Theories of the origin of man. creationism

1. Divine theory of the origin of man

Views based on the fact that man was created by God or gods arose much earlier than the materialistic theories of spontaneous generation of life and the evolution of anthropoid ancestors into humans. In various philosophical, theological teachings of antiquity, the act of human creation was attributed to various deities.

For example, according to Mesopotamian myths, the gods, led by Marduk, killed their former rulers Abazu and his wife Tiamat, Abazu's blood was mixed with clay, and the first man arose from this clay. Hindus had their own views on the creation of the world and man in it. According to their ideas, the world was dominated by a triumvirate - Shiva, Krishna and Vishnu, who laid the foundation for humanity. The ancient Incas, Aztecs, Dagons, Scandinavians had their own versions, which basically coincided: a person is a creation of the Higher Mind or simply God.

Christian religious views on the creation of the world and man in it, associated with the divine creation of Jehovah (Yahweh) - the only God in the Universe, manifesting himself in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God - Holy Spirit.

The area of ​​research aimed at finding scientific evidence for this version is called "scientific creationism." Modern creationists seek to back up the texts of the Bible with accurate calculations. In particular, they prove that Noah's ark could accommodate all the "creatures in pairs" - given that fish and other aquatic animals do not need a place in the ark, and the rest of vertebrates - about 20 thousand species. If we multiply this number by two (a male and a female were taken into the ark), we get about 40,000 animals. A medium-sized sheep van can carry 240 animals. This means that 146 such vans would be needed. And an ark 300 long, 50 wide and 30 cubits high would contain 522 such wagons. This means that there was a place for all animals and there would be more - for food and people. Moreover, God, according to Thomas Heinz of the Institute for Creation Research, would probably have guessed to take small and young animals so that they take up less space and multiply more actively.

Creationists generally reject evolution, while citing facts that testify in their favor. For example, it is reported that computer experts have reached a dead end in an attempt to reproduce human vision. They were forced to admit that they could not artificially reproduce the human eye, especially the retina with its 100 million rods and cones, as well as the neural layers that perform at least 10 billion computational operations per second. At the same time, they quote the statement of Charles Darwin: "The assumption that the eye ... could be developed by natural selection may seem, I admit it frankly, to the highest degree absurd."

2. Creationism

human evolution theological worldview

Creationism (from Latin creatio, genus p. creationis - creation) is a theological and ideological concept, according to which the main forms of the organic world (life), humanity, planet Earth, and the world as a whole are considered as directly created by the Creator or God.

The history of creationism is part of the history of religion, although the term itself is not that old. The term "creationism" became popular around the end of the 19th century, as a concept that recognizes the truth of the Old Testament story of the creation of the world. The accumulation of data from various sciences, especially the spread of the theory of evolution in the 19th century, led to the emergence of a contradiction between new views in science and the biblical picture of the world.

In 1932, the "Protest Movement Against Evolution" was founded in Great Britain, the purpose of which was to disseminate "scientific" information and facts proving the falsity of evolutionary teachings and the truth of the biblical picture of the world. By 1970, the number of active members reached 850 people. In 1972, the Newton Scientific Association was formed in the United Kingdom.

In the United States, fairly influential creationist organizations succeeded in obtaining a temporary ban on the teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools in several states, and from the mid-1960s, activists of "young earth creationism" began to seek the introduction of "scientific creationism" into the school curriculum. In 1975, the teaching of pure creationism in the school was declared unconstitutional in Daniel v. Waters. This caused the name to be changed to "creation science", and after its prohibition in 1987 ("Edwards v. Aguillard"), to "intelligent design", which was again banned by the court already in 2005 ("Kitzmiller v. Dover").

Since 1992, the Istanbul Foundation for Scientific Research (BAV) has been operating in Turkey, known for its extensive publishing activities. In February 2007, the Foundation presented a 770-page illustrated textbook "Atlas of the Creation", which was sent free of charge to scientists and schools in the UK, Scandinavia, France and Turkey in their languages. In addition to "scientific" theories, the book touches on worldview issues. Thus, the authors of the book lay the blame for communism, Nazism and Islamic radicalism on the theory of evolution. "Darwinism is the only philosophy that values ​​conflict," the text says.

Currently, public associations, groups and organizations operate under the ideology of creationism in different countries of the world. According to reports: 34 in the US, 4 in the UK, 2 in Australia, 2 in South Korea, 2 in Ukraine, 2 in Russia, 1 in Turkey, 1 in Hungary, 1 in Serbia.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), of which Russia is also a member, in its resolution 1580 of October 4, 2007 entitled "The danger of creationism for education" expressed concern about the possible unhealthy consequences of the spread of ideas of creationism within educational systems and that creationism could become a threat to human rights, which are of key importance to the Council of Europe. The resolution emphasizes the inadmissibility of replacing science with faith and the falsity of creationist claims about the scientific nature of their teachings.

3. Creationism in various religions

Creationism in Christianity.

Currently, creationism is a wide range of concepts - from purely theological and philosophical to those claiming to be scientific. However, what this set of concepts have in common is that they are rejected by most scientists as unscientific, at least by Karl Popper's criterion of falsifiability: the conclusions from the premises of creationism have no predictive power, since they cannot be tested by experiment.

There are many different currents in Christian creationism, diverging in the interpretation of natural science data. According to the degree of discrepancy with the views generally accepted in science on the past of the Earth and the Universe, among them are distinguished:

· Literal (Young-Earth) Creationism (Young-Earth Creationism) insists on literally following the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament. That is, the world was created exactly as it is described in the Bible - in 6 days and about 6000 (according to some Protestants, based on the Masoretic text of the Old Testament) or 7500 (according to some Orthodox, based on the Septuagint) years ago.

· Metaphorical (old earth) creationism: in it "6 days of creation" is a universal metaphor adapted to the level of perception of people with different levels of knowledge; in reality, one "day of creation" corresponds to millions or billions of real years, since in the Bible the word "day" means not only a day, but often indicates an indefinite period of time. Among the metaphorical creationists currently most common are:

· Gap creationism: The earth was created long before the first day of creation, and either remained "formless and empty" for the same 4.6 billion years that the scientific evidence suggests, or was emptied by God for a new creation. Only after this chronological gap was creation resumed - God gave the Earth a modern look and created life. As with Young Earth Creationism, the six biblical days of creation are considered six literal 24-hour days.

· Progressive creationism: According to this concept, God continuously directs the process of changing species and their appearance. Representatives of this direction accept geological and astrophysical data and dating, but completely reject the theory of evolution and speciation by natural selection.

· Theistic evolutionism (evolutionary creationism): accepts the theory of evolution, but claims that evolution is an instrument of God the Creator in the implementation of his plan. Theistic evolutionism accepts all or almost all ideas generally accepted in science, limiting the miraculous intervention of the Creator to acts not studied by science, such as the creation of an immortal soul by God in man (Pope Pius XII), or interpreting randomness in nature as manifestations of divine providence. Many anti-evolution creationists do not consider their position to be creationism at all (the most radical of the literalists even deny theistic evolutionists the right to call themselves Christians).

Orthodox Churches do not currently (2014) have a single official position in relation to the theory of evolution and, accordingly, creationism.

Creationism in Judaism.

Since the Qur'an, unlike the Book of Genesis, does not provide a detailed description of the creation of the world, literalist creationism in the Muslim world is much less common than Islam believes (in accordance with the text of the Qur'an) that humans and jinn were created by God. The modern views of many Sunnis on the theory of evolution are close to evolutionary creationism.

Many representatives of Orthodox Judaism deny the theory of evolution, insisting on a literal reading of the Torah, however, representatives of the modern Orthodox branch of Judaism - religious modernists and religious Zionists tend to interpret some parts of the Torah allegorically and are ready to partially accept the theory of evolution in one form or another. Representatives of conservative and reformist Judaism fully accept the basic postulates of the theory of evolution.

Thus, the views of representatives of classical Orthodox Judaism are close to fundamentalist creationism, while the views of modern Orthodox, as well as conservative and reformed Judaism, are close to theistic evolutionism.

Creationism in Islam.

The Islamic criticism of evolutionary theory is much more harsh than the Christian one. Islamic criticism in many of its features resembles the ideas of the French post-structuralists set forth in such works as "Symbolic Exchange and Death", "The Spirit of Terrorism" (J. Baudrillard), "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" (J. Deleuze, F. Guattari). Quite unexpected is the similarity of this criticism with some of the ideas of modern Neo-Marxism (A. Negri).

Currently, one of the most active propagandists of Islamic creationism is Harun Yahya. Harun Yahya's statements about the theory of evolution, and the nature of his argumentation, are often subjected to scientific criticism.

A number of Islamic scholars also do not share the views of H. Yahya. So, Dalil Boubaker, President of the Muslim Union of France, commenting on the books of Harun Yahya, noted that "evolution is a scientific fact", and "the theory of evolution does not contradict the Koran": "He tries to show that species remain unchanged, and cites as evidence photographs, but at the same time he cannot explain the disappearance of some species and the emergence of others.

Sociologist Malek Shebel also said in an interview with Le Monde newspaper in February 2007 that "Islam has never been afraid of science... Islam has nothing to be afraid of Darwinism... Islam is not afraid of the history of evolution and mutation of the human race."

Creationism in Hinduism.

Among the non-Abrahamic religions, creationism in Hinduism deserves attention. Since Hinduism assumes a very ancient age of the world, in Hindu literal creationism, in contrast to Abrahamic, it is not the youth of the Earth that is affirmed, but the antiquity of mankind. At the same time, like the fundamentalists of the Abrahamic religions, biological evolution is denied, and, among other things, the simultaneity of the existence of humans and dinosaurs is affirmed.

Boston University professor M. Sherman proposes a hypothesis about the artificial appearance of a "universal genome" in the Cambrian to explain the causes of the so-called Cambrian explosion in the evolution of multicellular organisms. Moreover, he insists on scientific verification of his hypothesis.

scientific creationism.

"Science of creation" or "scientific creationism" (eng. Creation Science) - a trend in creationism, whose supporters claim that it is possible to obtain scientific confirmation of the biblical act of creation and, more broadly, biblical history (in particular, the Flood), while remaining within the framework of scientific methodology.

Although the writings of "creation science" proponents often appeal to problems of the complexity of biological systems, which brings their concept closer to conscious design creationism, proponents of "scientific creationism" tend to go further and insist on the need for a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, substantiating their position as theological as well as scientific, in their opinion, arguments.

The following statements are typical for the works of "scientific creationists":

· Contrasting "operational science" about natural phenomena in the present time, the hypotheses of which are available for experimental verification, "historical science" about events that occurred in the past. Due to the inaccessibility of direct verification, according to creationists, historical science is doomed to rely on a priori postulates of a "religious" nature, and the conclusions of historical science can be true or false depending on the truth or falsity of the a priori accepted religion.

· "Originally created kind", or "baramin". Creationists of past centuries, like K. Linnaeus, when describing various species of animals and plants, assumed that the species are immutable, and the number of currently existing species is equal to the number originally created by God (minus species that have become extinct already in the historical memory of mankind, for example, dodos). However, the accumulation of data on speciation in nature forced opponents of the theory of evolution to put forward a hypothesis, according to which the representatives of each "baramin" were created with a set of certain characteristics and the potential for a limited number of changes. A species (a reproductively isolated community, as population geneticists understand it, or a static phase of the evolutionary process, as paleontologists understand it) is not synonymous with the "baramin" of creationists. According to opponents of the theory of evolution, some "baramins" include many species, as well as taxa of a higher order, while others (for example, human, which creationists insist on for theological, teleological and some natural science reasons), may include only one kind. After the creation, representatives of each "baramin" interbred with each other either without restrictions, or in sub-baramins - species. As a criterion for two different species to belong to the same "baramin", creationists usually put forward the ability to produce offspring (even if infertile) during interspecific hybridization. Since examples of such hybridization between mammalian species traditionally classified as belonging to different genera are known, it is commonly believed among creationists that in mammals, a "baramin" roughly corresponds to a family (the only exception is man, who constitutes a separate "baramin").

· "Flood geology", declaring the simultaneous deposition of most of the sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust with burial and rapid fossilization of the remains due to the global flood in the time of Noah and, on this basis, denies the stratigraphic geochronological scale. According to supporters of "flood geology", in the fossil record, representatives of all taxa appear "fully formed", which refutes evolution. Moreover, the occurrence of fossils in stratigraphic layers does not reflect the sequence of floras and faunas that have replaced each other over many millions of years, but the sequence of ecosystems tied to different geographical depths and heights - from benthic and pelagic through shelf and lowland to plain and high mountain. Calling modern geology "uniformist" or "actualist", the "flood geologists" accuse opponents of postulating exceptionally slow rates of geological processes such as erosion, sedimentation and mountain building, which, according to the "flood geologists", cannot ensure the preservation of fossils, and also the intersection by some fossils (usually tree trunks) of several layers of sedimentary rocks ("flood geologists" call such fossils "polystan").

· In order to explain the multibillion-year ages of the Earth and the Universe, which geo- and astrophysics gives, attempts are made in creationism to prove the inconstancy in time of world constants, such as the speed of light, Planck's constant, elementary charge, masses of elementary particles, etc., and also, in As an alternative explanation, gravitational time dilation in near-Earth space is postulated. A search is also underway for phenomena that indicate a young (less than 10 thousand years) age of the Earth and the Universe.

· Among other statements, one often comes across the thesis that the second law of thermodynamics rules out evolution (or at least abiogenesis).

In 1984, the Creation Evidence Museum was founded in Texas by Carl Boe. Karl Bo is known for his excavations (allegedly he discovered dinosaur footprints next to human footprints, dinosaur bones and skin).

May 2007 in the US city of Cincinnati opened a large museum of creationism. Based on computer technology, the museum recreated an alternative concept of the history of the Earth. According to the creators of the museum, no more than 10 thousand years have passed since the creation of the world. The main support in the creation of the museum was the Bible. The museum has a special section dedicated to the Flood and Noah's Ark. A separate section is devoted to Darwin's theory in the museum, and, according to the creators, it completely debunks the modern evolutionary theory of the origin of man. Prior to the opening of the museum, 600 academicians signed a petition asking for children to be kept away from the museum. A small group gathered a picket near the walls of the museum under the slogan "Don't lie!". The attitude towards the museum in society remains ambiguous.

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Creationism (from the Latin creatio - creation), a religious and philosophical doctrine of the creation of the world and man by God. The prerequisites for the formation of creationism arose in the process of the development of cosmogonic myths due to the terminological fixation of the difference between the act of creation and other actions of the deity (biological generation, handicraft, struggle, etc.), acting as factors in the cosmogonic process. In a latent form, creationist elements are already present in the archaic mythologies of the Ancient East (ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyro-Babylonian), but the tendency towards creationism was most clearly manifested in the Holy Scriptures of the Jews. As a peculiar type of ontology, creationism developed mainly within the framework of the Old Testament and New Testament traditions, initially in the course of the Late Antique reception of the biblical narrative (especially in the book of Genesis and the Gospel of John) about the Creation of the world. Ideas about creation were also peculiarly reworked in the Arab-Muslim tradition, which formulated its own version of creationism.

Christian creationism received a detailed formulation during the patristic period - first within the framework of biblical exegesis, and then during the development of the basic principles of Christian systematic theology. The conceptual means for such a formulation were developed in Greek in the writings of Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and the Cappadocian Fathers, in Latin - primarily in the works of Blessed Augustine, who established as the primary ontological distinction between the eternal and unchanging Creator and the temporary and changeable creature, and also in the writings of John Scotus Eriugena, who distinguished between such types of entities as “creating and uncreated”, “creating and created”, “uncreating and created”. The concept of creationism is reflected in the Creeds containing the definition of one God as the Creator.

During its formation as a doctrine, creationism opposed both various versions of the Neoplatonic theory of emanation and naturalistic ideas about the formation and ordering of eternally existing matter (see Form and Matter). In the course of discussions around the concept of creation, a logical difficulty emerged - on the one hand, creation must be thought of as an act, on the other hand, it cannot be defined as an event in time - which was solved differently by various philosophers and theologians. Creationism received its terminology in medieval scholasticism. In the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard, a strict distinction was first fixed between "creare" ("to make something out of nothing") and "facere" ("to create from the available material"). Based on it, Thomas Aquinas substantiated the difference between creation (creatio) and emergence (generatio) using the Aristotelian concepts of possibility and reality. According to Thomas, generatio is the realization of a present possibility, creatio is a pure act, to which no possibility precedes; therefore the former can come about gradually, while the latter is conceivable only as indivisible and absolutely simple.

The distinction between creation and emergence has played a key role in theological and philosophical discussions about the origin of the soul: in contrast to traditionalism, according to which the soul, along with the body, is transmitted to man from parents, creationism claims that it is created by God and unites with the body of an infant.

In the rationalist philosophy of modern times, creationism began to gradually take on more and more limited forms, from R. Descartes' concept of eternal creation to various versions of deism.

Lit.: Norris R.A. God and world in early Christian theology. L., 1966; Jonas H. Materie, Geist und Schöpfung. Fr./M., 1988.

P. V. Rezvykh.

Creationism in biology. The concept of the constancy of species, considering the diversity of the organic world as the result of Divine creation. It was formed at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century in connection with the transition to a systematic study of morphology, physiology, individual development and reproduction of organisms, which gradually replaced the ideas of transformism about sudden transformations of species and the emergence of organisms as a result of a random combination of individual organs (Empedocles, Lucretius, Albert the Great and etc.). Proponents of the idea of ​​the constancy of species (IS Pallas) argued that species really exist, that they are discrete and stable, and the range of their variability has strict limits. K. Linnaeus argued that there are as many species as they were created during the creation of the world. J. Cuvier explained the change of floras and faunas in the paleontological chronicle by the theory of catastrophes, which in the works of his followers (J. L. R. Agassiz, A. D'Orbigny and others) led to the postulation of dozens of periods of complete renewal of the organic world of the Earth. Multiple acts of creation of individual species were recognized by C. Lyell. Due to the wide and rapid recognition of the idea of ​​evolution under the influence of Darwinism, the number of adherents of creationism in biology already in the mid-1860s was greatly reduced, but the ideas of creationism were actively discussed in philosophical and religious doctrines. Repeated attempts have been made to combine the idea of ​​evolution with the idea of ​​God as its original cause and ultimate goal (N. Ya. Danilevsky, P. Teilhard de Chardin, and others). Beginning in the 1960s in the United States, and then in Western Europe, the movement of "scientific creationism" was formed, numerous societies and academies arose that defended the thesis that natural science fully confirms the accuracy of the biblical narrative about the creation of the universe and man, and the theory of evolution is only one of possible explanations for the development of the organic world. Most biologists, based on the reality of evolution in general and natural selection in particular, reject the "intelligent creation theory" and believe that the evidence for "scientific creationism" is based on a misunderstanding of the modern theory of evolution.

Lit .: Danilevsky N. Ya. Darwinism: A Critical Study. SPb., 1885-1889. T. 1-2; Gray A. Darwiniana: essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. Camb. (Mass.), 1963; Nazarov V. I. Evolutionary theory in France after Darwin. M., 1974; Morris H. The scientific case for creation. 5th ed. San Diego, 1984; Tatarinov L.P. Evolution and creationism. M., 1988; Gish D. Creation scientists answer their critics. SPb., 1995; Morris G. Biblical foundations of modern science. SPb., 1995; Creationism in twentieth century America. N.Y.; L., 1995. ; Smout K. The creation/evolution controversy: a battle for cultural power. Westport; L., 1998; Ruse M. Mystery of mysteries: is evolution and social construction? Camb. (Mass.); L., 1999; Numbers R. The creationists: from scientific creationism to intelligent design. Camb. (Mass.); L., 2006; Hayward J. The creation/evolution controversy: An annotated bibliography. Lantham; L., 1998.

Report on the topic: the idea of ​​creationism.

Creation theory

Creationism (from the English creation - creation) is a philosophical and methodological concept in which the main forms of the organic world (life), humanity, the planet Earth, and the world as a whole are considered as deliberately created by some superbeing or deity. The followers of creationism develop a set of ideas - from purely theological and philosophical to those claiming to be scientific, although in general the modern scientific community is critical of such ideas.

Creationism, science and religion

A feature of many religions, including monotheistic ones (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), is the presence of codified sacred texts (respectively, the Bible, Tanakh and Koran), containing in one form or another fragments describing the creation of the world and man. The accumulation of data from various sciences (from astronomy to geology and biology), in particular the emergence of the theory of evolution in the 19th century, led to a contradiction between the literal reading of these texts and scientific data and theories. The result of this contradiction was creationism as a set of teleological concepts that are a religious reaction to scientific ideas about the evolution of animate and inanimate nature. Within the framework of such concepts, fundamentalist currents continued to adhere to a literal interpretation of sacred texts, declaring the views of science on the origin of the world and man as incorrect, while liberal currents tried to find a compromise between them.

According to K. Popper's scientific criterion, creationism is not a scientific theory, but a philosophical concept and religious faith, since the introduction of concepts that are not verifiable by scientific methods (such as God the Creator) does not meet the generally accepted principle of verifiability/falsifiability and Occam's principle. By the way, strong atheism (the assertion that there is no God or gods) is unscientific for the same reason: it is impossible to verify this by scientific methods, because it is impossible to point to the observable consequences of the hypothesis of the existence/non-existence of God. Strong agnosticism (the assertion that the existence/non-existence of God is basically impossible to prove) is also unscientific, because it is impossible to exclude God's manifestation of himself in a way that will be impossible to deny.

According to most specialists in the field of natural sciences who study the past, the literal interpretation of the sacred texts of different religions about creation is not only not scientific, but also pseudoscientific, since such an interpretation contradicts the array of paleontological and biological data in terms of the interpretation of biological evolution, as well as geological and astrophysical data on the age of the Earth and astronomical objects. There are active discussions between supporters of creationism and its opponents in many countries, including Russia, mainly about the appropriateness of teaching such views (from an academic point of view, marginal) in schools.

Christian creationism

Theological concepts

There are many different currents in Christian creationism, diverging in the interpretation of natural science data. According to the degree of conflict with scientific views on the past of the Earth and the Universe, among them are distinguished:

Literal(young earth ) creationism(Young-Earth Creationism) insists on literally following the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament, i.e. that the world was created exactly as described in the Bible - in 6 days and about 6000 (according to some Protestants, based on the Masoretic text of the Old Testament) or 7500 (according to some Orthodox, based on the Septuagint) years ago.

Metaphorical(Old-Earth) Creationism: in it, "6 days of creation" is a universal metaphor adapted to the level of perception of people with different levels of knowledge; in reality, one "day of creation" corresponds to millions or billions of real years. Among the metaphorical creationists currently most common are:

Gradual Creationism ( progressive creationism ): according to this concept, God continuously directs the process of changing biological species and their appearance. Representatives of this direction accept geological and astrophysical data and dating, but completely reject the theory of evolution and speciation by natural selection.

Theistic evolutionism(evolutionary creationism) recognizes the theory of evolution, but argues that evolution is a tool of God the Creator in the implementation of his plan. Theistic evolutionism accepts all or almost all ideas generally accepted in science, limiting the miraculous intervention of the Creator to such acts not studied by science as the creation of an immortal soul by God in man (Pope Pius XII), or interpreting chance in nature as manifestations of divine providence (modern Russian paleontologist A V. Gomankov). From the point of view of theology, different concepts of theistic evolutionism vary from theism common to Abrahamic religions (deacon of the Russian Orthodox Church Andrey Kuraev) to pantheism, deism and the views of Teilhard de Chardin. Due to the fact that in discussions on the topic "evolution or creation?" theistic evolutionists most often support the "evolutionist" point of view, many creationists who do not accept evolution do not consider their position to be creationism at all (the most radical of the literalists even deny theistic evolutionists the right to call themselves Christians). In addition to the development of purely theological ideas, creationism makes a number of attempts to justify the creation of the world, remaining within the framework of scientific methodology. Among the adherents of this approach there are supporters of both literal and metaphorical creationism.

"Intelligent Design"(conscious or intelligent design creationism) argues that the complexity and purposefulness of the structure of living beings and ecosystems is explained by the conscious design of the creator or some kind of “agent” rather than by the undirected process of mutations and natural selection.

Representatives of conscious design creationism distance themselves from religion, emphasizing the teleological and teleonomic aspects of the concept, but the very concept of design implies the presence of the subject of design, that is, the Creator.

One of the arguments of the supporters of the ideas of "intelligent design" ("fine-tuning argument", eng. a fine-tuning argument) is based on the well-known sensitivity of the Universe and life to small changes in the world's physical constants (Anthropic principle). The range of admissible values ​​of the constants turns out to be very narrow, and from the low probability of "fine tuning" of the Universe, a conclusion is made about its artificiality and the presence of an Intelligent Creator.

Historically, the first non-quantitative evolutionary “non-tuning” formulation of the anthropic principle was the statement of the cosmologist A.L. Zelmanova:

Apparently, we are witnesses of certain types of processes because other types of processes proceed without witnesses.

A quantitative approach "by contradiction" is the Ikeda-Jefferis argument: the introduction of "friendliness of settings" (weak anthropic principle) increases the probability of the natural origin of the Universe.

However, this argument can also be used in defense of the ideas of intelligent design, many of whose proponents emphasize that despite the fact that the numerous properties of the world - from the fundamental interactions that determine physics to the size and composition of the Sun, the Earth, and the radius of the Earth's orbit - are favorable for maintaining life on Earth, some laws of nature (in particular, the need for the emergence of sufficiently large macromolecules or the spontaneous violation of the chiral purity of biologically active molecules) are just "unfavorable" for the emergence of living matter from non-living matter (in any case, detailed models of this process are in modern biology have not been developed).

The followers of the ideas of "intelligent design" proposed several criteria for the "artificiality" of an object, based on the concepts of systems theory and information theory ("irreducible complexity" by M. Behe, "specific complexity" by V. Dembsky). Raising important scientific and philosophical problems (in particular, how to distinguish an object that has arisen as a result of the action of natural causes from an artifact, that is, an object that is the result of the intervention of a reasonable beginning, and whether this can be done in principle), these criteria have not yet meet the requirements for the necessary conceptual and mathematical rigor and clarity.

In this regard, the ideas of "intelligent design" have not received recognition in modern science and are criticized by the scientific community as not consistent with Occam's principle, and their supporters, as a rule, do not have any major achievements in evolutionary biology and do not enjoy authority in scientific circles.

"Creation Science"("the science of creation", in Russian-language sources is often translated as "scientific creationism") - a movement in creationism, whose supporters claim that it is possible to obtain scientific confirmation of the biblical act of creation and, more broadly, biblical history (in particular, the Flood), while remaining within the framework of scientific methodology. Although creation science writers frequently address the complexity of biological systems, bringing their concept closer to conscious design creationism, creation science writers tend to go further and insist on the need for a literal reading of Genesis, justifying their position as theological, as well as scientific arguments. The factual validity of such studies is almost unanimously rejected by the modern scientific community (see also Age of the Earth), which sees "scientific creationism" as ideologically motivated pseudoscience.

Creationism and Christian denominations.

The fundamentalist Protestant communities in the USA are most active in promoting literalist creationism. On the contrary, most of the "old", "historical", Protestant churches in Europe adhere to views close to theistic evolutionism. The Catholic Church recognized in the encyclical of Pope Pius XII lat. Humani Generis that the theory of evolution can explain the origin of the human body (but not his soul), calling, however, for caution in judgments and calling the theory of evolution a hypothesis. In 1996, Pope John Paul II, in a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, confirmed the recognition of theistic evolutionism as a valid position for Catholicism, stating that the theory of evolution is more than a hypothesis. Therefore, among Catholics, literal, young earth, creationism is rare (J. Keane is one of the few examples). Leaning towards theistic evolutionism and the theory of "intelligent design", Catholicism, represented by its highest hierarchs, including Pope Benedict XVI elected in 2005, nevertheless, unconditionally rejects materialistic evolutionism.

Orthodox Churches do not currently (2007) have a unified official position in relation to the theory of evolution and, accordingly, creationism.

Some groups of Orthodox believers (for example, the "Orthodox Society for the Protection and Revealing of the Patristic Doctrine of the Creation of the World"), however, insist on the obligatory acceptance by all Orthodox of the Young Earth creationism (to the point of refusing to partake of the supporters of theistic evolutionism as heretics).

Usually such a position is substantiated by references to the Fathers of the Church, who commented on the Six Days in a literalist spirit. The literalists also refer to church leaders of the conservative persuasion of the New Age, for example, to John of Kronstadt, who wrote about a hundred years ago: of the world and all beings... and therefore they live and act as if they would not give an account to anyone of their words and deeds, deifying themselves, their minds and their passions... But whoever has a mind will not believe such insane delusions” A number of other church authors (Varsonofy Optinsky, Justin Popovich, Nikolai Serbsky and others) adhered to the same view regarding the theory of evolution.

Opponents of young earth creationism (Archpriest Alexander Men, Archpriest Gleb Kaleda, Deacon Andrei Kuraev, theologian A.I. Osipov, etc.) in response to such arguments object to literalists that the ancient Church Fathers lived at a time when science as a method of knowing nature was still did not exist, and new authors, including those revered as saints, belong to the conservative wing of church and social thought, whose representatives defended, in addition to literalism in the understanding of Six Days, a number of other controversial doctrines that are not directly related to theology (for example, monarchism in politics).

In general, the position of modern literalists, which inevitably provokes a conflict between the Church and science and school (and in its extreme manifestations, involves the resolution of this conflict by the state in the Lysenko spirit), does not find, at least, open support from the highest hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Patriarch of Moscow, Alexy II, speaking in 2007 at the XV Christmas Readings, spoke out against the imposition of the theory of "the origin of man from apes" in the school. However, it should be noted that from the point of view of the methodology of science, the popular thesis “man descended from a monkey” is only an oversimplification (see reductionism) of one of the conclusions of evolutionary biology, if only because the concept of “man” is ambiguous: man as an object of physical anthropology is by no means identical to man as a subject of philosophical anthropology, and it is incorrect to reduce philosophical anthropology to physical anthropology.

Creationism in Judaism

Representatives of Orthodox Judaism deny the theory of evolution, insisting on a literal reading of the Torah, however, representatives of conservative and reformed Judaism interpret the Torah symbolically and since the beginning of the 20th century have accepted the theory of evolution in one form or another.

Thus, the views of representatives of Orthodox Judaism are close to fundamentalist creationism, and those of conservative and reformed Judaism are close to theistic evolutionism.

Creationism in Islam

Due to the fact that the Koran, unlike the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament, does not contain a detailed description of the creation of the world, literal creationism in the Muslim world is much less common than in the Christian one. Islam believes (according to the text of the Quran) that humans and jinn are created by God. The modern views of many Sunnis on the theory of evolution are close to evolutionary creationism. Creationist propaganda is currently most active in Turkey, where the Bilim Araştırma Vakfı (Scientific Research Foundation) organization operates in close contact with US creationists.

Creationism and politics

The teaching of creationism in schools has been the subject of political debate more than once. For example, US President George W. Bush advocates the introduction of "intelligent design theory" into the school curriculum along with the theory of evolution. However, in December 2005, a federal court held that "theory of reason" is an unscientific religious concept and that Darwin's theory can be taught not as a version, but as scientific fact (Entire document). This dealt a blow to the positions of religious conservatives in the United States, but the debate continues to this day.

In Russia, the case of Masha Schreiber caused a great resonance. In March 2006, St. Petersburg 10th grader Masha Schreiber and her father filed a lawsuit demanding the exclusion of Darwin's theory from the school curriculum (the true reasons for the lawsuit are unclear, the press suggested a PR campaign). Petersburg, however, refused to satisfy the claim.

This theory says that man was created by God. Everyone knows the version from the Bible, which tells that God created the world in seven days, and the first people are Adam and Eve, who were created from clay. This version also exists among the ancient Egyptians, and there are also a number of analogues in the myths of other peoples.

For example, according to Mesopotamian myths, the gods, led by Marduk, killed their former rulers Abzu and his wife Tiamat. The blood of the Abzu was mixed with clay, and from it the first man was born.

Hindus have their own opinion on the creation of the world and man. According to the ancient manuscripts that have come down to us, the world was dominated by a triumvirate - Shiva, Krishna and Vishnu, who laid the foundation for humanity.

The ancient Incas, Aztecs, Dagons, Scandinavians had their own versions, which coincided in the main thing: a person is a creation of the Higher Mind or simply God.

The most widespread in the world are Christian views on the creation of the world and man in it, associated with the divine creation of Jehovah (Yahweh) - the only God in the Universe, manifesting himself in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit.

In ancient Greece, they believed that the progenitors of people were Deucalion and Pyrrha, who, by the will of the gods, survived the flood and created a new race from stone statues.

The Chinese believed that the first man was formless and came out of clay. The creator of people is the goddess Nuwa. She was human and dragon rolled into one.

According to Turkish legend, people came out of the Black Mountain. In her cave there was a hole that resembled the shape of a human body. Jets of rain washed the clay into it. When the form was filled and warmed by the sun, the first man emerged from it. His name is Ai-Atam.

Myths about the origin of man of the Sioux Indians say that people were created by the Rabbit universe. He found a blood clot and started playing with it. Soon he began to roll on the ground and turned into intestines. Then a heart and other organs appeared on a blood clot. So the rabbit dashed off a full-fledged boy - the ancestor of the Sioux.

According to the ancient Mexicans, God created the human form from potter's clay. But due to the fact that he overexposed the workpiece in the oven, the man turned out to be burnt, that is, black. The next attempts each time got better, and people came out whiter.

The legend of the Mongols is similar to Turkish. Man emerged from a clay mold, but the only difference is that the pit was dug by the god himself.

The followers of this theory belong to religious communities. Representatives of all world religions recognize this version as the only true one, as they are based on sacred texts from the Bible, the Koran and other religious books. This theory appeared in Islam, but especially spread in Christianity. All world religions recognize the version of God the creator, but his appearance changes, depending on the religion.

The theory of creation, as it were, does not require proof. But still, there are various proofs of this theory, of which the most important is the similarity of myths and legends of different nations that tell about the creation of man.

Some currents of modern theology consider creationism to be an evolutionary theory, believing that man evolved from apes through a gradual change in appearance, but not as a result of natural selection, but by the will of God.

Creationism is considered to be God's Creation, but now some view it as the result of the activities of a highly developed civilization that creates various forms of life and observes their development.

Since the end of the last century, the theory of evolution has been leading all over the world, but several decades ago, new scientific discoveries made many scientists doubt the possibility of the evolutionary mechanism. If the evolutionary theory somehow explains the process of the emergence of living matter, then this theory cannot explain the emergence of the Universe.

But on the other hand, religion provides exhaustive answers to many controversial issues. Creationism is mainly based on the Bible, which gives a fairly clear diagram of the origin of the world.

Many consider creationism to be a theory based on faith alone. But creationism is a science that relies on scientific methodology and the results of scientific experiments. People are mistaken because of ignorance of this theory, as well as from the prevailing prejudice against this scientific trend. As a result, many people trust completely unscientific theories, not confirmed by practical observations and experiments, much more.

To promote human knowledge of the world around us by scientific methods and to use this knowledge to solve the practical needs of mankind is the main goal of creationism.

Like any other science, creationism has its own philosophy. The philosophy of creationism is the philosophy of the Bible. And this increases the value of creationism for mankind, since it has already managed to see by its own example how important the philosophy of science is in order to prevent the rash consequences of its development.

There are several types of creationism: religious, scientific, modern.

Religious creationism

There are many different currents in religious creationism that diverge in explaining the natural science data.

Literal, or Young Earth, creationism affirms

written in the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament, that is, that the world was created exactly as it is described in the Bible - in 6 days and about 6000 years ago.

According to this chronology, the event took place on the night from Saturday to Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC.

The leadership of the Catholic Church believes that the metaphorical, or old-earth, approach to creationism is correct. In it, “6 days of creation” is a universal metaphor that is adapted to the level of perception of people with different levels of knowledge.

Scientific creationism

Another trend in creationism is "Creation Science" or "scientific creationism"". Proponents of this trend are confident that it is possible to obtain scientific confirmation of the biblical act of creation and biblical history (for example, the Flood), while remaining within the framework of scientific methodology. They insist on the need for a literal reading of Genesis and support their position with both theological and scientific arguments.

But creationists question the validity of knowledge that cannot be tested experimentally.

Modern creationism

Modern creationism is not a homogeneous ideological movement. Someone believes that on October 23, 4004 BC, God began to create the world and on the sixth day created man, someone seeks to enrich this theory with "all the reasonable achievements of modern science."

Particularly popular in the last ten years the idea of ​​a "smart plan"". Supporters of this trend believe that the Earth arose more than four billion years ago, that some animal species died out, others

arose, but all these events proceeded according to a plan predetermined by the Creator.

One of the arguments of the supporters of this theory is based on the well-known sensitivity of the Universe to small changes in the world's physical constants (Anthropic principle).

The area of ​​acceptable values ​​of the constants turns out to be very narrow, and from the small probability of "fine tuning" of the Universe, a conclusion is made about its artificiality and the presence of an Intelligent Creator.

The author is considered Philip Johnson, lawyer, bestselling author of Darwin on the Test Bench (1991). Johnson said: “In every culture there is a creation myth and there are priests. These are the experts who interpret the creation story.

They may be clergymen or eminent scientists - in any case, they have the right to demand that the monopoly on the truth belongs to them.

Who owns the history of the creation of the world, that in many ways influences the minds of people belonging to a given culture.

Creationism is by far the most consistent and consistent theory of the origin of the world around us. And it is precisely its consistency with the numerous scientific facts of the most diverse scientific disciplines that make it the most promising platform for the further development of human knowledge.

1. Evolutionary doctrine. Evolutionary doctrine (from Latin еvolutio - deployment) is a system of ideas and concepts in biology that affirms the historical progressive development of the Earth's biosphere, its constituent biogeocenoses, as well as individual taxa and species, which can be inscribed in the global process of evolution of the universe .

Although a unified and generally accepted theory of biological evolution has not yet been created, the very fact of evolution is not questioned by scientists, since it has a huge number of direct confirmations. According to evolutionary doctrine, all currently existing types of organisms have evolved from pre-existing ones through their long-term change. The evolutionary doctrine deals with the analysis of the individual development of individual organisms (ontogeny), the evolution and ways of development of groups of organisms (phylogeny) and their adaptations.

The ideas that the forms of life observed in the modern world are not unchanged are found in ancient philosophers - Empedocles, Democritus, Lucretius Cara. But we do not know about the facts that led them to such a conclusion, although there is not enough data to assert that this is a brilliant speculative conjecture.

In the Christian world, for many centuries the creationist point of view dominated, although there were suggestions about the existence of "antediluvian" monsters, caused by rare finds of fossil remains at that time.

With the accumulation of facts in natural science in the XVIII century. developed transformism - the doctrine of the variability of species. But the supporters of transformism (the most prominent - J. Buffon and E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in France, E. Darwin in England) to prove their views operated mainly on two facts: the presence of transitional forms between species and the similarity of the general structural plan of large groups of animals and plants . None of the transformists raised the question of the causes of species change. The largest naturalist of the turn of the XVII-XIX centuries. J. Cuvier explained the change of faunas by the theory of catastrophes.

In 1809, the work of J.B. Lamarck "Philosophy of Zoology", in which the question was first raised about the causes of changes in species, evolution. Lamarck believed that changes in the environment lead to changes in species.

Lamarck introduced the concept of gradations - the transition from lower to higher forms. Gradations, according to Lamarck, occur as a result of the inherent desire for perfection in all living things, the inner feeling of animals gives rise to a desire for change. Observations of natural phenomena led Lamarck to two main assumptions: the “law of non-exercise and exercise” - the development of organs as they are used and the “inheritance of acquired properties” - signs were inherited and later either developed even more or disappeared. Lamarck's work did not make a special impression on the scientific world and was forgotten for exactly fifty years.

A new stage in the development of evolutionary theory came in 1859 as a result of the publication of Charles Darwin's seminal work, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Breeds in the Struggle for Life. According to Darwin, the main driving force behind evolution is natural selection. Selection, acting on individuals, allows those organisms that are better adapted to life in a given environment to survive and leave offspring. The action of selection leads to the disintegration of species into parts - daughter species, which, in turn, eventually diverge to genera, families and all larger taxa.

Darwin's arguments in favor of the idea of ​​evolution provided this theory with wide acceptance. But Darwin was also convinced of the heritability of acquired traits. Misunderstanding of the discrete nature of heredity led to an insoluble paradox: the changes were supposed to fade, but in fact this did not happen. The contradictions were so serious that at the end of his life Darwin himself doubted the correctness of his theory, although at that time Mendel's experiments had already been carried out, which could confirm it. The apparent weakness of Darwinism was the reason for the revival of Lamarckism as neo-Lamarckism.

Only the work of the subsequent many generations of biologists led to the emergence of the synthetic theory of evolution (STE). Unlike Darwin's theory, STE does not have one author and one date of origin, but is the fruit of the collective efforts of scientists of different specialties from many countries. After the rediscovery of Mendel's laws, evidence of the discrete nature of heredity, and especially after the creation of theoretical population genetics, Darwin's teachings acquired a solid genetic foundation. The 1930s and 1940s saw a rapid synthesis of genetics and Darwinism. Genetic ideas penetrated systematics, paleontology, embryology, and biogeography. The authors of the synthetic theory disagreed on a number of fundamental problems and worked in different areas of biology, but they were practically unanimous in interpreting the following basic provisions: the local population is considered the elementary unit of evolution; the material for evolution is mutational and recombination variability; natural selection is considered as the main reason for the development of adaptations, speciation and the origin of supraspecific taxa; genetic drift and the founder principle are the reasons for the formation of neutral traits; a species is a system of populations reproductively isolated from populations of other species, and each species is ecologically isolated (one species, one niche); speciation consists in the emergence of genetic isolating mechanisms and is carried out mainly in conditions of geographic isolation; conclusions about the causes of macroevolution (the origin of supraspecific taxa) can be obtained through the study of microevolution built on the basis of accurate experimental data, field observations and theoretical deductions. There is also a group of evolutionary ideas, according to which speciation (the key moment of biological evolution) occurs quickly - over several generations. In this case, the influence of any long-acting evolutionary factors is excluded (except for cut-off selection). Such evolutionary views are called saltationism (lat. "saltatotius", from "salto" - I jump, I jump), ideas about evolution as an intermittent process with stages of rapid progressive evolutionary changes alternating with periods of slow, insignificant changes. Saltationism is a poorly developed direction in the theory of evolution. According to the latest ideas of SET, gradual (going at a constant low speed) changes can alternate with saltational ones.

2. Creationism

Creationism (from Latin creare - to create) is a religious and metaphysical concept, in which the main forms of the organic world (life), humanity, the planet Earth, and the world as a whole, are considered as intentionally created by God. The followers of creationism develop a set of ideas - from purely theological and philosophical to those that claim to be scientific, although in general the modern scientific community is critical of such ideas.

A feature of many religions, including monotheistic ones (Christianity, Judaism, Islam), is the presence of codified sacred texts (respectively, the Bible, Torah and Koran), containing in one form or another fragments describing the creation of the world and man. The accumulation of data from various sciences, especially the emergence of the theory of evolution in the 19th century, led to a contradiction between the literal reading of these texts and scientific data and theories. The result of this contradiction was creationism as a set of teleological (teleology - from the Greek telos, genus teleos - goal and logos - word, doctrine), a philosophical doctrine that ascribes to the processes and phenomena of nature goals that are either set by God or are internal causes nature) concepts that are a religious reaction to scientific ideas about the evolution of animate and inanimate nature. Within the framework of such concepts, fundamentalist currents insisted on a literal interpretation of sacred texts, declaring the views of science on the origin of the world and man as incorrect, while more liberal currents tried to find a compromise between them.

There are many different currents in Christian creationism, diverging in the interpretation of natural science data. According to the degree of discrepancy with the views generally accepted in science on the past of the Earth and the Universe, among them are distinguished:

ü literalist (young earth) creationism - insists on a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis, that the world was created in 6 days and about 6000 (according to some Protestants) or 7500 (according to some Orthodox) years ago.

ü metaphorical (old-earth) creationism - in it "six days of creation" - a universal metaphor adapted to the level of perception of people with different levels of knowledge; in reality, millions or billions of real years correspond to one “creation day” (the word day (Heb. “yom”) means not only a day, but often indicates an indefinite period of time).

Among the metaphorical creationists currently most common are:

ü incremental creationism, whose supporters believe that God continuously directs the process of changing biological species and their appearance. Representatives of this direction accept geological and astrophysical data and dating, but completely reject the theory of evolution and speciation by natural selection.

ü theistic evolutionism (evolutionary creationism), which recognizes the theory of evolution, but claims that evolution is a tool of God the Creator in the implementation of his plan. Theistic evolutionism accepts all or almost all ideas generally accepted in science, limiting the miraculous intervention of the Creator to such acts not studied by science as the creation of an immortal soul by God in man, or interpreting randomness in nature as manifestations of divine providence.

As a rule, creationism opposes macroevolution (change of species under the influence of mutation), but allows microevolution (adaptation to environmental conditions).

Due to the fact that in discussions on the topic "Evolution or creation?" theistic evolutionists most often support the "evolutionist" point of view, many creationists who do not accept evolution do not consider their position to be creationism at all (the most radical of the literalists even deny theistic evolutionists the right to call themselves Christians).

The opinion of the famous Orthodox missionary and theologian Deacon Andrei (Kuraev) is interesting. He believes that “… with an unbiased reading of Scripture, one cannot fail to notice that it leaves a fraction of activity behind the created world. It doesn't say, "And God made the grass," but "the earth brought forth." And later, God not only creates life, but commands the elements to manifest it: “let the water bring forth reptiles ... let the earth bring forth a living soul. “And only God does not instruct anyone to create a man. Man is the exclusive creation of God. The self-activity of the earth is not unlimited: it cannot produce a man, and the decisive transition from an animal to an anthropomorphic creature takes place not at the command of God, but through his direct action - “bar” (and this will still not be enough to create a person: after a special the creative act of God will create a physiological vessel capable of being a receptacle for consciousness and freedom, a second act of biblical anthropogenesis will be needed - the inhalation of the Spirit). The emergence of life according to the book of Genesis is both evolution (for the earth “produced” plants and simple organisms), but at the same time it is also a “leap to life”, which took place at the command of God. … in Orthodoxy there is no textual or doctrinal basis for rejecting evolutionism. … the denial of evolution in the Orthodox environment is more of an innovation than a tradition. … A calm attitude towards evolutionism is a tradition of Orthodox academic theology. … The opinions and methods of argumentation of radical creationists cannot be accepted because they arbitrarily and biasedly handle scientific data, which causes fair criticism from people whose activities are professionally related to science. And here there is a great danger that a biologist, after reading a bullying creationist book, will refer the word "hack" to all Christianity as such. He also believes that “... the unacceptability of the idea of ​​evolution for Orthodox thinking can be proved only if it is explained: how the assumption of succession of generations of animals in the world before man and outside of Eden can damage the consciousness of a Christian's participation in the saving Church Sacraments. Direct references to the fact that "the Bible teaches - and you say ..." cannot be taken into consideration. It is the Orthodox tradition that knows how complex, non-obvious and different interpretations of Scripture (especially the books of the Old Testament) can be.”

Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy A.I. Osipov also believes that “both the creational and evolutionary hypotheses are fundamentally acceptable for theology, provided that in both cases the Legislator and Organizer of the entire universe is God, Who could all existing species, or create by “days” immediately in a completed form, or gradually, over the course of “days”, “produce” from water and earth, from lower forms to higher ones, by the higher power of the laws laid down by Him in nature.

3. Criticism of evolutionary doctrine and creationism

The theory of evolution is criticized by creationists, mainly in the following areas.

1. The fossil record reveals a structure of evolutionary leaps rather than gradual transformations.

According to evolutionary theory, from the fossil record one would expect the gradual appearance of the simplest forms of life, the gradual transformation of simple forms into more complex ones, many intermediate "links" between different species, the beginnings of new features of the organism, for example, limbs, bones and organs.

In fact, paleontologists provide evidence of the sudden appearance of complex life forms, the reproduction of complex life forms “according to their kind” (according to biological families), which does not exclude variations, the absence of intermediate “links” between different biological families, the absence of partially developed characters, that is, complete completeness all parts of the body.

The theory of the origin of man from apes has been sharply criticized. Public attention is drawn to the fact that the "Piltdown Man", which was considered the "missing link" for 40 years, actually turned out to be a fake: in 1953 it was found out that in fact parts of the orangutan's jaw and teeth were connected to parts of the human skull.

Not the best way things are with Ramapithecus. How could a Ramapithecus reconstructed from teeth and jaws alone - with no information about the pelvis, limbs or skull - be called "the first representative of the human race"?

According to creationists, a growing number of scientists are convinced that Australopithecus was not our progenitor either. Careful examination of his skull has shown that it is much more similar to the skulls of today's apes than humans.

But the Neanderthal, according to creationists, undoubtedly belongs to the human race. The trouble is that he was portrayed as more like a monkey. Later it was found out that his skeleton was severely deformed by the disease, and a new type of Neanderthal reproduced from the remains shows that he was not much different from the existing brothers.

As for the Cro-Magnon man, the discovered bones were practically indistinguishable from the bones of modern people, so no one dares to talk about him as some kind of “transitional link”.

Charles Darwin did not deny the existence of God, but he believed that God created only the initial species, while the rest arose under the influence of natural selection. Alfred Wallace, who came to the discovery of the principle of natural selection almost simultaneously with Darwin, in contrast to the latter, argued that there is a sharp line between man and animals in relation to mental activity. He came to the conclusion that the human brain cannot be seen as the result of natural selection. Wallace proclaimed that this "thinking tool" arose as a result of the needs of its owner, and suggested "the intervention of a higher intelligent being."

2. Genes are a powerful stabilizing mechanism, the main task of which is to prevent the development of new forms.

3. Random mutations occurring one after another at the molecular level are not an explanation for the high organization and growing complexity of living organisms.

4. Evolutionism directly contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. The entropy increase law says: in a closed, that is, thermally and mechanically isolated system, entropy either remains unchanged (if reversible, equilibrium processes occur in the system), or increases (in non-equilibrium processes) and reaches a maximum in a state of equilibrium. Noted science fiction writer and popularizer Isaac Asimov defines it this way without the help of mathematical formulas: “The universe is constantly becoming more and more disordered.”

From the point of view of thermodynamics, the thesis about the prohibition of biological evolution (and / or abiogenesis) by the second law of thermodynamics is incorrect, because the biogeosphere of the Earth, in which these processes occur / occurred, is a thermodynamically open system in which a decrease in entropy is possible.

5. All the constructions of evolutionism are completely unbelievable from a mathematical point of view. So the random occurrence of our set of world constants is 1 chance in 103,000; the accidental appearance of a simple bacterium - 1 chance in 1,040,000; a random change in the desired direction of 5 proteins - 1 chance out of 10275. The probability of a protein from non-protein forms, it turned out to be in the proportion of 1 chance out of 10321, that is, absolutely unrealizable, since mathematicians actually consider the ratio 1:1030 to be zero probability.

6. Evolutionism does not have a predictive ability, does not allow itself to be refuted by the experimental method, and therefore, even with a stretch, cannot be attributed to the field of science.

7. Darwinism (as a special case of evolutionism) is based on a logical error called tautology (from the Greek tauto - the same thing and logos - a word - a combination or repetition of the same or similar words (“true truth”, “entirely and completely”, “clearer than clear”) The statement: “survival of the fittest” does not, therefore, carry any information.

8. Evolutionists' arguments make extensive use of the vicious circle principle. The breed is dated from fossils. The latter are dated according to evolutionary theory, which in turn confirms their age by reference to the geological stratum in which they are found. Proteins are the basis of life. Proteins require amino acids (DNA, RNA, etc.) to form proteins, and proteins are necessary to create amino acids. This vicious circle also proves the failure of Darwin's theory.

9. Evolutionism fails to explain a number of facts related to its "field" of explaining the origin of species.

The most frequently cited example is the bombardier beetle (Brachinini), which earned its name for its ability to defend itself against predators by shooting a mixture of toxic substances heated to boiling point from special glands. Here the argument of creationists is the complexity of the structure of this creature, which, in their opinion, is a sign of purposeful creation. Other similar examples are echolocation in bats, the birth of a whale under water, a sundew plant that feeds on insects, etc.) through natural selection.

10. According to creationists, the doctrine of evolution is not a scientific theory, but a form of modern mythology, which goes back to paganism in its roots.

In turn, the point of criticism of supporters of evolutionary doctrine is directed mainly at literalist creationism. According to the principle of "Occam's razor", concepts that are not reducible to intuitive and experimental knowledge should be removed from science. The introduction of scientifically unverifiable concepts (such as God the Creator) does not meet this principle. Therefore, it is basically impossible to refute creationism with the help of scientific methods. Whatever arguments scientists bring, they all break down about the impossibility of falsifying any system that includes the miraculous as the main link. A mandatory requirement for scientific character is the possibility of a refutation based on inconsistency with the facts. The idea of ​​the creation of the world by God is not a theory, but a dogma, an object of faith.

In addition, the arguments of literalist creationism, according to supporters of evolutionary theory, contradict the array of paleontological and biological data on biological evolution, as well as geological and astrophysical data on the age of the Earth and astronomical objects.

To explain the multibillion-year ages of the Earth and the Universe, which are given by geo- and astrophysics, in creationism, attempts are made to prove the inconstancy in time of world constants, such as the speed of light, etc., and also, as an alternative explanation, gravitational time dilation is postulated in the near-Earth space.

Another line of defense for creationists is "flood geology," which declares the simultaneous deposition of most of the sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust with burial and rapid fossilization of the remains due to the worldwide flood in the time of Noah. According to proponents of flood geology, in the fossil record, representatives of all taxa appear "fully formed", which refutes evolution. Moreover, the occurrence of fossils in stratigraphic layers does not reflect the succession of floras and faunas that succeeded each other over many millions of years, but the succession of ecosystems tied to different geographical depths and heights. Postulating extremely slow rates of such geological processes as erosion, sedimentation and mountain building, according to the "flood geologists", they cannot ensure the preservation of fossils, as well as the intersection of several layers of sedimentary rocks by some fossils (usually tree trunks).