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Intelligent Design vs. Evolution sample essay
Creation-Evolution debate has a long history, and consensus is still not found. So-called Creation - Evolution controversy was raised in America at the end of 18th century, when it was discovered that Earth is much older than it was believed according to Biblical studies. Next strong argument against biblical creation theory was made by Charles Darwin, who provided evidence in his famous book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection that human beings evolved from other species. Darwin’s theory became very popular and formed new scientific approaches to the origins of human beings. However, these arguments were denied by churches. Religion is very important to many Americans, thus the issue of what theory to be taken as the basis of teaching in schools has been discussed in America over and over.
Creation-evolution controversy entered the sphere of education when public schools first started building their studying programs on Darwin’s scientific theory of the human origins. The theory of natural selection and evolution excludes the supernatural influence and is opposite to the Biblical explanation. In reaction to such an initiative, the State of Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which prohibited teaching any theory of human origins that would contradict Biblical teachings. The Act was supported and remained active from 1925 till 1967. Although the Act was cancelled in 1967, the debate goes on up to our days.
In early 1990s there evolved a certain group of people involved in the debate, who called themselves intelligent design movement. Members of intelligent design movement (also called Neo-Creationism) and their advocates admit that science cannot be ignored and is reliable; however, some aspects cannot be explained by science. They believe that science and religion do not exclude each other, but simply approach the issue from different sides (whereas creationists believe that scientific and biblical approach to this issue are incompatible). Evolution advocates called this movement “creationism in a cheap tuxedo” (Creation-Evolution Controversy) and realized that the only purpose of this movement is to eventually return Biblical teachings into public schools.
Scientific and religious ideologies are naturally different. Scientific approach accepts only scientifically-based proofs and does not accept anything that cannot be logically explained, proven theoretically or practically demonstrated through multiple experiments. Religious ideology is based on faith. Believers do not question Scriptures and believe that God and his actions cannot be logically explained or understood, thus should be simply accepted with faith. Thus, we see that these are two opposite world-views and ideologies.
In pure condition religious and scientific ideologies cannot be present in one person. However, religious ideology in pure condition with denial of everything connected to science is an extreme and is rare nowadays. Pure scientific approach is more frequent, however rare as well, since being emotional beings we still tend to accept some things without looking for scientific explanation. There is only a scope of people who look for scientific explanations of all of the emotions people have. Even Freud with his tendency to find explanation to human feelings and emotions, admitted that there is uncontrollable aspect in human behavior that cannot be fully studied.
Thus, nowadays most of us combine religious and scientific worldviews in varying percentages. Even a person that is an atheist takes something on faith as I have already mentioned and does not look for scientific explanations. Moreover, human psychology is build in such way that even is you deny God’s existence you are still very likely to start praying in hard situations that you no control over. Thus, on practice religious and scientific ideologies do combine and do not fully exclude each other.
Personal worldview is shaped by its environment. What else can I say? We live in a country that was founded by many believers, people that were running from religious discrimination in their home countries. Faith in God found its reflection in the American constitution. Every U.S. banknote has the phrase “In God We Trust” on it. Nobody can imagine American society without such holidays as Christmas, Easter, and even Halloween, which is not a Christian holiday, but is based on the faith in supernatural. Thus, religious ideology gets into our psychology either consciously or subconsciously. No matter what you think, it is in our heads.
The other thing is that science is also all around us. Can you imagine life in America without modern means of communication, transportation, and medicine, our army without newest weapons, our houses without heating and electricity, etc? I cannot. At least I cannot imagine my day without Internet, microwave, car, telephone. Thus, naturally, science makes up the other part of my environment and thus shapes my worldview.
Interestingly enough most of us apply religious approach to the products of science. Why do I say so? Well, personally I do not ask questions about TV or Internet. I just find out how to use it and I believe that this is exactly the way how it works. Do I search for explanation why it works this way? Unless I am majoring in physics or electronics I do not. However I do ask questions on how human beings were created. Some people do not. They just believe that people were created by God, and it covers all their questions. At the same time these people can study physics in school and now how a TV-set works. Thus, we see that combination of religious and scientific ideologies varies in proportions and forms among people.
Writing this essay and thinking about the issue I realized that there are different levels of perceiving the word theory. The very word theory means that it was proven to be true on some examples, but it was not proven that it is always true. Theories that were proven as an absolute truth are called axioms. This is a scientific approach towards theories. Common approach is different. Not wishing and not having the necessity to go deep into every statement made by acknowledged scientists, we tend to believe them. A sound proof and empirical evidence will convince us that the theory is true, however we forget that according to definition of theory, it is not necessarily an absolute truth under all circumstances and in all times. Any theory, no matter how well it is backed up through laboratory testing and experiments nowadays, cannot be taken as an absolute truth until impossibility of an opposite is not proven.
This brings us back to the debate of what we should teach our children at schools. Can we teach our children that humans evolved from earlier species, giving them the proof presented by Darwin and later scientists? This is the opinion of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution advocates. Proponents of this theory like people of dominating scientific ideology believe that any statement must be empirically proven and argue that their point of view is proven through evidence of genetic variation. Or should we not forget that in God we trust, as we read on our national banknotes and teach our children that God created us, according to the Scripture? The opinion of intelligent creation theory advocates that science cannot give answers to all questions about human creation and that it can be explained only through intelligent creation of human beings in their current form without any previous natural selection. Intelligent creation movement decided not to appeal to religion directly, but their point of view are based on religious ideology of faith rather than scientific proof.
My opinion is that children should have both theology and science classes in school. These should be separate classes because science and religion do speak different languages. When children study biology and human physiology they have scientific class, where they learn scientific proofs. There can be very different theories, however only those that have sound evidence can be considered for education. Here you can not take with faith everything you hear.
This is the approach that can be accepted only in theology classes. Religion does not require any scientific proofs, it is based on faith. Since we live in a free country, and both opinions have the right for existence, I think that children should be informed about the both. However, there needs to be a clear separation of what science is and what faith is. These two cannot be mixed in school. Intelligent design cannot be included into science classes because it appeals to non-scientific methods. Besides, if children would learn from early age that some things in scientific sphere can be based on faith rather than on proofs, our scientific development will slow down. If all people would still answer such questions as “why is the wind blowing?” and “why are apples falling down?” with “God did so,” we would still be living in caves.
Having a choice and knowing different points of view each person decides what to accept. However, such a decision can be made only by an adult who is able to analyze pros and cons. Children are unable of doing such an analysis. Thus, on this stage of learning children should be simply informed that there are different approaches to this issue: scientific approach where you rely on proofs, and religious approach where you rely on God’s word.
Bibliography
“Creation-Evolution Controversy.” Wikipedia. 10 Dec. 2005. Available:“Evolution.” Wikipedia. 12 Dec. 2005. Available:
“Intelligent Design Movement.” Wikipedia. 11 Dec. 2005. Available:
“Teach the Controversy.” Wikipedia. 4 Dec. 2005. Available:
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