Creationism Vs Evolution Essay

Creationism v. Evolution: The Fight for the Right in Public Schools
According to Yasmine Hafiz of the Huffington Post, around 42 percent of the population of the United States believes that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years and approximately 31 percent believe that humans evolved with God guiding the process (error of ± four percentage points). FUNNEL DOWN. In spite of the efforts to incorporate Creationism within public school science classes, evolution should be taught because it is a science whereas Creationism is a faith.
According to Michael Ruse at Stanford University, Creationism is the belief that God created the Earth and heavens out of nothing, without help, and through an act of free will. Creationism
also expresses that God constantly interacts with its creations, intervening when it sees fit, controlling their lives. Creationism was created during the Reformation, when the Protestants broke from the Catholic Church. These groups of people that broke off from the Catholic Church such as Luther and Calvin stated the need to take the passages from the bible and put these scriptures into practice.
Creationism reemerged again in the late 18th to early 19th centuries when the Great Awakening and other religious revivalist movements occurred when taking the bible literally became part of religion. America took heavily took part in this literalism, especially in the South. First, many Seventh-day Adventists wanted to combine modern science and the literal readings of Genesis. Also, as the Evangelicals succeeded in creating the Prohibition, there energy was put into another field, Creationism. Furthermore, the spread of public education exposed children going to these schools to new ideas. Lastly, the documentation of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was released to the public (Ruse).
Young-Earth Creationism is the first type of Creationism.
Young-Earth Creationists believe that the Earth was created in the creation days stated in the book of Genesis 1 and that these days were six literal days, which occurred between 6,000 to 12,000 years ago. Creation Science is a subsection of Young Earth Creationism and contains the same belief that the Earth was created in six days, but they also believe that all plants and animals that are in existence today, are descendants that of all original life created during the “week of creation.” However, “these original kinds of animals, microevolution has resulted in similar species developing.” An example given by Religious Tolerance in their article is that God created one form of deer and, through the ages of time, has developed into a diversity of deer species (“Various Evolution and Creation Science
Beliefs”).
Old Earth Creationism believes that the Earth was not created within the last 6000 to 10,000 years, but that God created everything over an extended period of time. Old Earth Creationism is split into three different subsections, with the first being the Gap Theory. The Gap Theory under the Old Earth Creationism is also known as the “ruin restitution” theory. This theory is a form of Old Earth Creationism that sticks with the Genesis version of creation but accounts for the fact that the universe is billions of years old. They state that there is a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. These Gap Creationists believe that science has proven, without a doubt, that the earth is far older than the Bible originally states. They believe the gap was omitted from the Bible for a reason, but they have not figured out what that reason is. Gap Creationists believe that various observations and evidence, such as fossils, ice core, ice ages, and geological formations are outlined by science without contradicting their literal belief in Genesis. ("Old Earth Creation Science.")
The second subsection of Old Earth Creationism is Day-Age Creationism. They believe that the book of Genesis is wrong; the Earth was not created in 24-hours, but created over long eons of time. There is two points that the Day-Age Creationist use to make their claims. The first being that incorporating evolution into their belief by inserting time into the bible, making the “six weeks” into a longer period of time. The second point, Thompson states that
Second, certain Bible believers, although not necessarily desiring to defend organic evolution as correct, nevertheless have accepted uniformitarian dating methods. These “progressive creationists” (so named because they believe that God created, not instantaneously, but through “progressive” time periods) are convinced that such methods are correct and that the Earth is ancient. They therefore must find a way to inject geologic time into the Genesis record.
Using these two points, the Day-Age Creationist force the scriptural archives to accommodate the geological period of the Earth.
The final subsection of Old-Earth Creationism is the Progressive Creationism. Progressive Creationists believe that the flood stated in Genesis and accept all theology including the creation of man, and the actions he partook in. They accept that the flood was regional and not worldwide causing the several million species inhabiting the world to have their own ecological niches due to the fact that there are species in Australia and New Zealand that are a very long distance from where the Ark supposedly landed. (Tooley).
The last form of Creationism is Neo-Creationism. As stated by the Center for Science and Culture, Neo-Creationism is a movement whose goal is to reaffirm creationism in a way that is more likely to be understood and accepted by the general public and scientific community and it contains one subsection called Intelligent Design. The Center also asserts that Intelligent Design is the belief that an intellectual force controls different aspects of the universe and living things, and this force guides them to a predestined goal.
In America, many citizens still believe in Creationism (See Figure 1.1). These people who believe in Creationism, also believe that Creationism is a science and should be taught in public school science classes. But, Creationism is not a science it is a faith. In the dictionary, science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. ]
On the other hand, we have evolution. Evolution is “is descent with modification” (“Evolution 101”). This means evolution is the process of living organisms developing over time, branching out from past forms of species during the history of the Earth. Given by the National Science Teachers Association, scientists try to create theories that are justified in and based on evidence, are logical, have been tested in different settings and different data, and have the possibility to open people up to new information. The theory of evolution is just that. Scientists are trying to use this theory to prove the history of life on Earth. The authors also state “There are no longer a debate among scientists about whether evolution has and is occurring.” There is even fossilized proof of species evolving over time. For example, the oldest fossil of human descent is a jawbone called the ‘Ledi Jaw’ that came from the Homo habilis species. This jawbone is approximately 2.75 to 2.80 million years old. Fossils have been found that track the change of species from the Homo habilis to the Homo sapiens, showing the evolutionary track from 2.80 million years ago to now According to the Anti-Defamation League’s article, Religious Doctrine in the Science Classroom; Putting Education & Religious Freedom at Risk, in the United States Constitution, the First Amendment contains an establishment clause.
This prohibits the government from sanctioning any religious beliefs. This guarantees that the public schools in America remain a place that students of all faiths may study and learn, free from discrimination between different denominations. To keep schools in accordance with the First Amendment, schools cannot teach Creationism as a science class. If it were taught as a science class, this would destroy the freedom of religious practices because not all religion’s believed one true god created
everything.
In 1987, in Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court ruled Louisiana’s “Creationism Act” as unconstitutional due to the fact that teaching “Creationism” does not promote religious freedom. Then, the court ruled that science education would be challenged if it is forbidden to teach evolution unless Creationism is also taught as a science. Again in 1990 in the Webster v. Lenox School District case, “Creationism” was brought to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. They ruled that school districts may forbid teachers from teaching Creationism as “Creationism” due to the fact that it violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause which then would keep religious beliefs from entering the public school system (Matsumura).
Evolution should be taught in public school because it is a science due to the fact that it has facts backing it up. Creationism, on the other hand, contains no facts and is based solely on beliefs, thus not making it a legitimate scientific theory. “One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.”― Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species