Happy Birthday Darwin!

poster found @ http://www.cfiwest.org/calendar/darwinday06.htm

"There has been constant controversy surrounding the ideas presented by The Origin of Species since it was first printed in 1859. Since the early twentieth century, however, the idea that biological evolution of some form occurred and is responsible for speciation has been almost completely uncontested within the scientific community.

Most controversy over the theory has come because of its philosophical, cosmological, and religious implications, and supporters as well as detractors have interpreted it as generally indicating that human beings are, like all animals, evolved, and that this account of the origins of humankind is squarely at odds with many religious interpretations. The idea that humans are "merely" animals, and are genetically very closely related to other primates, has been independently argued as a repellent notion by generations of detractors.

The questions raised about the relation of evolution to the origins of humans have made it an especially tenacious issue with some religious traditions. It has prominently been seen as opposing a "literal" interpretation of the account of the origins of humankind as described in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, a religious text containing the corpus of Christian Mythology. In many countries — notably in the United States — this has led to what has been called the Creation-evolution controversy, which has focused primarily on struggles over teaching curriculum. While many other fields of science, such as cosmology and earth science, also conflict with a "literal" interpretation of religious texts, evolutionary studies have borne the brunt of these controversies." - lifted from Wikipedia