Evolution and Christianity's response

You need white text book pages 261 and 272

You can type notes or white on paper
DO NOW – Revise keywords on page 285
specifically creationism, old and young,
natural selection intelligent design
• Explain what Evolution is - A01
• Explain the Christian responses to evolution –A01 AND A02
• Assess these views – A02
• Rec-cap over creationists views – young earth, progressive and
intelligent design
• Homework – show me your notes on this documentary and plan for t
his exam question
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcZ44kQphlo
• ‘Christianity has no response to Darwin’s theory of evolution’ Evaluate
this claim (15) Exam question that you will plan and eventually do
 Charles Darwin (1809–82)
The son of a doctor, Darwin studied medicine
at Edinburgh and then went to Cambridge,
Activity 1
• Make 3 points intending to be ordained. In 1831 he was
about Darwin offered a place on board HMS Beagle as
• Read pages 261 – a naturalist, to explore wildlife in South
262 America. He returned in 1836, convinced, by
• Make 5 points the peculiarity of the variety of species he
about what had seen, that one species must develop out
evolution is of another. He spent the next twenty years
gathering evidence and developing his theory
of natural selection, publishing On the Origin
of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51mi7dDbitk
Charles Darwin
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcpB_986wyk&t=133s
• Make at least 10 useful points from the video on Evolution
Century and years
• 19th century – 1800
• 20th century – 1900
• 21st century – 2000 – current
Watch the videos – and answer the questions
Activity 2
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51mi7dDbitk Video one Bill Nye
Watch the video – answer questions

Activity 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGfmQQpDv2Q Richard Dawkins

Optional video
watch at home – shows Richard Dawkins Lizard example in detail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBv6-XORcLgLizard Lizard example
Common ancestors with Apes
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh0F4FBLJRE
Humans have evolved
• Keywords
• A primate is any mammal of the group that includes animals such as
monkeys, apes, and humans.
• A genus is a group of species
• Human evolution is the evolutionary process that led to the
emergence of anatomically modern humans called Homosapeins,
beginning with the evolutionary history of primates—in particular a
genus leading to the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species
of the hominid family, the great apes.
 Human
Evolution
• Approximately six million years ago scientific evidence shows that the physical and
behavioural traits shared by all people originated from apelike ancestors. Human
evolution is the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike
ancestors. Scientific evidence including fossils such as skulls and bones shows that the
physical and behavioral traits shared by all people originated from apelike ancestors and
evolved over a period of approximately six million years.
• One example of physical evidence evidence is your brain got larger over time and our
face got smaller over time. Change over time in the physical form.
• One of the earliest defining human traits, Bipedalism is the ability to walk on two legs --
evolved over 4 million years ago.
• The ability to walk on 2 legs is something that was helped species to adapt to their
environments. The advantages of bipedalism allowed our ancestors to free their arms
completely, enabling them to make and use tools efficiently, stretch for fruit in trees and
use their hands for social display and communication.
 Independent task 4
1. Using the human evolution picture
1. Evolve
and the black and white moth picture
and these 10 keywords explain how
2. Characteristics
evolution happens (highlight 10 key
3. Species words that you are allowed to use) –
4. Environment Here you are demonstrating your
5. Survival of the fittest knowledge on evolution A01
6. Adapted 2. Human evolution implies that there is
7. Empirical evidence no external purpose in human
8. 6 million survival. How does this contradict a
9. Ancestors belief in God?
10. Bipedalism
 What is the Christian responses to evolution?
• Activity 5
• What is Karl Rahners view on evolution (1904 – 1984) Read the
paragraph on page 263
• Discussion - What is your view on this? What is your view on Evolution
 ‘Christianity has no response to Darwin’s
theory of evolution’ Evaluate this claim (15)
Agree
• The science used – nuclear physics to
estimate the age of the earth is the
same science that is used to create
smoke detectors. Many Christians
would trust smoke detectors to protect
them so they should trust the same
science knowledge that tells us the age
of the Earth is 4 billion years old and
the beginning of our species was
thought to have evolved approximately
200,000 years ago in East Africa.
 Activity 6 - Independent work Read Page 272 – using the sheet
provided Summarise in no more than 2 sentences the response to
evolution theory

1. Church of England ridiculed the

theory in the 1800s
2. Liberal Anglicans
3. Creationists approach
4. Bishop Wilberforce view

Challenge – What is the best view

and why? Can you criticise any.
Activity 7 Group work– using the sheet provided – it is a table you
need to rank the best argument using numbers 1 – 4. 1 being most
sound and give pro and cons to each arugment.

1. Church of England ridiculed the

theory in the 1800s
2. Liberal Anglicans
3. Creationists approach
4. Bishop Wilberforce view
Contemporary responses to the Evolution Theory –
Group work
• Activity 8 You will be put into groups now via breakout
rooms
• Use page 274-4 to explain 3 contemporary responses
• You will have 15 mins to understand content and make
notes and be prepared to teach the class

• Creationist Views
• These can be divided into 3 sections:
• A. Six Day Creationism (young earth) – group 1
• B. Progressive Creationism (old earth) – group 2
• C. Intelligent Design - group 3
Contemporary responses to the Big Bang Theory
Creationist Views
• A. Six Day Creationism
• Although scientific evidence shows that the age of the universe is around 13.8
billion years, and that of the earth is around 4.5 billion years, Young Earth
Creationism holds that the earth was created by God between 5,700 and 10,000
years ago. This belief follows a literal reading of Genesis in which God created the
earth in six 24-hour days.
• ● All humans descend from Adam and Eve; there was no death before the ‘Fall’, and
species were created, ‘as seen’, by God, and not produced through the evolution of
species.
• ● This interpretation is defended for example by Henry Morris, who wrote a series
of books in the twentieth century promoting what he called ‘creation science’.
• ● As another example, Ken Ham (an Australian-born fundamentalist Christian living
in the USA) dates Noah’s Flood at 2348 BC; argues that the ark carried enough
species for biodiversity; that dinosaurs co-existed with genetically modern humans;
that radiometric and other scientific methods of dating the earth are wrong; and
that the only evidence that counts is that of the one who was there – God.
• ● This view is held by a large number of people, particularly in the USA, where it is
taught in some evangelical churches
Contemporary responses to the Big Bang Theory
• B. Progressive Creationism
• Takes the view of geology, that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, and of
cosmology, that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old.
• ● However, it rejects Darwinian evolution in favour of the view that God created species
uniquely, so there has been no gradual evolution from earlier species or ancestors.
• ● The word for ‘day’ in the Genesis account (Hebrew yom) is taken to mean something
like, ‘creative epoch’, so God had bursts of creative activity followed by long periods of
equilibrium.
• ● New arrivals were created by God’s intervention as an ‘intelligent designer’, and these
new species appeared fully formed.
• ● The pre-human hominid species discovered by archaeology are deemed not to have
souls. Adam was the first man to be given an eternal soul.
• The Flood was a local event not global
• Old earth creationism is really no more scientific than the young earth variety. The
evidence rejects the idea of God creating species uniquely or specially; the Hebrew
word ‘yom’ does not mean ‘creative epoch’, and there can be no evidence whatever as
to whether or not pre-human hominids had souls. The claim that Noah’s Flood was only
a local event ignores what the text says (that the whole earth was covered with water
and that all species died except for those in the ark with Noah). Old earth creationism is
another unsuccessful attempt to salvage some kind of literal meaning for Genesis.
Contemporary responses to the Big Bang Theory

C. Intelligent Design
• Intelligent Design argues that certain features of the universe and of living
things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than by an
undirected process such as natural selection. Intelligent Design generally
does not identify the designer, although some Intelligent Design
proponents equate the designer with the Christian God.
• ● Michael Behe (an American biochemist and proponent of Intelligent
Design theory) claims that many biological systems are ‘irreducibly
complex’ at the molecular level, so that the removal of any one part of the
system would make it stop working. Behe holds that this challenges
Darwinian evolution because irreducible complexity cannot be produced
by successive modifications.
• Intelligent Design is a more modern attempt to make creationism
respectable, but the scientific community is virtually unanimous in
rejecting it as pseudoscience, since its scientific claims hardly fill a page of
writing, and that page is generally rejected. Moreover, its main ideas are
not testable, whereas the hallmark of a scientific theory is that it can be
tested.
Plenary
• on A3 paper, summarise one creationist view using:
• 4 words, 4 numbers, symbols and pictures

• Creationist Views
• These can be divided into 3 sections:
• A. Six Day Creationism
• B. Progressive Creationism
• C. Intelligent Design
‘Christianity has no response to Darwin’s
theory of evolution’ Evaluate this claim (15)