The evolution of creation...

My recent visit to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) was quite fascinating. The special exhibit was a feature on the life, voyages and legacies of Charles Darwin; the man credited with developing the theory of evolution. Like most ROM exhibits, the feature on Darwin was quite magical; full of skeletons, live and stuffed animals, and numerous pictures and facts. Quite a pretty penny was put into it.

My aunt had mentioned that their was quite a stir as to where this pretty penny was coming from. In most cases at the ROM, large corporations like the big banks tend to jump on board as the main sponsor without so much as a phone call from the ROM. But the Darwin exhibit lacked such enthusiasm from the traditional big spenders. Why was this the case?

Evolution continues to be a controversial subject in society. Much of it counters the historical origins of human beings accounted for by numerous religions, such as Christianity's Bible. Because religion plays such a large part in the lives of many Canadians, evolution is bound to cause a disturbance or two.

In my opinion, Darwin's theory is nearly foolproof and for that reason it is being readily accepted into the mainstream as the prominent explanation behind the creation of human beings, i.e. something turned into apes and apes eventually turned into humans. There is essentially irrefutable scientific data indicating this. The majority of society is gradually dropping the idea that Adam and Eve were the first human beings and accepting many of the propositions behind the theory of evolution.

So why would evolution still be considered so controversial?

Evolution is technically a theory and can not (and probably will not ever) be scientifically proven. It is a scientific theory, which brings into it the historical battle between science and religion. The two are thought to be polar opposites. While it is naive to simply disregard to the two as being completely separate, society still carries this belief and with it the notion that science and therefore evolution, are products of both non-religious and non-creationist thought. Essentially, if you believe in evolution, you must be an atheist.

While this is more than ever proving to be a false interpretation, remnants of it still float around. Widespread adoption of evolutionary thinking has recently given rise to next step in creationism; the idea of intelligent design.

Intelligent design basically states that the universe was created by a supernatural force or being that we can not understand. It's gained significant attention in the media as a result of the release of Ben Stein's controversial pro-intelligent design film, Expelled, as well from the ongoing debate over the theory of the Big Bang.

Critics of intelligent design feel that it is simply a convenient fill-in for unexplained facts in scientific theory and offers no actual evidence of the beginnings of any sort of plausible theory. And this is where the museum bit starts to become a little clearer.

At the exhibit, as part of the Legacies of Darwin, there was a video featuring several esteemed and highly distinguished scientists from prestigious universities around the world. This video was meant to offer an explanation of the differences between the theory of evolution and creationism, but it was remarkably one-sided and you could smell the pompous smugness of these people from across the studio. They come from the "we are scientists and know everything and you are stupid for even considering an alternative to evolution". It's pretentious crap like that that not only loses you big sponsors, but also leaves us all worse off as an increasingly close-minded people.

I agree, evolution is a pretty good theory and has many strong points, but it would be foolish to use it as a means of disregarding theories as to the creation of the universe. The Big Bang theory is still just a theory, and in my opinion, still not the greatest reasoning behind the universe. I think it's just as likely that some supernatural force may have created the universe (or at least caused its creation) than that there was a completely random explosion that came from nothingness. To tell people that they are wrong just because your theory may be rationally stronger than there's is is disrespectful and downright snotty. As far as I know, your shit doesn't smell any better than anyone else's at this point.

Despite the controversy behind the sponsorship, there was little indication that the exhibit itself was causing any controversy and I highly recommend to anyone who can get there anytime this month. Just remember to keep your mind open, even when a Harvard Prof tells you not to...