Evolution is the slow process of change from one form to another, as in the evolution of the universe from its formation in the Big Bang to its pressnt state, or in the evolution of life on Earth. Some Christians and Muslims deny the theory of evolution as conflickting with the belief that God created all things. English naturalist Charles Darwin assigned the main role in evolutionary change to natural selection acting on randomly occuring variations.
Organic evolution traces the development of simple unicellular forms to more complex forms, ultimately to the flowering plants and verabrate animals including man. The Earth contains an immense diversity of living organisms. There is overwelming evidence that this vast array arose by a gradual process of evolutionary divergence and not by individual acts of divine creation as described in the book of Genesis.
The idea of continuous evolution in the living world can be traced back as far as Lucretius in the 1st century B C, but it did not gain wide acceptance until the 19th century, following the work of scottish geologist Charles Lyell, French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lanarck, English naturalist Charles Darwin and English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley. Darwin assigned the major role in evoluionary change to natural selection acting on randomly occuring variations. Natural selection occurs because those individuals better adapted to their perticular environments reproduce more effectivly, this contributes to their characteristics to the future generations. The current theory of evolution called neo-Darwinism, combines Darwins theory with austrian biologist Gregor Mendel's theories on genetics and Hugo de Vries' discovery of genetic mutation.
It is now clear that evolutionary change does not always occur at a constant rate, but that the process can have long periods of relative stability interspersed with periods of rapid change.
This is the one theory that i believe in, i feel that it has some truth behind it with the way that our bodies are made compared to some of the creature that are believed to have been first to appear on Earth.
The first peoples story is said to have began like this,
`We have been told, as our fathers were before us, that there was land, but it was bare, flat, barren,plain. No animals ran there, No birds sang overhead. Nor was there any man or woman.
Baiame, or the maker of many things as some call him bought the dreamtime ancestors from under the ground and over the seas. With them came life to the barren, flat, plain. Some of the Dreamtime ancestors looked like men or women. Others looked like tha animals or creatures which decend from them. But often the ancestors could change shape so the sword fish could look like a man or a woman aswell as a swordfish.
As they wandered over the land, many adventures befell them. They met with others and argumants often arose as they would set out on their travels again. They met strange creatures and fought many battles, each time something happened the land would change shape.
The sun, moon and stars came to be in the dreamtime. One day an emu ancestor and eagle ancestor were fighting and the eagle took one of the emu's eggs and threw it into the air. Soaring up it burst into flamesand Baiame fed the flames with wood so the sun was made.
The dreamtime ancestors taught their groups how to perform secret ceremonies then the ancestors sank back into the earth or rose into the sky.'
I do not agree with this tale. I feel that it is some kinf of imaginary vision in which the creator does not know what happens ut just thinks that it went a little like this.
Many different religions have different arguments and viewpoints as to how the universe began. there are many to choose from but as there is not much proof on any of them if so, WE can only have our own opinions based on what we believe.
Laura Hill 9A