Creation

The question does not specify the science test that evolution supposedly failed. In fact, evolution is the most fundamental part of modern biology, which of course is science. So much so it is hard to imagine the proper study of biology without an understanding of evolution.

Those who wish, for religious reasons, evolution were not true do propose a whole range of tests they believe evolution fails but these are theological tests, not science tests. In other instances they point to what they believe to be flaws in the Theory of Evolution, but in doing so highlight their inadequate knowledge of science.

A Young-Earth Creationist believes that the world and living things were created within the last several thousand years, without need for gradual evolution.See also:

Is there evidence against Evolution

Can you show that God exists

God's wisdom seen in His creations

Discovering Creation

Intelligent Design is a line of subjective argumentation within creationism, which generally implies the following flow of deduction:

1. The universe is complex from a macro to a micro scale, therefore there is an intelligent designer/creator.

The Scientific Response:

The fact that the universe is complex in no way infers that a creator or designer is responsible for it.

2. The universe had a beginning, and a beginning must have a cause outside of itself.

The Scientific Response:

In Indo-German languages (which includes English) a verb must have a subject, and thus an effect must have an independent cause. It is therefore tempting to assume that this grammatical rule is also a law of nature - but it is not.

Quantum theory has proven that objective observation is impossible (i.e. that observing an effect actually influences it - the Heisenberg Principle), and that all matter and energy in the universe is interconnected, with quantum "wavicles" spontaneously arising and dissapearing. This concept is very counter-intuitive to human beings because within our limited scope of perception things appear to be very different. Modern quantum physics has solid theories backed up by decades of research that can explain a universe giving rise to itself. Creationism only offers a subjective deduction without any solid research or evidence that would withstand scientific scrutiny.

3. The creator of the universe is an intelligent designer who exactly and only fits the description of the God of the Bible

The Scientific Response:

Creationism offers no objective rationale for this statement, its largest leap of deduction: it is one thing to argue that the universe was created (i.e. Deism) than to state that this creator would exactly and only correspond to that of one belief system among many (i.e. Theism), on a single planet, orbiting a common yellow dwarf, in the extremis of a single spiral of a galaxy among billions of galaxies in the universe.

A Young-Earth creationist steadfastly refuses to accept the scientific evidence for the age of the earth and insists that God created the earth only a few thousand years ago. An Old-Earth creationist accepts the scientific evidence for the age of the earth but insists that God created the earth and all living things.

Both are trying to reconcile their understanding of the Book of Genesis with the real world around us, but the Old-Earth creationist is perhaps a little more flexible and takes a more realistic approach. This leaves him with the dilemma of how to explain Genesis chapter 1, which says the world was created in just six days. The most common attempt at explanation is to suggest that the 'days' were not days in our understanding, but very long periods of time, an explanation that can only be described as full of holes.

Both tend to conflate the first creation account (Genesis 1:1-2:4a) with the second creation account (Genesis 2:4bff), treating the second creation account as the fuller description of the creation of man, from the first account. Here, a generally unrecognised problem for the Old-Earth creationist is that the biblical genealogy of Adam only allows the earth to be around six thousand years old, with no benefit achieved from the semantic arguments about just how long a biblical 'day' was.

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

Most religious creation myths teach that human beings (and every other form of life), were created specially, separate from all the others, for a particular divine purpose.

Evolutionary theory does not award the human race (or any other kind of life) with a special position. Each and every living thing is the end product, the summum, of a long history of surviving common ancestors, producing diverging lineages. According to evolutionary theory, we're special not because of our origins, but because of the characteristics we've evolved, which set us - but every other life form as well - apart from all the others. There is no overriding purpose to our being special, according to evolutionary theory. We're merely a product of differential reproductive success.

I believe that, in the basis, it is the issue of needing to be special in combination with the need for some overriding purpose that causes fundamentalists to reject evolutionary theory as an explanation for the diversity of life. See the answer below for an example of this.

Answer:

Fundamentalism, and religion in general, is at odds with evolutionary theory because evolutionary theory tends to be taught with the implicit message that God is not part (or need not be part) of the picture, that people do not have souls, and that there's no life after this one.

Science provides compelling evidence, through DNA and the fossil record, that humans evolved. Our earliest hominid ancestors diverged from the ancestor of chimpanzees around seven million years ago, and modern humans, Homo sapiens evolved around 250,000 years ago.

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

There is no scientifically sound evidence supporting the idea that human-kind was a special creation, or was the subject of divine design.

There is a myriad of evidence supporting darwinian evolution, which is accepted by scientific consensus as truth.

An example of tangible evidence that directly challenges divine human design is human vestigiality. Structures such as the tailbone, wisdom teeth, appendix, many muscles, and many more, appear to be leftover structures from our own evolution.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a bigger chance of a divine creation than creation by chance. An example is this. Let us think of a monkey typing on a typewriter with 60 keys: 26 small letters, 26 capital letters, a space, a full stop, comma, colon, semicolon, two brackets, and a question mark. Lets say the monkey is to produce the word 'monkey'. The chances of the monkey typing the letter 'm' in a typewriter is 1 out of 60, and the two letters 'mo' is one out of 3600. (1/60 * 1/60), and typing the word monkey is 1 in 46656000000 chances. If the monkey can type at a rate of 3 digits per second, he would take 450 years before typing the word monkey.

If the monkey will have a title of 'Monkeys and Typewriters', would take a million monkeys over a thousand million million million million years (10^27 years) with monkeys at a rate of 3 digits a second. ( this is 10^17 times as long as the age of the universe imagined by cosmologists.)

in a book by Dr. J. C. Whitcomb, in his book The Early Earth, asks the following question against evolution:

How long would it take a monkey, pounding irritationally at a typewriter, to come up with words of Genesis 1:1 ( In the beginning God created the heaves and the earth)? let us give an example of million tireless monkeys pound at a record of 12 keys a second on a simple tyepwriter with only capital letters. Think of rock so large that if the earth were at its center its surface would touch the nearest star. This star is so far from it takes more than four years to get here, traveling at 186000 miles per second. if a bird came once every llin years ad removed an amount equivalent to te finest grain of sand, four such rocks would be worn away before the monkeys would be expected to type Genesis 1:1.

If a monkey would type the NIV version of the Bible, containing 773692 words composed of 3566490 letters. Hence, there are 4340181 letters and spaces in the Bible.

the chance of typing the Bible on a typewriter with only 26 letters and a space is 27 keys on a typewriter. this would take (1/27)^4340181 years or approximately 1 in 10^6200000. this number is 1 followed by 6200000 zeros.

Another way is this: IMAGINE THE UNIVERSE IS 2 BILLION YEARS OLD. AND IF EVOLUTION WERE TRUE, LETS GIVE EVOLUTION 1.5 BILLION YEARS FOR HUMANS TO FORM. IF WE GAVE 2 BILLION YEARS, WHY ARE THERE STILL ANTS, ROACHES, MITES, FROGS. WE GAVE THOSE ANIMALS 2 BILLION YEARS AND THEY STILL EXIST. THEY CANT JUST START EVOLVING STARTING AT LETS SAY, 2000 BC. THEY STILL HAVE LIKE 2.9 BILLION YEARS TO START EVOLVING BUT THEY DONT. WE STILL HAVE LICE, ROACHES, ANTS AND THEY DIDNT EVOLVE!

THERE IS A BIGGER CHANCE MAN WAS MADE FROM CREATION THAN OUT OF NOTHING. MOLECULES CANT APPEAR OUT OF NOTHING.

The above is completely irrelevant because, as many attacks on evolution do, it expresses an extremely poor understanding of evolution. The only process "by chance" in evolution is gene mutation; natural selection operates from there. There is no argument, certainly none by probability, that demonstrates it is more likely that humans are from god than any other source.

Both are real, and neither contradicts the other. This is somewhat true: we are created. We have a Creator. Anyone who disagrees with me can talk to me and I will prove that we indeed have a Creator. There is no other explanation for the amazing and intricate detail that is in our body. The cells, all the systems in the body, and how we have been given exactly what we need. If you have studied life science then you can see how completely impossible it would be to get the intricate and amazing systems which we contain, from a simple explosion. Think of it this way: you have just received a new box of Legos and you shake them really hard. You just can't expect to open the box and see the intricate Tower of London that the kit was supposed to make. If you do expect this you are either brainwashed or insane. Now whether or not our Creator used the process of evolution is not clarified in the Bible so people have different beliefs.

Another answer: To say that those who believe in evolution are insane or brainwashed, we can say that the finger points both ways. There is no way to prove the creationism view point. Through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we're all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales. It all began with the Big Bang around 14 billion years ago. Thinking man first was seen more than 500,000 years ago. What started the Big Bang...no one knows even if they would like to think that they know. At least scientists can admit that they still don't know it all.

To say that shaking a box of Legos and expecting them to form into the Tower of London is not what evolution is about. We are saying that life evolved from single cells and then organisms that have as few has 800 cells into larger and more complex organisms all under the response to the environment.

Another answer:

A Jewish answer is that we have an unbroken national tradition of 3300 years to the Revelation at Sinai. God states that He created the universe (Genesis 1:1; Exodus 20:10). This tradition is accepted by Christianity and Islam also. Not to mention, that Evolutionists have not put forth any putative proofs that would undermine the tradition.

God's creation of the universe explains the vast wisdom found within it.

There are some people who believe in Creation without quoting the Bible. Their reasoning includes:

1) The glaring lack of transitional fossils has been noted by the evolutionists themselves, such as this statement from the famous paleontologist and evolutionist George G. Simpson; quote: "The regular lack of transitional fossils is not confined to primates alone, but is an almost universal phenomenon."

"The lack of transitional series cannot be explained as being due to the scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real; they will never be filled" (Nilsson, N. Heribert).

"To the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation" (Corner, E.J.H., Contemporary Botanical Thought).

Another answer:

Many religious people, including theologians, feel that a deeper understanding of nature actually enriches their faith. Moreover, in the scientific community there are thousands of scientists who are devoutly religious and also accept evolution.

It can not be both ways. Besides mutations are harmful, helpful or neutral depending on the third base (wobble effect).

The dates that radioactive clocks have put on evolutionary history are astonishing. Life is well over 3.5 billion years old, and until about 600 million years ago, the planet was dominated by microbes. Radioactive clocks have shown that evolution can change its pace. Almost all scientists agree.

Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould drew attention back to embryos. He documented the history of scientific research that had led to so much confusion. The timing of development is controlled by two knobs. One controls the rate at which an organism grows. The other controls the rate at which it changes shape over time. Random mutation may end up changing the settings of each knob, thereby speeding up or slowing down the rate at which a species' embryos develop. These kinds of adjustments can alter the entire body of an organism, or individual organs. Gould predicted that with heterochrony, the genes that regulate other genes would hold the key to the evolution of embryos. His prediction has now been borne out.

Junhyong Kim and his fellow Yale biologists compared the timing at which a crucial developmental gene became active in the fruit fly and two close relatives. They found that the gene (for timing) started to make its proteins at different rates in the 3 species led to differences in their anatomy - even though the developmental gene itself is identical in all three species.

And Lastly: Though fishermen will always tell tall tales about the big one that got away, more and more evidence suggests that the "big ones" simply don't exist anymore and Dr. David O. Conover's work suggests why: many fish are evolving smaller body sizes. We are changing their environment by fishing for and selecting the larger. The genes that produce the smaller size are selected. This is natural selection at work now.

One other thing that shows evolution at work today is the fact that some groups of peoples have higher numbers with one recessive gene for sickle cell anemia. They live in areas of the world where malaria is common. People with one copy of the gene live longer than those with none. People with two copies do not survive long. The environment, along with the mosquitoes, are selecting humans with the gene that allows them to live longer and reproduce more children. Both the fish and people are evolving right now at this time.

Another answer from our community:What is to be reconciled, evolution is a theory of man; creation is from God. They can not be reconciled nor ever will be because man does not think like God, nor can God lower himself to his own creation. To say that creation and evolution is reconcilable is erroneous because there is no proof that evolution takes place, because if one were to believe in the "big bang theory" where did the matter from the "big bang" come from? Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Another answer:

Evolution is a theoretical construct based on collected evidence, like the Theory of Gravity or Copernican Theory.

Creation is a myth based on a literal reading of sacred books like Enuma Elish, Rg Veda, Hesiod's Cosmogony or the Bible. In all four of these, the creation story is told in a series of poems and therefore must of necessity include symbolic language, mataphore and poetic imagery.

Answer

The average person, and especially people who believe in a god or gods, do not understand the word theory as it is used by scientists. Most people think that the word theory means a guess or a hunch, which is how the word is usually meant in everyday non-scientific usage. In science, however, the word theory is used of phenomena that has been tested over and over with experimentation and observation that produces the same results every time the experiments and tests are repeated. In science a theory is not just a hunch or hypothesis under these conditions, but is recognized as established fact, unless and until some other facts are brought to light that force scientists to revise or update the theories in question. Gravity is a fact even though it is called the theory of gravitation. The theoretical part of the theory of gravitation is that no one knows exactly what gravity is or just exactly how it works, but gravity itself is an established fact. In the same way evolution is an established fact. The theoretical part of evolution is by what mechanism it occurs, but evolution itself is an established fact, and it is incompatible and irreconcilable with either creationism or intelligent design.

.

In creationism it is generally accepted that all life as it exists now was specially created that way by a god or gods, and that since the creation no change in lifeforms has occurred. In intelligent design it is widely accepted that evolution does occur but that it is God-directed. Both stands are incompatible with the theory of evolution. There is overwhelming evidence that life evolved, and there are also a vast number of examples in nature of unintelligent design. Scientists are always revising or updating all of their findings when enough new evidence comes to light that indicates their theories are in error. That's how science works, it is self-correcting, and that's what makes science the best way we have of getting to the truth. Very few people who believe in a god or gods are willing to change their minds when new evidence comes to light. They would rather hold on to illogical beliefs, or beliefs that contradict their holy books than to find the real truth of life and the universe.

Another Answer:

For me this question is similar to one I heard many times in Political Science classes, "Will the Soviet Union ever tear down the Berlin Wall and allow its satellites and itself to enter the democratic world." Most all at that time would answer with an emphatic no. Just like today and this question of reconciliation between two dynamically diverse views on how we came to be here: creation or evolution.

But I have much hope as the fields of science are discovering more and more each day. DNA probably holds the final answer for all of us but the other sciences are proving Genesis and other biblical books more and more accurate with each new discovery. But that being said, in our modern society we see numerous religious people signing onto movements ascribing beliefs in both evolution and creation (see Clergy Letter Project in USA of 10,000 ordained priests and ministers). Or in Australia, a well known molecular biologist and medical doctor, Michael Denton, an avowed Agnostic, in his book "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1986, p. 77), evolutionary theory "is still, as it was in Darwin's time, a highly speculative hypothesis entirely without direct factual support and very far from that self-evident axiom some of its more aggressive advocates would have us believe"

So the short answer is, only time will tell.