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An essay on creation vs evolution
Creation vs evolution arguments
The big bang theory of the origin of the universe
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Was the universe created by an all mighty being? Or was it created over the course of billions of years? These are questions that have been pondered for thousands of years. Even today the question remains: how did the universe come to be? On one hand the creationists say that an all mighty being just created the universe and everything followed after. On the other hand evolutionists believe that the universe had come into existence over the course of billions of years. No one knows which is correct simply because not a single person has a firsthand account of the beginning of the universe. Neither creation nor evolution has been proven to the point of becoming more than just idea. With all that said, the ideas of creation and evolution are …show more content…
This act made it illegal to teach evolution within public schools. During this time a man named John T. Scopes, who at the time was only a substitute biology teacher, had assigned a reading from a book that taught evolution. This obviously was illegal and as such Scopes went to trial for this. In the end Scopes was found guilty for breaking the law but his conviction was overturned because of a technicality. The outcome of this trial was no surprise, most of America followed suit and removed any mention of evolution and Darwin from school textbooks. On top of all that the people that opposed evolution changed their methods of attacking the idea of revolution. Instead of doing direct attacks against evolution they went along a different route and put creation into a guise, making it seem more respectable and official, this guise turned creationism into “Creation …show more content…
That is until the 1980s. During the 1980s the Christian Right had its revival in the United States. As such the fundamentalists once again began trying to get creationism within the school system, legally of course. They wanted to make sure that anything their kids were being taught followed the teachings of the church. Basically they wanted evolution out and creationism in. What followed was yet another major trial on the basis of creationism vs. evolution. The trial that followed the resurgence of Christian Right was the Edwards vs. Aguillard case, which happened in 1987. This trial happened because of a law that the Louisiana legislator passed in 1981. The law mentioned was called the Creationism Act; this act stated that it is illegal to teach evolution by itself unless it is accompanied by the teachings of creationism. In the end the United States Supreme Court got rid of law as it was said to have violated the establishment clause within the first
...gain ruled in favor of the Establishment Clause. These cases include Murray v. Baltimore School Board, Epperson v. Arkansas, and Stone v. Graham. It also set the grounds for the case, Lemon v. Kurtzman, which set up the “Lemon Test” for deciding if a religious function is Constitutional or not.
In the novel Monkey Girl: Evolution, Religion, and The battle for American’s Soul, Humes tells the story of how 11 furious parents in the Dover Area school district decided to sue the school board and the district, because of the new learning objective requirement saying that all of 9th grade biology classes had to be taught Intelligent Design (ID), which is basically a form of creationism as a scientific alternative to evolution. They also believed that it “violated their first amendment right to information and ideas in an academic setting” (Humes, 2007, p. 221). This was the first legal trial to the perception of Intelligent Design. This novel is a narrative that captures nearly everyone’s view point in the Dover Area school District on the issue of Intelligent Design replacing evolution. There were numerous groups and organizations involved the trial including; The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans Unites for Separation of Church and State, Pepper Hamilton LLP, and the National Center for Science Education. This Trial was so major that even that national government was involved. George W. Bush sent a conservative appointee (John Jones) to the bench, which was done because it was “the early handicapping in the trial suggested a
To begin with, The Butler Act made the Scopes trial all possible. To state it simply, The Butler Act prohibited public schools in Tennessee from teaching Evolution, or to falsify the Biblical story of Creationism.
The Scopes trial, writes Edward Larson, to most Americans embodies “the timeless debate over science and religion.” (265) Written by historians, judges, and playwrights, the history of the Scopes trial has caused Americans to perceive “the relationship between science and religion in . . . simple terms: either Darwin or the Bible was true.” (265) The road to the trial began when Tennessee passed the Butler Act in 1925 banning the teaching of evolution in secondary schools. It was only a matter of time before a young biology teacher, John T. Scopes, prompted by the ACLU tested the law. Spectators and newspapermen came from allover to witness whether science or religion would win the day. Yet below all the hype, the trial had a deeper meaning. In Summer for the Gods, Edward Larson argues that a more significant battle was waged between individual liberty and majoritarian democracy. Even though the rural fundamentalist majority legally banned teaching evolution in 1925, the rise of modernism, started long before the trial, raised a critical question for rural Americans: should they publicly impose their religious beliefs upon individuals who believed more and more in science.
Overall, the ruling in this case was a perfect interpretation of the Constitution. Despite opposition claiming that it is not addressed in the Constitution, too few rights are ever addressed in the Constitution of the United States. That is why there is a thing called Judicial Review. By utilizing judicial review, the interpreters of the law –Supreme Court, may make changes to policies and laws. Abortion, medicinal marijuana, and marriage fall under the umbrella of Equal Protection since they correspond to the rights and liberties of US citizens.
A few months later a newspaper ran an article by the American Civil Liberties Union that said “The ACLU is looking for a Tennessee teacher who is willing to accept our services in testing this law in the courts. Our lawyers think a friendly test case can be arranged without costing a teacher his or her job... All we need now is a willing client." The article was read by a few townspeople of Dayton, Tennessee and they asked John Thomas Scopes, a high school biology teacher and football coach, if he would be willing to be indicted. He agreed and on May 25, 1925 Scopes was indicted by a grand jury for violating Tennessee's anti-evolution law.
In 1993, one of the most important acts that has gone through Congress was passed (Religious Freedom, Map of the RFRA). This was the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 (Religious Freedom, Map of the RFRA). This act was passed to answer the 1990 court case Employment Division v. Smith (Questions and Answers, Map of the RFRA). Employment Division v. Smith was a court case in which the issue was whether “Sacramental use of peyote by members of the Native American Church was protected under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, which provides that ‘Congress shall make no law.prohibiting the free exercise of religion'. ”(Questions and Answers, Map of the RFRA).
The education system has been changing in recent years and the same problems that existed continue to get worse as years pass. Problems that were seen as minor at first have now grown. How to change the public higher education system has been a major topic of discussion but there has still been no major action taken. We struggle to figure out how much funding is needed for higher education and where it should come from. Our people continue to suffer from an underfunded high cost system. The wealthy minority of people continue to be the only ones accounted for and it is time to change this. We need to adapt to the changes and the costs that continue to rise. It is time to help the struggling middle and lower classes. I believe that the best
Since the time that teaching evolution in public schools was banned as heresy and taboo for contradicting the Bible, most public school systems today take an opposite approach in which creationism is seldom ta...
For thousands of years scientist have been performing vivisections on animals to find information on new chemicals, drugs, and vaccines. Vivisection is when scientist perform dissections among living animals mostly for the purpose of educating and retrieving information. Experimenting on animals has become the tool that has helped us comprehend the body functions of an animal and how a disease transforms the bodily functions, but over the years it’s caused animal rights activists to question the usefulness and the sincerity of using animals for this purpose. Although animal research has been helpful in the past, it is morally wrong in the sense that experimenting on animals is not the only way to collect information. There are other alternatives
...ical. Next the McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education had a law that enforced public schools to give both creation-science and evolution equal treatment. It was said that “Creation-Science” is not actually a science, but strictly religious.
One of the hottest debates is and has been nature vs nurture for years, but what is the difference between the two? Nature is what people think of as already having and not being able to change it, in other words, pre-wiring (Sincero). Nurture is the influence of experiences and its environment of external factors (Sincero). Both nature and nurture play important roles in human development. Scientists and researchers are both trying to figure out which is the main cause in development because it is still unknown on which it is. The best position to side with is nature. Nature is also defined as genetic or hormone based behaviors (Agin). Regardless of the involvement in everyday life, or nurture, this argumentation centers around the effect genes have on human personalities. Although it is understandable on reasons to side with nurture, nature is the better stand in this controversy. Reasons to side with nature is because of genes and what genes hold. Genes is what
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to look at the world from another point of view? Try looking at it from an animal's perspective. Surviving on your own, hiding from predators, and many more. Thats what zoologist do. Zoologist study the origin and development of animals species, their habits and behavior towards each other, and the way they act in different environments. They also do research to learn how animal diseases are developed and their traits are passed from generation to generation. They have a program out there called Greenpeace. Greenpeace is basically a volunteer system for people who want to learn more about animals and interact with them. Greenpeace is a very challenging job to achieve. In order to get very high in the career you start off with the basics of Volunteering and working your way up. It doesn’t really need a specific education unless working in the science field or program.
Scott points out that school districts have boards in place that have people who “...may or may not know much about the field of education” (Pg. 87-8). He goes on to say that these people, despite the state mandated curriculums that are supposed to be used to guide the districts, have the final say in what their educators can teach. There are parallels between the disorganization of our school system and the religious matters in that there are many sects of Christianity, from which most of the antievolution ideals stem. The Fundamentalist movement in the 20’s is one of the main culprits against evolution as it called for a strict interpretation of the Bible. This movement led to the push to eradicate the concept of evolution from the curriculum due to the fear that it will shake the faith of the youth. This push resulted in the Scopes trial which put the controversy in a new light. Despite the odds, Scopes won but even after that even less schools taught evolution. Much later on, schools began to teach concepts that were scientific alternatives to evolution as creationism was viewed as a religious view and was not allowed to be pushed
The question of an individual’s beliefs quickly turned into a question of freedom. Not only is not allowing evolution to be taught in school an act of willingly keeping people ignorant, it also allowed a select few to be in control of an entire nation’s thoughts. When there are a small number of people who control the media or what is said about certain subjects—then they are able to use their power to manipulate their judgment, just as Brady stated in Inherit the Wind. “I've seen what you can do to a jury. Twist and tangle them. Nobody's forgotten the Endicott Publishing case—where you made the jury believe the obscenity was in their own minds, not on the printed page. It was immoral what you did to that jury. Tricking