Creation and Evolution

Few issues have raised the blood pressure of some Christians as much as the assertion than human beings evolved from distant ancestors who were primates. Those who read the first few chapters of the Bible and take them more or less literally are especially likely to react against any suggestion that God didn't, at a specific time and in a specific place, create the first man and the first woman.

The idea that humans descended from great apes had been around for centuries. But it remained only a conjecture or hypothesis, with little evidence to back it up. Then, in 1831, Charles Darwin embarked on a five-year voyage collecting evidence from several continents to support his belief that, over long periods of time, animals evolved into different species. After more than two decades of grueling work, in 1859 he published his Origin of Species.