According to religion how old is the world

Though the viewpoints of those who do not accept the scientific explanation of human origins are not affirmed in the exhibition, the personal importance of their perspectives is appreciated.

What the exhibition intends to create is an environment for an enriching and respectful dialogue on human origins that currently can be found in no other venue. Scientific theories change in the light of new discoveries. Why should we believe what science has to say today about human origins when it may change tomorrow? The perception that scientists completely change their mind with each new discovery is mistaken. Although this has occurred occasionally in the history of science, it is relatively rare.

What is frequently missed is the broad consensus among scientists in a field, like that of human origins research, which provides the basis for seeking new discoveries. For example, it is broadly agreed that the various characteristics that distinguish our species did not emerge all at once. Walking on two legs emerged before making stone tools, and both of these occurred well before the biggest increase in human brain size.

All of these came before the origin of art and symbolic communication. Farming and the rise of civilizations occurred much later still. There is broad scientific agreement even in the light of the most recent fossil discoveries that these changes that define our species took place over a period of about 6 million years. Each visitor to the exhibition has the opportunity to explore both the latest findings of laboratory and field research as well as consider how the scientific community is using these to give a more complete account of human origins.

Each visitor is also invited to consider how this account might inform their deepest religious understanding of what it means to be human. Advocates of Intelligent Design ID hold that there are features of the natural world for which there are no natural explanations and that these features can be shown analytically to be the result of a designing agent.

Although ID advocates seldom specify who the designer is, the logic of their argument requires that the designer be beyond nature, or supernatural. However, advocates for ID have not been able to show that their claims are genuinely scientific.

While the scientific community welcomes new theoretical proposals, these must lead to active research programs that deepen our understanding of nature and that can find confirmation in either laboratory or field observations. Thus far, ID advocates have been unable to do either. As an institution of informal public education, the exhibit cannot advocate a religious position. Dover Area School District, For all of these reasons it is inappropriate for ID to be included in a scientific presentation on human origins.

Still, some people believe that there is a scientific debate about evolution, and that advocates of ID represent one side of this debate. As noted above, the scientific community does not recognize ID as a scientific position. Therefore, it is not one side of a scientific debate. At the same time, the exhibition does provide the visitor with genuine examples of how the evidence for human evolution is interpreted differently by different researchers, for example, in the construction of frameworks for understanding how prehistoric species are related to one another.

Here different interpretations of the evolutionary data are presented. While there is lively debate about such alternatives and data is actively sought to discriminate between them, there is no scientific debate about the basic validity of the theory of evolution as the best scientific explanation for the expansion and diversification of life on Earth, including human life.

Does the exhibition identify the gaps in the scientific understanding of the origin of humans, gaps that can suggest that God played a role? It is the unresolved questions about nature that mark the fertile areas for new research, propelling the sciences forward -- including those related to human origin studies. Science, as a particular way of knowing, restricts itself to offering natural explanations for the natural world.

Supporting materials being developed for the exhibition by the BSIC will help visitors discover resources from various religious traditions that explore religious views on the relation of God and nature.

Religious traditions vary in their response to evolution. For example, Asian religious worldviews do not assume an all-powerful creator God and often see the world religiously as interconnected and dynamic.

They tend, therefore, to engage scientific accounts of evolution with little difficulty. However, for Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, the affirmation of a creator God in relation to the world has a central place. At the same time, some of these persons are committed to the view that there are a few specific acts of divine creative intervention: namely, at the very beginning of the universe, at the origin of life, and at the origin of humankind.

However, as previously noted, others in the monotheistic traditions hold that God creates entirely by means of evolutionary processes without any intervention, even in the case of humans.

There are many though, who adopt a separation approach to science and religion. For these individuals there is no need to raise religious questions in light of the science of human origins. Skip to main content. Connie Bertka and Dr. Science and Religion Visitors to the David H. What is science?

In recent years, some Christians have put forward the idea of an 'intelligent designer' as an alternative to the science of evolution. Virtually all religions include an explanation for life on Earth in their scriptures. In March , Rowan Williams , the Archbishop of Canterbury, joined the evolution versus creationism debate when he said in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that he did not believe that creationism - the scriptural account of the origins of the world - should be taught in schools.

I think creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories. Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it's not a theory alongside theories. It's not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said well, how am I going to explain all this So what is creationism all about - what does it mean, and why does it matter so much to many religious people?

And what is intelligent design and how does it differ from creationism? Creationism is largely based on religious belief, but gains much support from what its protagonists see as the failures of other theories to explain the evidence properly. In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed.

Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. Creationism teaches that life on Earth is the result of God's creative action, and not the result of blind scientific processes. Creationism doesn't attempt to explain how God did this:.

We do not know how God created, what processes He used, for God used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe. This is why we refer to divine creation as Special Creation.

We cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by God. It comes in a variety of forms, and the most common are listed below.

But there are other forms of Creationism which include different combinations of the ideas mentioned:. Scientists are almost unanimous in saying that as the Earth is 4 billion years old, and that the Young Earth theory is false. Day-Age creationism adds an element that reconciles the long period of time shown by the fossil record with the story in Genesis.

Progressive creationism accepts the scientific timetable of creation, and gives evolution a small part to play in the story of life. Creationism is not just a Christian issue.

Muslim creationists base their thinking on similar scientific arguments and on passages such as this in the Qur'an :. In this view, the Bible is without error , clearly written and factually accurate — including when it comes to history and science.

The fundamentalist movement emerged in , holding to biblical inerrancy and creationism. This posed a problem for biblical inerrancy. In Bible scholar John Whitcomb Jr. Young Earth creationism spread through American fundamentalism with astonishing speed in the late 20th century.

Among the many Christian organizations established to advance these ideas is Answers in Genesis , or AiG.

Founded in in Petersburg, Kentucky, AiG is a young Earth creationist juggernaut, producing a flood of creationist books, videos, magazines, school curricula and other print and digital materials each year. As we document in our book, AiG is also heavily invested in the white evangelical right-wing politics that in helped secure the presidency for Donald Trump.

Though the Trump administration derides science and scientists , AiG chief executive Ken Ham claims to be a fan. But contemporary mainstream science is defined by its use of the scientific method , in which scientists formulate a hypothesis, conduct experiments to test that hypothesis and then confirm or deny it. By contrast, creationists begin with a conclusion — that the universe is 6, years old — then seek evidence to confirm it.