I beg to differ. My point is that both should be based on science, but have devolved into religions, where science is secondary to one's beliefs, and scientific fact is therefore distorted and misrepresented.
OTOH, the theory of evolution is based in scientific observation, and revised as new information is learned. As far as I can tell, it is apolitical. Scientists use it just as one would expect scientists to use any scientific theory.
I must ask, then, what you mean by evolution. If you mean that life adapts, yes, that is scientific, observed, irrefutable fact. If you mean that all life "evolved" from nothingness into a single cell, and then into the diversity we observe, that is not based on scientific observation because it has not and cannot be observed. If you are interested in knowing the facts, you might want to research:
- why Darwin "invented" the theory of evolution
- the fact that there has always been a dissident faction of highly distinguished scientists, of impeccable credentials and no religious motivations, who have declined to concede that evolution has been proven
- why the fossil record increasingly does not, honestly viewed, support evolution (there is still "the missing link", in fact, they're all missing)
Let me give you a test, but I'll provide the answers.
The human genome project has shown that man is 90%-99% chimpanzee - our closest "relative" (e.g., we share 90%-99% of the same DNA - let's assume 95% for the sake of this discussion).
Now, let's examine the rest of the story (answers follow, but don't cheat).
1. How many nucleotides are in the human genome?
2. So, then, how many nucleotides are different in the human genome versus that of a chimpanzee (hint: 95% are the same)?
3. How many DNA changes per generation are considered non-lethal?
4. How many years would it take (to make the math easy, let's assume a generation is 50 years) for a chimpanzee to evolve into a human if the changes were in the exact right sequence and there were no "dead ends"?
5. How many years ago did evolved man supposedly "branch off" from chimpanzees?
6. Using this analysis, has there been enough time for man to "evolve" from chimpanzees? Note: Answer not provided - you have to be smart enough to answer this one on your own.
7. How many fossil records show the 25 million year "evolution" of chimpanzees into man (again, you'll have to research this one on your own - hopefully you do so objectively).
8. Finally, to see if you're paying attention: 50% of our DNA is the same as a banana - why aren't we considered half banana and to have "evolved" from a banana (although I do know some whose intelligent matches that of a banana, so maybe we are and did)???
Answers
1. 3 billion
2. 120 million
3. Commonly accepted as 3, but let's use 4 to make the math easier
4. 1.875 billion years
5. 25 million (that's a gap of only 1.85 billion years - not even close enough for government work)
I realize that it has been a while since this was posted, but it contains so many inaccuracies that I cannot let it stand unchallenged.
First of all, you cannot argue that "adaptation" occurs and is scientifically documented, while evolution, which takes place by the exact same processes is impossible. You might as well try to discuss why hotcakes are superior to pancakes. I find it amusing that proponents of literal creation often explain "adaptation" as a lightning fast process that occurs orders of magnitude more rapidly than evolution actually occurs, while claiming that evolution itself is such a slow process that it couldn't possibly have happened within the time the universe has been in existence.
The reason Darwin proposed his version of the theory of evolution is because of observations he made. He observed that fossils in the Americas are not like the fossils in Europe. He observed that many American fossils resembled extant American animals and did not resemble animals found on other continents. He observed that on the Galapagos Islands, finches filled many niches that are occupied by a variety of non-bird animals in other places. As a result of these observations, he, like many others dating back to ancient Greece, proposed a theory of evolution. As it turned out, his theory was far more useful to scientific exploration than competing theories, and thus, forms the origin of the theory that we use today. No amount of Bible reading would account for those observations, no matter how creative the interpretation--and once you enter the territory of creative interpretation of the Bible, you show that you don't think the Bible should be believed literally. (The "creation science" notion of "adaptation" is a non-biblical concept--might as well just acknowledge the scientific evidence as believe that.)
As for scientists who do not accept evolution as the framework of modern biology, I can say that I've never actually met one, nor seen credible evidence of one, at least among scientists who are in a position to actually use the theoretical framework in the course of their normal work. I am aware that often, advocates of literal creation misquote evolutionary scientists in such a way as to promote the impression that they do not actually accept the theory. This practice, known as quote-mining, has been discussed in some depth elsewhere. My suggestion is that if you see where an evolutionary scientist has been quoted saying something that does not support evolution, you attempt to find the quote in context to see what the scientist was really saying. Usually, such quotes are plucked from discussions about details of the theory, and are not meant to convey any doubt as to the scientist's confidence in the overall theory. This particular website has documented many of these quotes, both as they are quote-mined, and in their original context.
The argument of "missing links" in the fossil record is a red herring. Until such time as we achieve the impossible goal of finding a representative from every generation of every species throughout its evolutionary history, there will be "missing links". That said, it is quite possible to recognize that a 20,000 year old fossil is clearly human, despite the differences between humans 20,000 years ago and today, and to deduce that some process occurred to cause those differences.
Let me give you a test, but I'll provide the answers.
The human genome project has shown that man is 90%-99% chimpanzee - our closest "relative" (e.g., we share 90%-99% of the same DNA - let's assume 95% for the sake of this discussion).
Now, let's examine the rest of the story (answers follow, but don't cheat).
Answers
When I saw these questions and answers, my first thought was that you copied them out of one of the many anti-science literal creation advocacy sites. But when I copied and pasted one of those questions into Google, I couldn't find their source. My suggestion is that, before pasting such questions and answers, you search through the scientific literature for yourself to find which questions are relevant, and the correct answers for those that are. www.PubMed.org (actually goes to an NIH website) is a good source for finding scientific literature.
Your first question and answer are correct, there are ~3 x 109 base pairs in our genome.
The second one is a simple math question.
The third question/answer, however, is so wildly inaccurate that it can only be an utter fabrication. Depending on context, one DNA change can be lethal--or thousands of DNA changes make little difference in survival at all. For research, we make "knock-out" mice all the time--in which we remove entire genes, thousands of DNA base-pairs--and the mice survive and reproduce. We make other survival and heritable genetic manipulations to animals all the time. (And I do apologize that the site has pop-up ads, but the pics are nice. Alternative, you can search Google images for "fluorescent animals.")
The fourth question is kind of meaningless. I do not know off the top of my head how long it took before humans and chimpanzees were, by definition, separate species, nor do I know how much genetic alteration was necessary for that to occur. Even if I knew those, I still wouldn't be able to answer that scientifically. The rate of heritable genetic change within a species is more or less constant, but there are a lot of factors influencing that rate--average animal size, population size and range, and environmental selective pressures, for example.
The fifth question can easily be confirmed by using Google: human and chimp lineages split about 2.5 million years ago (not 25 million as your answer states). That does not mean we became separate species then, only that the subpopulations that went on to become chimps and humans were physically isolated from each other at that time.
Your questions 6 and 7 are both rather meaningless, for the reasons I discussed above.
Finally, your last question doesn't make sense. Even to be answerable, you need to set some parameters. I do expect some genes between humans and bananas to have high similarity--all eukaryotic organisms, for instance, use oxygen as the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain that takes place across the mitochondrial membrane, so the genes involved are likely to be very similar. And, at some point, there was one kind of organism that was the progenitor of plants, animals, and fungi, and similarities do survive. The mitochondria itself is evidence of a common ancestor.