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. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as...
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...
![African pygmy kingfisher, showing coloration shared by all adults of that species to a high degree of fidelity.[14]](https://slife.org/wp-content/uploads/605-safari-wildlife-guide-pygmy-kingfisher.as_-520x193.jpg)
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. 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, which regards intelligent design as pseudoscience, rejects the concept of irreducible complexity. Irreducible complexity is one of two...
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...
Intelligent Design And Science The relationship between intelligent design and science has been a contentious one. Intelligent design (ID) is presented by its proponents as science and claims to offer an alternative to evolution. The Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank and the leading proponent of intelligent design, launched a campaign entitled...
Acceptance of Evolution by Religious Groups This article covers the acceptance of evolution by religious groups. Although biological evolution has been vocally opposed by some religious groups, many other groups accept the scientific position, sometimes with additions to allow for theological considerations. The positions of such groups are described by terms including...
Microevolution Microevolution is the change in allele frequencies that occurs over time within a population. This change is due to four different processes: mutation, selection (natural and artificial), gene flow and genetic drift. This change happens over a relatively short (in evolutionary terms) amount of time compared to the changes termed macroevolution which is where greater differences in the population occur....
Macroevolution Macroevolution is evolution on a scale at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes of allele frequencies within a species or population. Macroevolution and microevolution describe fundamentally identical processes on different scales. The process of speciation may fall within the purview of either, depending on the forces thought...
Alternatives To Evolution By Natural Selection Alternatives to evolution by natural selection, also described as non-Darwinian mechanisms of evolution, have been proposed by scholars investigating biology since classical times to explain signs of evolution and the relatedness of different groups of living things. The alternatives in question do not encompass religious...
Reaction To Darwin’s Theory This article covers the reaction to Darwin’s Theory. 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...
Who Is Charles Darwin? Charles Robert Darwin, (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered...
Social Effects Of Evolutionary Theory The social effects of evolutionary theory have been considerable. As the scientific explanation of life’s diversity has developed, it has often displaced alternative, sometimes very widely held, explanations. Because the theory of evolution includes an explanation of humanity’s origins, it has had a profound impact on...
Neo-Darwinism Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel’s theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 (for the combinations of Darwin’s and Weismann’s theories of evolution) or 1942 (the “modern synthesis“), though it can mean any new Darwinian- and Mendelian-based theory...
Conflict Thesis The conflict thesis is a historiographical approach in the history of science that originated in the 19th century which maintains that there is an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science and that it inevitably leads to hostility. Most examples and interpretations of events in support of the...
Who Is Thomas Henry Huxley? Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He is known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his advocacy of Charles Darwin‘s theory of evolution. The stories regarding Huxley‘s famous debate in 1860 with Samuel Wilberforce were a key moment in the...
What Is Social Darwinism? Social Darwinism is any of various theories of society which emerged in the United Kingdom, North America, and Western Europe in the 1870s, claiming to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics. Social Darwinists argue that the strong should see...