishop of Worcester, after she heard about Darwin's book, Origin of the Species: “Descended from the apes! My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.” In one way or another, the aim of creationism has been to try to ensure that the theory of evolution does not become generally known. Its proponents have sought to have creationism taught in schools as a 'scientific' alternative to evolution, in the hope that children will treat creationism as more likely true and thus ignore what they learnt about evolution.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 3

Though one can claim to believe in Divinely-guided evolution, this is often not the case. The general paradigm in which Evolution is taught, is one of mere natural causes. This may then be taken as an implicit excuse for hedonism, as few people want "bothersome" rules, or limitations to their personal pleasure. Lack of self-discipline has led to epidemic obesity, drunkenness, divorce rates, violence etc.
Many think that science, and specifically Evolution, have proved that there is no God. They don't comprehend that even if Evolution was an unquestionable fact, it would not automatically follow that God isn't there. They also seem unaware that there are some highly-qualified scientists who do not believe in Evolution.

Those wishing to look for further evidence may find these links useful:See also:

Is there evidence against Evolution?

God's wisdom seen in His creations

Can you show that God exists?

Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible