evomunity, do not accept the theory of Evolution as fact. When Darwin was alive, his theory was attacked by many scientists and religious leaders(Coyne). In the 1900’s, United States public high schools began teaching evolution in science classes. By the 1920’s, laws in twenty states to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools had been proposed by people who did not want their children being indoctrinated. “They considered the teaching of the theory to be part of a dangerous trend toward the separation of religious beliefs from everyday life”(Coyne). Several of the proposed laws were passed into effect in states including Arkansas and Tennessee. “The ACLU challenged the Tennessee law in 1925 by defending a teacher named John T. Scopes, who had volunteered to stand trial on the charge of teaching evolution”(Coyne). The ACLU lost the case but because of bad press, creationists appeared ignorant to science. However, in 1968 the Supreme Court of the United States “ruled that laws banning the teaching of evolution were unconstitutional because they made religious considerations part of the curriculum”(Coyne). The courts continue to give rulings on creation and evolution in schools, some have come as recently as 1987(Coyne). The fight to keep evolution out of the classroom is still persevering. Those who are pushing to keep evolution out of the public schools are primarily creationists. Creation is the belief that a Supreme Being created the Universe and all its contents from nothing(Vawter). Many different people have believed different stories of how and why this was accomplished. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are a few of the major faiths that teach Creation. There are many differences in what different people believe. Many Jews and Christians with a literal interpretation of the Bible or the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, believe that God created the universe and all that is in it in six 24 hour days. They believe that each species on earth has remained relatively the same since the Creation. These people “base their beliefs on the Bible”(Eve) and some use fossil evidence of long consistencies and abrupt changes(Valentine). Others believe that God created everything, but not in six days. Still others believe that God created the universe by lighting the fuse: the big bang was God’s way of creating the universe. Many people have gone in search for proof that the universe was created by a Supreme Being. The case for Intelligent Design was argued by Reverend William Paley of Carlisle, England in his 1802 book Natural Theology. Take, for instance, a rock and a watch. How old are the two objects? The rock has “remained more or less the same perhaps since the earth was formed”(Miller 24). The watch is different because of the intricate gears, springs and parts. It was produced with a specific design and knowledge of the watchmaker, and watchmakers have not been around forever. Paley knew “there cannot be design without a designer; contrivance without a contriver…. The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is God”(Miller). Paley’s examples are understandable examples that form “a line of reasoning known as the ‘argument from design'”(Miller). Even some evolutionists have come to realize that humanity is not an accident, even if they disagree with the six, 24 hour days belief. The Anthropic Principle is based on so called “technical observations about the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang”(Glynn 28). This principle has concluded that not only was the creation of the universe not an accident, but “the existence of human life is something for which the entire universe appears to have been intricately fine-tuned from the start”(28). This principle is based on universal constants such as Planck’s constant and the gravitational constant. It started out as a list of coincidences, but as the list grew the more it appeared as if the universe had been designed for humanity to exist(29). The second law of thermodynamics has been extensively studied by scientists and people as another proof of creation. The second law of thermodynamics can be stated: “The thermodynamic principle which governs the behavior of systems is that, as they are moved away from equilibrium, they will utilize all avenues available to counter the applied gradients. As the applied gradients increase, so does the system’s ability to oppose further movement from equilibrium”(Schneider 30). In every system, the entropy, or disorder, will increase, not decrease. This is one of a number of different analogies to simplify this law. There is a
Bibliography:
–