Special creation and Darwin's theory

Special creation, from conventional religious literature, has three parts: every species was created as it is today; diversity has always been the same and will stay so; and the earth is about 4000 years old.

All three ideas were strongly challenged in the nineteenth century.

Charles Darwin sailed round the world on the sail ship H.M.S. Beagle. From what he saw he concluded that living forms resemble one another, and also forms that lived millions of years ago, to different degrees.

Many past forms no longer exist: extinctions happened, and new forms arose at different times. Life forms have evolved gradually.

Every population carries variation. Individuals whose traits suit the natural conditions (climate, food, physical factors) survive and outbreed the less-endowed ones.

Darwin's fitness means reproductive fitness, in the end and only that: the fitter leave more offspring, so nature selects them. He called this natural selection and saw it as a mechanism of evolution.

Alfred Wallace, a naturalist working in the Malay Archipelago, reached similar conclusions at about the same time.

All living forms share similarities and common ancestors, which lived in different epochs, periods and eras. Earth's geological history closely matches its biological history, so the earth is billions of years old, not thousands.