Science has established that the theory of evolution is based on solid evidence. Evolution has been confirmed by both religious and non-religious scholarship, using the scientific method. Anyone can demonstrate how evolution works. The Catholic Church, for example, has accepted evolution as the means by which life has developed on earth.
Abiogenesis is not evolution. Abiogenesis is the idea that life arose from non-living elements more than 3.5 billion years ago. Abiogenesis proposes that the first life-forms were very simple but, through the gradual process of evolution, became increasingly complex.
Inanimate particles, atoms and molecules became more complex when the universe expanded and cooled until abiogenesis occurred and life appeared, a process that has yet to be duplicated. For the "God did it" crowd, abiogenesis is unacceptable; for them, abiogenesis is faulty. The “God did it” crowd prefers a simplified explanation of the origin of the universe and rejects scientific evidence. The explanation is simplistic. Complex explanations are too much for the “God did it” crowd, which prefers the vague idea of the creation of the universe by a deity. In contrast to scientific evidence, the “God did it” crowd is short on evidence and cannot provide a shred of evidence for divine creation, literally telling followers to believe a divine explanation in the absence of evidence. As always, when scientific answers are too complex for believers to understand, they prefer no scientific answer. Instead, the “God did it” crown uses magical thinking and offers no explanation of the origin of a mysterious almighty, intelligent being, while claiming, without evidence, that such a being is the cause of the origin of the universe. Even many religious but educated people who accept that evolution has been confirmed and demonstrated through tens of thousands of experiments often still believe there is a god.
I propose that we should look at evolution from a different perspective and think of evolution as a continuous process that started with the Big Bang. We don't know the origin or cause for the Big Bang but I favour the philosophy that, since energy can be neither created nor destroyed, the universe has always existed in some form. The Big Bang is the start of our observable universe and the start of evolution.
There is a well known process called ‘emergence’ wherein the properties of complex forms, as a whole, demonstrate novel consequences arising from the combined properties of individual components. Gazillions of particles, atoms, and molecules, interacting in a favourable environment, took billions of years to develop a self-replicating molecule whose property of ‘life’ emerged and eventually evolved into living forms when subjected to the natural evolution process.
Awareness is also an emergent property of this process. If one looks at this process, it makes sense. Awareness is an emergent process, the results of which we can now observe. The process is totally natural and does not require a magical supernatural entity whose origin is shrouded in mystery. This implies that human awareness is totally dependent on the physical world and is a function of our material brain. If this is the case, our awareness and senses die when our brains die. Supernatural claims for the development of awareness are just fantasies. We know that emergence is a real process since we can observe emergence in many chemical processes and products.
Evolution is a continuous never ending process where life and awareness emerge from an expanding and cooling universe in an environment where evolution and its emergent properties are possible. It also implies that life is widely spread throughout the universe, however there is the possibility that we are unique.
Inanimate particles, atoms and molecules became more complex when the universe expanded and cooled until abiogenesis occurred and life appeared, a process that has yet to be duplicated. For the "God did it" crowd, abiogenesis is unacceptable; for them, abiogenesis is faulty. The “God did it” crowd prefers a simplified explanation of the origin of the universe and rejects scientific evidence. The explanation is simplistic. Complex explanations are too much for the “God did it” crowd, which prefers the vague idea of the creation of the universe by a deity. In contrast to scientific evidence, the “God did it” crowd is short on evidence and cannot provide a shred of evidence for divine creation, literally telling followers to believe a divine explanation in the absence of evidence. As always, when scientific answers are too complex for believers to understand, they prefer no scientific answer. Instead, the “God did it” crown uses magical thinking and offers no explanation of the origin of a mysterious almighty, intelligent being, while claiming, without evidence, that such a being is the cause of the origin of the universe. Even many religious but educated people who accept that evolution has been confirmed and demonstrated through tens of thousands of experiments often still believe there is a god.
I propose that we should look at evolution from a different perspective and think of evolution as a continuous process that started with the Big Bang. We don't know the origin or cause for the Big Bang but I favour the philosophy that, since energy can be neither created nor destroyed, the universe has always existed in some form. The Big Bang is the start of our observable universe and the start of evolution.
There is a well known process called ‘emergence’ wherein the properties of complex forms, as a whole, demonstrate novel consequences arising from the combined properties of individual components. Gazillions of particles, atoms, and molecules, interacting in a favourable environment, took billions of years to develop a self-replicating molecule whose property of ‘life’ emerged and eventually evolved into living forms when subjected to the natural evolution process.
Awareness is also an emergent property of this process. If one looks at this process, it makes sense. Awareness is an emergent process, the results of which we can now observe. The process is totally natural and does not require a magical supernatural entity whose origin is shrouded in mystery. This implies that human awareness is totally dependent on the physical world and is a function of our material brain. If this is the case, our awareness and senses die when our brains die. Supernatural claims for the development of awareness are just fantasies. We know that emergence is a real process since we can observe emergence in many chemical processes and products.
Evolution is a continuous never ending process where life and awareness emerge from an expanding and cooling universe in an environment where evolution and its emergent properties are possible. It also implies that life is widely spread throughout the universe, however there is the possibility that we are unique.
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