Wikipedia: Origin of Life/Talk

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Could you add a note that this controversy exists almost only in US ? Even worse fundamentalists in Europe don't deny evolution. --Taw

I'm going to delete this page entirely. Ed, the spectrum of belief here is not reducible to the simplistic two or three schools into which you'd like to divide it. The whole idea is nothing but your personal opinion, and has no place in an encyclopedia meant to educate people about the world as a whole. If you'd like to engage in discussion of these issues to clarify them in your own mind, there are plenty of places on the net for that. But this is an encyclopedia, not a discussion group. We're supposed to report on established mainstream beleifs and widely-held minority beliefs, but not any one man's personal opinion. --Lee Daniel Crocker

Old contents:

The three main ideas explaining the origin of life are:

: a. The Theory of Evolution

	New species came into being over millions of years.
	Natural processes are sufficient to account for this.

: b. Intelligent Design

	New species came into being over millions of years.
	Natural processes alone cannot account for this.

: c. Sudden Creationism

	God created all forms of life around 6,000 years ago, pretty much as they are today.

The accepted scientific view is the theory of evolution, i.e., the neo-Darwinian synthesis. (Only a tiny minority of scientists depart from the accepted view.)

Religions which adhere to Sudden Creationism reject evolution entirely, although some denominations of Christianity recognize that some sort of evolution took place. See [Christian views on evolution]?.

Recently, Intelligent Design has been formulated in an attempt to bridge the gap between faith and science.

LDC - I'm going to throw some weight in with you on this. I do believe that the topic "Origin of Life Explanations" (or something similarly named) deserves to exist, being a broad and linking page that present the many various theories as to how life emerged. But the rather restricted (and Americo-centric) view that Ed presented is not fair coverage. Also, the article would need to acknowlege the "no origin" explanations that come from hinduism and buddhism - where the universe and life just has "always been".

Taw - I'd like to see some numbers that support your assertion that Europeans reject creationism so extensively - I suspect (hope!) that the percentage is substantially less than in the USA, but ther would still be a significant number. - MMGB