“Windows To Spirituality”
Framework Interpretation in Genesis The framework interpretation (also known as the literary framework view, framework theory, or framework hypothesis) is a description of the structure of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis (more precisely Genesis 1:1–2:4a), the Genesis creation narrative. The following table illustrates the proposed framework: First triad Second triad Day 1 Let...
Religious Views of Charles Darwin Charles Darwin’s views on religion have been the subject of much interest and dispute. His pivotal work in the development of modern biology and evolution theory played a prominent part in debates about religion and science at the time. In the early 20th century, his...
Development of Darwin’s Theory Following the inception of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection in 1838, the development of Darwin’s theory to explain the “mystery of mysteries” of how new species originated was his “prime hobby” in the background to his main occupation of publishing the scientific results of the Beagle voyage. He was settling into married life, but suffered...
Reactions to On The Origin of Species The immediate reactions to On the Origin of Species, the book in which Charles Darwin described evolution by natural selection, included international debate, though the heat of controversy was less than that over earlier works such as Vestiges of Creation. Darwin monitored the debate closely, cheering on Thomas Henry Huxley’s...
Publication of Darwin’s Theory The publication of Darwin’s theory brought into the open Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, the culmination of more than twenty years of work. Thoughts on the possibility of transmutation of species which he recorded in 1836 towards the end of his five-year voyage on the Beagle were followed on his return by findings...
Inception of Darwin’s Theory The inception of Darwin’s theory occurred during an intensively busy period which began when Charles Darwin returned from the survey voyage of the Beagle, with his reputation as a fossil collector and geologist already established. He was given an allowance from his father to become a gentleman naturalist rather than a clergyman, and his first tasks were...
Jewish Reactions to Intelligent Design The reaction of Jewish leaders and organizations to intelligent design has been primarily concerned with responding to proposals to include intelligent design in public school curricula as a rival scientific hypothesis to modern evolutionary theory. Intelligent design is an argument for the existence of God, based on the...
Molecular Evolution Molecular evolution is the process of change in the sequence composition of cellular molecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins across generations. The field of molecular evolution uses principles of evolutionary biology and population genetics to explain patterns in these changes. Major topics in molecular evolution concern the...
History of Molecular Evolution The history of molecular evolution starts in the early 20th century with “comparative biochemistry“, but the field of molecular evolution came into its own in the 1960s and 1970s, following the rise of molecular biology. The advent of protein sequencing allowed molecular biologists to create phylogenies based...
Institute for Creation Research The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical event.[3][4] The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as religious and moral truths, and espouses a Young Earth creationist worldview.[5] It rejects evolutionary biology,...
Scopes Trial The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case in July 1925 in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded...
History of The Creation–Evolution Controversy The creation–evolution controversy has a long history. In response to theories developed by scientists, some religious individuals and organizations questioned the legitimacy of scientific ideas that contradicted the literal interpretation of the creation account in Genesis. Interpretation of the Judeo-Christian Bible had long been the prerogative of an orthodox priesthood able to understand Latin who traditionally...
Universal Darwinism Universal Darwinism (also known as generalized Darwinism, universal selection theory, or Darwinian metaphysics) refers to a variety of approaches that extend the theory of Darwinism beyond its original domain of biological evolution on Earth. Universal Darwinism aims to formulate a generalized version of the mechanisms of variation, selection and heredity proposed by Charles...
Speciation Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term in 1906 for cladogenesis, the splitting of lineages, as opposed to anagenesis, phyletic evolution within lineages.[1][2][3] Charles Darwin was the first to describe the role of natural selection in speciation in his...
Irreducible Complexity Irreducible complexity (IC) involves the idea that certain biological systems cannot evolve by successive small modifications to pre-existing functional systems through natural selection. Irreducible complexity has become central to the creationist concept of intelligent design, but the scientific community,[1] which regards intelligent design as pseudoscience, rejects the concept of irreducible complexity.[2] Irreducible complexity is one of two main...
Specified Complexity Specified complexity is a concept proposed by William Dembski and used by him and others to promote intelligent design. According to Dembski, the concept can formalize a property that singles out patterns that are both specified and complex, where in Dembski’s terminology, a specified pattern is one that admits short descriptions, whereas a complex pattern is one that is...
Intelligent Design Movement The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the pseudoscientific[1] idea of intelligent design (ID), which asserts that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”[2][3][4] Its chief activities are a...
Fine-tuned Universe The characterization of the universe as finely tuned suggests that the occurrence of life in the Universe is very sensitive to the values of certain fundamental physical constants and that the observed values are, for some reason, improbable. If the values of any of certain free parameters in contemporary physical theories had differed only slightly from those observed,...
Watchmaker Analogy The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument which states, by way of an analogy, that a design implies a designer. The analogy has played a prominent role in natural theology and the “argument from design,” where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God and for the intelligent design of the universe, in both Christianity and Deism. Sir...
Teleological Argument The teleological argument or physico-theological argument, also known as the argument from design, or intelligent design argument is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, for an intelligent creator based on perceived evidence of “intelligent design” in the natural world. The earliest recorded versions of this argument are associated with Socrates in ancient...
