Since then, most criticisms and denials of evolution have come from religious groups, rather than from the scientific community. Although many religious groups have found reconciliation of their beliefs with evolution, such as through theistic evolution, other religious groups continue to reject evolutionary explanations in favor of creationism, the belief that the universe and life were created by supernatural forces. The U.S.-centered creation–evolution controversy has become a focal point of perceived conflict between religion and science.
Several branches of creationism, including creation science, neo-creationism, and intelligent design, argue that the idea of life being directly designed by a god or intelligence is at least as scientific as evolutionary theory, and should therefore be taught in public education. Such arguments against evolution have become widespread and include objections to evolution's evidence, methodology, plausibility, morality, and scientific acceptance. The scientific community does not recognize such objections as valid, pointing to detractors' misinterpretations of such things as the scientific method, evidence, and basic physical laws.
History
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution
gained widespread acceptance as a description of the origin of species,
but there was continued resistance to his views on the significance of natural selection as the mechanism of evolution.
Evolutionary ideas came to prominence in the early 19th century with the theory of the transmutation of species put forward by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Evolution was at first opposed among the scientific community, notably by Georges Cuvier. The idea that laws control nature and society gained vast popular audiences with George Combe's The Constitution of Man of 1828 and the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation of 1844. When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species,
he convinced most of the scientific community that new species arise
through descent through modification in a branching pattern of
divergence from common ancestors, but while most scientists accepted that natural selection is a valid and empirically testable hypothesis, Darwin's view that it is the primary mechanism of evolution was rejected by some.
Darwin's contemporaries eventually came to accept the transmutation of species based upon fossil evidence, and the X Club was formed to defend evolution against the church and wealthy amateurs. At that time the specific evolutionary mechanism which Darwin provided of natural selection was actively disputed by scientists in favour of alternative theories such as Lamarckism and orthogenesis. Darwin's gradualistic account was also opposed by saltationism and catastrophism. Lord Kelvin led scientific opposition to gradualism on the basis of his thermodynamic calculations that the Earth was between 24 and 400 million years old, and his views favoured a version of theistic evolution accelerated by divine guidance.
This age of the earth was disputed by geological estimates, which
gained strength in 1907 when radioactive dating of rocks showed that the
Earth was billions of years old. The specific hereditary mechanism Darwin hypothesized of pangenesis that supported gradualism also lacked any supporting evidence and was disputed by the empirical tests of Francis Galton. Although evolution was unchallenged, uncertainties about the mechanism in the eclipse of Darwinism persisted from the 1880s until the 1930s' inclusion of Mendelian inheritance and the rise of the modern evolutionary synthesis. The modern synthesis rose to universal acceptance among biologists with the help of new evidence, such as genetics, which confirmed Darwin's predictions and refuted the competing theories.
Protestantism,
especially in America, broke out in "acrid polemics" and argument about
evolution from 1860 to the 1870s—with the turning point possibly marked
by the death of Louis Agassiz in 1873—and by 1880 a form of "Christian evolution" was becoming the consensus. In Britain, while publication of The Descent of Man by Darwin in 1871 reinvigorated debate from the previous decade, Sir Henry Chadwick
notes a steady acceptance of evolution "among more educated Christians"
between 1860 and 1885. As a result, evolutionary theory was "both
permissible and respectable" by 1876. Frederick Temple's lectures on The Relations between Religion and Science (1884) on how evolution was not "antagonistic" to religion highlighted this trend. Temple's appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1896 demonstrated the broad acceptance of evolution within the church hierarchy.
For decades the Roman Catholic Church
avoided official refutation of evolution. However, it would rein in
Catholics who proposed that evolution could be reconciled with the Bible, as this conflicted with the First Vatican Council's (1869–70) finding that everything was created out of nothing by God, and to deny that finding could lead to excommunication. In 1950, the encyclical Humani generis of Pope Pius XII first mentioned evolution directly and officially. It allowed one to enquire into the concept of humans coming from pre-existing living matter, but not to question Adam and Eve or the creation of the soul. In 1996, Pope John Paul II
said that evolution is "more than a hypothesis" and acknowledged the
large body of work accumulated in its support, but reiterated that any
attempt to give a material explanation of the human soul is
"incompatible with the truth about man."
Pope Benedict XVI has reiterated the conviction that human beings "are
not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the
result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved,
each of us is necessary."
At the same time, he has promoted the study of the relationship between
the concepts of creation and evolution, based on the conviction that
there cannot be a contradiction between faith and reason. Along these lines, the research project Thomistic Evolution, run by a team of Dominican scholars, endeavours to reconcile the scientific evidence on evolution with the teaching of Thomas Aquinas.
Muslim reaction ranged from those believing in literal creation from the Quran
to many educated Muslims who subscribed to a version of theistic or
guided evolution in which the Quran reinforced rather than contradicted
mainstream science. This occurred relatively early, as medieval madrasahs taught the ideas of Al-Jahiz, a Muslim scholar from the 9th century, who proposed concepts similar to natural selection. However, acceptance of evolution remains low in the Muslim world, as prominent figures reject evolution's underpinning philosophy of materialism as unsound to human origins and a denial of Allah. Further objections by Muslim authors and writers largely reflect those put forward in the Western world.
Regardless of acceptance from major religious hierarchies, early
religious objections to Darwin's theory are still used in opposition to
evolution. The ideas that species change over time through natural
processes and that different species share common ancestors seemed to
contradict the Genesis account of Creation. Believers in Biblical infallibility attacked Darwinism as heretical. The natural theology of the early 19th century was typified by William Paley's watchmaker analogy, an argument from design
still used by the creationist movement. Natural theology included a
range of ideas and arguments from the outset, and when Darwin's theory
was published, ideas of theistic evolution were presented in which
evolution is accepted as a secondary cause open to scientific
investigation, while still holding belief in God as a first cause with a
non-specified role in guiding evolution and creating humans. This position has been adopted by denominations of Christianity and Judaism in line with modernist theology which views the Bible and Torah as allegorical, thus removing the conflict between evolution and religion.
However, in the 1920s Christian fundamentalists in the United States developed their literalist
arguments against modernist theology into opposition to the teaching of
evolution, with fears that Darwinism had led to German militarism and
was a threat to religion and morality. This opposition developed into
the creation–evolution controversy involving Christian literalists in
the United States objecting to the teaching of evolution in public schools.
Although early objectors dismissed evolution as contradicting their
interpretation of the Bible, this argument was legally invalidated when
the Supreme Court ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968 that forbidding the teaching of evolution on religious grounds violated the Establishment Clause.
Since then creationists have developed more nuanced objections to
evolution, alleging variously that it is unscientific, infringes on
creationists' religious freedoms, or that the acceptance of evolution is a religious stance.
Creationists have appealed to democratic principles of fairness,
arguing that evolution is controversial and that science classrooms
should therefore "Teach the Controversy." These objections to evolution culminated in the intelligent design movement in the 1990s and early 2000s that unsuccessfully attempted to present itself as a scientific alternative to evolution.
Defining evolution
One of the main sources of confusion and ambiguity in the creation–evolution debate is the definition of evolution
itself. In the context of biology, evolution is genetic changes in
populations of organisms over successive generations. The word also has a
number of different meanings in different fields, from evolutionary computation to molecular evolution to sociocultural evolution to stellar and galactic evolution.
When biological evolution is conflated with other evolutionary
processes, this can cause errors such as the claim that modern
evolutionary theory says anything about abiogenesis or the Big Bang.
Black morph in peppered moth evolution. Even minor variation in a population can lead to evolution by natural selection.
Evolution in colloquial contexts can refer to any sort of
progressive development or gradual improvement, and a process that
results in greater quality or complexity. When misapplied to biological evolution this common meaning leads to frequent misunderstandings. For example, the idea of devolution
("backwards" evolution) is a result of erroneously assuming that
evolution is directional or has a specific goal in mind (cf.
orthogenesis). In reality, the evolution of an organism has no
"objective" and is only showing increasing ability of successive
generations to survive and reproduce in its environment; and increased
suitability is only defined in relation to this environment. Biologists
do not consider any one species, such as humans, to be more highly evolved or advanced
than another. Certain sources have been criticized for indicating
otherwise due to a tendency to evaluate nonhuman organisms according to anthropocentric standards rather than more objective ones.
Evolution also does not require that organisms become more complex. Although the history of life shows an apparent trend towards the evolution of biological complexity;
there is a question if this appearance of increased complexity is real,
or if it comes from neglecting the fact that the majority of life on
Earth has always consisted of prokaryotes.
In this view, complexity is not a necessary consequence of evolution,
but that specific circumstances of evolution on Earth frequently made
greater complexity advantageous and thus naturally selected
for. Depending on the situation, organisms' complexity can either
increase, decrease, or stay the same, and all three of these trends have
been observed in evolution.
Creationist sources frequently define evolution according to a
colloquial, rather than scientific, meaning. As a result, many attempts
to rebut evolution do not address the findings of evolutionary biology (see straw man argument). This also means that advocates of creationism and evolutionary biologists often simply speak past each other.
Scientific acceptance
Status as a theory
Critics of evolution assert that evolution is "just a theory," which
emphasizes that scientific theories are never absolute, or misleadingly
presents it as a matter of opinion rather than of fact or evidence. This reflects a difference of the meaning of theory in a scientific context: whereas in colloquial speech a theory is a conjecture or guess, in science a theory is an explanation whose predictions have been verified by experiments or other evidence. Evolutionary theory
refers to an explanation for the diversity of species and their
ancestry which has met extremely high standards of scientific evidence.
An example of evolution as theory is the modern synthesis
of Darwinian natural selection and Mendelian inheritance. As with any
scientific theory, the modern synthesis is constantly debated, tested,
and refined by scientists, but there is an overwhelming consensus in the
scientific community that it remains the only robust model that
accounts for the known facts concerning evolution.
Critics also state that evolution is not a fact.
In science a fact is a verified empirical observation while in
colloquial contexts a fact can simply refer to anything for which there
is overwhelming evidence. For example, in common usage theories such as "the Earth revolves around the Sun"
and "objects fall due to gravity" may be referred to as "facts," even
though they are purely theoretical. From a scientific standpoint,
therefore, evolution may be called a "fact" for the same reason that
gravity can: under the scientific definition, evolution is an observable
process that occurs whenever a population of organisms genetically
changes over time. Under the colloquial definition, the theory of
evolution can also be called a fact, referring to this theory's
well-established nature. Thus, evolution is widely considered both a theory and a fact by scientists.
Similar confusion is involved in objections that evolution is
"unproven," since no theory in science is known to be absolutely true,
only verified by empirical evidence. This distinction is an important one in philosophy of science, as it relates to the lack of absolute certainty in all empirical claims, not just evolution. Strict proof is possible only in formal sciences such as logic and mathematics, not natural sciences
(where terms such as "validated" or "corroborated" are more
appropriate). Thus, to say that evolution is not proven is trivially
true, but no more an indictment of evolution than calling it a "theory."
The confusion arises in that the colloquial meaning of proof is simply "compelling evidence," in which case scientists would indeed consider evolution "proven."
Degree of acceptance
An objection is often made in the teaching of evolution that evolution is controversial or contentious.
Unlike past creationist arguments which sought to abolish the teaching
of evolution altogether, this argument makes the weaker claim that
evolution should be presented alongside alternative views since it is
controversial, and students should be allowed to evaluate and choose
between the options on their own.
This objection forms the basis of the "Teach the Controversy" campaign by the Discovery Institute, a think tank
based in Seattle, Washington, to promote the teaching of intelligent
design in U.S. public schools. This goal followed the Institute's "wedge strategy," an attempt to gradually undermine evolution and ultimately to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
Several other attempts were made to insert intelligent design or
creationism into the U.S. public school curriculum, including the failed
Santorum Amendment in 2001.
Scientists and U.S. courts have rejected this objection on the grounds that science is not based on appeals to popularity, but on evidence. The scientific consensus
of biologists determines what is considered acceptable science, not
popular opinion or fairness, and although evolution is controversial in
the public arena, it is entirely uncontroversial among experts in the
field.
In response, creationists have disputed the level of scientific support for evolution. The Discovery Institute has gathered over 761 scientists as of August 2008 to sign A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
in order to show that there are a number of scientists who dispute what
they refer to as "Darwinian evolution." This statement did not profess
outright disbelief in evolution, but expressed skepticism as to the
ability of "random mutation and natural selection to account for the
complexity of life." Several counter-petitions have been launched in
turn, including A Scientific Support for Darwinism, which gathered over 7,000 signatures in four days, and Project Steve,
a tongue-in-cheek petition that has gathered the signatures of 1,393
(as of May 24, 2016) evolution-supporting scientists named "Steve" (or
any similar variation thereof—Stephen, Stephanie, Esteban, etc.).
Creationists have argued for over a century that evolution is a
"theory in crisis" that will soon be overturned, based on objections
that it lacks reliable evidence or violates natural laws. These
objections have been rejected by most scientists, as have claims that
intelligent design, or any other creationist explanation, meets the
basic scientific standards that would be required to make them
scientific alternatives to evolution. It is also argued that even if
evidence against evolution exists, it is a false dilemma to characterize this as evidence for intelligent design.
A similar objection to evolution is that certain scientific
authorities—mainly pre-modern ones—have doubted or rejected evolution. Most commonly, it is argued that Darwin "recanted" on his deathbed, a false anecdote originating from Lady Hope's story. These objections are generally rejected as appeals to authority.
Scientific status
A
common neo-creationist objection to evolution is that evolution does
not adhere to normal scientific standards—that it is not genuinely
scientific. It is argued that evolutionary biology does not follow the scientific method
and therefore should not be taught in science classes, or at least
should be taught alongside other views (i.e., creationism). These
objections often deal with the very nature of evolutionary theory, the
scientific method, and philosophy of science.
Religious nature
Creationists commonly argue that "evolution is a religion; it is not a science."
The purpose of this criticism is to reframe the debate from one between
science (evolution) and religion (creationism) to between two religious
beliefs—or even to argue that evolution is religious while intelligent
design is not. Those that oppose evolution frequently refer to supporters of evolution as "evolutionists" or "Darwinists."
The arguments for evolution being a religion generally amount to arguments by analogy:
it is argued that evolution and religion have one or more things in
common, and that therefore evolution is a religion. Examples of claims
made in such arguments are statements that evolution is based on faith, and that supporters of evolution dogmatically reject alternative suggestions out-of-hand.
These claims have become more popular in recent years as the
neo-creationist movement has sought to distance itself from religion,
thus giving it more reason to make use of a seemingly anti-religious
analogy.
Supporters of evolution have argued in response that no
scientist's claims are treated as sacrosanct, as shown by the aspects of
Darwin's theory that have been rejected or revised by scientists over
the years to form first neo-Darwinism and later the modern evolutionary synthesis.
The claim that evolution relies on faith is likewise rejected on the
grounds that evolution has strong supporting evidence, and therefore
does not require faith.
The argument that evolution is religious has been rejected in general on the grounds that religion
is not defined by how dogmatic or zealous its adherents are, but by its
spiritual or supernatural beliefs. Evolutionary supporters point out
evolution is neither dogmatic nor based on faith, and they accuse
creationists of equivocating between the strict definition of religion
and its colloquial usage to refer to anything that is enthusiastically
or dogmatically engaged in. United States courts have also rejected this
objection:
Assuming for the purposes of argument, however, that evolution is a religion or religious tenet, the remedy is to stop the teaching of evolution, not establish another religion in opposition to it. Yet it is clearly established in the case law, and perhaps also in common sense, that evolution is not a religion and that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause, Epperson v. Arkansas, supra, Willoughby v. Stever, No. 15574-75 (D.D.C. May 18, 1973); aff'd. 504 F.2d 271 (D.C. Cir. 1974), cert. denied , 420 U.S. 924 (1975); Wright v. Houston Indep. School Dist., 366 F. Supp. 1208 (S.D. Tex 1978), aff.d. 486 F.2d 137 (5th Cir. 1973), cert. denied 417 U.S. 969 (1974).
A related claim is that evolution is atheistic (see the Atheism section below); creationists sometimes merge the two claims and describe evolution as an "atheistic religion" (cf. humanism).
This argument against evolution is also frequently generalized into a
criticism of all science; it is argued that "science is an atheistic
religion," on the grounds that its methodological naturalism is as unproven, and thus as "faith-based," as the supernatural and theistic beliefs of creationism.
Unfalsifiability
A statement is considered falsifiable
if there is an observation or a test that could be made that would
demonstrate that the statement is false. Statements that are not
falsifiable cannot be examined by scientific investigation since they
permit no tests that evaluate their accuracy. Creationists such as Henry M. Morris
have claimed that any observation can be fitted into the evolutionary
framework, so it is impossible to demonstrate that evolution is wrong
and therefore evolution is non-scientific.
Supporters of evolution argue that evolution could be falsified by many conceivable lines of evidence, such as the fossil record
showing no change over time, confirmation that mutations are prevented
from accumulating in a population, or observation of organisms being
created supernaturally or spontaneously. J. B. S. Haldane, when asked what hypothetical evidence could disprove evolution, replied "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian era." Numerous other potential ways to falsify evolution have also been proposed. For example, the fact that humans have one fewer pair of chromosomes than the great apes
offered a testable hypothesis involving the fusion or splitting of
chromosomes from a common ancestor. The fusion hypothesis was confirmed
in 2005 by discovery that human chromosome 2 is homologous with a fusion of two chromosomes that remain separate in other primates. Extra, inactive telomeres and centromeres remain on human chromosome 2 as a result of the fusion. The assertion of common descent could also have been disproven with the invention of DNA sequencing methods. If true, human DNA should be far more similar to chimpanzees and other great apes, than to other mammals.
If not, then common descent is falsified. DNA analysis has shown that
humans and chimpanzees share a large percentage of their DNA (between
95% to 99.4% depending on the measure). Also, the evolution of chimpanzees and humans from a common ancestor predicts a (geologically) recent common ancestor. Numerous transitional fossils have since been found. Hence, human evolution has passed several falsifiable tests.
Many of Darwin's ideas and assertions of fact have been falsified
as evolutionary science has developed, but these amendments and
falsifications have uniformly confirmed his central concepts.
In contrast, creationist explanations involving the direct intervention
of the supernatural in the physical world are not falsifiable, because
any result of an experiment or investigation could be the unpredictable
action of an omnipotent deity.
In 1976, the philosopher Karl Popper said that "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research programme."
He later changed his mind and argued that Darwin's "theory of natural
selection is difficult to test" with respect to other areas of science.
In his 1982 book, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism, philosopher of science Philip Kitcher specifically addresses the "falsifiability" question by taking into account notable philosophical critiques of Popper by Carl Gustav Hempel and Willard Van Orman Quine and provides a definition of theory other than as a set of falsifiable statements. As Kitcher points out, if one took a strictly Popperian view of "theory," observations of Uranus when it was first discovered in 1781 would have "falsified" Isaac Newton's celestial mechanics.
Rather, people suggested that another planet influenced Uranus'
orbit—and this prediction was indeed eventually confirmed. Kitcher
agrees with Popper that "there is surely something right in the idea
that a science can succeed only if it can fail."
But he insists that we view scientific theories as consisting of an
"elaborate collection of statements," some of which are not falsifiable,
and others—what he calls "auxiliary hypotheses," which are.
Tautological nature
A related claim to the supposed unfalsifiability of evolution is that natural selection is tautological. Specifically, it is often argued that the phrase "survival of the fittest" is a tautology, in that fitness is defined as ability to survive and reproduce. This phrase was first used by Herbert Spencer
in 1864 but is rarely used by biologists. Additionally, fitness is more
accurately defined as the state of possessing traits that make survival
more likely; this definition, unlike simple "survivability," avoids
being trivially true.
Similarly, it is argued that evolutionary theory is circular reasoning,
in that evidence is interpreted as supporting evolution, but evolution
is required to interpret the evidence. An example of this is the claim
that geological strata are dated through the fossils they hold, but that fossils are in turn dated by the strata they are in. However, in most cases strata are not dated by their fossils, but by their position relative to other strata and by radiometric dating, and most strata were dated before the theory of evolution was formulated.
Evidence
Objections to the evidence that evolution occurs tend to be more
concrete and specific, often involving direct analysis of evolutionary
biology's methods and claims.
Lack of observation
Transitional species such as the Archaeopteryx have been a fixture of the creation–evolution debate for almost 150 years.
A common claim of creationists is that evolution has never been observed. Challenges to such objections often come down to debates over how evolution is defined (see the Defining evolution section above). Under the conventional biological definition of evolution,
it is a simple matter to observe evolution occurring. Evolutionary
processes, in the form of populations changing their genetic composition
from generation to generation, have been observed in different
scientific contexts, including the evolution of fruit flies, mice, and bacteria in the laboratory, and of tilapia in the field. Such studies on experimental evolution, particularly those using microorganisms, are now providing important insights into how evolution occurs, especially in the case of antibiotic resistance.
In response to such examples, creationists say there are two major subdivisions of evolution to be considered, microevolution and macroevolution, and it is questionable if macro-evolution has been physically observed to occur.
Most creationist organizations do not dispute the occurrence of
short-term, relatively minor evolutionary changes, such as that observed
even in dog breeding.
Rather, they dispute the occurrence of major evolutionary changes over
long periods of time, which by definition cannot be directly observed,
only inferred from microevolutionary processes and the traces of
macroevolutionary ones.
As biologists define macroevolution, both microevolution and macroevolution have been observed. Speciations, for example, have been directly observed many times.
Additionally, the modern evolutionary synthesis draws no distinction in
the processes described by the theory of evolution when considering
macroevolution and microevolution as the former is simply at the species
level or above and the latter is below the species level. An example of this is ring species.
Additionally, past macroevolution can be inferred from historical
traces. Transitional fossils, for example, provide plausible links
between several different groups of organisms, such as Archaeopteryx linking birds and non-avian dinosaurs, or the Tiktaalik linking fish and limbed amphibians.
Creationists dispute such examples, from asserting that such fossils
are hoaxes or that they belong exclusively to one group or the other, to
asserting that there should be far more evidence of obvious
transitional species. Darwin himself found the paucity of transitional
species to be one of the greatest weaknesses of his theory:
Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.
Darwin appealed to the limited collections
then available, the extreme lengths of time involved, and different
rates of change with some living species differing very little from
fossils of the Silurian
period. In later editions he added "that the periods during which
species have been undergoing modification, though very long as measured
by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during
which these same species remained without undergoing any change."
The number of clear transitional fossils has increased enormously since
Darwin's day, and this problem has been largely resolved with the
advent of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which predicts a primarily stable fossil record broken up by occasional major speciations.
As more and more compelling direct evidence for inter-species and
species-to-species evolution has been gathered, creationists have
redefined their understanding of what amounts to "created kinds," and have continued to insist that more dramatic demonstrations of evolution be experimentally produced. One version of this objection is "Were you there?," popularized by young Earth creationist Ken Ham.
It argues that because no one except God could directly observe events
in the distant past, scientific claims are just speculation or
"story-telling." DNA sequences of the genomes
of organisms allow an independent test of their predicted
relationships, since species which diverged more recently will be more
closely related genetically than species which are more distantly
related; such phylogenetic trees show a hierarchical organization within the tree of life, as predicted by common descent.
In fields such as astrophysics or meteorology,
where direct observation or laboratory experiments are difficult or
impossible, the scientific method instead relies on observation and
logical inference. In such fields, the test of falsifiability is
satisfied when a theory is used to predict the results of new
observations. When such observations contradict a theory's predictions,
it may be revised or discarded if an alternative better explains the
observed facts. For example, Newton's theory of gravitation was replaced by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity when the latter was observed to more precisely predict the orbit of Mercury.
Unreliable evidence
A
related objection is that evolution is based on unreliable evidence,
claiming that evolution is not even well-evidenced. Typically, this is
either based on the argument that evolution's evidence is full of frauds
and hoaxes, that current evidence for evolution is likely to be
overturned as some past evidence has been, or that certain types of
evidence are inconsistent and dubious.
Arguments against evolution's reliability are thus often based on analyzing the history of evolutionary thought or the history of science in general. Creationists point out that in the past, major scientific revolutions
have overturned theories that were at the time considered near-certain.
They thus claim that current evolutionary theory is likely to undergo
such a revolution in the future, on the basis that it is a "theory in
crisis" for one reason or another.
George Romanes' 1892 copy of Ernst Haeckel's embryo drawings, often attributed incorrectly to Haeckel.
Critics of evolution commonly appeal to past scientific hoaxes such as the Piltdown Man forgery.
It is argued that because scientists have been mistaken and deceived in
the past about evidence for various aspects of evolution, the current
evidence for evolution is likely to also be based on fraud and error.
Much of the evidence for evolution has been accused of being fraudulent
at various times, including Archaeopteryx, peppered moth melanism, and Darwin's finches; these claims have been subsequently refuted.
It has also been claimed that certain former pieces of evidence
for evolution which are now considered out-of-date and erroneous, such
as Ernst Haeckel's 19th-century comparative drawings of embryos, used to illustrate his recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"), were not merely errors but frauds. Molecular biologist Jonathan Wells criticizes biology textbooks by alleging that they continue to reproduce such evidence after it has been debunked. In response, the National Center for Science Education
notes that none of the textbooks reviewed by Wells makes the claimed
error, as Haeckel's drawings are shown in a historical context with
discussion about why they are wrong, and the accurate modern drawings
and photos used in the textbooks are misrepresented by Wells.
Unreliable chronology
Illustrations
of dog and human embryos, looking almost identical at 4 weeks then
differing at 6 weeks, shown above a 6-week turtle embryo and 8 day hen
embryo, presented by Haeckel in 1868 as convincing proof of evolution.
The pictures of the earliest embryonic stages are now considered
inaccurate.
Creationists claim that evolution relies on certain types of evidence
that do not give reliable information about the past. For example, it
is argued that radiometric dating technique of evaluating a material's age based on the radioactive decay rates of certain isotopes generates inconsistent and thus unreliable results. Radiocarbon dating based on the carbon-14
isotope has been particularly criticized. It is argued that radiometric
decay relies on a number of unwarranted assumptions such as the
principle of uniformitarianism, consistent decay rates, or rocks acting as closed systems.
Such arguments have been dismissed by scientists on the grounds that
independent methods have confirmed the reliability of radiometric dating
as a whole; additionally, different radiometric dating methods and
techniques have independently confirmed each other's results.
Another form of this objection is that fossil evidence is not
reliable. This is based on a much wider range of claims. These include
that there are too many "gaps" in the fossil record, that fossil-dating is circular (see the Unfalsifiability section above), or that certain fossils, such as polystrate fossils, are seemingly "out of place." Examination by geologists have found polystrate fossils to be consistent with in situ formation. It is argued that certain features of evolution support creationism's catastrophism (cf. Great Flood), rather than evolution's gradualistic punctuated equilibrium, which some assert is an ad hoc theory to explain the fossil gaps.
Plausibility
Some
of the oldest and most common objections to evolution dispute whether
evolution can truly account for all the apparent complexity and order in
the natural world. It is argued
that evolution is too unlikely or otherwise lacking to account for
various aspects of life, and therefore that an intelligence, such as God
of the Abrahamic religions, must at the very least be appealed to for those specific features.
Improbability
A common objection to evolution is that it is simply too unlikely for
life, in its complexity and apparent "design," to have arisen "by
chance." It is argued that the odds of life having arisen without a
deliberate intelligence guiding it are so astronomically low that it is
unreasonable not to infer an intelligent designer from the natural world, and specifically from the diversity of life. A more extreme version of this argument is that evolution cannot create complex structures (see the Creation of complex structures
section below). The idea that it is simply too implausible for life to
have evolved is often wrongly encapsulated with a quotation that the
"probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance
that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to
assemble a Boeing 747"—a claim attributed to astrophysicist Fred Hoyle and known as Hoyle's fallacy. Hoyle was a Darwinist, atheist and anti-theist, but advocated the theory of panspermia, in which abiogenesis begins in outer space and primitive life on Earth is held to have arrived via natural dispersion.
Views superficially similar, but unrelated to Hoyle's, are thus
invariably justified with arguments from analogy. The basic idea of this
argument for a designer is the teleological argument, an argument for the existence of God based on the perceived order or purposefulness of the universe.
A common way of using this as an objection to evolution is by appealing
to the 18th-century philosopher William Paley's watchmaker analogy,
which argues that certain natural phenomena are analogical to a watch
(in that they are ordered, or complex, or purposeful), which means that,
like a watch, they must have been designed by a "watchmaker"—an
intelligent agent. This argument forms the core of intelligent design, a
neo-creationist movement seeking to establish certain variants of the
design argument as legitimate science, rather than as philosophy or theology, and have them be taught alongside evolution.
Because the theory of evolution is often thought of as the idea that life arose "by chance," design arguments such as William Paley's watchmaker analogy of 1802 have long been popular objections to the theory: Paley's book included a response to the proto-evolutionary ideas of Erasmus Darwin.
This objection is fundamentally an argument by lack of imagination, or argument from incredulity: a certain explanation is seen as being counterintuitive,
and therefore an alternate, more intuitive explanation is appealed to
instead. Supporters of evolution generally respond by arguing that
evolution is not based on "chance," but on predictable chemical
interactions: natural processes, rather than supernatural beings, are
the "designer." Although the process involves some random elements, it
is the non-random selection of survival-enhancing genes that drives
evolution along an ordered trajectory. The fact that the results are
ordered and seem "designed" is no more evidence for a supernatural
intelligence than the appearance of complex natural phenomena (e.g. snowflakes).
It is also argued that there is insufficient evidence to make
statements about the plausibility or implausibility of abiogenesis, that
certain structures demonstrate poor design,
and that the implausibility of life evolving exactly as it did is no
more evidence for an intelligence than the implausibility of a deck of
cards being shuffled and dealt in a certain random order.
It has also been noted that arguments against some form of life
arising "by chance" are really objections to nontheistic abiogenesis,
not to evolution. Indeed, arguments against "evolution" are based on the
misconception that abiogenesis is a component of, or necessary
precursor to, evolution. Similar objections sometimes conflate the Big
Bang with evolution.
Christian apologist and philosopher Alvin Plantinga,
a supporter of intelligent design, has formalized and revised the
improbability argument as the evolutionary argument against naturalism,
which asserts that it is irrational to reject a supernatural,
intelligent creator because the apparent probability of certain
faculties evolving is so low. Specifically, Plantinga claims that
evolution cannot account for the rise of reliable reasoning faculties.
Plantinga argues that whereas a God would be expected to create beings
with reliable reasoning faculties, evolution would be just as likely to
lead to unreliable ones, meaning that if evolution is true, it is
irrational to trust whatever reasoning one relies on to conclude that it
is true. This novel epistemological
argument has been criticized similarly to other probabilistic design
arguments. It has also been argued that rationality, if conducive to
survival, is more likely to be selected for than irrationality, making
the natural development of reliable cognitive faculties more likely than
unreliable ones.
A related argument against evolution is that most mutations are harmful. However, the vast majority of mutations are neutral,
and the minority of mutations which are beneficial or harmful are often
situational; a mutation that is harmful in one environment may be
helpful in another.
Unexplained aspects of the natural world
1880 photo of the Berlin Archaeopteryx specimen, showing leg feathers that were removed subsequently, during preparation.
In addition to complex structures and systems, among the phenomena that critics variously claim evolution cannot explain are consciousness, hominid intelligence, instincts, emotions, metamorphosis, photosynthesis, homosexuality, music, language, religion, morality, and altruism.
Most of these, such as hominid intelligence, instinct, emotion,
photosynthesis, language, and altruism, have been well-explained by
evolution, while others remain mysterious, or only have preliminary
explanations. Supporters of evolution further contend that no
alternative explanation has been able to adequately explain the
biological origin of these phenomena either.
Creationists argue against evolution on the grounds that it
cannot explain certain non-evolutionary processes, such as abiogenesis,
the Big Bang, or the meaning of life. In such instances, evolution is being redefined
to refer to the entire history of the universe, and it is argued that
if one aspect of the universe is seemingly inexplicable, the entire body
of scientific theories must be baseless. At this point, objections
leave the arena of evolutionary biology and become general scientific or
philosophical disputes.
Astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe have argued in favor of cosmic ancestry, and against abiogenesis and evolution.
Impossibility
This
class of objections is more radical than the above, claiming that a
major aspect of evolution is not merely unscientific or implausible, but
rather impossible, because it contradicts some other law of nature or
is constrained in such a way that it cannot produce the biological
diversity of the world.
Creation of complex structures
The bacterial flagellum has been invoked in creation science and in intelligent design to illustrate the concept of irreducible complexity. Careful analysis shows that there are no major obstacles to a gradual evolution of flagella.
Living things have fantastically intricate features—at the anatomical, cellular and molecular level— that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. The only prudent conclusion is that they are the products of intelligent design, not evolution.
— Jonathan Sarfati, quoting Scientific American editor John Rennie
Modern evolutionary theory posits that all biological systems must
have evolved incrementally, through a combination of natural selection
and genetic drift.
Both Darwin and his early detractors recognized the potential problems
that could arise for his theory of natural selection if the lineage of
organs and other biological features could not be accounted for by
gradual, step-by-step changes over successive generations; if all the
intermediary stages between an initial organ and the organ it will
become are not all improvements upon the original, it will be impossible
for the later organ to develop by the process of natural selection
alone. Complex organs such as the eye had been presented by William
Paley as exemplifying the need for design by God, and anticipating early criticisms that the evolution of the eye and other complex organs seemed impossible, Darwin noted that:
[R]eason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.
Similarly, ethologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins said on the topic of the evolution of the feather in an interview for the television program The Atheism Tapes:
There's got to be a series of advantages all the way in the feather. If you can't think of one, then that's your problem not natural selection's problem... It's perfectly possible feathers began as fluffy extensions of reptilian scales to act as insulators... The earliest feathers might have been a different approach to hairiness among reptiles keeping warm.
Creationist arguments have been made such as "What use is half an eye?" and "What use is half a wing?". Research has confirmed that the natural evolution of the eye and other intricate organs is entirely feasible.
Creationist claims have persisted that such complexity evolving without
a designer is inconceivable and this objection to evolution has been
refined in recent years as the more sophisticated irreducible complexity
argument of the intelligent design movement, formulated by Michael
Behe. Biochemist Michael Behe
has argued that current evolutionary theory cannot account for certain
complex structures, particularly in microbiology. On this basis, Behe
argues that such structures were "purposely arranged by an intelligent
agent."
Irreducible complexity is the idea that certain biological
systems cannot be broken down into their constituent parts and remain
functional, and therefore that they could not have evolved naturally
from less complex or complete systems. Whereas past arguments of this
nature generally relied on macroscopic organs, Behe's primary examples
of irreducible complexity have been cellular and biochemical in nature.
He has argued that the components of systems such as the blood clotting cascade, the immune system, and the bacterial flagellum are so complex and interdependent that they could not have evolved from simpler systems.
In fact, my argument for intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin's Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can't be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process. To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum--or any equally complex system--was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven.
— Michael Behe
In the years since Behe proposed irreducible complexity, new
developments and advances in biology such as an improved understanding
of the evolution of flagella, have already undermined these arguments The idea that seemingly irreducibly complex systems cannot evolve has been refuted through evolutionary mechanisms, such as exaptation (the adaptation of organs for entirely new functions)
and the use of "scaffolding," which are initially necessary features of
a system that later degenerate when they are no longer required.
Potential evolutionary pathways have been provided for all of the
systems Behe used as examples of irreducible complexity.
Cambrian explosion complexity argument
The Cambrian explosion was the relatively rapid appearance around 542 million years ago of most major animal phyla as demonstrated in the fossil record, and many more phyla now extinct. This was accompanied by major diversification of other organisms. Prior to the Cambrian explosion most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 or 80 million years the rate of diversification accelerated by an order of magnitude and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today, although they did not resemble the species of today.
The basic problem with this is that natural selection calls for
the slow accumulation of changes, where a new phyla would take longer
than a new class which would take longer than a new order, which would
take longer than a new family, which would take longer than a new genus
would take longer than emergence of a new species but the apparent occurrence of high-level taxa without precedents is perhaps implying unusual evolutionary mechanisms.
There is general consensus that many factors helped trigger the Cambrian explosion,
but there is no generally accepted consensus about the combination and
the Cambrian explosion continues to be an area of controversy and
research over why so rapid, why at the phylum level, why so many phyla
then and none since, and even if the apparent fossil record is accurate.
An example of opinions involving the commonly cited rise in oxygen Great Oxidation Event from biologist PZ Myers summarizes:
"What it was was environmental changes, in particular the bioturbation
revolution caused by the evolution of worms that released buried
nutrients, and the steadily increasing oxygen content of the atmosphere that allowed those nutrients to fuel growth;
ecological competition, or a kind of arms race, that gave a distinct
selective advantage to novelties that allowed species to occupy new
niches; and the evolution of developmental mechanisms that enabled
multicellular organisms to generate new morphotypes readily." The
increase in molecular oxygen (O2) also may have allowed the formation of the protective ozone layer (O3) that helps shield Earth from lethal UV radiation from the Sun.
Creation of information
A recent objection of creationists to evolution is that evolutionary mechanisms such as mutation cannot generate new information. Creationists such as William A. Dembski, Werner Gitt, and Lee Spetner have attempted to use information theory to dispute evolution. Dembski has argued that life demonstrates specified complexity,
and proposed a law of conservation of information that extremely
improbable "complex specified information" could be conveyed by natural
means but never originated without an intelligent agent.
Gitt asserted that information is an intrinsic characteristic of life
and that an analysis demonstrates the mind and will of their Creator.
These claims have been widely rejected by the scientific
community which asserts that new information is regularly generated in
evolution whenever a novel mutation or gene duplication
arises. Dramatic examples of entirely new and unique traits arising
through mutation have been observed in recent years, such as the
evolution of nylon-eating bacteria which developed new enzymes to efficiently digest a material that never existed before the modern era.
There is no need to account for the creation of information when an
organism is considered together with the environment it evolved in. The
information in the genome forms a record of how it was possible to
survive in a particular environment. The information is gathered from
the environment through trial and error as mutating organisms either reproduce or fail.
Violation of the second law of thermodynamics
Since Earth receives energy from the Sun, it is an open system. The second law of thermodynamics applies only to isolated systems.
Another objection is that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics.
The law states that "the entropy of an isolated system not in
equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value
at equilibrium". In other words, an isolated system's entropy
(a measure of the dispersal of energy in a physical system so that it
is not available to do mechanical work) will tend to increase or stay
the same, not decrease. Creationists argue that evolution violates this
physical law by requiring a decrease in entropy, or disorder, over time.
The claims have been criticized for ignoring that the second law only applies to isolated systems. Organisms are open systems
as they constantly exchange energy and matter with their environment:
for example animals eat food and excrete waste, and radiate and absorb
heat. It is argued that the Sun-Earth-space system does not violate the
second law because the enormous increase in entropy due to the Sun and
Earth radiating into space dwarfs the local decrease in entropy caused
by the existence and evolution of self-organizing life.
Since the second law of thermodynamics has a precise mathematical definition, this argument can be analyzed quantitatively. This was done by physicist Daniel F. Styer,
who concluded: "Quantitative estimates of the entropy involved in
biological evolution demonstrate that there is no conflict between
evolution and the second law of thermodynamics."
In a published letter to the editor of The Mathematical Intelligencer titled "How anti-evolutionists abuse mathematics," mathematician Jason Rosenhouse stated:
The fact is that natural forces routinely lead to local decreases in entropy. Water freezes into ice and fertilised eggs turn into babies. Plants use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen, but [we do] not invoke divine intervention to explain the process [...] thermodynamics offers nothing to dampen our confidence in Darwinism.
Moral implications
Other
common objections to evolution allege that evolution leads to
objectionable results, including bad beliefs, behaviors, and events. It
is argued that the teaching of evolution degrades values, undermines
morals, and fosters irreligion or atheism. These may be considered appeals to consequences (a form of logical fallacy), as the potential ramifications of belief in evolutionary theory have nothing to do with its objective empirical reality.
Humans as animals
In biological classification humans are animals, a basic point which has been known for more than 2,000 years. Aristotle already described man as a political animal and Porphyry defined man as a rational animal, a definition accepted by the Scholastic philosophers in the Middle Ages. The creationist J. Rendle-Short asserted in Creation magazine that if people are taught evolution they can be expected to behave like animals:
since animals behave in all sorts of different ways, this is
meaningless. In evolutionary terms, humans are able to acquire knowledge
and change their behaviour to meet social standards, so humans behave in the manner of other humans.
Social effects
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1871 caricature of Charles Darwin as an ape.
Thomas Henry Huxley's book Man's Place in Nature (1863) was the first devoted to human evolution and an early example of comparative biology.
In 1917, Vernon Kellogg published Headquarters Nights: A Record of Conversations and Experiences at the Headquarters of the German Army in France and Belgium,
which asserted that German intellectuals were totally committed to
might-makes-right due to "whole-hearted acceptance of the worst of
Neo-Darwinism, the Allmacht of natural selection applied rigorously to human life and society and Kultur." This strongly influenced the politician William Jennings Bryan, who saw Darwinism as a moral threat to America and campaigned against evolutionary theory; his campaign culminated in the Scopes Trial, which effectively prevented teaching of evolution in most public schools until the 1960s.
R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, wrote August 8, 2005, in NPR's Taking Issue
essay series, that "Debates over education, abortion, environmentalism,
homosexuality and a host of other issues are really debates about the
origin — and thus the meaning — of human life. ...evolutionary theory
stands at the base of moral relativism and the rejection of traditional morality."
Henry M. Morris, engineering professor and founder of the Creation Research Society and the Institute of Creation Research, claims that evolution was part of a pagan religion that emerged after the Tower of Babel, was part of Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies, and was responsible for everything from war to pornography to the breakup of the nuclear family. He has also claimed that perceived social ills like crime, teenage pregnancies, homosexuality, abortion, immorality, wars, and genocide are caused by a belief in evolution.
Rev. D. James Kennedy of The Center for Reclaiming America for Christ and Coral Ridge Ministries claims that Darwin was responsible for Adolf Hitler's atrocities. In Kennedy's documentary and the accompanying pamphlet with the same title, Darwin's Deadly Legacy,
Kennedy states that "To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler." In his
efforts to expose the "harmful effects that evolution is still having on
our nation, our children, and our world," Kennedy also states that, "We
have had 150 years of the theory of Darwinian evolution, and what has
it brought us? Whether Darwin intended it or not, millions of deaths,
the destruction of those deemed inferior, the devaluing of human life,
increasing hopelessness." The Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture fellow Richard Weikart has made similar claims, as have other creationists. The claim was central to the documentary film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) promoting intelligent design creationism. The Anti-Defamation League describes such claims as outrageous misuse of the Holocaust
and its imagery, and as trivializing the "...many complex factors that
led to the mass extermination of European Jewry. Hitler did not need
Darwin or evolution to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish
people, and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's
genocidal madness. Moreover, anti-Semitism existed long before Darwin ever wrote a word."
Young Earth creationist Kent Hovind blames communism, socialism, World War I, World War II, racism, the Holocaust, Stalin's war crimes, the Vietnam War, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields on evolution, as well as the increase in crime, unwed mothers, and other social ills.
Hovind's son Eric Hovind claims that evolution is responsible for
tattoos, body piercing, premarital sex, unwed births, sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs), divorce, and child abuse.
Supporters of evolution dismiss such criticisms as
counterfactual, and some argue that the opposite seems to be the case. A
study published by the author and illustrator Gregory S. Paul
found that religious beliefs, including belief in creationism and
disbelief in evolution, are positively correlated with social ills like
crime. The Barna Group
surveys find that Christians and non-Christians in the U.S. have
similar divorce rates, and the highest divorce rates in the U.S. are
among Baptists and Pentecostals, both sects which reject evolution and embrace creationism.
Michael Shermer argued in Scientific American in October 2006 that evolution supports concepts like family values, avoiding lies, fidelity, moral codes and the rule of law.
He goes on to suggest that evolution gives more support to the notion
of an omnipotent creator, rather than a tinkerer with limitations based
on a human model, the more common image subscribed to by creationists.
Careful analysis of the creationist charges that evolution has led to
moral relativism and the Holocaust yields the conclusion that these
charges appear to be highly suspect.
Such analyses conclude that the origins of the Holocaust are more
likely to be found in historical Christian anti-Semitism than in
evolution.
Evolution has been used to justify Social Darwinism, the exploitation of so-called "lesser breeds without the law" by "superior races," particularly in the nineteenth century.
Typically strong European nations that had successfully expanded their
empires could be said to have "survived" in the struggle for dominance. With this attitude, Europeans except for Christian missionaries rarely adopted any customs and languages of local people under their empires.
Atheism
Another charge leveled at evolutionary theory by creationists is that
belief in evolution is either tantamount to atheism, or conducive to
atheism.
It is commonly claimed that all proponents of evolutionary theory are
"materialistic atheists." On the other hand, Davis A. Young argues that
creation science itself is harmful to Christianity because its
bad science will turn more away than it recruits. Young asks, "Can we
seriously expect non-Christians to develop a respect for Christianity if
we insist on teaching the brand of science that creationism brings with
it?" However, evolution neither requires nor rules out the existence of a supernatural being. Philosopher Robert T. Pennock makes the comparison that evolution is no more atheistic than plumbing. H. Allen Orr, professor of biology at University of Rochester, notes that:
Of the five founding fathers of twentieth-century evolutionary biology—Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J. B. S. Haldane, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky—one was a devout Anglican who preached sermons and published articles in church magazines, one a practicing Unitarian, one a dabbler in Eastern mysticism, one an apparent atheist, and one a member of the Russian Orthodox Church and the author of a book on religion and science.
In addition, a wide range of religions have reconciled a belief in a supernatural being with evolution.
Molleen Matsumura of the National Center for Science Education found
that "of Americans in the twelve largest Christian denominations, 89.6%
belong to churches that support evolution education." These churches
include the "United Methodist Church, National Baptist Convention USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), National Baptist Convention of America, African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, and others." A poll in 2000 done for People for the American Way
found that 70% of the American public felt that evolution was
compatible with a belief in God. Only 48% of the people polled could
choose the correct definition of evolution from a list, however.
One poll reported in the journal Nature
showed that among American scientists (across various disciplines),
about 40 percent believe in both evolution and an active deity (theistic
evolution).
This is similar to the results reported for surveys of the general
American public. Also, about 40 percent of the scientists polled believe
in a God that answers prayers, and believe in immortality. While about 55% of scientists surveyed were atheists, agnostics,
or nonreligious theists, atheism is far from universal among scientists
who support evolution, or among the general public that supports
evolution. Very similar results were reported from a 1997 Gallup Poll of the American public and scientists.
| Group | Belief in young Earth creationism | Belief in God-guided evolution | Belief in evolution without God guiding the process |
|---|---|---|---|
| American public | 44% | 39% | 10% |
| American scientists* | 5% | 40% | 55% |
| *Includes persons with professional degrees in fields unrelated to evolution, such as computer science, chemical engineering, physics, psychology, business administration, etcetera. | |||
Traditionalists still object to the idea that diversity in life,
including human beings, arose through natural processes without a need
for supernatural intervention, and they argue against evolution on the
basis that it contradicts their literal interpretation of creation myths about separate "created kinds." However, many religions, such as Catholicism, have reconciled their beliefs with evolution through theistic evolution.
