Classic Views on Creation and Evolution 



SAINT AUGUSTINE 



GEORGES CUVIER 



CARL LINNAEUS 



Agreed that life arose as a special creation 



Species of plants and animals inhabiting the earth have 

 changed through the ages 



Creation included the proc- 

 esses by which new species 

 arose from previous forms 



Each species was created 



anew from time to time, 



without relation to previous 



forms 



Species have remained in 



time exactly as they were 



created 



All these theories, whether or not they involve miracles, resemble scientific 

 hypotheses in assuming or supposing some agency or process that could reason- 

 ably account for the facts to be explained. But these views differ from scien- 

 tific conceptions in one important respect: they rest on assumptions that 

 cannot be checked or tested by further facts. The scientist tries to shape his 

 theories in ways which will permit them to be checked by further observa- 

 tions or experiments. Obviously we cannot make any experiments regarding 

 what happened millions of years ago. But the scientist can do one of two things. 

 Either he can say frankly that he does not know or that he cannot imagine. 

 Or he can think out "explanations" or suppositions that not only are "reason- 

 able" but that enable us to experiment with materials and processes and events 

 that are at hand now. 



In Brief 



To talk about the "origin of life" implies that life exists apart from matter 

 and energy. 



It is impossible, in a strictly scientific sense, to locate or manipulate any 

 "vital principle". 



What we know of the earth and its past and what we know of bodies in 

 space can be harmonized neither with the idea that life has always existed on 

 the earth, nor with the idea that it came in some form from another world. 



In the laboratory, complex compounds have been made which approach 

 the make-up of various substances that occur naturally only in protoplasm. 



Filterable viruses and bacteriophage behave in some ways like living beings, 

 yet appear to be chemical compounds rather than organisms. 



Many distinct yet plausible explanations of the origin or creation of the 

 world and of life have been developed by peoples in all parts of the world and 

 in all stages of civilization. 



Some of the creation theories assume beings or forces about which we can 

 have no positive knowledge. 



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