Evolution, theory of
NAME: Theory of Evolution
DETAILS/DESCRIPTION:
The theory of evolution, developed by Charles Darwin* and Alfred Russel Wallace*, seeks to explain the extraordinary number of species on Earth (about 2 million, each with their own varieties) by the mechanism of natural selection. In simple terms, organisms which fit the environment survive, those who don’t, die (‘survival of the fittest’).
The discovery of DNA has made it possible to investigate the evolutionary process at molecular level, to identify what happens genetically when new species, and new varieties within species, develop.
According to evolutionary theory, organisms are related by common descent, and natural selection explains the configuration of such features as the eye, and birds’ wings. Whether or not all life descends from a single source is yet to be established.
Christian Fundamentalists who oppose the teaching of evolution have introduced bills in a number of U.S. state legislatures ordering that the teaching of “evolution-science” be balanced by allocating equal time to “creation-science.”
Creation-science maintains that all organisms came into existence at the Creation, that the world is only a few thousand years old, and that the Flood was an actual event survived by only one pair of each animal species.
ONELINER: The theory of evolution
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Encyclopedia Britannica
Onward on the Mystery Tour