What are current theories that conflict with Darwin's theory? What evidence is used to support these theories?
What is the scientific community's response to these theories?
There are several different theories that oppose Darwin’s theory of Evolution. Currently, there have been 19 major world religions that can branch out into around 270 large beliefs groups and several other minor ones. Among these belief groups, estimation can be drawn that there are at least hundreds of probable and varying creation stories, but there is a group of beliefs that conducts extreme popularity in North America. There are:
1) The creation science, whose belief is held based on the interpretations from the biblical book of Genesis and can be further divided into two main groups. The New Earth creationists think that the planet Earth and all life forms, along with the remaining of the universe, were made by God in six days, 144 hour, fewer than 10,000 years ago. And from there, it is believed that no significant changes have been made among species and no new species have been created either. The Old Earth creationists however, feel that geology and radiometric dating has proven Earth to be billions of years of age. They hold the faith that God had created this world then, and the interpretation of an inerrant Bible meant the “six day” to be a very long time.
Finally, we have the theistic evolution view which claims that evolution is as how the scientists have proven it to be, but there is an intelligent agent behind it, manipulating this evolution as a tool to accomplish the higher purpose which is the human existence and it is also known otherwise as the Intelligent Design.
Creationism:
Below are some of the examples out of the many that Creationists give to oppose the theory evolution:
(i) Henry Morris recorded in the bible of Genesis that: "All processes manifest a tendency toward decay and disintegration, with a net increase in what is called the entropy, or state of randomness or disorder, of the system. This is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics." The theory of evolution opposes that because entropy decreases and complexity and order increase. Evolution will then be proven wrong as it contradicts the universally accepted scientifically-proven second law of thermodynamics.
(ii) Radiometric dating I: This technique is said to give meaningless results. The scientists taking the measurements of the age of the rocks have already previously drawn estimation of what they think is the answer. The measurements will then not be accurate because there is already an expected result. The measurements will then not be precise and accurate, but purely a self-fulfilled prophecy.
The scientists’ reactions to their claim go as shown below:
(i) Assuming, the Bible of Genesis IS the word of God, then we must assume it to be inerrant, or one would have to accept the assumption that God errs as well which is not a common attribute Christians would usually relate to God with.
On the other hand, since humans are fallible, assuming the Bible is only a historical document, it would be correct to assume that it must contain errors and perhaps even additional materials that were recorded that could possibly be against God’s will.
Thus most scientists believe that the Bible were written and edited by Man who had lack of scientific understanding in the past who were spreading their specific faith groups. They could also be influenced by their unique cultures. This can be seen as they were able to attribute many statements in the name of God that will be considered as immoral given the standard judgment in this age. They could also extract materials freely from other Pagan cultures and disagree with other authors. This raises a doubt on the accuracy of the document as there may be errors made on the recording of events and statements and they could then probably be assuming the statements to be God’s will.
(ii) The basis of creation science is that the Earth is very young, and that it is created alongside with the universe 6 to 10 thousand years ago. All scientists generally reject this claim.
Scientists have used various methods of geology to date fossils, etc to before 10,000 BCE. Based on the all evidence collected, it seems that the scientists have dated Earth to be around 4.5 billion years old.
If we take into account that creation science is valid, the fossil record should by right, from bottom to top be composed of gradually larger species and there would be a mixture in species from different ages. The most bottom layers should also, reasonably, contain signs of human existence.
If we take into account that the theory of evolution is valid, the fossil record, from bottom to top, would grow to show more complex and less primitive species and specific species would only be discovered in specific layers and NEVER in others. Different species would be distinctly separated and there would be no trace of human existence found in the bottom layers.
Thus scientists have made a conclusion that evolution is valid because they have traveled to thousands of location all over the world and made studies on the fossil record carefully. Fossils of different species were never found to exist on Earth together, and the earlier species would have been extinct before the later species have evolved. Two species of organisms during different ages have NEVER been found together and even beneath the earliest layers of rock, no trace of ancient or prehistoric civilization was found. Therefore the segregation of fossils beneath the rock has served as another very strong indicator that suggests that Young-Earth creation science is invalid.
(iii) Scientists have also found the records in the Genesis to be wrong and impossible to happen.
It is recorded in this document that plants had depended on birds and ants for continuation. If it is true that plants were created by God on Day3 and birds and ants were created on Day 5 and 6 respectively, and we follow the claim of Old Earth creationists that each Genesis day is equivalent to 1000 or more years, the plants would have to leave without continuation for thousands of years which is impossible. Of course, this does not pose a problem to the New World creationists who believe each day in Genesis to be 24 hours. Fossil records have proven land animals to have existed before birds, whereas the Genesis record have stated otherwise and this is the reason why scientists do not accept the Old Earth Creation Science.
Again, assuming each Genesis day is 24 hours, the Bible stated that Noah loaded the whole ark with 2 or 7 from each species in a day which meant that he must have loaded 480 species per second onto the ark which is factually impossible. Due to these two examples and several other more rebuttals, all scientists generally reject the Creation Science theory.
2) The next theory would be the intelligent design which serves as another option to explain the evolution of life. It opposes conventional biology and does not depend on the scientific way of explaining life through observable details such as genetic mutation and the theory of natural selection, and is not supported by any scientific evidence.
Intelligent design is an investigation carried out to find evidence if life on Earth had been created by an intelligent agent/agents. Assuming there are natural systems that are unexplainable by science due to the undirected and unseen natural forces that in any situation we would usually attribute to intelligence, scientists are unable to absolutely oppose intelligent design, and intelligent design itself is unable to find such evidence to prove the validity of its own theory. This theory aims to converse the materialistic viewpoints of Man and to promote Christian and theistic convictions.
Intelligent design supporters seek evidence which they call “signs of intelligence”. They debate that the system of life is extremely complex and they believe certain aspects of life must have been designed by an intelligent agent of a higher order.
They also claim that even though evidence supports intelligent design may not be observable, the effects it makes on nature can be seen. Assuming there is a designer, he would belong to an exterior realm in which we are unable to uncover and therefore it is impossible to prove Intelligent Design to be valid or invalid.
As such, scientists have concluded the theory of evolution to be most valid so far and the scientific community has rejected the Creation Science and Intelligent Design theory based on the numerous evidences and records scientific methods have founded that stands on the side of evolution.
Sources:
The True. Origin Archive
http://www.trueorigin.org/
The Talk.Origin Archive
http://www.talkorigins.org/
Religious Tolerance.org
http://www.religioustolerance.org./evolutio.htm
Pictures of Creationism and Intelligent Design
http://files.myopera.com/zenya/blog/1God%20watching.gif
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/intelligent-design-intro.jpg
Picture of the Bible
http://library.dts.edu/Pages/TL/Special/sc_bibles.shtml
Why Darwin Matters
Times Books - by Micheal Shermer