Evolution and Religious Creation Myths

Evolution and Religious Creation Myths PDF Author: Paul F. Lurquin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199886288
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Relying mostly on modern genetic science, this book exposes how various forms of creationism-including intelligent design-fail to provide testable models for the appearance and evolution of life. On the contrary, science has been very successful in the description of the unguided processes that led to the creation of the universe and one of its consequences, the appearance of life forms, including humans.

Evolution and Religious Creation Myths

Evolution and Religious Creation Myths PDF Author: Paul F. Lurquin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199886288
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Get Book Here

Book Description
Relying mostly on modern genetic science, this book exposes how various forms of creationism-including intelligent design-fail to provide testable models for the appearance and evolution of life. On the contrary, science has been very successful in the description of the unguided processes that led to the creation of the universe and one of its consequences, the appearance of life forms, including humans.

Evolution and Religious Creation Myths : How Scientists Respond

Evolution and Religious Creation Myths : How Scientists Respond PDF Author: Paul F. Lurquin School of Molecular Biosciences Washington State University
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199717966
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Polls show that 45% of the American public believes that humans were created about 10,000 years ago and that evolution is non existent. Another 25% believes that changes in the natural world are directed by a supernatural being with a particular goal in mind. This thinking clashes frontally with scientific findings obtained in the past 150 years. A large portion of the general public espouses the views of creationists and their descendants, and ignores or is unaware of scientific advances. Critical thinking about the natural world within a scientific framework is lacking in the USA and many parts of the world. This manuscript provides a multidisciplinary explanation and defense for the science of evolution (not just Darwinism) as it is being challenged by arguments for "intelligent design" and other creation myths. It draws in the life, physical, and social sciences, and recent studies of human evolution that rely much on the idea of change over time, which is evolution writ large. It puts the evolution/ID issue into international perspective by including opinions held in world religions other than Christianity. It is clearly written and also can easily be used as a guide for those with some science background. The authors make a convincing case that other books do not achieve this as much as they do in this work. The book is written for a whole spectrum of educated people including teachers and teachers in training who are interested in the broad issues of the origins of the universe, life, and humans, and who may not quite grasp the potential magnitude of the negative influence on all of science education of people embracing creationist and ID thinking. This includes high school teachers and people on boards of education and in municipal governments--anyone involved in education. It could be used also in college courses such as "contemporary social issues" and "Science and Society" -- sometimes team taught by sociologists and scientists. The authors show that when they are teleological, dogmatic, or politically inspired, religious and creation myths threaten scientific efforts. The book does not require any extensive knowledge of science. The principle of change over time pervades all of science, from cosmology, to the search for the origin for life, to human physical and cultural evolution. The book educates readers on scientific matters that overwhelmingly support the idea of evolution, not only in the living world, but also in physical and social science. It explains too how evolution -- physical and biological -- is a random, unguided process whose roots can be already found in quantum physics.

How I Changed My Mind About Evolution

How I Changed My Mind About Evolution PDF Author: Kathryn Applegate
Publisher: Monarch Books
ISBN: 0857217887
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Over two dozen Christian leaders describe how they changed their minds about evolution Perhaps no topic appears as potentially threatening to evangelicals as evolution. The very idea seems to exclude God from the creation the book of Genesis celebrates. Yet many evangelicals have come to accept the conclusions of science while still holding to a vigorous belief in God and the Bible. How did they make this journey? How did they come to embrace both evolution and faith? Here are stories from a community of people who love Jesus and honor the authority of the Bible, but who also agree with what science says about the cosmos, our planet and the life that so abundantly fills it. Among the contributors are Scientists such as: Francis Collins Deborah Haarsma Denis Lamoureux Theologians and philosophers such as: James K. A. Smith Amos Yong Oliver Crisp Biblical scholars such as: N. T. Wright Scot McKnight Tremper Longman III Pastors such as: John Ortberg Ken Fong Laura Truax

Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design PDF Author: Zondervan,
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 0310080983
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Evolution--or the broader topic of origins--has enormous relevance to how we understand the Christian faith and how we interpret Scripture. Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design presents the current "state of the conversation" about origins among evangelicals representing four key positions: Young Earth Creationism - Ken Ham (Answers in Genesis) Old Earth (Progressive) Creationism - Hugh Ross (Reasons to Believe) Evolutionary Creation - Deborah B. Haarsma (BioLogos) Intelligent Design - Stephen C. Meyer (The Discovery Institute) The contributors offer their best defense of their position addressing questions such as: What is your position on origins - understood broadly to include the physical universe, life, and human beings in particular? What do you take to be the most persuasive arguments in defense of your position? How do you demarcate and correlate evidence about origins from current science and from divine revelation? What hinges on answering these questions correctly? This book allows each contributor to not only present the case for his or her view, but also to critique and respond to the critiques of the other contributors, allowing you to compare their beliefs in an open forum setting to see where they overlap and where they differ.

Evolution Vs. Creationism

Evolution Vs. Creationism PDF Author: Eugenie C. Scott
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520261879
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Presents the scientific evidence for evolution and reasons why it should be taught in schools, provides various religious points of view, and offers insight to the evolution-creationism controversy.

Icons of Evolution

Icons of Evolution PDF Author: Jonathan Wells
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 159698533X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Everything you were taught about evolution is wrong.

Undeniable

Undeniable PDF Author: Bill Nye
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250007135
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
From the host of "Bill Nye the Science Guy" comes an impassioned explanation of how the science of our origins is fundamental to our understanding of the nature of science

Thank God for Evolution

Thank God for Evolution PDF Author: Michael Dowd
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780670020454
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Presents a philosophy that unifies evolution and religion, discussing evolution as a divine process, how to use insights derived from evolution to improve spiritual life, and how to work for systemic change within this framework.

Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails)

Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails) PDF Author: Matt Young
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813548640
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails) is an impassioned argument in favor of science—primarily the theory of evolution—and against creationism. Why impassioned? Should not scientists be dispassionate in their work? “Perhaps,” write the authors, “but it is impossible to remain neutral when our most successful scientific theories are under attack, for religious and other reasons, by laypeople and even some scientists who willfully distort scientific findings and use them for their own purposes.” Focusing on what other books omit, how science works and how pseudoscience works, Matt Young and Paul K. Strode demonstrate the futility of “scientific” creationism. They debunk the notion of intelligent design and other arguments that show evolution could not have produced life in its present form. Concluding with a frank discussion of science and religion, Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails) argues that science by no means excludes religion, though it ought tocast doubt on certain religious claims that are contrary to known scientific fact.

The Creation-Evolution Debate

The Creation-Evolution Debate PDF Author: Edward J. Larson
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820331066
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 85

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Book Description
Few issues besides evolution have so strained Americans' professed tradition of tolerance. Few historians besides Pulitzer Prize winner Edward J. Larson have so perceptively chronicled evolution's divisive presence on the American scene. This slim volume reviews the key aspects, current and historical, of the creation-evolution debate in the United States. Larson discusses such topics as the transatlantic response to Darwinism, the American controversy over teaching evolution in public schools, and the religious views of American scientists. He recalls the theological qualms about evolution held by some leading scientists of Darwin's time. He looks at the 2006 Dover, Pennsylvania, court decision on teaching Intelligent Design and other cases leading back to the landmark 1925 Scopes trial. Drawing on surveys that Larson conducted, he discusses attitudes of American scientists toward the existence of God and the afterlife. By looking at the changing motivations and backgrounds of the stakeholders in the creation-evolution debate--clergy, scientists, lawmakers, educators, and others--Larson promotes a more nuanced view of the question than most of us have. This is no incidental benefit for Larson's readers; it is one of the book's driving purposes. If we cede the debate to those who would frame it simplistically rather than embrace its complexity, warns Larson, we will not advance beyond the naive regard of organized religion as the enemy of intellectual freedom or the equally myopic myth of the scientist as courageous loner willing to die for the truth.