In my psychology courses, I cover evolutionary psychology.
I am sometimes asked why I do not mention creation science, as an alternative.
I have also been asked why the text books I use
take it for granted that evolution has occurred.
This interactive web site has been created to address these questions.
Is creationism based on religious beliefs or scientific facts?
The text author says evolution is accepted as fact...
There are some people who say Darwin is wrong, might they be correct?
What parts of the theory of evolution are considered fact?
What do you have against creation science?
Is creationism based on religious beliefs or scientific facts?
Evolution is the religion of atheism....
Creation science is just as good and more scientific...
Why would some people deny evolution so strongly if the evidence is so clear?
What is the evidence that the earth is old?
What is the evidence that species have evolved?
Teaching creationism doesn’t hurt anyone...
And finally, how does one pronounce australopithecine ?
Natural selection is how evolution occurs. The observation that species change over time (evolution), is not Darwin’s. This was known prior to Darwin’s time.
Darwin wrote a book that pulled together several scientific findings and explained in a very straightforward way how evolution would naturally occur. Natural selection explains how evolution occurs:
THEN… natural selection will occur; and, over generations, the frequency of the trait changes. Over enough generations it becomes species typical. Evolution has occurred.
How can this be important to understanding human behavior?
The existence of many behavioral traits can be understood in the context of natural selection. Here is one example (note the connections to 1-4 above):
1. Some babies cry when hungry, others are silent, others whimper, others scream.
2. The tendency to cry is partly inborn.
3. Food becomes very scarce, there is not enough for all siblings or all infants to be healthy.
4. Those who cry the loudest get fed a little faster, a little more often.
THEN …. These crying infants will be slightly more likely to survive infancy and reach adulthood and have babies of their own – babies with the same tendency to cry when hungry. If conditions remain the same, after a few generations the number of babies who cry when hungry will increase until all babies do so. If conditions remain the same for long enough, this crying when hungry behavior becomes typical for all babies and has become 'species typical'. Even if food later becomes abundant again, babies will still cry when hungry.
Natural selection means that traits that make an individual more likely to survive (for any reason) will be “selected for, naturally”.
Many psychologists feel that looking at behavior in this light is the best way to really understand the behavior. Sometimes people do not recognize that what is selected for is not the same thing as “right.” Natural selection does not indicate what is best for individual happiness. The processes of natural selection are blind to happiness; natural selection has worked to increase the surviving offspring of persons, and nothing more. If a behavior makes a person unhappy, but increases surviving offspring directly, this behavior will still be selected for. Sometimes, it is in a person’s interest to NOT do the behavior that has been naturally selected. If we would like to help a person alter their behavior, is helpful to know what we are up against; which environmental circumstances will be relevant for the behavioral choice. For all these things evolutionary psychology provides helpful answers.
The text author, Geoffrey Pope, says evolution is accepted as fact, that all serious scientists agree. Why does he say this?
Because the scientific community does agree on this and because Pope is aware that many persons do not realize this is the case. In preparation for this this web site, I surveyed the introduction to psychology textbooks used in college courses that I have in my office. Everyone of them treats evolution as a fact. None consider that evolution might not have happened. This is in contrast with a number of elementary and high school public school texts, which generally say very little if anything about evolution. The reason high school texts do not cover evolution is political, and has nothing to do with scientific merit or the consensus of the scientific community. Pope wants to address this up front. I believe he makes these statements strongly so that in case someone reading his book does not realize the state of science as a whole on this matter, they will seek clarity, and hopefully become more educated. There is a reason that scientists make such strong statements about evolution. We are going to look at these reasons.
There are some people who say Darwin is wrong, might they be correct?
Yes and No. There are two kinds of wrong, which must be understood to avoid confusing the argument.
During Darwin’s time, DNA had not been discovered, so his theory was incomplete in this regard, and has thus been refined. It is now known how DNA replicates and that this process occasionally has an error. This is the source for new variation. Darwin did not know about this. The discovery of mutations and DNA did not disprove Darwin’s theory, it strengthened it both by providing clear evidence that species are related and also by filling in some details that were missing until DNA was discovered. Everyone now agrees that mutations occur and provide changes which can be naturally selected for or naturally selected against. There is still debate about what percent of mutations are helpful. Another example is the debate about how rapidly or how gradually natural selection occurs. There is some reason to believe that evolution may occur rapidly for a few 1000 years, and then slowly for 500,000. This is not what Darwin originally thought. This question has not been fully resolved, it is still debated. In such a sense as these, it may well be that Darwin was wrong. These questions are about aspects of evolution and are details, not the main tenet. All aspects of science have questions which are debated, this is how science moves forward.
So yes, Darwin was wrong in that he did not say mutations are the source of change. He may have been wrong about the gradualness of natural selection processes. This statement of Darwin being wrong should not be taken out of context; all scientists have had their theories revised and have thus have been “wrong” by such a definition. This would include Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein. If Copernicus was wrong about some things, does this mean the Earth does not revolve around the sun? Advances in Darwinian understanding are advances like in any other science. If the question is whether Darwin was wrong in general about the existence of evolution and wrong about how species come and go, the answer is No, Darwin was not wrong. All serious scientists agree on this, just as they agree that sun makes plants grow, that the continents are moving, that the earth moves around the sun, and that and that the theory of relativity is true. If someone has told you that there is disagreement among the scientific community about whether evolution occurs, you have been misled.
Creationist have been known to confuse this issue of wrongness and revision, and do so intentionally. This is one of the reasons their arguments should not be taken seriously. More on this below.
What parts of the theory of evolution are considered fact? (at least as much as the Earth revolving around the sun, or that germs are what cause the flu, or that the matter is made of atoms are considered as facts --- to be technical, all these things would be considered "theories" --open to being disproved. Scientists accept evolution as firmly as they accept that germs are carriers of flu).
OKAY. Here are the aspects of evolutionary theory that are, unlike the question of punctuated equilibrium for example, accepted as true:
1. The Universe is over 11 billion years old
2. The earth is over 4 billion years old.
3. Life on earth is at least 2 billion years old
4. There were no mammals until about 200 million years ago.
5. All species today arose from previously living species
6. Life has evolved in an unbroken chain with many offshoots, since it began.
What do you have against creation science, Dr. DeSoto?
In my opinion- based on my reading and my education-- it is not science, and the writing of creation scientists does not read like science. There is a book called “What is Creation Science” by the founder of the Institute for Creation Research. It has much space devoted to analyzing the religious beliefs of scientists they consider evolutionists. There are chapters where much of the writing is quotes of other scientists taken out of context. We find that Darwin never discussed the origin of species (p. 2), and that no scientists ever use the fossil record as support for evolution over creation (p. 4), and quotes by Stephen J. Gould as supporting the author’s contention that there is “not even any general evidence of evolutionary progression in the fossil record” (p. 4). On page 7 we find a quote by “Gould’s fellow atheist and Marxist” who is noted to have said that the strongest evidence on behalf of creation is that no organism alive today lacks parents… (p. 7). After a few pages of lecture on what constitutes true science, there is a list of which of the world’s religions are evolutionist and which are creationist. The reader then finds a list of which scientists are atheists and which are (or were) creationists (p. 19-20). The new age movement is discussed, and then a continuation of quotes and which scientists believe what. This is followed by a new chapter, which starts off promising that the author wants the reader “to understand what evolution is and what it means… (he will) try to explain, fairly and clearly, the standard text book evidence used to support evolution,” (p.32). Ten pages follow which do no such thing. Instead, the reader finds several pages detailing how evolutionists can’t see that an arrowhead provides evidence that someone created it, but a common rock does not. There are even full page illustrations of arrowheads and common rocks as if this is a real problem. Pages and pages go on pointing out how foolish are the evolutionists, but I could not find anything resembling a "fair and clear" discussion of the theory of evolution.
I looked up the Creation Research Society's “peer-reviewed” journal, in which the most recent issue (as of this writing) contains an article whose abstract and title are below
Darwin’s Cousin Sir Francis Galton (1822–1911) and the Eugenics Movement
By Jerry Bergman
A central plank in Nazism, communism, and other totalitarianism movements was eugenics. Eugenics, the science of improving the human race by scientific control of breeding, was viewed by a large percentage of all life scientists, professors, and social reformers for over a century as an important, if not a major means toward producing paradise on Earth. The founder of this new science was Sir Francis Galton, a cousin and close associate of Charles Darwin. This work was crucial in providing the foundation for a movement that culminated in the loss of many millions of lives, and untold suffering for hundreds of millions of people.
From the "Encyclopedia of Creation Science" readers are given an overview of the basic teaching of the theory of evolution; to be clear, this is what readers find when they seek to learn about the basic premise of the theory.
These examples help illustrate part of the reason why I would feel like I was doing a disservice to my students were I to imply that creationism is to be considered as a serious scientific theory.
What do creationists believe? Is creationism based on religious beliefs or scientific facts?
The exact beliefs get revised, but essentially, it is believed the ultimate source of scientific fact is the Bible. It is asserted that all the species of life today were suddenly created out of essentially nothing in an instant of creation within the last 10,000 years. For example, they believe that dinosaurs lived about 5000 yeas ago. In terms of how the world began and how old the earth is, everything must conform to a literal interpretation of their reading of the Old Testament. This may be denied at certain times, but every creation scientist I have ever met and every writing I have read on the subject refer to the Bible as the ultimate source of knowledge and mixes Bible verses into the science. If you do not believe this, you might try typing “creation science" into an internet search engine and see the official sites of creation science. To claim that this science is "religion free" seems so dishonest that one might wonder about the interpretation of the commandment about bearing false witness.
From http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_dating.asp is an article that sets itself up as scientific discussion of the problem of radiocarbon dating.
"People who ask about carbon-14 (14C) dating usually want to know about the radiometric dating methods that are claimed to give millions and billions of years—carbon dating can only give thousands of years. People wonder how millions of years could be squeezed into the biblical account of history. Clearly, such huge time periods cannot be fitted into the Bible without compromising what the Bible says about the goodness of God and the origin of sin, death and suffering—the reason Jesus came into the world. … Christians, by definition, take the statements of Jesus Christ seriously. He said, ‘But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female’ (Mark 10:6). This only makes sense with a time-line beginning with the creation week thousands of years ago. It makes no sense at all if man appeared at the end of billions of years… Creationists ultimately date the earth historically using the chronology of the Bible. This is because they believe that this is an accurate eyewitness account of world history, which bears the evidence within it that it is the Word of God, and therefore totally reliable and error-free….There are many lines of evidence that the radiometric dates are not the objective evidence for an old earth that many claim, and that the world is really only thousands of years old. We don't have all the answers, but we do have the sure testimony of the Word of God to the true history of the world...."
Creationsim.org home page begins with large font Bible quotes from Genesis and John.
The home page of the “Center for Scientific Creationism” contains a long list of Bible verses from Genesis, and comments on how this is incorporated into their chronology of the earth’s history, “Genesis 7:11, 13; Humans enter the Ark for the last time. Then, on this single day, all the fountains of the great deep burst open and rain begins. This occurred on the 17th day of the 2nd month. Noah was 600 years old.”
The web site of the Young Earth Creation Club is http://www.creationists.org/ and has such features as a moving text flashing wherever we put the cursor that reads “God warned us about evolution, see 2 Peter 3; 3-8.”
Institute for Creation Research home page begins by identifying itself as a “A Christ-Focused Creation Ministry” with the following verse across the top of their web site: “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth... Acts 17:24” This group of creation scientists have said that there is a difference between scientific and biblical creationism. It is things like this that make a serious discussion with them difficult. I hope it will suffice to say that the book I quoted from above is meant to be the book that represents purely scientific creationism; as opposed to religion-centered Biblical creationism (p. 298, Morris and Parker).
But there are some scientists who say that evolution is wrong, and that creation is just as good and more scientific?
Yes, it is true there are scientists who argue strongly for creation science. “But he has a PhD in a scientific field…” Yes, but there are also schizophrenics who have a PhD. I do not think that creation scientists have schizophrenia, but I do think they represent a very small percent of scientists. And sometimes the ideas of small number of a large group, when the small group has very unusual ideas, should not be taken seriously. Person's with a PhD who write articles about the science behind creationism can not get their papers published in peer-reviewed journals and the reason for this is that the science is inept and their logic and motives highly open to criticism, as detailed above.
However, there are a significant number of non-PhD’s and non-scientists who do not believe in evolution, hence the popular “Darwin was wrong” bumper stickers. Many good persons truly believe that the writings of creation scientists should be seriously considered. These persons quote the PhD’s who espouse bad science, not knowing the difference. "If Dr. XXX says natural selection breaks the 2nd law of thermodynamics, it must be so." It isn’t so, but this fact is irrelevant, the point is to get people to say it does.
It has been said that Evolution is a religion just as much as any other religion.
I think this would, at a minimum imply that the spiritual beliefs of scientists have a lot of overlap. Unlike creationists, who from my experience are 99.9% fundamentalist Christians, scientists who accept natural selection processes include all faiths. From my experience, I can say that there are Jews (both conservative and liberal), Buddhists, fundamentalist Christians, devout Catholics, liberal Catholics, those who believe in some vague higher power, Hindus, and atheists (etc, etc). It is false, and insulting to many persons of deep faith, to say that all evolutionists are atheist. It may interest some persons to know that besides the text book author Geoffrey Pope, there is another Pope who accepts evolution, John Paul II.
If the evidence is so clear, why would some people deny evolution so strongly?
I would estimate that nearly 100% of the 1% of PhD scientists who espouse creationism (I say nearly because every rule is proved by it’s exception) are a certain type of Christian. A Christian who believes that every word written in the Bible must be literally true, or life becomes both godless and futile. Such a person may well believe that anything that questions this view is the work of a devil. For a Christian who thinks that if persons and monkeys have a common ancestor, there can be no God, evolution must be fought at all costs -- and any weapon is fair. The ends (saving a soul) are more important than the means (a tad of dishonesty). “Satan himself is the originator of Evolutionary theory” (Morris, 1975). Under such fearful teachings, some persons may believe, at least on some level, that his or her soul is hanging on whether they have enough faith to reject evolution. (Ironically, this type of religious belief may be evolutionarily based and a have significant heritability factor—but that is another story). The point is that the reason that some people deny evolution so strongly is exactly the same reason that the microscopic world was denied. For the same reason that a round Earth was denied, for the same reason that an earth older than 6000 years was denied (and is still denied), the same reason that that the Earth spinning around the sun was denied, etc… the Judeo-Christian Bible does not mention these things. In sum, it was believed that it was not possible to believe in God if the Earth was round, old, not centered in the universe, that life forms not visible to the naked eye existed… Of course, very few people still believe these things (though some do). And many today are taught to believe that if monkeys, persons, cats and earthworms all evolved from the same original strand of DNA, it means God cannot exist. It doesn’t, and assuming education and science continues to move forward, in another 100 years few persons will think that God and Darwin are in conflict.
If you are a student in one of my classes, I can provide you with books and readings on aspects of the above about which you are confused. I will even give you a small amount of extra-credit for book reports on the readings.
What is the evidence that the earth is old?
“There is no real scientific proof, or unequivocal evidence, that the earth is older than several thousand years,” (Morris & Parker, 1987, p. 14)
I have been asked about radio carbon dating. Most people
do not know how carbon dating works even basically, much less have a clear
understanding of it. All radioactive dating depend on the concept of half-life.
The amount of time that it takes for the atoms of a certain type to decay is
measured in half-life. Potassium is one example of an element that is used in
this way. Potassium atoms decay into Argon. Potassium has a half-life of 1,250
million years. This means that if a sample of potassium sits around for 1,250
million years, half of it will have turned into Argon. In another 1,250 million
years another half will have turned so that only 25% of the original quality of
potassium remains. This process continues until all is gone. Using the ratio of
potassium to
Argon in rocks allows scientists to know how long ago the rock was made (when
the rock was made, there would be no Argon). Using this type of logic and many
types of elements, it appears that there rocks that were first formed on the
earth about three billion years ago. But there are not very many. So most
scientist think the earth was formed about 4 billion years ago.
Radiocarbon dating is another method of providing estimates of age, but carbon dating can be used for things that were once alive. Like other radioactive dating, most people do not understand how it works. To understand carbon dating requires some knowledge of physical science and chemistry and some effort. There is more than one type of carbon. One type has six protons and six neutrons, this is carbon 12. Another type has six protons and 7 neutrons, this is carbon 13. There is also a Carbon 14: it has six protons, and eight neutrons. Only carbon 14 is radioactive. It has a relatively short half life of 5,730 years.
In the air, one carbon 14 atom occurs for every million million atoms of carbon 12. This ratio is kept constant because of external light rays and because of the presence of nitrogen 14. However, once the carbon in the air is absorbed by plants the process of keeping the ratio at a million million to one stops and radioactive decay of carbon 14 proceeds with its half life of 5,730 years. This is good news for scientists who want to get an idea of the date of something that was living. Because the ratio at the time the carbon stopped being in the air is known and because the change of the ratio is known (after 5730 years there will be one carbon 14 for every TWO million million carbon 12 atoms. If I find a bone that has one carbon 14 atom for every two million million carbon 12 atoms, I can infer that the plants that this person ate or the plants that the animal that this person ate were alive and absorbing carbon 5730 years ago.
The estimates are not precise. With increasing age the estimates get more imprecise. Carbon dating of 40,000 years is considered to be accurate plus or minus 2000 years. (Abell, 1983). For objects suspected of being much older than this, there are other methods available that are usually more accurate. These facts have been taken out of context by the writers of creation books. It is this type of writing that prevents their writing from being taken seriously. In the book by Morris and Parker called “What is Creation Science” (1975) in their chapter which is supposed to be a serious scientific discussion of the age of the earth and of life on earth, the discussion of radioactive dating is one page. It is limited to three sentences that are, apparently, meant to be serve as a discussion of the merits and limitations and sufficient to refute the principles of chemistry and physics the method relies upon (and over which graduate students take entire courses). The bulk of the page is quotes from scientific writers who have criticized some aspect of radiocarbon dating. The short passage culminates in a quote which tells us that some scientists have abandoned its use altogether (of course, they use other available methods more appropriate for their samples, but this is not mentioned).
What is the evidence that species have evolved?
A comprehensive answer to this would take several years of education. But major sources of evidence would include fossils, DNA, and comparative anatomy.
Fossils and rock layers were the first things that persuaded large numbers of scientists to consider that each species was not created separately about 6000 years ago. When industrialization led to mining, similar layers of rock were observed in widely dispersed regions. Geologists who had an understanding of how sedimentary rocks formed realized this indicated an earth much much older than a few thousand years. Furthermore, the lower layers contain only marine life, middle layers contain reptile fossils and then small primitive mammal like creatures appear during rocks that are of the Mesozoic period, and more complex mammals like cows and primates appear only in the upper, recent rock layers There are many plants and animals that appear in layers, but then stop appearing. This suggests to a person who is seeking to make sense of this that marine animals were the only type of animals that lived long ago, that reptiles appeared much later, and mammals after that. The fact suggested to some that animals types evolve, and that some have come and gone. With the discovery of radioactive dating methods, the ages of the rocks and the specimens support the hunch of the early geologists: the lower rocks are older, the animals in them are older; the rocks further up and the animals there in get progressively more recent.
So the fossils and layers suggested species come and go and change. Radiocarbon and other radioactive dating became available and were used to test the hypothesis that the lower layers were older than the top layers. The hypothesis was confirmed. Then, in 1953, Watson and Crick figured out the structure of DNA and it wasn’t long before DNA sequencing was added to scientists' bag of tools. Scientists predicted that the DNA of all animals would be similar, and they predicted which animals would be most similar. The sequences in hemoglobin has been compared across species. All hemoglobin has two chains: an alpha chain and a beta change. The number of amino acids in alpha chain is the same for all animals and the numbering the beta chain is the same as well (they differ from each other). When the ordering of the amino acids is compared, the DNA similarity is more similar among species that share a recent common ancestor than among species whose common ancestor is further away in time. For example, mammals that have a placenta differ as much as about 16% of their DNA. To get more different than that, you have to compare mammals with placenta to pouch mammals. Then the difference becomes about 24%. If you want more difference in the DNA, you have to look at animals that have been evolving along separate paths for longer time – birds and mammals for example differ by about 30% of the DNA. So on and so on. The animals that are farthest apart are sharks and mammals, with 60% of the sequences differing. Scientists found that the percentage difference was a surprisingly excellent match to the theory and provides some of the strongest evidence that the theory of evolution is correct. The DNA mutations allow the mutations to serve as a molecular clock. Furthermore, evolution predicts that natural selection has acted on the alpha and beta chains independently, with any harmful mutations being removed from the gene pool and helpful mutations being passed down through the generations. What would be predicted based on this? Stop and think before reading. Both chains have been mutating on occasion -- but the mutation in one of the chains will not affect the DNA of the other chain. It would be expected that animals close in evolution history will have similar alpha chains and similar beta chains to their more recent ancestors--- but since natural selection has been preserving helpful mutation that occur in either chain since hemoglobin evolved, then the two strands should diverge at about to about the same degree as the earliest split in species, and this difference between the two chains should be about the same for all species. It is. In all species the difference in the alpha and beta codons is about 60 to 65%.
Unlike the discussion above, which does require some effort and careful reading of at least one full paragraph, some powerful evidence is very easy to see. It was this type of evidence that first suggested to scientists hundreds of years ago that evolution had occurred. Convergent and divergent evolution would occur under the pressure of natural selection, and otherwise makes little sense. If one is trying to choose between two models (one that each species was created separately about 6000 years ago; or that modern species have arisen from pre-existing life forms over millions of years) which does the evidence support?
But teaching creationism doesn’t hurt anyone.
Doesn’t it?
I could not disagree more. One way I see from time to time is that a student is unable to see how evolutionary principles can help understand human behavior because of the block they have about the word evolution. More importantly one could argue, I think the efforts of creation scientists are putting a false barrier to religious growth and spirituality (“you can only be a real Christian if you find a way to deny all of science… “) Because this is their litmus test, they seem to feel justified in whatever methods are needed to refute evolution. Besides actively seeking to confuse and retard science education, I can not see how their efforts have not caused serious spiritual crisis among those who have been taught by their religious leaders that to believe in evolution is to be a tool of Satan and that to be a Christian is to believe in a young earth. Surely some of these persons go on to learn about what evolution really says and become educated on the evidence. They will have a choice: either abandon their faith or turn their back on their God-given intellect. Depending on the person and how it is taught, the conflict may be painful. In reality, of course, many Christians with very strong faith understand and accept that evolution occurred. Who are we to limit and define what God has done and what methods were used? If God created the world, then to understand how this was accomplished can only take us closer to the mind of God. To those who say “The Bible tells us the mind of God.” I say that many persons have read Genesis and are able to accept science and the Bible. And the book of Genesis, if taken literally has also been noted to clearly mean the earth is flat, that the sun moves around the earth, and the earth is only 6000 years old. As quoted above, the creationists put enormous pressure on person who strive to be “good Christians” to accept their view, clearly indicating that to do otherwise (study science) is not Christian.
From the creation science research center, in response to the why Christians should believe in creation science, it is written,
" We believe in creation, first of all, not because of scientific evidence, but because of our faith in Jesus Christ and in His Word the Bible. The Lord Jesus is revealed in the Bible to be the Creator of all things (John 1:3, Hebrews 1:1-3), and He is for Christians the Lord of all and the Head over all things, including science (Acts 10:36, Ephesians 1:22). Our Head has said something about science in John 5:45-47, namely this: If we believe in Jesus Christ, then we must believe Moses' writings. What did Moses write about first of all? He wrote about the creation of all things by God. So we judge science by the Bible and not the other way around. "We walk by faith, not by sight." (I Corinthians 5:7) "
Creationists.org clearly warn that those who teach evolution to Children will be judged harshly on Judgement day. (http://www.creationists.org/warning1.html)
In conclusion, it would be impossible for me, in good faith, to teach or imply to any student that THESE PERSONS ARE OPEN MINDEDLY SEEKING SCIENTIFIC TRUTH WITH OUT BIAS or that rely only on science to convince persons that creation science is superior to the science found in multitudes of physics, biology, and geology text books.
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Sources:
Abell, G. O., (1983). The ages of the Earth and Universe. in Godfrey, L (ed) Scientists confront creationism. McLeod ltd.
Cutnell,J. D. & Johnson, K.W. (1992). Physics. Wiley and Sons.
Jukes, T. H. (1983). Molecular evidence for evolution. in Godfrey, L (ed) Scientists confront creationism. McLeod ltd.
Morris, H. M. & Parker, G. E. (1987). What is creation science. Master books.
National Catholic Reporter (1999). Pope: Evolution 'more than hypothesis'. National Catholic Reporter Oct 8.
Institute for creation research. http://www.icr.org/
More information is just a click away:
Science and discovery of molecular clocks http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/05/1/pdf/l_051_05.pdf
Fossils and methods of dating http://anthro.palomar.edu/time/Default.htm
Miller, Kenneth R. (1999) Finding Darwin's God : a scientist's search for common ground between God and evolution. New York : Cliff Street Books. Click here to find about this book. I have not read this book, but have heard good things about it.
Sagan, Carl. (1997) The Demon Haunted World. Ballantine Books. Click here for more information. Again, I have not read it, but the content is relevant to the discussion of what is and is not science and I have heard that it is a very good read.
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"To use one's god given cortex to think about Nature is the sincerest form of praise."
-Anonymous
"He who finds even one thought that take him closer to the eternal mystery of Nature has been granted great grace."
-Albert Einstein
…..
Mary
Catherine DeSoto