Alternative Views of Origin Of Life (Different cultures)

•Discuss the ways in which developments in scientific knowledge may conflict with the ideas about the origins of life developed by different cultures:Different cultures and religious in the world have their own ideas about life, it maybe quite different to the scientific evidenceIn biblical creationism different organisms were made for specialised environments at the same time, the organisms that were created have not changed nor are they related.

­Science: Evolution; all organisms are constantly changing, not created, but evolved.

­Christians: They believe in Biblical creationism; all organisms created as they are by God, no change over time­Chinese: Believe the first organism was P'an Ku, who evolved in a giant cosmic egg. All elements of the universe were in the egg, all mixed. In the egg, he separated the opposites, then 18,000 years later the egg hatched, and P'an Ku died from the effort of creation.

­Aboriginals: Dreamtime; great supernatural beings existed in the dreamtime and created the Earth and everything in it­Greek: Aristotle's ideas that the whole universe had a hierarchy and that it started from rocks, up through plants and animals, to humans, and finally to God.

­Romans: Lucretius, a Roman philosopher believed there was no God, because the universe was so imperfect. It was made of particles all squeezing together.

­As you can see, science contradicts with the belief of many people.

Conflicts with different culturesDifferent cultures and religious in the world have their own ideas about life, it maybe quite different to the scientific evidence.

¬In biblical creationism different organisms were made for specialised environments at the same time, the organisms that were created have not changed nor are they related¬Australian Aborigines believe that ancestral beings created the world a long time ago in a period known as the dream time. The scientific theories in this area are different to what the aborigines believe and this can often cause conflict.

This conflict does however provoke people to think about what might have really happened and to question beliefs and leads to the formation of new theories•Since the proposal of the theory of evolution, there has been conflict between the religious and scientific views of the origins of life.

•Depending on your POV - evolution = godless materialism against morality or enlightened humanism agaust superstition.

•Most scientists support evolution, some have combined the theory with religious beliefs theistic evolution.

The Evolution-Creation debate: Traditional version -•End of 18th century - people believed in creation.

•Carolus Linnaeus believed that species had never changed since creation.

•French anatomist Cuvier used knowledge of living vertebrates to help reconstruct the appearance of the many fossils being discovered at the time. He said that the fossils were the remains of plants and animals killed by catastrophes like the biblical flood.

•Resemblance between living things resulted from design. The "Creator" showed his skill in varying the details while retaining the essentials.

The great debate•Since Darwin's The Origin of Species was published in 1859, there was immediate reaction from the church.

•Darwin was immediately condemned everywhere, but was defended by a few influential scientists (Lyell and Huxley).

•There was a fight at Oxford in 1860 over evolution - Huxley VS Bishop of Oxford.

Biology 1; J. Gao; Mcmillan Press; 2004;