Human Evolution
The battle of science versus religion has been a battle that has gone for centuries. The believers of evolution and the believers of creationism have sparred with one another since before the written word. Once the scientific revolution began, humans begin to understand the reality of what human beings are and how we arrived here. Once upon a time, humans believed that multiple gods controlled everything in the universe. These things include, thunder, lightning, natural disasters, and even the notion that Earth was the center of the universe. This was debunked by Galileo. From this point on, science has become a mainstream part of our society than before modern technology took precedence over a believe in several gods. We depend on science to understand what happens around us more than ever before, it is highly respected and trusted to keep all living beings safe. We attempt to understand more as thousands of scientists across the world perform experiments to make medical breakthroughs on a daily basis. While this occurs, the notion of religion is not going down without a fight.
The conventional belief is that God has been the center of our lives for thousands of years and oversees the welfare of billions across planet earth. In recent centuries, the most dominant debate for Gods existence from the physical realm is the debate of design. This means a single god was created in the minds of the uneducated, simple folk as a be all, end all solution to things that could not be explained. This is a cross planet phenomenon as many cultures throughout the world, battle over religion. They live their lives under the doctrines of their particular religion and feel their beliefs, morals and ethics take precedence over any other's religion. How ironic is the fact that so many individuals across our planet base their entire lives on an entity that no one has ever seen? “God” is a place holder to explain the unknown. When something happens that makes no sense to us, the common reaction is that “it is God's plan” for the occurance. This is all done by design; some people turn to science to answer their questions, while others turn to God and their religion.
Thanks to many pioneers in the field of science, it has rapidly moved forward and is changing how many view the world. A few examples of scientific progression include but are not limited to; cars on roads that were paved for travelers on foot, medical health care professionals ability to prescribe medicine for treatment and prevention of illness, the first moon landing that helped reveal that Earth was not the center of the universe, sandwiched between heaven and hell. The purpose of science is to help logically explain things that happen around us, goals in life, what we are and how we came to be. The aforementioned Galileo was one of the many famed scientists throughout history that helped try to answer these questions; another was Edward Darwin. He changed the world when he introduced the theory of evolution. This notion was scrutinized by some of the most reknowned scientists all over the world. It was ultimately accepted and taught in school throughout the US. However, there was plenty of backlash from religious groups who believed that God created everything and God does not need to be explained because he is the almighty and powerful deity.
Another aspect of human evolution in the modern era, is the creation of machines in lieu of humans. For years, scientists all over the world have tried to create machines that can perform the same tasks as human beings. While, there are some basic functions a computer can accomplish, they do no have inherent cognitive abilities that humans beings have. Computers simply are incapable of executing tasks that require the five major senses.
To ascertain the depth of what humans can achieve versus a machine, requires a look at our needs and behavior patterns. We have essential needs such as air, food and sleep to live a normal life. If we experience a deprivation food or sleep, we may experience hunger or exhaustion, but still remain functional for a period of time. We can walk, have thought processes, communicate verbally and non-verbally, and give signals, albeit at a slower rate. Humans need interaction with other humans as a basis to make decisions, for protection and to help guide us through life.
Computers, on the other hand, need none of these essentials. Just as humans have ears, computers have speakers, humans have a mouth and vocal abilities, a computer has a disk drive, and humans have a brain while a computer has a hard drive. On the surface, they may seem to use similar functional approaches, but there is not a literal awareness on a machine that a human being has. The feelings we humans experience are second to none compared to a machine and if that machine is capable or reacting to certain situations the way we do, it was most certainly programmed to do so by human beings. Any modern technology today that purports to have thinking abilities, are simply previously stored statements that humans have input into the device.
Modern humans have evolved from the use of basic tools, to launching space shuttles outside our realm of planet earth. Those who are science minded can accept this progress as a result of scientific breakthroughs and research. There will always be those who will never submit to the teaching of evolution and continually rely on God to explain the unexplainable.