Controversy over Evolution

Evolution is a very controversial subject and often brings rise to much emotion and discomfort in conversation. This is because people have such contrary views on what is true, and often don’t want to deal with the tension that it creates. What makes this argument so awkward to many humans who by nature love a little disagreement is that many people that we interact with on a daily basis, and share many of the same views with, hold very different opinions about evolution. There are many ways to look at the controversy between religious views of creation and the idea of evolution and natural selection. Some say that the two cannot coincide whereas some say that the two are not contradictory at all and simply build on each other. One thing that I have found is that most people are very passionate about their views whatever they may be, and it is hard to make them think otherwise. The truth is that there is no indisputable evidence that proves how the world really came to be and until there is it will always be a matter of personal belief and therefor there will always be a constant dispute. What is ironic to me about this question is that it says evolution and natural selection are the foundation of biologist’s understandings of the world, and on the other side many people would claim that religious beliefs are the foundation of their understanding of the world. The theory of evolution is so widely accepted because of the huge amounts of data that support and prove it. The problem is that although it can show proof of certain aspects it cannot explain everything yet. Although evolution may question religious beliefs it does not have to disagree with them. I believe that both religious belief and a belief in evolution through natural selection are both correct, and that belief in one does not imply a disbelief in the other.

Evolution does question many religious beliefs, but that does not have to necessarily be viewed as a bad thing. It is good to question ones beliefs in order to affirm them. Simply questioning something does not mean that after analyzing you have to change your beliefs, but simply requires you look into the validity of them. This questioning that evolution rises in religion is no different than the questioning that science brings about in evolution theory. The text does a great job of acknowledging this through a table of basic principle of science. It first talks about uncertainty and says that as we learn new things we sometimes disprove our old ideas. That does not mean that these were not valid ideas to begin with, but can prove that they are no longer correct. It then goes on to talk about how proof is elusive. It says that evolution is a “theory” because it acknowledges that new evidence may come up to disprove current ideas of evolution (Cunningham, 11.) Simply because we do not know the information now does not mean that it is not out there. This is very similar to the way humans are