Science Vs. Religion

Research paper Final Draft

Science vs. religion

"The nucleus of the cell derives its name from the Latin nux, meaning nut. Like the stone in a cheery , it is found in the center of the cell, and like this stone, keeps its precious kernel in a shell. -Susan Griffin" , "Our Secret"

Ever since the evolutionary existence of humans, man kind has created various meaning systems such as art, language, writing, science, and religion. So humanity has created the idea of the Divine or God in his own thoughts and feelings of what God represents to himself. We create God through our capacity of understanding, this notion is created in our own mentality. This isn't a question of whether the divine exists in it's own physical reality. I am not questioning whether God exists outside our conscious mind. God exists because we believe It to exist. This notion is known as faith. Through out history humanity has also created science, and the workings of science known as logic and reason. Science has always been an area in which reason is always predominant. However science isn't always solid in its workings. For example certain theories in nature have room for disproval. Theory isn't an established Law in science, meaning there is solid evidence behind the theory but, there is some room for argument. That room for argument however is small. We have basically proven evolution. We see it coexist in recent generations. Laws in science are concrete and there isn't much to disprove. A good example is Sir Isaac Newton's Laws of motion which states "Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it(www.school-for-champions.com)." This example of a law is concrete and there isn't argument to change this prospective in motion. However the theory of evolution has been since controversial of whether this belief exits or not. There are several studies showing the strong emphases in evolution. I think you can have an established religion, and prospective of the divine, yet confined in the workings of science and evolution. Many believe that faith and logic are in there own separate forms of reality, however logic is what we use to understand mysteries in faith. Faith wouldn't exist without human logic and reasoning. Without evolution we couldn't have the fullest capacity to understand the divine. We evolved and so did our brains, and our minds.

We don't have the same reasoning abilities as that of our ancestor the primitive man. Our primitive ancestors could somewhat differentiate what a greater power was by looking into the sky at the stars, by the awe of the universe. They didn't have a capacity to create these meaning systems in religion and God. Recently researchers cultivated DNA samples from our primitive ancestor the Neanderthal. Christopher McLeod, president and chief executive officer of 454 sciences said. "the Neanderthal probably lacked higher cognition we have. Maybe we could see which genes confer intelligence"(better living newspaper Dec. 9, 2006 "Getting to know Neanderthals"). This confirms that there had to be an evolutionary process before cognitive thinking and reasoning could occur. We fully developed to our capacity of understanding these ideologies, and thus came science and religion. Our ability to reason comes through out our evolutionary process.

We may never know where the first particle came from to make and build and cascade to the complexities of human existence. Many of us like my self use faith to understand this prospective of creation. Science tries to understand this prospective through studies of evolution. I am a firm believer that evolution occurred, yet I believe that the Divine created the universe through its mysteries. Brown University professor Gary Wessel have found with a group of other scientists common human DNA found in sea urchins. They found that "Urchins have the most sophisticated innate immune system of any animal studied to date. They carry genes associated with many human diseases, such as muscular dystrophy and Huntington's disease(www.brown.edu)." This connection is a triumph in evolution and genetics. Sorin Istrail, a Brown professor of computer science and director of the University's Center for Computational Molecular Biology states, "Now that we have the genome and transcriptome map, we can start to crack this code, which will reveal key insights into human genetics and evolution (www.brown.edu)." This is strong evidence that evolution occurred. Yet we can believe that there is a divine who created such intricate paths that lead to the creation of humanity.

There are theories that multi-cellular organisms first flourished in the oceans in the world and became aquatic. The sea urchin is an example of there prehistoric ancestors. Aquatic animals then adapted to there environments. Through the process of billions of years these animals evolved and became mammals. There isn't much evidence to why this aquatic life evolved and went on land. There are however several theories that these premature animals may have had a change in the food chain and had to survive with food supply on land, or even a change in there environment. So through the lineage of DNA we share similarities of genes of that as urchins. This justifies that evolution had to occur before man evolved and had mental consciousness of religion. Faith comes with logic, without it faith can't survive.

A good example of aquatic life evolving into land is a 375 million year old remains of a fish crossed between a fish and crocodile. Scientists have known that life came from the oceans and evolved to the animals we know today. In a scientific report scientists have documented this species found on Ellesmere Island which lies near the artic circle in Canada. Experts learned that "its front fins had bones that correspond to a shoulder, upper arm , and elbow, forearm, and a primitive version of a wrist...experts said the discovery with its unusually well-preserved and complete skeletons, reveal significant new information about how the water-to land evolution took place.(www.MSNBC.com)." This scientific discovery clearly highlights the path to humanity. This water-to-land creature could well define the path so why we came to be. Many individuals find these scientific studies hard to process, and certain religious paths disregard these findings because of the conflict of there religious prospective.

I was brought up into the religious community of Christianity, more specifically Catholicism. My beliefs were that of the bible and the word of God that flowed through those pages as it did in my veins and family