Darwin in a nutshell

For the many years that I was a fundamentalist Christian, I had more than my fair share of exposure to the phenomena of creation “science.” And of course, everyone knows that the arch rival of creation science is Darwin’s theory of evolution. However, unlike science in the real world (where the theory of evolution was tested), creation science follows a different set of rules. Well, actually, the world ‘rules’ is probably too strong of a word to describe the method that creation science uses to acquire it’s knowledge. Creation science is much more, um, flexible about how it goes about examining facts and weighing evidence.

As a Christian I was strongly discouraged from reading the works of Charles Darwin. I have heard him called every name in the book. I have been told that he was inspired by Satan himself to write Origin of Species. I’ve heard all the clichés, like: “Even Darwin is a believer now, because he’s roasting in Hell.” “If you believe in evolution, then your uncle is a monkey.” “I didn’t come from no God D@#$n ape!” I’ve heard it all, and I used to believe it. I really believed that Darwin was literally burning in Hell beneath my feat, and I was fully convinced that anyone who believed in evolution was sure to end up frying with him. The only thing that really bothered me about the whole business was that the people who where condemning Darwin and advising me not to read his stuff had never read it themselves. I thought this was kind of hypocritical, but I went along with the flow. It wasn’t long though, about when the first cracks started to tear across my dogma dam, that my curiosity took over, and I actually read Origin of Species. What I learned in that book caused my religion to crumble, and a deluge of knowledge came flooding into my mind!

One of the things about Origin of Species that really struck me was simply the way it was written. Darwin didn’t come across like the spawn of Hell that I was told that he was. Origin of Species is a scientific work. There is very little emotion in it. It’s mostly facts; the results of a large number of experiments, and many observations on that natural world. If anything, Darwin came across to me as a very humble man. It was obvious that he knew that the conclusions he had reached would be controversial in his day, and he tried hard not to be offensive.

So, for those of you who were like me, not having read Origin of Species because of fear; fear of the punishment of your loving heavenly father, or fear of losing friends and family over it; here is Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection in a nutshell:

Organisms are sometimes born (for various reasons) with variation. This means that they are sometimes born slightly different from their parents. These differences are called ‘mutations.’ Most mutations are not beneficial or sometimes even detrimental to the organism. But sometimes, every once in a while, an organism is born with a mutation that gives it an edge, however slight, over other organisms that compete with it for food and other resources. This advantage will allow it to survive and ultimately to reproduce in greater numbers than it’s competition. This is called ‘natural selection.’ Over time (a lot of time!) these advantageous genetic mutations are added up and passed down to it’s descendants until there is sufficient change for the evolved organisms to be called a different species. The new and better equipped species usually ends up causing the extinction of it’s parent forms, because of their similar needs, and their struggle to acquire them, but not always. Often enough, they both find a way to survive, and that is why our world is filled with a spectacular array of different kinds of creatures.

There! That wasn’t so bad, was it? The Devil didn’t appear before you, and tell you that your soul belongs to him now. God didn’t rain down fire and brimstone on your head. You’re ok, and if you’re like me you’re probably thinking, “man, that makes a lot more sense than a magical man in the sky, forming animals out of clay, and breathing into them to make them come to life.” Evolution just makes more sense, and it has actually been tested ((gasp)), yes tested, and withstood the fiery trials of the scientific community. It is accepted as fact universally in the scientific world, and until somebody comes up with a theory that better explains the evidence, it will remain. That is how science works.