Necessary conditions for the emergence of creationism. Creationism and evolutionary theory

17.11.2019

The theory of creationism is partly based on the idea of eternism - the stationarity of life. Life is unchangeable because it appeared as a result of a single act of creation of a certain Creative Beginning. Someone once created all the diversity of life out of nothing. The roots of the theory go back to deep antiquity. The ancient Babylonian myth about the hero-god Marduk, who creates the World, is known. Later, the doctrine becomes the dogma of the main official religions.

The main provisions of creationism:

one). The Bible is an undeniably reliable source in matters of natural science;

2). Belief in creation out of nothing;

3). The age of the Earth is not more than 10,000 years;

4). All major groups of animals were created complete and did not change.

The basis of creationism is the provision on the creation of living organisms (or only their simplest forms) by a certain supernatural being - a deity, an absolute Idea, a Supermind, a supercivilization, and so on. Obviously, this idea has been adhered to by followers of most of the world's leading religions, in particular Christianity, since ancient times. The formation of the current is associated with the transition in the 18th - 19th centuries to a systematic study of morphology, physiology, individual development and reproduction of organisms, which put an end to ideas about the sudden transformation of species and the emergence complex organisms as a result of a random combination of individual organs. It spreads not only in religious, but also in scientific circles.

Usually, creationist approaches are used in attempts to explain the most complex issues of biochemistry and biology of evolution associated with the transition from complex organic molecules to living organisms, the absence of transitional links from one type of animal to another.

Proponents of the idea of the constancy of species are prominent scientists who have left their mark on the history of science. Carl Linnaeus (1707 -1778), Swedish physician and naturalist, creator of a unified classification system for flora and fauna, the most progressive at that time. At the same time, he argued that species really exist, they are stable, and the changes that occur within them under the influence of various factors occur strictly within certain limited limits. The number of species has not changed since creation.

Georges Leopold Cuvier (1769 - 1832), baron, peer of France, French naturalist and naturalist, founder of comparative anatomy and paleontology. It is his method of reconstructing animals from a single discovered bone that is used by paleontologists around the world. In an effort to remove the contradictions between the data on the stability of modern species and the data of paleontology, Cuvier creates a theory of catastrophes. In the book Discourses on Revolutions on the Surface of the Globe, which was published in 1830, his hypothesis of a series of catastrophes in the history of the Earth is presented. Each geological period in the history of the planet had its own flora and fauna. And it certainly ended in a catastrophe, in which the vast majority of living things perished. The restoration of flora and fauna occurs due to species that came from small localities. Cuvier considered species immutable, but was not a supporter of multiple creations. He was the creator of the theory of fauna migrations of the past. When different types of life were found in different geological layers, the scientist explained this fact by the fact that after the catastrophe, other species came to this place, preserved in small numbers in other places not affected by the cataclysm. With the accumulation of paleontological finds, the number of alleged catastrophes in the history of the planet grew and reached twenty-seven.

Cuvier's followers - Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807 - 1873), American paleontologist and zoologist and French geologist Alcide Dessaline D "Orbigny (1802 - 1857) - created a catastrophe theory with numerous acts of Creation. After each re-creation the "creative force" increases, therefore, in general, the types become more complicated.

The principle of catastrophism is completely denied by the English naturalist Charles Lyell (1797 - 1875), the founder of modern geology. In his main work "Principles of Geology" (1830), the author supports the idea of actualism. He claims that in the history of the Earth there have never been any global upheavals, no activation internal forces planets - volcanism, faults of lithospheric plates, mountain building. As well as there was no spasmodic emergence of new biological species. All changes on the planet, even the most fundamental ones, have become possible as a result of slowly moving smooth changes that have been going on for hundreds of millions of years. Lyell owns the theory of the equivalence of states, she, among other things, denies the hot phase in the formation of the planet. And the oceans and continents have always been on its surface.

Currently, creationism can be divided into two directions: orthodox and evolutionary. Supporters of the orthodox adhere to traditional views, rely on faith, do not need proof, and ignore scientific data. They reject not only evolutionary development, but also conventional geological and astrophysical theories that contradict theosophical theories. Evolutionary creationism is undergoing some changes, trying to combine the idea of evolution and the religious doctrine of the creation of the world. According to their views, species can turn into one another, but the will of the Creator is the guiding force. At the same time, the origin of man from ape-like ancestors is not disputed, but his consciousness and spiritual activity are considered as the result of divine creation. All changes in wildlife occur at the will of the Creator. It should be noted that evolutionary creationism is characteristic of Western Catholicism. In Orthodoxy, there is no single official point of view on the issues of evolutionary development. In practice, this leads to the fact that there is a wide possibility of interpreting the moment of development - from orthodox to similar to Catholic evolutionism. Creationism has lost its significance in biology since the mid-sixties of the last century. Modern supporters of this theory are trying to put forward their interpretation of the available controversial facts, criticize scientific research, but they are in no hurry to offer their own, independent research, materials and arguments.

Literature:

Dzeverin I.I., Puchkov V.P., Dovgal I.V., Akulenko N.M. "Scientific creationism, how scientific is it?", M., 1989

Cuvier J. "Reasoning about revolutions on the surface of the globe", M., 1937

McLean J., Oakland R., McLean L. "Evidence of the creation of the world. The origin of the planet Earth", Print House, 2005

Larichev V.E. "Garden of Eden", Politizdat, M., 1980

WWW. anthropogenesis.ru

Introduction

Theories concerning the origin of the Earth and life on it, and indeed the entire Universe, are diverse and far from reliable. According to the steady state theory, the universe has existed forever. According to other hypotheses, the Universe could have arisen from a bunch of neutrons as a result of " big bang”, was born in one of the black holes or was created by the Creator. Contrary to popular belief, science cannot refute the thesis of the divine creation of the universe, just as theological views do not necessarily reject the possibility that life in the process of its development acquired features that can be explained on the basis of the laws of nature.

Among the many theories of the origin of life on Earth, consider the main ones: life was created by a supernatural being at a certain time (creationism); life arose repeatedly from inanimate matter (spontaneous generation); sudden emergence of life (panspermia theory); life arose as a result of processes subject to chemical and physical laws(biochemical evolution).

Let's take a closer look at these theories.

creationism

According to this theory, the Universe arose as a result of a purposeful intelligent act of creation, the emergence as a result of such an act of basic highly organized life forms, changes in life forms within a species as a result of interaction with environment; it is followed by followers of almost all the most common religious teachings. In 1650, Archbishop Asher of Armagh, Ireland, calculated that God created the world in October 4004 BC. e. And he finished his work on October 23 at 9 am, creating a man. Asher got this date by adding up the ages of all the people mentioned in the biblical genealogy - from Adam to Christ. From the point of view of arithmetic, this makes sense, but it turns out that Adam lived at a time when, as archeological finds show, there was a well-developed urban civilization in the Middle East.

Creation theory, relegated to the background as a result of the wide spread of evolutionism, has received a "second birth" in our days, thanks to the development of science and the new facts obtained by it.

The creation model was the main one in science for the entire period of its existence, almost until the beginning of this century. Creation scientists included Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Pascal, Linnaeus, Pasteur, Maxwell, and many others.

But by the end of the last century, when the development social sciences began to have a strong influence on natural science, began the rapid growth of various theories, often of a pseudoscientific nature. The most revolutionary of them was Darwin's theory, which, moreover, was in good agreement with the social doctrine of Marxism, which was very popular in Europe at that time. Quite quickly, Darwinism also developed in the countries of the East - this was favored by its consistency with the main tenets of Eastern religions. It was on the basis of the work of Darwin and his followers that the theory of evolutionary development arose and quickly became the most widespread. For more than half a century, it almost completely dominated science.

And only a few decades ago, new scientific discoveries made many scientists doubt the possibility of the evolutionary mechanism. In addition, if the evolutionary theory has at least some explanation for the process of the emergence of living matter, then the mechanisms for the emergence of the Universe simply remain outside the scope of this theory.

There is another, no less common misconception that creationism is a purely biblical theory, based in its development solely on faith. Indeed, the Bible gives a fairly clear scheme for the emergence of the world around us, which coincides with the creation doctrine. Nevertheless, creationism is precisely a science based on scientific methodology and the results of scientific experiments. This misconception stems primarily from a very superficial acquaintance with the theory of creation, as well as from a well-established prejudiced attitude towards this scientific movement. As a result, many people are much more sympathetic towards completely unscientific theories, not confirmed by practical observations and experiments, such as, for example, the fantastic "contact theory", which admits the possibility of artificial creation of the Universe known to us by "external civilizations".

Creationism does not solve the problem of a narrow, highly specialized field of scientific knowledge. Each individual science that studies its own part of the world around us is organically part of the scientific apparatus of creationism, and the facts obtained by it add up a complete picture of the creational doctrine.

The main goal of creationism is to promote human knowledge of the world around us by scientific methods and use this knowledge to solve the practical needs of mankind.

Creationism, like any other science, has its own philosophy. The philosophy of creationism is the philosophy of the Bible. And this greatly increases the value of creationism for humanity, which has already managed to own example will see how important the philosophy of science is to prevent the ill-considered consequences of its development.

Creationism is by far the most consistent and consistent theory of the origin of the world around us. And it is precisely its consistency with the numerous scientific facts of a wide variety of scientific disciplines that make it the most promising platform for further development human knowledge.

Theories of the origin of man. creationism

1. Divine theory of the origin of man

Views based on the fact that man was created by God or gods arose much earlier than the materialistic theories of spontaneous generation of life and the evolution of anthropoid ancestors into humans. In various philosophical, theological teachings of antiquity, the act of human creation was attributed to various deities.

For example, according to Mesopotamian myths, the gods, led by Marduk, killed their former rulers Abazu and his wife Tiamat, Abazu's blood was mixed with clay, and the first man arose from this clay. Hindus had their own views on the creation of the world and man in it. According to their ideas, the world was dominated by a triumvirate - Shiva, Krishna and Vishnu, who laid the foundation for humanity. The ancient Incas, Aztecs, Dagons, Scandinavians had their own versions, which basically coincided: man is a creation higher mind or simply God.

Christian religious views on the creation of the world and man in it, associated with the divine creation of Jehovah (Yahweh) - the only God in the Universe, manifesting himself in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God - Holy Spirit.

The area of research aimed at finding scientific evidence for this version is called "scientific creationism." Modern creationists seek to back up the texts of the Bible with accurate calculations. In particular, they prove that Noah's ark could accommodate all the "creatures in pairs" - given that fish and other aquatic animals do not need a place in the ark, and the rest of the vertebrates - about 20 thousand species. If we multiply this number by two (a male and a female were taken into the ark), we get about 40,000 animals. A medium-sized sheep van can carry 240 animals. This means that 146 such vans would be needed. And an ark 300 long, 50 wide and 30 cubits high would contain 522 such wagons. This means that there was a place for all animals and there would be more - for food and people. Moreover, God, according to Thomas Heinz of the Institute for Creation Research, would probably have guessed to take small and young animals so that they take up less space and multiply more actively.

Creationists generally reject evolution, while citing facts that testify in their favor. For example, it is reported that computer experts have reached a dead end in an attempt to reproduce human vision. They were forced to admit that they could not artificially reproduce the human eye, especially the retina with its 100 million rods and cones, as well as the neural layers that perform at least 10 billion computational operations per second. At the same time, they quote the statement of Charles Darwin: “The assumption that the eye ... could be developed by natural selection, it may seem, I admit it frankly, in the highest degree ridiculous."

2. Creationism

human evolution theological worldview

Creationism (from Latin creatio, genus p. creationis - creation) is a theological and ideological concept, according to which the main forms of the organic world (life), humanity, planet Earth, and the world as a whole are considered as directly created by the Creator or God.

The history of creationism is part of the history of religion, although the term itself is not that old. The term "creationism" has become popular since about late XIX centuries, as concepts that recognize the truth of the history of the creation of the world set out in the Old Testament. The accumulation of data from various sciences, especially the spread of the theory of evolution in the 19th century, led to a contradiction between new views in science and the biblical picture of the world.

In 1932, the "Evolution Protest Movement" was founded in Great Britain, the purpose of which was to disseminate "scientific" information and facts proving the falsity of evolutionary doctrine and the truth of the biblical picture of the world. By 1970, the number of active members reached 850 people. In 1972, the Newton Scientific Association was formed in the United Kingdom.

In the United States, quite influential creationist organizations managed to achieve a temporary ban on teaching evolutionary biology in public schools in several states, and from the mid-1960s "young earth creationism" activists began to push for the introduction of school curriculum teachings of "scientific creationism". In 1975, the teaching of pure creationism in the school was declared unconstitutional in Daniel v. Waters. This prompted a name change to "creation science" and, after it was banned in 1987 ("Edwards v. Aguillard"), to " intelligent design", which was again banned by the court already in 2005 ("the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial").

Since 1992, the "Istanbul Foundation" has been operating in Turkey. scientific research(BAV)", known for its wide publishing activities. In February 2007, the fund presented an illustrated tutorial The 770-page Atlas of the Creation, which was sent free of charge to scholars and schools in the UK, Scandinavia, France, and Turkey in their languages. In addition to "scientific" theories, the book touches on worldview issues. Thus, the authors of the book lay the blame for communism, Nazism and Islamic radicalism on the theory of evolution. "Darwinism is the only philosophy that values conflict," the text says.

Currently in different countries around the world, public associations, groups and organizations operate under the ideology of creationism. Reportedly: 34 in the US, 4 in the UK, 2 in Australia, 2 in South Korea, 2 - in Ukraine, 2 - in Russia, 1 - in Turkey, 1 - in Hungary, 1 - in Serbia.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), of which Russia is also a member, in its Resolution 1580 of October 4, 2007 entitled "The Danger of Creationism for Education" expressed concern about the possible unhealthy consequences of the spread of ideas of creationism within the framework of educational systems and that creationism could become a threat to human rights, which are of key importance to the Council of Europe. The resolution emphasizes the inadmissibility of replacing science with faith and the falsity of creationist claims about the scientific nature of their teachings.

3. Creationism in various religions

Creationism in Christianity.

Currently, creationism is a wide range of concepts - from purely theological and philosophical to those claiming to be scientific. However, what this set of concepts have in common is that they are rejected by most scientists as unscientific, at least by Karl Popper's criterion of falsifiability: the conclusions from the premises of creationism have no predictive power, since they cannot be tested by experiment.

There are many different currents in Christian creationism, diverging in the interpretation of natural science data. According to the degree of discrepancy with the views generally accepted in science on the past of the Earth and the Universe, among them are distinguished:

· Literal (Young-Earth) Creationism (Young-Earth Creationism) insists on literally following the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament. That is, the world was created exactly as it is described in the Bible - in 6 days and about 6000 (according to some Protestants, based on the Masoretic text of the Old Testament) or 7500 (according to some Orthodox, based on the Septuagint) years ago.

· Metaphorical (Old Earth) Creationism: in it "6 days of creation" is a universal metaphor adapted to the level of perception of people with different levels knowledge; in reality, one "day of creation" corresponds to millions or billions of real years, since in the Bible the word "day" means not only a day, but often indicates an indefinite period of time. Among the metaphorical creationists currently most common are:

· Gap creationism: The earth was created long before the first day of creation, and either remained "formless and empty" for the same 4.6 billion years that the scientific evidence suggests, or was emptied by God for a new creation. Only after this chronological gap was creation resumed - God gave the Earth a modern look and created life. As with Young Earth Creationism, the six biblical days of creation are considered six literal 24-hour days.

· Progressive creationism: According to this concept, God continuously directs the process of changing species and their appearance. Representatives of this direction accept geological and astrophysical data and dates, but completely reject the theory of evolution and speciation by natural selection.

· Theistic evolutionism (evolutionary creationism): accepts the theory of evolution, but claims that evolution is an instrument of God the Creator in carrying out his plan. Theistic evolutionism accepts all or almost all ideas generally accepted in science, limiting the miraculous intervention of the Creator to acts not studied by science, such as the creation of an immortal soul by God in man (Pope Pius XII), or interpreting chance in nature as manifestations of divine providence. Many anti-evolution creationists do not consider their position to be creationism at all (the most radical of the literalists even deny theistic evolutionists the right to call themselves Christians).

Orthodox churches at present (2014) they do not have a single official position in relation to the theory of evolution and, accordingly, to creationism.

Creationism in Judaism.

Since the Qur'an, unlike the Book of Genesis, does not contain detailed description creation of the world, literal creationism in the Muslim world is much less common than Islam believes (according to the text of the Qur'an) that humans and jinn were created by God. The modern views of many Sunnis on the theory of evolution are close to evolutionary creationism.

Many representatives of Orthodox Judaism deny the theory of evolution, insisting on a literal reading of the Torah, however, representatives of the modern Orthodox branch of Judaism - religious modernists and religious Zionists tend to interpret some parts of the Torah allegorically and are ready to partially accept the theory of evolution in one form or another. Representatives of conservative and reformist Judaism fully accept the basic postulates of the theory of evolution.

Thus, the views of representatives of classical Orthodox Judaism are close to fundamentalist creationism, while the views of modern Orthodox, as well as conservative and reformed Judaism, are close to theistic evolutionism.

Creationism in Islam.

The Islamic criticism of evolutionary theory is much more harsh than the Christian one. Islamic criticism in many of its features resembles the ideas of the French post-structuralists set forth in such works as "Symbolic Exchange and Death", "The Spirit of Terrorism" (J. Baudrillard), "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" (J. Deleuze, F. Guattari). Rather unexpected is the similarity of this criticism with some of the ideas of modern Neo-Marxism (A. Negri).

Currently, one of the most active propagandists of Islamic creationism is Harun Yahya. Harun Yahya's statements about the theory of evolution, and the nature of his argumentation, are often subjected to scientific criticism.

A number of Islamic scholars also do not share the views of H. Yahya. So, Dalil Boubaker, President of the Muslim Union of France, commenting on the books of Harun Yahya, noted that "evolution is a scientific fact", and "the theory of evolution does not contradict the Koran": "He tries to show that species remain unchanged, and cites as evidence photographs, but at the same time he cannot explain the disappearance of some species and the emergence of others.

Sociologist Malek Shebel also said in an interview with Le Monde newspaper in February 2007 that "Islam has never been afraid of science ... Islam has nothing to fear from Darwinism ... Islam is not afraid of the history of evolution and mutation of the human race."

Creationism in Hinduism.

Among the non-Abrahamic religions, creationism in Hinduism deserves attention. Since Hinduism assumes a very ancient age of the world, in Hindu literal creationism, in contrast to Abrahamic, it is not the youth of the Earth that is affirmed, but the antiquity of mankind. At the same time, like the fundamentalists of the Abrahamic religions, biological evolution is denied, and, among other things, the simultaneity of the existence of humans and dinosaurs is affirmed.

Boston University professor M. Sherman proposes a hypothesis about the artificial appearance of a "universal genome" in the Cambrian to explain the causes of the so-called Cambrian explosion in the evolution of multicellular organisms. Moreover, he insists on scientific verification of his hypothesis.

scientific creationism.

"Science of creation" or "scientific creationism" (eng. Creation Science) - a trend in creationism, whose supporters claim that it is possible to obtain scientific confirmation of the biblical act of creation and, more broadly, biblical history (in particular, the Flood), while remaining within the framework of scientific methodology.

Although the writings of "creation science" proponents often appeal to problems of the complexity of biological systems, which brings their concept closer to conscious design creationism, proponents of "scientific creationism" tend to go further and insist on the need for a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, substantiating their position as theological as well as scientific, in their opinion, arguments.

The following statements are typical for the works of "scientific creationists":

· Contrasting "operational science" about natural phenomena in the present time, the hypotheses of which are available for experimental verification, "historical science" about events that occurred in the past. Due to the inaccessibility of direct verification, according to creationists, historical science is doomed to rely on a priori postulates of a "religious" nature, and the conclusions of historical science can be true or false depending on the truth or falsity of the a priori accepted religion.

· "Originally created kind", or "baramin". Creationists of past centuries, like K. Linnaeus, when describing various types of animals and plants, assumed that species are immutable, and the number is now existing species equal to the number originally created by God (minus species that have already become extinct in the historical memory of mankind, for example, dodos). However, the accumulation of data on speciation in nature forced opponents of the theory of evolution to put forward a hypothesis, according to which representatives of each "baramin" were created with a set of certain characteristics and the potential to limited range changes. A species (a reproductively isolated community, as population geneticists understand it, or a static phase of the evolutionary process, as paleontologists understand it) is not synonymous with the "baramin" of creationists. According to opponents of the theory of evolution, some "baramins" include many species, as well as taxa more high order, while others (such as the human one, which creationists insist on for theological, teleological, and some natural science reasons) may include only one species. After the creation, representatives of each "baramin" interbred with each other either without restrictions, or in sub-baramins - species. As a criterion for two different species to belong to the same "baramin", creationists usually put forward the ability to produce offspring (even if infertile) during interspecific hybridization. Since examples of such hybridization are known between mammalian species traditionally classified as belonging to different genera, it is commonly believed among creationists that in mammals, a "baramin" roughly corresponds to a family (the only exception is man, who constitutes a separate "baramin").

· "Flood geology", declaring the simultaneous deposition of most of the sedimentary rocks earth's crust with the burial and rapid fossilization of the remains due to the worldwide flood in the time of Noah and, on this basis, denying the stratigraphic geochronological scale. According to supporters of "flood geology", in the fossil record, representatives of all taxa appear "fully formed", which refutes evolution. Moreover, the occurrence of fossils in stratigraphic layers does not reflect the sequence of floras and faunas that have replaced each other over many millions of years, but the sequence of ecosystems tied to different geographical depths and heights - from benthic and pelagic through shelf and lowland to plain and high mountain. Calling modern geology "uniformist" or "actualist", the "flood geologists" accuse opponents of postulating exceptionally slow rates of geological processes such as erosion, sedimentation and mountain building, which, according to the "flood geologists", cannot ensure the preservation of fossils, and also the intersection by some fossils (usually tree trunks) of several layers of sedimentary rocks ("flood geologists" call such fossils "polystanny").

· To explain the multibillion-year ages of the Earth and the Universe, which geo- and astrophysics give, attempts are made in creationism to prove the inconsistency in time of world constants, such as the speed of light, Planck's constant, elementary charge, masses elementary particles etc., and also, as an alternative explanation, gravitational time dilation in near-Earth space is postulated. A search is also underway for phenomena that indicate a young (less than 10 thousand years) age of the Earth and the Universe.

· Among other statements, one often comes across the thesis that the second law of thermodynamics rules out evolution (or at least abiogenesis).

In 1984, the Creation Evidence Museum was founded in Texas by Carl Boe. Karl Bo is known for his excavations (allegedly he discovered dinosaur footprints next to human footprints, dinosaur bones and skin).

May 2007 in the US city of Cincinnati opened a large museum of creationism. Based computer technology the museum recreates an alternative concept of the history of the Earth. According to the creators of the museum, no more than 10 thousand years have passed since the creation of the world. The main support in the creation of the museum was the Bible. The museum has a special section dedicated to the Flood and Noah's Ark. A separate section is devoted to Darwin's theory in the museum, and, according to the creators, it completely debunks the modern evolutionary theory of the origin of man. Prior to the opening of the museum, 600 academicians signed a petition asking for children to be kept away from the museum. A small group gathered a picket near the walls of the museum under the slogan "Don't lie!". The attitude towards the museum in society remains ambiguous.

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Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………....3

1. The concept of creationism…………………………………………………………………….4

2. The concept of spontaneous generation of life…………………………………………………………..5

3. The concept of a stationary state………………………………………………………...7

4. The concept of panspermia………………………………………………………………………8

5. The concept of the origin of life on Earth in the historical past as a result of processes that are subject to physical and chemical laws(abiogenesis)…………….10

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….12

List of literature used………………………………………………………….13

Introduction

Questions about the origin of nature and the essence of life have long been the subject of human interest in his desire to understand the world around him, understand himself and determine his place in nature. The origin of life is one of the three most important worldview problems along with the problem of the origin of our Universe and the problem of the origin of man.

This question not only attracts the close attention of scientists from different countries and specialties, but is of interest to all people in the world in general.

Today in the world there are a huge number of theories of the origin of life, some of them are more true, some less, but each of them has a grain of truth. However, this greatest mystery of mankind has not yet been solved, new theories are still appearing, there are disputes about their correctness.

Centuries of research and attempts to resolve these issues have given rise to different concepts of the origin of life. The most common are:

The concept of creationism - the divine creation of the living

The concept of spontaneous generation of life (vitalism)

Steady state concept

Panspermia concept - extraterrestrial origin of life

The concept of the origin of life on Earth in the historical past as a result of processes that obey physical and chemical laws (Oparin's hypothesis)

These theories will be considered in this paper.

1. The concept of creationism

She has the most ancient history, since in almost all polytheistic religions the emergence of life is regarded as an act of divine creation, evidence of which is the presence in living organisms of a special force that controls all biological processes. These views are shared by many religious teachings of European civilization. The process of the divine creation of the world and the living is inaccessible to observation, and the divine plan is inaccessible to human understanding.

According to creationism, the emergence of life on Earth could not be realized in a natural, objective, regular way; life is the result of a divine creative act. The origin of life refers to a specific event in the past that can be calculated. In 1650, Archbishop Asher of Ireland calculated that God created the world in October 4004 BC, and at 9 o'clock in the morning on October 23, man. He obtained this number from an analysis of the ages and family ties of all persons mentioned in the Bible. However, by that time in the Middle East there was already advanced civilization which has been proven by archaeological research. However, the issue of the creation of the world and man is not closed, since the texts of the Bible can be interpreted in different ways.

2. The concept of spontaneous generation of life (vitalism)

The theory of spontaneous origin of life originated in Babylon, Egypt and China as an alternative to creationism. It is based on the concept that under the influence of natural factors, the living can arise from the inanimate, the organic from the inorganic. It goes back to Empedocles and Aristotle.

Based on the information about animals that came from the soldiers of Alexander the Great and merchant travelers, Aristotle formed the idea of a gradual and continuous development of the living from the inanimate and created the idea of the "ladder of nature" in relation to the animal world. He did not doubt the spontaneous generation of frogs, mice and other small animals. Plato spoke of the spontaneous generation of living beings from the earth in the process of decay.

The idea of spontaneous generation became widespread in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when the possibility of spontaneous generation of not only simple, but also rather highly organized creatures, even mammals (for example, mice made of rags) was allowed. For example, in W. Shakespeare's tragedy "Antony and Cleopatra" Leonid says to Mark Antony: "Your Egyptian reptiles start up in the mud from the rays of your Egyptian sun. Here, for example, a crocodile ... ". There are known attempts by Paracelsus to develop recipes for an artificial person (homunculus).

Helmont came up with a recipe for getting mice from wheat and dirty laundry. Bacon also believed that decay is the germ of a new birth. The ideas of spontaneous generation of life were supported by Galileo, Descartes, Harvey, Hegel,

Against the theory of spontaneous generation in the 17th century. the Florentine doctor Francesco Redi spoke. Putting the meat in a closed pot, F. Redi showed that the larvae of blowflies do not spontaneously generate in rotten meat. Supporters of the theory of spontaneous generation did not give up, they argued that spontaneous generation of larvae did not occur for the sole reason that air did not enter the closed pot. Then F. Redi placed the pieces of meat in several deep vessels. He left some of them open, and covered some with muslin. After some time, in the open vessels, the meat swarmed with fly larvae, while in the vessels covered with muslin, there were no larvae in the rotten meat.

In the XVIII century. The German mathematician and philosopher Leibniz continued to defend the theory of spontaneous generation of life. He and his supporters argued that there is a special "life force" in living organisms. According to the vitalists (from the Latin "vita" - life), "life force" is present everywhere. Just breathe it in, and the inanimate becomes alive.”

The microscope opened the microworld to people. Observations showed that in a tightly closed flask with meat broth or hay infusion, microorganisms are detected after a while. But as soon as the meat broth was boiled for an hour and the neck was sealed, nothing appeared in the sealed flask. Vitalists suggested that prolonged boiling kills the "life force" that cannot penetrate the sealed flask.

The Paris Academy of Sciences appointed a prize for solving this issue, and in 1860 Louis Pasteur was able to prove that spontaneous generation of microorganisms does not occur. To do this, he used a flask with a long curved neck and boiled infusions at a temperature of 120 degrees. At the same time, microbes and their spores died, when cooling, the air passed into the flask, and with it the microorganisms, but they settled on the walls of the curved neck of the flask and did not fall into the infusion. Thus, the inconsistency of the theory of spontaneous generation was finally proved.

3. The concept of a steady state

According to this concept, the Earth never came into being and exists forever and is always capable of supporting life. If there have been changes to the Earth, it has been very minor.

As the main argument, the supporters of this concept put forward the existing uncertainties in physical, chemical, geological theories in determining the age of the Earth and the Universe as a whole.

Species, according to this concept, have always existed and for them there are only two possibilities: to survive at the expense of numbers or die out.

Proponents of this theory do not recognize that the presence or absence of certain fossil remains may indicate the time of appearance or extinction of a particular species, and cite as an example a representative of lobe-finned fish - coelacanth. Proponents of the steady state theory argue that only by studying living species and comparing them with fossil remains can one conclude about extinction, and in this case it is very likely that it will turn out to be wrong.

Comparison of paleontological data with modern views can have, according to the supporters of this concept, only an ecological meaning: the movement of a species, an increase in its numbers, or extinction in adverse conditions.

The existing gaps in the paleontological record of species, which the French scientist J. Cuvier (1769 - 1832) drew attention to, and the explanation of their occurrence by periodically occurring catastrophes on Earth, are used by supporters of this concept as arguments in favor of the eternal, non-arising and non-disappearing phenomenon of life.

4. The concept of panspermia

According to this hypothesis, life was brought from space either in the form of spores of microorganisms, or by deliberately "populating" the planet with intelligent aliens from other worlds. There is no direct evidence for this. And the theory of panspermia itself does not offer any mechanism for explaining the primacy of the origin of life and transfers the problem to another place in the Universe. Liebig believed that the atmosphere celestial bodies, as well as rotating cosmic nebulae - these are repositories of an animated form, like eternal plantations of organic germs, from where life is scattered in the form of these germs in the Universe.

In 1865, the German physician G. Richter put forward the hypothesis of cosmozoans (cosmic germs), according to which life is eternal and the germs inhabiting the world space can be transferred from one planet to another. His hypothesis was supported by many eminent scientists. Kelvin, Helmholtz and others thought in a similar way.

In 1908, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius put forward a similar hypothesis. He suggested that the germs of life exist in the Universe forever, move in outer space under the influence of light rays and, settling on the surface of planets, in particular the Earth, give rise to life there.

Enough big number this concept has supporters in our days. Thus, American astronomers, studying a gaseous nebula 25,000 light years away from the Earth, found traces of amino acids and other organic substances in its spectrum.

In the early 1980s, American researchers found a piece of rock in Antarctica that had once been knocked out from the surface of Mars. large meteorite. The fossilized remains of microorganisms similar to terrestrial bacteria were found in this stone. This may indicate that primitive life existed on Mars in the past, maybe it is there today.

To justify panspermia, cave paintings resembling living organisms or the appearance of UFOs are usually used. Supporters of the theory of the eternity of life (de Chardin and others) believe that forever existing earth some species were forced to die out or dramatically change their numbers in certain places on the planet due to changes in external conditions. A clear concept on this path has not been developed, since there are some gaps and ambiguities in the paleontological record of the Earth. According to Chardin, at the moment of the origin of the universe, God merged with matter and gave it a vector of development. Thus, we see that this concept interacts closely with creationism.

The concept of panspermia is usually reproached for the fact that it does not provide a fundamental answer to the question of the ways of the origin of life, and only postpones the solution of this problem for an indefinite period. At the same time, it is tacitly implied that life should have occurred at a certain specific point (or several points) of the Universe, and then spread throughout outer space - just as newly emerged species of animals and plants spread across the Earth from their area of origin; in this interpretation, the panspermia hypothesis really looks like just a departure from the solution of the problem. However, the real essence of this concept is not at all in the romantic interplanetary wanderings of the “germs of life”, but in the fact that life as such is simply one of the fundamental properties of matter, and the question of the “origin of life” is in the same row as, for example, , the question of the "origin of gravity".

Thus, at least the position concerning the ubiquity of the spread of life in the Universe has not been confirmed.

5. The concept of the origin of life on Earth in the historical past as a result of processes that obey physical and chemical laws (abiogenesis)

Until the middle of the XX century. many scientists believed that organic compounds can only occur in a living organism. That is why they were called organic compounds, as opposed to substances of inanimate nature - minerals, which were called not organic compounds. It was believed that organic matter arise only biogenically, and nature inorganic substances completely different, therefore the emergence of even the simplest organisms from inorganic substances is completely impossible. However, after the usual chemical elements the first organic compound was synthesized, the concept of two different essences of organic and inorganic substances turned out to be untenable. As a result of this discovery, organic chemistry and biochemistry arose, studying the chemical processes in living organisms.

In addition, this scientific discovery made it possible to create the concept of biochemical evolution, according to which life on Earth arose as a result of physical and chemical processes. This hypothesis was based on data on the similarity of substances that make up plants and animals, on the possibility of synthesizing organic substances that make up protein in laboratory conditions.

Academician A.I. Oparin published his work "The Origin of Life" in 1924, where a fundamentally new hypothesis of the origin of life was presented. The essence of the hypothesis boiled down to the following: the origin of life on Earth is a long evolutionary process of the formation of living matter in the depths of inanimate matter. And this happened through chemical evolution, as a result of which the simplest organic substances were formed from inorganic substances under the influence of potent physical and chemical factors, and thereby chemical evolution gradually rose to a qualitative level. new level and passed into biochemical evolution.

Considering the problem of the emergence of life through biochemical evolution, Oparin distinguishes three stages of the transition from inanimate to living matter:

synthesis of initial organic compounds from inorganic substances in the conditions of the primary atmosphere of the primitive Earth;

formation of biopolymers, lipids, hydrocarbons from the accumulated organic compounds in the primary reservoirs of the Earth;

self-organization of complex organic compounds, the emergence on their basis and evolutionary improvement of the process of metabolism and reproduction of organic structures, culminating in the formation of a simple cell.

Despite all the experimental validity and theoretical persuasiveness, Oparin's concept has both strengths and weaknesses.

The strength of the concept is a fairly accurate correspondence of its chemical evolution, according to which the origin of life is a natural result of the prebiological evolution of matter. A convincing argument in favor of this concept is also the possibility of experimental verification of its main provisions. This concerns the laboratory reproduction not only of the supposed physicochemical conditions of the primary Earth, but also of coacervates imitating the precellular ancestor and its functional features.

The weak side of the concept is the impossibility of explaining the very moment of the jump from complex organic compounds to living organisms - after all, none of the experiments set up managed to get life. In addition, Oparin admits the possibility of self-reproduction of coacervates in the absence of molecular systems with the functions of the genetic code. In other words, without reconstructing the evolution of the mechanism of heredity, it is impossible to explain the process of the jump from the inanimate to the living. Therefore, today it is believed that to solve this most complex problem of biology without involving the concept of open catalytic systems, molecular biology, as well as cybernetics will fail.

Conclusion

The question of the origin of life is one of the most burning questions in modern science. Organic life perfectly knows how to reproduce itself, but after all, once it had to appear from inanimate, inert matter. How this happened is still unclear.

All the theories and hypotheses presented here are only a small part of the huge number of supposed answers to the greatest mystery of mankind - the mystery of the origin of life on Earth, that exist today in the world. We can only hope for a speedy resolution of this problem. Perhaps, having found the answer to the question, we will discover another world for ourselves, reveal missing links in the chain of the emergence and development of mankind, we will finally find out our past. Unfortunately, so far each person can only choose which idea is better for him to adhere to, which is closer to him.

To date, the Oparin-Haldane theory seems to be the most realistic, but no one knows how plausible it is. After all, the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin was also irrefutable for a long period of time, but now there is a huge amount of facts and evidence of its incorrectness.

Despite such a variety and a huge number of different hypotheses and theories about the cause of the origin of life on Earth, none of them has yet been proven and finally approved. From this it follows that there are still gaps in the history of mankind, there is a lot of unexplored. There are such secrets and riddles, the meaning of which we cannot comprehend.

Bibliography

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Sadokhin A.P., Concepts modern natural science: Textbook. - M.: UNITY-DANA Publishing House, 2009
A.A. Gorelov, Concepts of modern natural science, M.: Center, 2005
Semenov E.V., Mamontov S.G., Kogan V.L., Biology, M.: graduate School, 1984
Ponnamperuma S., Origin of life, M.: Mir, 2001

Creationism (from the Latin creatio - creation), a religious and philosophical doctrine of the creation of the world and man by God. The prerequisites for the formation of creationism arose in the process of the development of cosmogonic myths due to the terminological fixation of the difference between the act of creation and other actions of the deity (biological generation, handicraft, struggle, etc.), acting as factors in the cosmogonic process. In a latent form, creationist elements are already present in archaic mythologies. ancient east(Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian-Babylonian), but the tendency towards creationism was most clearly manifested in the Holy Scriptures of the Jews. As a peculiar type of ontology, creationism developed mainly within the framework of the Old Testament and New Testament traditions, initially in the course of the Late Antique reception of the biblical narrative (especially in the book of Genesis and the Gospel of John) about the Creation of the world. Ideas about creation were also peculiarly reworked in the Arab-Muslim tradition, which formulated its own version of creationism.

Christian creationism received a detailed formulation during the patristic period - first within the framework of biblical exegesis, and then during the development of the basic principles of Christian systematic theology. The conceptual means for such a formulation were developed on Greek in the writings of Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and the Cappadocian Fathers, in Latin - primarily in the works of Blessed Augustine, who established the primary ontological distinction between the eternal and unchanging Creator and the temporary and changeable creature, as well as in the writings of John Scotus Eriugena, who distinguished between such types entities, as "creating and uncreated", "creating and created", "uncreating and created". The concept of creationism is reflected in the Creeds containing the definition of one God as the Creator.

During its formation as a doctrine, creationism opposed both various versions of the Neoplatonic theory of emanation, and naturalistic ideas about the formation and ordering of ever-existing matter (see Form and Matter). In the course of discussions around the concept of creation, a logical difficulty emerged - on the one hand, creation should be thought of as an act, on the other hand, it cannot be defined as an event in time - which was solved differently by various philosophers and theologians. Creationism received its terminology in medieval scholasticism. In the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard, for the first time, a strict distinction was fixed between "creare" ("to make something out of nothing") and "facere" ("to create from the available material"). Based on it, Thomas Aquinas substantiated the difference between creation (creatio) and emergence (generatio) using the Aristotelian concepts of possibility and reality. According to Thomas, generatio is the realization of a present possibility, creatio is a pure act, to which no possibility precedes; therefore the former can come about gradually, while the latter is conceivable only as indivisible and absolutely simple.

The distinction between creation and emergence has played a key role in theological and philosophical discussions about the origin of the soul: in contrast to traditionalism, according to which the soul, along with the body, is transmitted to man from parents, creationism claims that it is created by God and unites with the body of an infant.

In the rationalist philosophy of modern times, creationism began to gradually take on more and more limited forms, from R. Descartes' concept of eternal creation to various versions of deism.

Lit.: Norris R.A. God and world in early Christian theology. L., 1966; Jonas H. Materie, Geist und Schöpfung. Fr./M., 1988.

P. V. Rezvykh.

Creationism in biology. The concept of the constancy of species, considering the diversity of the organic world as the result of Divine creation. It was formed at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century in connection with the transition to a systematic study of morphology, physiology, individual development and reproduction of organisms, which gradually replaced the ideas of transformism about sudden transformations of species and the emergence of organisms as a result of a random combination of individual organs (Empedocles, Lucretius, Albert the Great and etc.). Proponents of the idea of the constancy of species (IS Pallas) argued that species really exist, that they are discrete and stable, and the range of their variability has strict limits. K. Linnaeus argued that there are as many species as they were created during the creation of the world. J. Cuvier explained the change of floras and faunas in the paleontological chronicle by the theory of catastrophes, which in the works of his followers (J. L. R. Agassiz, A. D'Orbigny and others) led to the postulation of dozens of periods of complete renewal of the organic world of the Earth. Multiple acts of creation of individual species were recognized by C. Lyell. Due to the wide and rapid recognition of the idea of evolution under the influence of Darwinism, the number of adherents of creationism in biology already in the mid-1860s was greatly reduced, but the ideas of creationism were actively discussed in philosophical and religious doctrines. Repeated attempts have been made to combine the idea of evolution with the idea of God as its original cause and ultimate goal (N. Ya. Danilevsky, P. Teilhard de Chardin, and others). Beginning in the 1960s in the USA and then in Western Europe the movement of "scientific creationism" was formed, numerous societies and academies arose that defended the thesis that natural science fully confirms the accuracy of the biblical narrative about the creation of the universe and man, and the theory of evolution is only one of the possible explanations for the development of the organic world. Most biologists, based on the reality of evolution in general and natural selection in particular, reject the "intelligent creation theory" and believe that the evidence for "scientific creationism" is based on a misunderstanding of the modern theory of evolution.

Lit .: Danilevsky N. Ya. Darwinism: A Critical Study. SPb., 1885-1889. T. 1-2; Gray A. Darwiniana: essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. Camb. (Mass.), 1963; Nazarov V. I. Evolutionary theory in France after Darwin. M., 1974; Morris H. The scientific case for creation. 5th ed. San Diego, 1984; Tatarinov L.P. Evolution and creationism. M., 1988; Gish D. Creation scientists answer their critics. SPb., 1995; Morris G. Biblical Foundations modern science. SPb., 1995; Creationism in twentieth century America. N.Y.; L., 1995. ; Smout K. The creation/evolution controversy: a battle for cultural power. Westport; L., 1998; Ruse M. Mystery of mysteries: is evolution and social construction? Camb. (Mass.); L., 1999; Numbers R. The creationists: from scientific creationism to intelligent design. Camb. (Mass.); L., 2006; Hayward J. The creation/evolution controversy: An annotated bibliography. Lantham; L., 1998.