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The Evolution of Evolution
Why is the interface of science and religion so hot? In this file I list historical events that seem to me pertinent to developments in the interface of science and faith. As I discover new facts, or find time to document them, I will add to this list. The most recent entries will be highlighted. Initially entries will simply be transfer of my personal notes into the webpage. I see patterns emerging in my emerging history, and these include the following: Religion has, for the greater part of history, been recognized as a key element in the search for knowledge. Christianity has played a significant role in the advancement of scientific knowledge. Many notable scientists were ministers, monks, and lay priests, and many noted in their writings that they saw exploration of the natural world as a form of service to God. Many times Christianity has bought into (took on as its own) scientific views of its day by either supplementing or compromising doctrines developed from Scripture. Perhaps this was from fear of losing cultural relevance; perhaps because it deemed the "findings" of science irrefutable and thus stronger than its own texts. The reasons are less obvious than that it has happened. Advancement in science has been stifled more than a few times by religious zealotry, and more than a few times that has been for support of views the religious zealots got from the prevailing culture of science--not from Scripture unaided by science. It may well be that all that stifles science is religious, but all censoring zealots do not recognize their own views as either religious or biased. Censorship of competing theories always stifles science.
Year	Historical event	Commentary
640-546 BC	Thales of Miletus in Ionia in Asia Minor was earliest of the Milesian or Ionian philosophers and considered father of Greek philosophy. One Milesian, Democritus, is known as the father of atomism (all matter is made up of atoms).	I will use the traditional dating code of BC (Before Christ) and AD (Ante Dominos--Year of Our Lord). Regardless of one's personal belief about who Jesus Christ is (some would say "was"), I see no sense in using a code that gives less information about where the date is benchmarked in history. Democritus developed the atom concept to defend his position that all events are random, i.e., purposeless on a grander scale. If all events are the result of random colisions of atoms, then there is no deity directing or holding accountable.
610-546 BC	Anaximander of Miletus was the earliest known philosopher to speculate the “boundless universe” (as opposed to the vaulted universe—that the universe exists within a sphere). A part of this view was that time also was boundless, and that humans came from fish, which were the first animals. (http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/anaximan.htm 19 Nov 04)	The roots of western science begin with a presumption of evolution. We delude ourselves if we think that evolution is the natural conclusion of modern scientific observation.
500's BC	Pythagoreans, noted for thinking in math & music, concluded that the earth was a sphere and that heavenly bodies moved in circles.
540?-480? BC	Heracleitus (540?-480? BC, Ephesus, in Anatolia) also spelled HERACLITUS, Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology, in which fire forms the basic material principle of an orderly universe. He complained that most men failed to comprehend the LOGOS, the universal principle through which all things are interrelated and all natural events occur, and thus lived like dreamers with a false view of the world. A significant manifestation of the logos, Heracleitus claimed, is the underlying connection between opposites. For example, health and disease define each other. Good and evil, hot and cold, and other opposites are similarly related. His understanding of the relation of opposites to each other enabled him to overcome the chaotic and divergent nature of the world, and he asserted that the world exists as a coherent system in which a change in one direction is ultimately balanced by a corresponding change in another. Between all things there is a hidden connection, so that those that are apparently "tending apart" are actually "being brought together."	It is probably no coincidence that the Apostle John used the term "logos" to define the Creator (John 1:1) 600 years later.
480-411 BC	Greek sophist Protagoras is noted as origin of the phrase, "Man is the measure of all things."	This statement can be related to his other famous claim, that no one can either prove or disprove that the gods exist. The relation is that man is all we can know, so he becomes the measure or reality. As such, he posits the notion that judgments and knowledge are in some way relative to the person judging or knowing. The phrase, "Man is the measure of all things," was later amplified by Leonardo de Vinci, and the concept of human relativism we see today in relativism, humanism, and eastern thought.
360 BC	Plato wrote Timaeus, in which he promoted a hierarchy of man, then woman, four-footed beasts, etc., in a sort of permanent form of fall, reincarnation being the way one passed from one form to another. (Morris, War: 214) This seems to be the original idea of the Great Chain of Being—Highest level first, lower levels coming sequentially into the hierarchy. He also pictured the universe as a series of concentric spheres, with the earth as the innermost sphere. He got right that earth is a sphere	The reincarnation concept of today's eastern thought also includes a hierarchy of life (ranking of worth).
341-270 BC	Greek philosopher Epicurus (BC 341-270 BC), founder of Epicureanism, popular into the Roman Empire. He was an atomist, but differed from Democritus in that he believed the random motions of atoms, responsible for purposeless existence, could be curved, allowing for free will. He promoted atoms as eternal, and thus not created. Worship of gods has its place, but in no way did they have a part in material existence.	These conclusions allowed him to justify a worry-free life, free from accountability and concern for an eternal soul. If atoms are eternal, then they require no creator. The earth and all life on it occurred and evolved because of this random motion. His philosophy was suppressed under Constantine, but was revived by 16^th and 17^th century Europeans, including scientist-priest Pierre Gassendi.
384-322 BC	Greek philosopher Aristotle supported spontaneous generation, i.e., lower animals originate from inorganic or dead, putrefying matter without ancestry (Biggs, Kapicka & Lundgren, 1995). This was consistent with his belief that “lower” organisms lack differentiated organs found in “higher” organisms (lower or higher in the Chain of Being). (Discoverers, 430)	Aristotle thus advanced the Chain of Being idea by specifying two additional details: Lower organisms are less complex, and lower organisms must come from non-life.
310-230 BC	Aristarchus of Samos hypothesized that the earth moves around the sun, and that the stars are so far away as to make a parallax of them undetectable with the human eye. His idea was ignored, because an earth-centered universe was by then hundreds of years old, and easily defended by both science and religion. (Ferguson, 1999: 27-31)	Here we have a case of socially accepted "science" being accepted by the religious community, which in turn supported pressure on dissenters.
235-195 BC	Erasthenes (Eratosthenes, 273-193 BC?) of Cyrene was director of the Alexandria library. Applying Euclid’s & Archimedes’ developments in geometry he compared the vertical shaft of sun light in a well at Syene at summer solstice to the angle of the sun’s shadow in Aleandria on the same day to calculate the earth’s circumference. His calculations were over today’s measure by less than 1%. (Ferguson, 1999:13-21)	Contrary to the beliefs of some, people did not think the earth was flat before Columbus. In fact, Columbus by far underestimated the earth's circumference in his attempt to reach the Indies by traveling west.
98-55 BC	Titus Lucretius Carus, author of De Rerum Natura, six volumes, a Roman Epicurean commonly known as Lucretius, said “Certainly the atoms did not post themselves purposefully in due order by an act of intelligence, nor did they stipulate what movements each should perform. As they have been rushing everlastingly throughout all space in their myriads, undergoing myriad changes under the disturbing conjunction till they have fallen into the particular pattern by which this world of ours is constituted. This world has persisted many a long year, having once been set going in the appropriate motions. From these everything else follows.” (Morris, War: 212.) “The earth, which generated every living species and once brought forth from its womb the bodies of huge beasts, has now scarcely strength to generate animalcules.” (Morris, War: 213)	Lucretius verbalized nearly 100 years before Christ several principles of theology and science which are inevitably linked if considered at all: By beginning with rejection of intelligent design, he is forced to conclude that (a) chance must be sufficient to make complex order possible, given enough time, and (b) the universe is eternal, thus avoiding the problem of first cause. He was astute enough to observe that if he attributes the complexities of life to randomness, he must now conclude that (c) the same processes have exhausted themselves to the point that even microbes (animalcules) are no longer generated from nonliving matter. Conclusions b and c have a built-in contradiction that still plaques scientists today.
circa 8 BC	Ovid wrote Metamorphosis, a 15-volume Greek mythology in epic poem format (though less order and continuity than others of his day). Often in the text persons or lesser gods are permanently morphed into animals or plants. in other stories a stone turned into a woman, and a woman turned into a man. During the Golden Age man is described as basically good, but then corrupted by technology.	It is thought that this work influenced Dante’, Shakespeare, and others. It was translated into English in 1567. It popularizes the concept of changing species but without any attempt at a scientific basis or progression.
100 ?-170	Claudius Ptolemy (100?-170) produced a 13 volume compendium called Almagest that placed a spherical earth at the center of the solar system. It became the standard for astronomy for 1300 years. In 150 he published Syntaxis of Astronomy.	Ptolemy's volumes contained many accurate observations and conclusions, but all of it became unquestioned as the true and final authority of physics for over 1000 years.
129-216	Galen of Pergamum, a Greek physician, was a prolific writer on human anatomy, but Roman custom forbade dissection of the human body. As a result, Galen projected most of his conclusions from examinations of monkeys and pigs. He makes no pretense concerning this, and states that the more like humans the animal is, the more like humans will be the anatomy.	Even at this time the similarity of anatomy across species was observed, taken for granted, and all were assumed to be internally similar consistent with the degree of outward similarity. Just as with Ptolomy and physics, Galen became the unquestioned authority in anatomy.