Latest News
Monday, 6 July 2015

Is This Truly Our Evolution?


evolution
You can hear different theories and scholars views about Evolution.
It’s helpful to remind ourselves that the word “evolution” is an accordion-word that can be expanded or contracted to suit the occasion. The evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala points out that the word “evolution” can be used to mean at least three different things:
1. The process of change and diversification of living things over time. It is in this sense that biologists say that evolution is a fact. But obviously this fact, so stated, is innocuous and would not be disputed even by the most fundamentalist Young Earth Creationist.
2. Reconstruction of evolutionary history, showing how various lineages branched off from one another on the universal tree of life.
3. The mechanisms which account for evolutionary change. Darwin appealed to natural selection operating on random variations in living things in order to explain the adaptedness of organisms to their environment. With the development of modern genetics, genetic mutations came to supplement the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection by supplying an explanation for the variations on which natural selection works. Accordingly, we can call this hypothesis “neo-Darwinism.”
Now evolution in the senses of (2) and (3) is not an established fact, despite what is said and believed in popular culture. According to Ayala, “The second and third issues—seeking to ascertain evolutionary history as well as to explain how and why evolution takes place—are matters of active scientific investigation. Some conclusions are well-established. Many matters are less certain, others are conjectural, and still others. . . remain largely unknown” (Darwin and Intelligent Design).
What is your own view about Evolution?
  • Blogger Comments
  • Facebook Comments
Item Reviewed: Is This Truly Our Evolution? Rating: 5 Reviewed By: Unknown