MBC BIBLE COLLEGE

SHAMSHBAD , HYDERABAD

Subject :- SCIENCE , TECHNOLOGY AND RELIGION

BID01

Topic:- DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION

Submitting to :- Rev. Shyam Rao

Submitting date :- 21.10.2021

Submitted by – SHAILENDRA MANJHI

In 1859 Darwin published his book ”On the origin of species” . In this book, Darwin explained the
diversity of life on Earth with a theory of evolution. The English Naturalist and geologist came to
the evolution theory following observations he made More than 20 years before, during his voyage
with the HMS Beagle to South America. There he had noted significant differences in wildlife due
to spatial separation. For example, the Andes separates East from West of the continent or islands
lead to isolated Ecosystems. These different environments caused otherwise closely related species
to be Slightly different. Visiting the Galapagos Islands near the end of the voyage undoubtedly
contributed greatly to the inception of his evolution theory.

His work at first did not receive much attention. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, it
was realized that it appeared to be the missing link for Darwin’s theory of evolution. Mendel’s
seminal work still forms the basis of modern Genetics. During the 1920s and 1930s, the works of
Darwin and Mendel were finally combined in one grant theory, the modern evolutionary synthesis,
stating that evolution occurs in small steps in random direction. Each step has a low probability of
occurring, but is at the same time non-reversible. Very rarely, a small change creates an advantage
To the selective condition. Consequently, this adaptation creates stronger progeny and is
maintained in the population. All these low-probability advantageous adaptations together can
explain the big differences found between species around the world.

In the early modern period, due to colonialism and empire Building, European naturalists, working
in centralized Botanical gardens and national zoos, investigated an Unprecedented variety of
animal and plant specimens. Starting. In the 18th century, naturalists began to systematically
Investigate the fossil remains of various organisms and Compare these with living organisms.

In the early half of the 19th century, it became clear that there Had once existed entire families of
flora and fauna (plants and Animals) that had passed out of existence, and that moreover, in The
periods – that is, geological strata – in which these creatures Existed, much of the flora and fauna
that are alive today did not Exist.

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The evidence for large-scale biological change was gathered Slowly and was still ongoing when
Darwin was working.

Various Theories of Evolution

Although there was a lot of disagreement about how these Changes had taken place, and what they
implied, by Darwin’s Time, most naturalists accepted that there had been some Changes in
biological species.

However, even if we accept that there has been change in Species throughout the history of the
earth, we might have Several different theories about how this change occurred.

All of the theories advanced before Darwin argued for some Kind of directed change – in some
sense responding to, and Hence directly influenced by, the environment and the actions of
Organisms.

Darwin tried to distinguish his theories from these by arguing That evolutionary changes were
based only on naturally Occurring processes – processes that are still occurring around us Now.

The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Charles Darwin’s book “On the
Origin of Species” in 1859, describes how organisms evolve over generations through the
inheritance of physical or behavioral traits, as National Geographic explains. The theory starts with
the premise that within a population, there is variation in traits, such as beak shape in one of the
Galapagos finches Darwin studied. Individuals with traits that allow them to adapt to their
environments will help them survive and have more offspring, which will inherit those traits.
Individuals with less adaptive traits will less frequently survive to pass them on. Over time, the
traits that allow species to survive and reproduce will become more frequent in the population and
the population will change, or evolve. Through natural selection, Darwin suggested, a diverse life-
forms could arise from a common ancestor.

Darwin chose the term “natural selection” to be in contrast with “artificial selection,” in which
animal breeders select for particular traits that they deem desirable, according to National
Geographic. In natural selection, it’s the natural environment, rather than a human being, that does
the selecting.

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Put simply, the theory can be described as “descent with modification,” said Briana Pobiner, an
anthropologist and educator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in
Washington, D.C., who specializes in the study of human origins.

The theory is sometimes described as “survival of the fittest,” but that characterization can be
misleading, Pobiner said. Here, “fitness” refers not to an organism’s strength or athleticism but
rather its ability to survive and reproduce.

Darwin did not know the mechanism by which traits were passed on, according to National
Geographic; that is, he did not know about genetics, the mechanism by which genes encode for
certain traits and those traits are passed from one generation to the next; he also didn’t know about
genetic mutation, which is the source of natural variation. But future research by geneticists
provided the mechanism and additional evidence for evolution by natural selection (see “Modern
Understanding,” below). It is one of the best-substantiated theories in the history of science,
supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including not just genetics
(which shows that different species have similarities in their DNA) but also paleontology and
geology (through the fossil record, which shows how that species that existed in the past are
different from those present today), and developmental biology (species that seem very different as
adults pass through similar stages of embryological development, suggesting a shared evolutionary
past).

Darwinian concept of natural selection :-

Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace are the two co-discoverers of natural selection (Darwin &
Wallace 1858), though, between the two, Darwin is the principal theorist of the notion whose most
famous work on the topic is On the Origin of Species (Darwin 1859). For Darwin, natural selection
is a drawn-out, complex process involving multiple interconnected causes. Natural selection
requires variation in a population of organisms. For the process to work, at least some of that
variation must be heritable and passed on to organisms’ descendants in some way. That variation is
acted upon by the struggle for existence, a process that in effect “selects” variations conducive to
the survival and reproduction of their bearers. Much like breeders choose which of their animals
will reproduce and thereby create the various breeds of domesticated dogs, pigeons, and cattle,
nature effectively “selects” which animals will breed and creates evolutionary change just as

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breeders do. Such “selection” by nature, natural selection, occurs as a result of the struggle for
existence and, in the case of sexual populations, the struggle for mating opportunities. That
struggle is itself the result of checks on the geometric population increase that would occur in the
absence of the checks. All populations, even slow-breeding ones such as those of elephants, will
increase in size in the absence of limitations on growth that are imposed by nature. These checks
take different forms in different populations. Such limitations may take the form of limited food
supply, limited nesting sites, predation, disease, harsh climactic conditions, and much else besides.
One way or another, only some of the candidate reproducers in natural populations actually do
reproduce, often because others simply die before maturity. Owing to the variations among the
candidate reproducers, some have better chances of making it into the sample of actual reproducers
than do others. If such variations are heritable, the offspring of those with the “beneficial” traits
will be likely to produce especially many further descendants themselves. To use one of Darwin’s
own examples, wolves with especially long legs that allow them to run more quickly will be more
likely to catch prey and thereby avoid starvation and so produce offspring that have especially long
legs that allow them, in turn, to breed and produce still more long-legged descendants, and so on.
By means of this iterative process, a trait conducive to reproduction that is initially found in one or
a few population members will spread through the population.

Multiple bouts of Darwin’s process involving different traits, acting sequentially or in concert, may
then explain both how speciation and the evolution of complex adaptations occur through the
gradual evolution (change over time) of natural populations. Darwin aimed to convince his
audience that even such structures as the vertebrate eye, which at first seem explicable only as the
product of design, could instead be explained by incremental, directional evolution, a complex but
still naturalistic process (Darwin 1859: ch. 6). What is initially a light sensitive patch may be
transformed into an eye by means of a great many bouts of selection that gradually improve and
enhance its sensitivity. Showing that something is explicable is importantly different from
explaining it (Lennox 1991); still, a theory must be an explanatory sort of theory for it to
accomplish either task. After Darwin, the appearance of novel species in the geological record and
the existence of designed-appearing adaptations cannot be used as grounds for invoking
supernatural causes as a matter of last explanatory resort.

Evolution and the Conditions for Natural Selection

Philosophers and biologists have been concerned to state the conditions for evolution by natural
selection, many because they take it that there is a single theory, evolutionary theory, that governs
Darwin’s process. In many ways, the attempt to state the conditions for natural selection is a

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typical philosophical undertaking. We know, for instance, that confirmatory evidence may be used
to raise our confidence in what it confirms and this recognition spawns a debate over what, exactly,
should count as confirmation (see entry on confirmation). Similarly, Darwin’s theory shows how
some natural phenomena may be explained (including at least adaptations and speciation), and thus
it is a similar philosophical concern to state exactly when the deployment of the theory is licensed.
Such a statement would then issue in a verdict on what, beyond the phenomena targeted by
Darwin, is equally explicable using his theory. Such a verdict could be used to arbitrate whether
the spread of cultural variations, “memes”, is genuinely explicable using the theory, as Dawkins
(1982) suggested. The mammalian immune system may equally involve dynamics that are
explicable as selection processes (see section 4.1 of the entry on replication and reproduction).
Zurek (2009) has even defended using the theory to explain phenomena in quantum mechanics.

Here are the three principles that form the “logical skeleton” of “Darwin’s argument”, according to
Lewontin (1970: 1):

1. Different individuals in a population have different morphologies, physiologies, and

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION?

Even though scientists could predict what early whales should look like, they lacked the fossil
evidence to back up their claim. Creationists viewed this absence, not just with regard to whale
evolution but more generally, as proof that evolution didn’t occur, as pointed out in a Scientific
American article. But since the early 1990s, scientists have found evidence from paleontology,
developmental biology and genetics to support the idea that whales evolved from land mammals.
These same lines of evidence support the theory of evolution as a whole.

Evidence for whale evolution from paleontology

The critical piece of evidence was discovered in 1994, when paleontologists found the fossilized
remains of Ambulocetus natans, which means “swimming-walking whale,” according to a 2009
review published in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach. Its forelimbs had fingers and

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small hooves, but its hind feet were enormous relative to its size. The animal was clearly adapted
for swimming, but it was also capable of moving clumsily on land, much like a seal.

When it swam, the ancient creature moved like an otter, pushing back with its hind feet and
undulating its spine and tail.

Modern whales propel themselves through the water with powerful beats of their horizontal tail
flukes, but A. natans still had a whip-like tail and had to use its legs to provide most of the
propulsive force needed to move through water.

In recent years, more and more of these transitional species, or “missing links,” have been
discovered, lending further support to Darwin’s theory. For example, in 2007, a geologist
discovered the fossil of an extinct aquatic mammal, called Indohyus, that was about the size of a
cat and had hooves and a long tail. Scientists think the animal belonged to a group related to
cetaceans such as Ambulocetus natans. This creature is considered a “missing link” between
artiodactyls — a group of hoofed mammals (even-toed ungulates) that includes hippos, pigs, and
cows — and whales, according to the National Science Foundation.

Researchers knew that whales were related to artiodactyls, but until the discovery of this fossil,
there were no known artiodactyls that shared physical characteristics with whales. After all, hippos,
thought to be cetaceans’ closest living relatives, are very different from whales. Indohyus, on the
other hand, was an artiodactyl, indicated by the structure of its hooves and ankles, and it also had
some similarities to whales, in the structure of its ears.

Darwin and God

Why has Darwin’s science been such a religiously troubling idea? In those parts of the world
influenced by the Bible and the Qur’an, we may point to at least five reasons: (1) Darwinian
biology tells a whole new story of creation, one that cannot be literally reconciled with religious
creation stories such as those narrated in the book of Genesis; (2) the evolutionary notion of natural
selection seems to eliminate the role of God in creating the various species of life; (3) Darwin’s
theory of human descent from nonhuman forms of life raises questions about traditional beliefs in
human uniqueness, such as the biblical claim that human beings are created “in the image and
likeness of God”; (4) the prominent role of chance or accidents in evolution raises questions about
whether a creator truly cares for the world; and (5) the competitive “struggle for existence”
inherent in evolution seems at odds with a Universe created by God.

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What did Darwin think about God? After returning (in 1836) from his sea voyage, he spent the
next 20 years or so brooding about the theological implications of his discoveries. He had once
taken for granted, as almost everyone else did at the time, that all living species came into being by
God’s special creation in the beginning. However, reflecting on what he had observed during his
sea voyage, Darwin began to wonder how his Christian faith could be true. His doubts continued to
grow, probably reinforced by the anguish he experienced at the deaths of his father and 10-year-old
daughter, Annie. In his autobiography Darwin writes: “Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate,
but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted
for a single second that my conclusion was correct.”

Still, Darwin never considered himself the outright atheist that some modern writers have made
him out to be. He continued to refer occasionally to the work of a “Creator” who fashioned the
Universe and its general laws but who then left its living outcomes to a combination of chance and
natural selection. In any case, the religious world of his time was ill prepared for his ideas. Even
now, some people are still reeling from the shock Darwin seems to have delivered to traditional
beliefs. For others, however, an appreciation of his ideas deepens and widens their faith in God.

Three approaches

When Darwin’s On the Origin of Species first appeared, most people in Europe and America read
the biblical accounts of origins literally. They thought the world was only around 6,000 years old
and all living species had been created separately and in a fixed way at the time of the world’s
origins. So, can ancient scriptural accounts of the world’s creation by God be reconciled with
Darwin’s new story? Here are three responses to the question:

1. Conflict

This approach, whose adherents include both religious believers and skeptics, maintains that
evolution by natural selection can never be reconciled with belief in God. Conflict comprises two
main groups. On one side are “creationists” and proponents of “intelligent design.” Both groups
reject evolution as scientifically misguided. Creationists are Christians (and Muslims) who
consider their holy books to be the source of true science and who therefore reject Darwinian
evolution as simply wrong. Proponents of intelligent design do not necessarily read the scriptural
texts literally, but they consider the complexity of life and subcellular mechanisms too staggering
to be the result of natural causes alone. They argue that a supernatural agency is responsible for the
complex “design” that exists in the domain of life.

There are also those who believe strongly in evolution and use it in their arguments against the
existence of a creative and providential deity. These people use the conflict position to reject both

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creationism and intelligent design as wishful thinking incompatible with evolutionary biology.
Especially in the United States, the sense of a conflict between evolution and faith continues to
dominate public discussions. There are other ways, however, of looking at the issue.

2. Contrast

This approach claims that science and faith are responding to completely different kinds of
questions, and so there can be no genuine conflict between evolution and theology. The contrast
approach argues that people should simply acknowledge that sacred scriptures are not science and
that Darwinian science has nothing to do with faith. In the Roman Catholic Church, for example,
Pope Leo XIII in 1893 instructed the faithful not to look for scientific information in biblical texts.
Galileo had given his fellow Catholics the same advice back in the 17th century. As far as evolution
is concerned, therefore, Darwin’s theory of life’s descent and diversity should never be placed in
competition with biblical creation narratives. The creation stories in the Bible were not intended to
satisfy scientific curiosity but to urge devotees to be grateful for the richness of creation. The
Bible’s intention is to answer questions such as “Why is there anything at all rather than nothing?”
and “Is there an eternal reason for trusting that life is worthwhile?”

For the most part, Roman Catholics and other mainstream Christian church- es have avoided
confusing science with faith and theology by recognizing that they answer different questions and
serve different needs. Nevertheless, major strands of fundamentalist and evangelical Protestantism
still view the Bible as scientifically accurate, and they consider Darwin’s science to be
incompatible with biblical “science.” According to the contrast position, however, reading the
Bible as a source of scientific information, whether by creationists or religiously skeptical
evolutionists, misses the whole point of the ancient religious literature.

3. Convergence

This approach sees truth in both science and religion, and since truth cannot contradict truth,
scientific and religious truths must be reconcilable. It adds that in the real world science and faith
can enrich each other. This means that, after Darwin, people of faith cannot have exactly the same
thoughts about God as before. Religious believers and theologians need to readjust their thinking
about God after Darwin no less than they did after Copernicus’s demonstration of a Sun-centered
Solar System. Challenges such as evolution are essential to keeping faith and theology alive and
healthy. Theology was eventually able to adjust to a heliocentric Universe, so it can now adjust to
evolution. The theory of evolution and faith in a creative and providential deity are not mutually
exclusive and numerous theologians and scientists have found ways to reconcile these beliefs. In
their view, there is no necessary danger to religious faith in thinking bold new thoughts about God

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after Darwin. After all, even the idea of God, whether people are aware of it or not, has evolved
over the course of time, and it will continue to do so. If we take the time to think about God in
terms of evolution, convergence argues, religious understanding will have everything to gain and
nothing to lose.

Reconciling evolution and faith

Ever since Darwin, many Christians and other religious people have been enthusiastic about the
discovery of evolution. For example, immediately after On the Origin of Species was published,
the learned Anglican priest and theologian Charles Kingsley gave thanks to Darwin for
demonstrating how ingenious and creative evolution is and how the exciting new picture of life had
enlarged his understanding of the Creator. A God who can make a universe that can make itself by
way of natural processes, Kingsley proposed, is much more impressive and worthy of worship than
one who is always tinkering with the world or keeping it tied to divine puppet strings.

Likewise, the Catholic priest and renowned geologist and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin (1881–1955) wrote many works arguing that his own faith makes more sense after Darwin
than it did before. As one of the first exponents of big history, Teilhard emphasized that
evolutionary biology — along with geology, astrophysics, and cosmology — clearly demonstrated
that the Universe is still coming into being. The fact that this process involves struggling, chance,
failure, and loss — along with grandeur and beauty — is completely consistent with the fact that
the Universe remains unfinished. The role of a creator, Teilhard proposed, is not to force the
Universe to fit tightly and immediately into a prefabricated mold, but to open it to an ever-
widening range of new possibilities as it moves toward a fresh future.

God creates this open universe through natural processes rather than magic. As an evolutionist and
a devout Christian, Teilhard saw no contradiction in interpreting the whole of cosmic history as the
response to an invitation by God. God, he insisted, is not a dictator but the ultimate and everlasting
goal of cosmic process. God always makes room for freedom. Moreover, Teilhard suggested that,
with evolution, the meaning of human life and moral action includes our each contributing to the
great work of ongoing creation.

Conclusion

Despite the wealth of evidence from the fossil record, genetics and other fields of science, some
people still question the theory of evolution’s validity. Some politicians and religious leaders
denounce the theory, invoking a higher being as a designer to explain the complex world of living
things, especially humans.

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School boards debate whether the theory of evolution should be taught alongside other ideas, such
as intelligent design or creationism.

Mainstream scientists see no controversy. “A lot of people have deep religious beliefs and also
accept evolution,” Pobiner said, adding, “there can be real reconciliation.”

Evolution is well supported by many examples of changes in various species leading to the
diversity of life seen today.

Bibliography

Barros, D. Benjamin, 2008, “Natural Selection as a Mechanism”, Philosophy of Science, 75(3):

Bayliss, Christopher D., Dawn Field, and Richard Moxon, “The Simple Sequence Contingency
Loci of Haemophilus Influenzae and Neisseria Meningitidis”, Journal of Clinical Investigation,
107(6): 657–662. Doi:10.1172/JCI12557

Beatty, John, 1992, “Random Drift”, in Evelyn Fox Keller and Elisabeth A. Lloyd (ed.), Keywords
in Evolutionary Biology, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 273–281.

Bourrat, Pierrick, 2015, “How to Read ‘Heritability’ in the Recipe Approach to Natural Selection”,
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 66(4): 883–903. Doi:10.1093/bjps/axu015

Darwin, Charles, 1859, On the Origin of Species, London: John Murray.

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–––, 1877, The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species, London: John Murray.
New York: New York University Press. [Darwin 1877 available online]

Darwin, Charles and Alfred Wallace, 1858, “On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and
on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection”, Journal of the
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. Zoology, 3(9): 45–62. Doi:10.1111/j.1096-
3642.1858.tb02500.x

Matthen, Mohan, Andre Ariew, 2002, “Two Ways of Thinking about Fitness and Natural
Selection”, The Journal of Philosophy, XCIX(2): 55–83. Doi:10.2307/3655552

John F. Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian and senior research fellow at the Woodstock
Theological Center at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C. He is the author of numerous
books, including Science and Faith: A New Introduction (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2012)

Other Internet Resources

Brandon, Robert, “Natural Selection,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/natural-
selection/. [This was the previous entry on natural selection in the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy — see the version history.]

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