Science, Evolution, and Creationism

How did life come to be? No one can truly know the answer to this question because it cannot be proven, but there are many scientific hypotheses that explain in great detail the evolution of life. There are also thoughts that life cam to be by something greater than we know; a God of some sorts. This subject has been the basis of many arguments and debates over time. The book Science, Evolution, and Creationism, by National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine delves into the thoughts of how life as we know it came to be.

This book explains both the scientific evolution and creationism in detail and talks about why people chose one over the other. The book states that some people believe in the less scientifically backed idea of creationism because they are more comfortable believing in a creator then believing that science brought the world to what it is today.

To truly understand this book you will need a thorough understanding of both evolution and creationism. It is impossible to be sure which one is correct but with a layout of facts and beliefs one can come closer to choosing a side or combination in which that person can think to be the truth.

The theory of Evolution was made by Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species published in 1859. He stated that an organism evolved by means of natural selection. Natural selection is basically survival of the fittest. If an organism inherited a favorable trait by means of mutation that helped it survive it would pass that trait on to its offspring and the species of that organism would all grow to have that trait eventually, thus evolving into a more efficient organism. Evolution is a very gradual process with all organisms, but especially organisms such as humans that do not produce many offspring and do not produce offspring frequently. One can observe evolution in an animal such as a fruit fly. Fruit flies reproduce many offspring frequently because they ave short lives. The rate of evolution depends on the amount of times an organism reproduces and the amount of offspring it produces each time.

It is said that evolution can lead to the emergence of new species entirely. For example, there is a theory that humans evolved from fish. On a smaller scale a species can divide into more to become more suited to the environment it lives in.

Creationism is the other explanation for life as we know it. Creationism is the belief that there was an intelligent creator that made us the way we are today. Creationism is typically a religious belief in a God or Gods. Intelligent design was essentially creationism disguised in the argument over whether to teach kids in public schools creationism along with evolution or not. The argument to only teach evolution won so now the only place where creationism is taught is in church.

The controversy between evolution and creationism will most likely continue, however some people choose to believe in both. Those people believe that there is a mixture of evolution and creationism in the explanation for how life came to be how it is today.

This book and the general idea of evolution verses creationism consumes much of my thought. Reading this book increased my knowledge of this general field and brought about many new thoughts. I think after reading this unbiased book I believe in a mixture of evolution and creationism. This book also does a good job of explaining why people think what they think. I would recommend this book to anyone who is like myself and has trouble finding their right answer to such a difficult question.

This book does an amazing job of presenting both sides of the ever popular debate of how we came to be. It presents the facts and beliefs in an unbiased way and lets the reader decide what they want to believe in, evolution, creationism or both. The book is detailed yet it is not so long that is gets boring. After reading this book the reader should have a good understanding of the argument and has enough information to formulate their own argument for what they believe. This book gets a ten out of ten!

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