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Origins Of Life - Paradoxes and Paradigms

 

            Every night just before bedtime, my children and I gather at one of their bedsides to discuss the day. On one particular evening, my oldest ask the question, "Dad, did we come from apes, and if we did, why then are there still apes; and I thought God created us"? Interestingly enough, one of the most unique characteristics about children is their simple acuteness to ideas. Without any information given, my oldest daughter was able to make a deduction based solely upon knowing what she is, and what she is not; and that apes are not human. Her deduction of not evolving may not accurately work in the adult world for the origins of life have been debated for centuries among philosophers and scientist; not from the mind of a child. As illustrated in this paper, there are paradoxes and paradigms stemming from both Intelligent Design and Evolutionary ideologies. The question in mind here is, from what ideology will mankind decree as absolute truth; or is mankind even subjected to a faith belief in either? .
             Mankind has striven to explain itself as a "being" and its world of experiences since the days of ancient Greek philosophers. Renowned men from Socrates to Aquinas contemplated the world over in a question/answer dialogue deliberating ideas of man, gods or God, and the relationships to the seen and unseen. It was not until the "age of enlightenment" that derailed a held belief in an Intelligent Designer and that Designer being God, the God of the Bible (Mitchell, 2007). .
             The term Evolution that is prescribed to the origins of life was a monumental endowment of Charles Darwin (1809-1882). However, Darwin was not the first to consider how life began. French scientist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck (1774-1829), in his process of studying animals attributed what he called "the inheritance of acquired characteristics" (Bioweb, n.d.). Animals that had similarities, but were also different, obtained these differences due to environmental factors and the need, or no need, of certain physical functions became of use, or became obsolete.


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