Genetics of Original Sin Read Online Free Page A

the case for several other religious groups.
Opposition to evolution on religious grounds is widespread
    Ever since Darwin, the notion of evolution has provoked opposition from religious groups. At one end of the spectrum are a number of fundamentalist Protestant Churches, especially inthe United States, that deny evolution because it conflicts with what is written in the Bible, held to be directly inspired by God and, therefore, literally true. In line with this belief and in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, they persist in affirming that the world was created by God in seven days, some five thousand years ago, as written in Genesis. They will not recognize that the Bible, at least the early parts of it, was written almost three thousand years ago by human beings, possibly inspired by God if that is the cherished belief, but using the knowledge and language of their time.
    At the other end of the spectrum are the defenders of so-called intelligent design, who pretend to invoke no explicit religious motivation but merely claim that purely natural phenomena cannot account for all evolutionary events. There will be more about this “creationism in disguise” in chapter 8 .
    Between these two extremes, there is a form of creationism—sometimes referred to as “old Earth” creationism, as opposed to the “young Earth” variety based on a literal interpretation of the Bible—that similarly denies evolution and advocates instant creation of living species, but on a more flexible time scale, consistent with the fossil record. This form of creationism is more widespread and professed by members of other Christian churches, including some conservative Catholics, notably in Poland, and also by many Muslims and by a number of Orthodox Jewish scholars. *
    Defenders of this form of creationism often accept so-called micro-evolution, which takes place within existing genera, but deny “macro-evolution,” the kind whereby new species arise from old ones. They use a number of allegedly scientific arguments to affirm, for example, that there is no valid proof of a descent of birds from reptiles or of reptiles from fish. As inthe days of Darwin, the origin of humankind from chimpanzee-like ancestors is the most contested aspect of modern evolutionism. This is where the official voice of the Catholic Church departs from the scientific account of evolution. The biological descent of humans is accepted; but creation of the human soul is seen as a special event.
    Creationism is not just a religious creed. It claims to be a science, which deserves to be taught alongside evolutionary biology, or even in place of it. Its proponents have built powerful organizations in pursuit of this goal. They fight in court and try to convince legislatures to give equal weight to what they call “creation science” in school curricula, or even to abolish the teaching of evolutionary biology. They provide teachers, not only in the United States, but also in other countries such as Poland or Turkey, with costly, beautifully illustrated “textbooks” in which the facts of life are reinterpreted within a creationist framework. They also try to propagate their ideas among the general public by, for example, filling the bookshops around the Grand Canyon with pseudo-scientific pamphlets describing this beautiful illustration of the Earth’s history as a recent product of the Flood.
    Further discussion of this phenomenon, which is the object of numerous books and debates, does not belong in this book. Let it simply be said that it conveys the image of a Creator who deliberately filled the world with all sorts of false clues that lead scientists astray, including the geological strata, the fossils, the kindred DNA molecules with which phylogenetic trees are constructed, the radioactive isotopes that allow us to date the Earth’s history, and all the other pieces of evidence that rigorous and honest