Q: What is Creationism?
A: The first challenge to Darwinism has come in the fairly ineffective form of Creationism. Since the first publication the Origin of Species, the more fundamentalist branches of Christianity have been at odds with the theory of evolution, seeing it as a direct challenge to the belief that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Instead of the theory that life has adapted to conditions on Earth after millions of years and generations, Creationists believe that a deity, usually the Christian god, has directly designed all life and immediately placed it on the Earth. Therefore, nothing can evolve into new phyla - the major organizational unit underneath that of kingdom- because it is against the intent of God. In a more scientific argument, Creationists claim that small changes in genetic material cannot account for the formation of organs such as the brain and eyes, and that the environment cannot play a distinct role in the evolution of a new species. This is the theory famous for making the statement, "I have never seen a chimp become a human". Creationism thus challenges microevolution and macroevolution, (respectively) the small changes in a species' class that create new orders of species and the ability of organisms to have drastic changes in their phyla over time: fish becoming Amphibians over the course of a few million years, for example.
Q: How do Macroevolution and Microevolution relate?
A: Microevolution and Macroevolution are essentially the same process: Changes in organisms, caused by natural selection, accumulating over time into adaptations. The only difference is the length of time covered, with macro evolution covering eras rather than centuries. Microevolution leads directly to macroevolution as changes in organisms' forms accumulate over generations. Two theories have emerged to explain this connection. One is Phyletic Gradualism, according to which organisms of a species accumulate small changes over generations until they eventually become a new species.
Punctuated Equilibrium, on the other hand, states that organisms of the same species live in different conditions that create various selection pressures. Eventually, one of these areas, under the more intense pressure, will create a new species from the original, which will ultimately take over the habitat of the first, leading to a non- linear “evolution”.
This theory solved a major problem in the original theory of evolution. It was originally noted that few phyla have formed since the rise of mammals. Punctuated Equilibrium explains how new phyla can emerge by taking over the niches of the original phyla. Due to this, and the challenges to Phyletic Gradualism on account of the slow rate of genetic drift without selection pressure, Punctuated Equilibrium is the more widely accepted theory. Thus, the ability of organisms to change slightly leads to the ability of a species to form a new phylum after many millions of years.
Q: How does the fossil record play into the controversy?
A: Until recently, the fossil record was a major source of contention as no complete record of a change between phyla had ever been discovered. One particular set of fossils was the largest challenge to scientists: although the shell-less vertebrates and later shelled forms were obvious in the sediments of the Cambrian era, it was impossible to locate the intermediate forms.
Paleontologists were troubled with this for decades and it became a favorite point of many Creationists. However, using a process of fossil extraction, the fossils of the Tommotian era were discovered, effectively completing a chain of evolution (Ward 8). This blow caused the Creationism argument to die down for a time, paving the way for a new argument against evolution to form.
Q: What are the key arguments of Intelligent Design?
A: Intelligent Design does not challenge the originally stated processes of evolution, but rather the Origin of Life theory that has become absorbed into the theory of Neo-Darwinism since. Identifying random chemical interactions theorized to have formed the first life as having happened by "accident", Intelligent Design addresses the theory of evolution from a microbiological standpoint and claims that many chemical structures found in living organisms are too irreducibly complex to have formed from an entirely natural process and therefore must have been developed by a Creator (Behe 223).
Contrary to popular example, this counter-theory does not question the complex nature of the eye but instead poses the question of, as Behe states, "how a nerve became sensitive to light in the first place."(18) Thus, Intelligent Design's attack on Neo-Darwinism does not focus on macroevolution but instead the delicate structures found in living bodies: for example, systems with many separate parts such as that which forms blood clots as well as those that function based on a sensitive arrangement of parts, i.e. the cilia (Behe 59).
Q: What is the origin of life theory?
