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Evolution is the theory that all life forms are descended from one or several common ancestors that were present on the early earth, three to four billion years ago. It includes the process by which one species is transformed into another, for example a dinosaur species into a bird species. The type of evolution that has always been controversial is Darwinian evolution or Darwinism. The fundamental principle of Darwinian evolution is common descent by fully naturalistic means . Naturalistic means is a way of saying that natural law acting on chance events explains everything that happens. Life came into existence by chance and developed by chance, without design, guidance, or intervention by God or an intelligent designer. Or, if there were any divine design, guidance, or intervention, it could never be scientifically detectable. It is this, rather than the acceptance of evolution, that most distinguishes Darwinism from any type of creationism. The Evolution page provides links to a number of Darwinism pages, with a brief explanation of each. Some models of how evolution works assume divine guidance or perhaps divine intervention. Some of these models of evolution seem more like creationism creationism , as explained below, so it is a good idea to scan all of the pages to get a sense of the range of views. Creation argues that the development of life on earth, and of the cosmos generally, was guided by God. Christian and Jewish creationists say that the first chapters of Genesis in the Bible are the best way of understanding our origins. Some creationists accept conventional scientific dating but others believe that the earth was created in six 24-hour days. What mainly distinguishes creationism from Darwinism (Darwinian evolution) is the insistence that God plays a role in the unfolding of life. Most North Americans are creationists in this sense. The Creation page provides links to a number of different types of creationist theory, with a brief explanation of each. Christian evolutionism is not a form of creationism. While the Christian evolutionists believe that there is a God, his work is not thought to be detectible by science or even to be a concern of science. You will find links to Christian evolution pages from the Evolution page. Intelligent design theory started to take shape in the late 1970s, as an outcome of information theory. Faced with the enormous complexity of living things - for example, the fact that complete instructions for creating DNA would be as long as the DNA code itself - ID theorists argue that it makes more sense to assume that the information is a language. In other words, it is a product of design. Intelligent design differs from evolutionism because it assumes that an intelligence underlies the universe and it differs from creationism because the focus is on studying design as such rather than arguing for God’s existence or actions. You will find links to intelligent design pages from the Intelligent design page. (to top of page)
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