Darwin and evolution were bad names in my home. My parents are staunch religious folks. I was taught that God created everything in seven days, and that was that. There was no exploration of the topic, no discussion. But because the topic was forbidden, I was determine to explore it. I remember not telling my parents that I was studying the topic in my biology class for fear of them calling my teacher and demanding she teach creation as well. I also remember being captivated by the foreign topics and ideals and reading everything I could about them; hiding my books under my bed so my parents would not find them. With all this being said, my parents are great people. I have since realized that they would not have cared if I was studying the topic. Since reaching the age of accountability, my parents have never forced their beliefs upon me. They often say, "I taught you right from wrong and expect you to find your own way down that path."Since this time in my childhood I have somewhat mixed the ideals of creation and evolution together. I believe that God's word is true and that He did create the world we live in. But that is not to say that he did not use evolution as His means to an end. Thousands of years ago, the writers of the Bible could not be expected to understand the concepts and ideas behind evolution, simply stating that “God created”[1] was enough for them. Today's technology allows us to further understand the "how" behind creation. Although Genesis states that God created everything in seven days, Peter states that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."[2] This statement claims that God’s concept of time is different to ours. Our lives are a speck in all of time to a deity that has always existed and will always exist. Who is to say that it did not take thousands of years for God to create this Earth and everything in it? If He is truly omnipotent and omnipresent then He knew from the beginning that science would progress to the point that we would begin to understand the complexities of how this amazing world was created.
Alfred Wallace was the forerunner to the ideas that Darwin was to later make famous in his Origin of Species. In Wallace’s paper, published in 1858, “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type,” he attempts to prove “that there is a general principle in nature which will cause many varieties to survive the parent species, and to give rise to successive variations departing further and further from the original type.”[3] Using this idea as a basis for his research, Darwin further developed it to produce his controversial idea of Natural Selection. In an extract from an unpublished work on species, Darwin begins by discussing how that if each animal reproduced every year and lived the average lifespan, and her offspring reproduced and lived the average lifespan, and so on and so forth, that there would be an extreme overpopulation of animals in that region. But because we do not generally suffer from animal overpopulation, there must be some sort of limiting factor. Those that can survive better do, and those who are less able to survive do not. This is the foundation of natural selection. He states that all non-domesticated animals are in competition with one another for resources, and those who are better suited due to small variances in their design are therefore selected by nature to survive. Because they survive these better suited animals are able to reproduce. Eventually those traits that are more favorable will take over the original less favorable traits or as Darwin state it, “Each new variety or species, when formed, will generally take the place of, and thus exterminate its less well-fitted parent.”[4] Thus, evolution by natural selection.
While studying evolution this year in Plan II Biology, I have finally come to fully understand the ideas that I first began to study in middle school. I have formed my own personal theories and concepts and understand that the diversity of the campus around me can be linked not only to my personal faith in an omnipotent deity but also to the philosophies of generations of scientists who have spent their entire life trying to unravel the mysteries of our existence. The rocks that make up the building around campus contain the “skeletons and ghosts”[5] of those that walked this earth before us. And like Newt, I also find comfort in knowing that death and the fear of death is a common emotion between all of humanity. The idea that dying has been going on for generations and that it is the natural progression of life instead of something to fear holds a certain amount of comfort. There is an all knowing deity in charge of the world and I am beginning to scratch the surface of the “how” behind its complex workings; life, death, and change are all part of the cycle.___________________________
1. KJV Bible, Genesis 1:1
2. KJV Bible, II Peter 3:8.
3. Philip Appleman (editor). Darwin. (Norton: New York, 2001) 62.
4. Philip Appleman (editor). Darwin. (Norton: New York, 2001) 86.
5. X:1004
