![]() ![]() The question that has occupied humankind since ancient times is what the nature of this creative driving force is. The implication is that for anything to exist at all, such as a star, a planet or living organisms, there must be some external driving force that creates order from the primordial disorderly state. Generally speaking, any substance will decompose into its constituent parts thus, entropy (or chaos) in all cases increases over time, and everything tends to deteriorate to a state of lowest energy (McKelvey 2004:66). To explore the question whether reformed theology and contemporary natural science are in conflict, it is necessary to start with the second law of thermodynamics, which states that everything in the universe tends towards increasing disorder. Keywords: Intelligent design Neo-Darwinism Normative methodological naturalism Random unguided materialism Reformed theology Teleology. In this article, the most recent developments in the fields of intelligent design and the anthropic principle will be interrogated to demonstrate that the reformed faith in God as Creator is credible and that the notion of creation as God's general revelation to humankind is increasingly being accepted by the natural scientific community. This is in stark contrast to recent scientific discoveries in disciplines such as biochemistry and palaeontology. The idea of the universe and everything in it as an ongoing 'cosmic accident' is presented as the only truth. Much effort is being expended to bring into disrepute any notion of extraneous control over the laws of nature. As the most dominant species on Earth, we are fortunate enough to study it and appreciate it.Reformed theology and natural science - Conflict or concurrence?įaculty of Natural Sciences and Agriculture, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South AfricaĪtheistic natural scientists propagate a normative materialistic view of the universe, where God as creator is superfluous. That’s how life on Earth started, and continued to flourish. A riparian ecosystemĪll of this diversity is structured, and it is supposed to interact in a certain way for it to work properly. Grassland, tropical forests, oceans, lakes are all examples of ecosystems on Earth. On Earth, we have various ecosystems as well. So many species of animals on Earth Ecosystem diversityĭifferent species grow and adapt to conditions that are specific to a particular environment. Each plays a crucial, if not large, role in the functioning of this planet. We have humans, cats, dogs, tigers, owls, pigeons, Banyan trees and millions of other known and unknown species. ![]() This is the diversity of different organisms present on Earth. This diversity is a direct result of the imperfection in the DNA replication. Each organism is different (unless they are clones). That is why no two dogs never look the same. That is why your brother/sister probably get more pimples than you. That is why your friend has a different color of eyes. This is the diversity of genes that is present within organisms of the same species. This diversity exists at all possible levels in the ecosystem: Genetic diversity This, is the process of evolution as proposed by Charles Darwin.Įvolution is the single phenomenon of nature that has created and maintained the diversity of life on Earth. Speciation is the creation of a new species from an existing species. Give these variations some time, and add to it certain environmental disturbances, and you get the formation of a species. Extrapolating it to a larger scale, these mistakes cause variations in the organism, variations that make it different from other organisms. There are mistakes that happen during the DNA replication, that create some small changes in the new strand of DNA. The happy problem with this process is that it’s never 100% efficient. ![]() DNA replication is the process that governs all life. Imperfection stems from how our DNA replicates. The two main factors for diversity are time and imperfection. This complexity and diversity has developed over the course of millions of years, millions of interactions, both successful and failed. Earth’s ecosystems survive because of it’s complexity and diversity.
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