Where We Came From
The idea of evolution vs. creationism is a major world conflict that has been around since the 1800s, and is a problem that still exists today. Will Charles Darwin’s ideas ever have peace? The world may never know.

Have you ever wondered where all life forms on earth evolved from? Both the Bible and evolution have different ways of telling us where we and everything else came from. Unfortunately,  we live in a world where teaching science and the ideas of evolution appears to be controversial in many religions. Why is this a problem? Many religious groups have different creationism stories, which go against the idea of beings evolving through time, as well as the idea that it relies on facts that are clearly tested and evident because they base conclusions off of what can physically be seen. The idea of evolution has been around since the mid 1800s, when Charles Darwin proposed it. Charles Darwin intended on exploring the world, and was interested in collecting several different types of fossils, such as birds, dinosaurs...etc, throughout all the places he passed on his journey. After Darwin tested all of his founded fossils, he came up with the idea of “natural selection.” Natural Selection is when species that better adapt to their environment tend to survive more and produce more offspring. He later composed all his findings into a book, and published his theory in 1859 known as “On the Origin of Species.” Things weren’t easy for Darwin, on the day the book was published, many people of the religious community grew furious and decided to protest Darwin's theories and the idea of evolution. After Darwin died, the idea of evolution was extremely conflicted with creationism. Why should the idea of evolution be shut down, while it has existing evidence, when the idea of creationism is just as controversial?

To give you a little background, the theory of evolution has been around since somewhere close to the 1850s. Evolution by natural selection is one of the most backed up theories this world has to offer. The theory of evolution has two main points which are: all things in life are connected to each other in one way or another and that some traits were favored in certain environments over others. There are several types of fossils in this world that help back up Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin passed away a while back on April 19, 1882, and I’m sure if he knew what people were saying about evolution, he would be rolling in his grave. Evolution is known to be the best idea anyone has ever had, so good job Darwin you must’ve done something right! Just because the bible doesn’t agree with evolution, doesn’t mean the evidence for evolution is invalid. This also doesn’t mean the bible is wrong, but evolution isn’t necessarily incorrect either.

When I was in high school, I was taught the theory of evolution and learning about it made me more and more interested in the ideas of science and how science worked. The ideas of evolution made me realize that I loved science and always loved it since I started learning about it. While I was learning almost everything possible about the ideas of evolution, I was also reading Inherit The Wind for my English class. The book was about the trials that took place after John Scopes went against the law and proceeded to teach the findings of evolution in his classroom anyways. These trials were known as the Monkey Trials, which is a perfect name for the trials since we are believed to have supposedly evolved from monkeys, apes and possibly everything else in the world. The Monkey Trials took place in 1925, and apparently John Scopes so called “violated” the Tennessee state laws by teaching evolution. In the same year the Monkey Trials occurred, a law was passed that was known as the Butler Law. This so called law stated that teaching evolution “consisted of a misdemeanor punishable by fine to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” How unbelievable is that, to deny the facts of science. The evidence is there, but they saw it as a threat to the Bible. John Scopes was found guilty for the teaching of evolution in his classroom, but that never stopped him from teaching it. This inspired me to believe that if you’re passionate about something, never give up on it.

For me, the most memorable line from Inherit The Wind is “The Bible is a book. A good book. But it’s not the only book.(Act II, Sc.2) In the book, this was said by Henry Drummond, who is representing Cates, Cates is the real life John Scopes. His lawyer, Henry, is trying to prove a point by saying this. Yes, the bible can be correct if you believe in the bible, but evolution also has the potential to be correct as well. There are millions of different theories in the world of how life started and where everything came from. How would you feel if you spent your entire life proposing the idea of evolution, just to have it be shut down and have the teachings of it be announced illegal by law?

Now, if you had to pick between the Bible and the theory of evolution, which would you pick and why? Well first, both sides have convincing arguments and good facts as to why the opposing side is incorrect and should be frowned upon. It’s so hard to favor one over the other considering both sides have completely different ideas. The people who are for evolution believe that life started simply from single celled organisms, and slowly evolved into complex organisms, turning into completely different life forms than they started out to be. The theory of evolution by natural selection is how to best describe how evolutionists believe life started. Those best fit for their environment are more likely to survive than the weaker links. Survival of the fittest came into play and those who could survive, could produce. Creationists solely believed that everyone needed a creator, which would be God in the Christian ideal. It is stated in the Bible that “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” You don’t feel have to feel like you have to pick sides, but it is possible to stand for both sides. In 2008, a poll showed 44% of Americans reject the idea of evolution. Instead, “they solely believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the 10,000 years.”

I’m not saying I’m against the bible in any way shape or form, but for me it’s different. I love science and have an understanding for it. The idea that we evolved from other beings has so much evidence, that it is almost impossible to deny the truth of evolution. The most logical and important evidence for evolution would be fossils and rock forms. Every layer of rock tells the age and with that it has the ability to keep the fossils a few millions of years from each other. Fossils have the ability of showing us that an older, extinct species can be relatively similar to the species around today. This means that a species is one-hundred percent capable of evolving into a new species entirely. While I was refreshing my mind on evolution, I came to the realization that science is my true passion. Maybe I’ll even change my major to biochem in the near future, so thanks Darwin. I’ll always be a believer and stand by you.