Do most scientists, being that they're scientists, believe in evolution or
that a greater power was responsible for the creation of our earth? I am
studying earth science, all the components that make up the earth. Before
I learn about that, I'm most interested in how earth came to be,
especially a scientist's opinion on the matter.
Many MadSci files addressing your question may be found at the MadSci Evolution FAQ.
You might also check our "Meaning of Life"
FAQ.
What I will do is provide a little more information, that the existing
FAQs don't address. I will also provide some references.
- "Evolution" and "a greater power" are not
mutually exlusive.
For more, see the answer to "Why is there no category in your list of subjects
labelled, 'Creation'?" from the MadSci Evolution FAQ.
You should also check out the references I give below.
- Scientists are not a monolithic bloc of people who all think
alike.
There is at least as much diversity among scientists (as people, as
"political animals," as artists, as writers, ...) as among
non-scientists. Many scientists are non-believers
[1]; others are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, ... of all degrees
of belief or orthodoxy.
So one scientist's opinion, on a lot of subjects (here are some of
mine), may be quite different from another's.
But the fact of evolution is NOT one of those
things on which scientists disagree.
- Evolution is a theory, but a theory is not tentative.
A "hypothesis" is a tentative explanation. Theories are
rigorously-constructed explanations of known facts; the more facts they
explain, the better-supported they are. No one who has read Darwin's On the Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection can mistake its
beautifully-rendered argument for a hypothesis. For more, see this MadSci answer (listed in our Evolution FAQ) and
others linked from that answer.
Evolution, in some form, is accepted by
EVERY biologist I know of [2]. To quote the answer I linked in the previous
paragraph,
There is no question that the Earth and the Universe are very old; that
the Universe is older than the Earth; and that there has been a continuous
stream of life forms on the Earth for about the last 3.8 billion years.
Furthermore, more complex forms of life tend to appear later in this
stream than less complex ones, although of course many less complex forms
have survived and developed down to the present day. All these things are
known.
Evolution is, in one sense, simply the description of these known facts.
It is also an explanation of them, that says that some forms of life
develop into other forms of life by some process or processes; there is
still some debate on how important various processes are in this
development.
- Here are some further resources.
- I deliberately use the term "non-believer" in preference to
"free-thinker". "Free-thinker" is a misnomer because
it implies--against lots of historical evidence--that it's impossible to
come to non-atheistic conclusions by the process of unfettered thought.
Anyway, first catch your "unfettered thought." The notion that
ideas different from those taught by [authority figure] are necessarily
"unfettered" is itself in fetters of steel.
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- I know that there are professional biologists who think
"intelligent design" is a better explanation of some aspects of
the development of life, but they do not deny the basic facts of evolution.
I also know that the Institute for Creation Research has members who claim
to be biologists. But that doesn't make it so. "In Biology nothing
makes sense except in the light of evolution." This statement,
incidentally, was made by a Christian: Theodosius Dobzhansky.
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