Differences Between Scientific Models and Religious Myths Term Paper

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Scientific Models and Religious Myths

Differences between scientific models and religious myths

There are several approaches toward s the creation issue, some of them are scientific and others are religious. All the approaches are postulates towards the search for the cradle of man. They may therefore be divided into scientific models and religious myths. Although people view these theories and models from different perspectives, they too have their similarities. Therefore this paper will contain an in depth study of the two different ideologies that is from the religious view on creation and the scientific view of creation. The types of theories that will be discussed here will be the big bang theory which will be a scientific view and the creation theory which is based from the religious point-of-view. An in depth look into the evolution theory will be looked at.

The scientific theory is based on scientific modeling of the creation of earth using scientific knowledge and mathematical approaches. Also, a few theories will be termed as scientific theories as they have been postulated by scientists and great philosophers. One of the most controversial theories of the earth's creation is the big bang theory. The theory describes the earth as having been created over 13 billion years ago. The theory's manifestation is phenomenal by the mere fact that it shows the universe existed as a single atomic nucleus. In this state the earth was enclosed in the nucleus of an atom together with other planets hence coming up with the singularity concept. This concept denotes a time just before creation this is a time where space and time were inexistent. It is during this time that there was a very huge explosion of the nucleus containing the contents of the universe. The resulting effect of the blast, which according to scientists is believed to be of a phenomenal temperature, created particles ad other properties of the earth such as energy and the then non-existent time and finally creating space.

This theory is not only studied by cosmologists but has also been an eye popping affair to the astrologers in their quest to the reconstruction of the events leading to the big bang as they call it. Quantum theory scientists like Wald (1992) suggest that within a fraction of a second after the blast, there were very strong forces that combined to form a super force. The forces as Wald suggested were a combination of both strong and weak nuclear forces, and the other two were the electromagnetic and the force of gravity. The nucleus was a very minute particle and one can only imagine the size of the minute particles that were created after the explosion. The particles were so minute that they had to combine in trios as suggested by Maffei (1989) a quantum scientist. He suggested that the bonded quarks (the name given to the resulting minute particles) formed what are now the three elements in the nucleus. They are the photons, the positron and the electron.

Although these particles were minute, they were the first elements of life. These particles combined with one another in a very immense expansion of the universe. The expansion was happening at a speed higher than the speed of light which in the modeling, the scientists named the era as the inflationary epoch. This stage saw the universe expand to double its size within a micro second. In this model the whole process is time framed starting from the explosion which is stated as having began at 10-43 seconds. The other process to the expansion of the universe ends at 10-35 seconds with the creation of what constitutes majority of the universe and the planets at large. As Nokinov (1983) suggests the particles in the collision formed heavy particles and others were destroyed in the process. Some particles were destroyed and others were spared in the process that is the universe at large.

Scientists believe that after few moments, approximately one hundredth of a second, the neutrons started decaying hence allowing for free electrons and protons to bond with other particles. In the process, hydrogen was formed and it is from the hydrogen atom that the helium element was formed. The events after the creation of the two gases are quite impressive, that there was the creation of invisible light just a few nanoseconds into the magnificent bombardment of the electrons.

Scientists suggest that from that moment onwards the hydrogen and helium gases expanded just a second into the explosion with the immense temperatures dropping to almost 10 billion degrees where it is believed that the photons had no energy to interfere with the creation of matter.

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Then after this, the events proceeding after this second lasted three minutes and this led to slowing down of the movements of these particles and temperature reduction. This culminated in process called nucleosynthesis where the helium was formed and hence the universe as we know it today constitutes of helium. This is because the model believes that for every nuclei of helium that was formed; more than ten electrons were left over. Later thirty minutes into the explosion, this saw positron to electron pairing as defined by parker who suggested that the extra more electrons ensured that the universe was in a position to form.

The model suggests that temperatures dropped to ten thousand degrees Kelvin allowing for the helium to absorb the other helium nuclei in order to form the helium atoms and hydrogen atom forming the lithium. The radiation as a result of this combination of gases and atoms so to say was so dense that it allowed for light to be visible. The matter and radiation on interaction saw the creation of the first fossils. Other scientists believe the sun to be a star from the discovery that the suns spectrum was the same as that of the star they had observed.

The other scientific theory is that of evolution which describes the cradle of man as having evolved from a single ancestor. Darwin (1958) suggested that the more complex creatures like human being an evolved from very simple organisms like the protozoa. This happened over a very long period of time. Evolution has occurred due to the variation in the genetic makeup of the organism. Futuyma and Douglas (2005) suggested that there were four mechanisms of the evolution whereby he described them as natural selection (survival of the fittest). The second one was the genetic drift whereby he argues that it happened due to the changes in the ratios of the traits that have been inherited in the organism. The third mechanism was mutation where he described the change in the DNA sequence and the fourth one being the gene flow. The theory suggests that due to the many constraints that the organisms faced, they had to adapt and therefore in the process many types of animals were created including human beings. Many animals also died in the process and therefore being termed as extinct. The conditions under which these organisms can only be described by Hurst (2009) as conditions that produced competition between the organisms and in the process of this competition, the animals with the traits that had an edge in the prevailing conditions survived. The second factor of genetic drift contributed a lot to the evolutionary theory since it suggested that the drift caused two populations that had the same genetic structure to drift apart in to two different sets of populations afterwards. This was due to the adaptation of these creatures to different living conditions.

This evolutionary relates all living organisms to each other linking them by simple organic matter in our bodies like amino acids as Mason describes. He suggests that all living organisms have this organic matter hence making the conclusion that there truly was an evolution. Varki and Altheite (2005) also in their comparison of the human being a and the chimpanzee, they found that we human beings share a larger proportion of the genes and DNA.

The last theory is that of creation which is a religious theory and is based on the bible. The religious book suggests that the world was created by a superior being and it was created in seven days with each day having its own specific creation. According to the book, the world was one big mass of water covered with darkness but the Supreme Being able to command the creation of light and darkness in the first day and on the second day creating the sky and the oceans. Then on the third day according to the scriptures it is said that the stars, moon and the sun were created and afterwards creating the sea living creatures. Lastly he created the land living animals and hence human beings both male and female with man being created first and woman being created later after god noticed the loneliness of man.

All these theories are similar in nature as they are almost myths and contain some aspect of….....

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