Chapter 8
Worldview
A worldview is the frame of reference that a person uses to interpret and understand the world around
them. At the foundation of a worldview are your beliefs. Everyone has a worldview. What is yours?
Biblical worldview/Christian worldview: everything is filtered through the bible (God’s Word). How
many of your beliefs are based in scripture and how many are on society? Can you tell the difference?
The following is from: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0502worldview.asp
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus Phil. 2:5
The most simplistic definition for a biblical worldview is to have the mind of Christ. That would mean
that one would think like Christ; love like Christ; act like Christ; walk like Christ: have the humility,
patience, longsuffering and all of the other Galatians 5:22–26 fruits of the Spirit. Christ would not only
be the model but the individual’s worldview would be an exact copy. That is the final target of the
committed Christian’s process of sanctification.
He (George Barna) conducted several polls in 2003 that reveal the current state of the American
evangelical church, and that it lacks a clear understanding of a biblical worldview.1
Only 4% of all American adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision-making.
Only 9% of born-again US Christians have such a perspective on life.
Only half of the America’s Protestant pastors—51%—have a biblical worldview.
EVOLUTION
Results of evolutionary philosophy:
Man is not responsible to God
Man is evolved from other organisms
Science is treated as fact and like a ―religion‖
Are all evolutionists part a conspiracy to fool the world? Are they stupid? Are they evil?
For info on many science theories:
http://www.allaboutscience.org
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/educators/teachstuds/pdf/unit3.pdf
http://www.icr.org/article/when-whale-whale/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
Evolution has several facets.
The first is the theory that all living species are the modified descendents of earlier species, and that we
all share a common ancestor in the distant past. All species are therefore related via a vast tree of life.
The second is that this evolution is driven by a process of natural selection or the - "survival of the
fittest".
Some individuals have heritable differences that make them better able to survive so they pass on the
―useful‖ traits because their offspring survive. Conversely harmful traits are eradicated because the
individual that possesses them are less likely to reproduce. Therefore natural selection works to
created a population suited to survive in its environment.
Speciation can occur as a result of slow evolutionary changes or when a species is separated from each
other they can ―evolve‖ separately, or they can co-evolve like with flowers and pollinators like bees
Since evolution happens very slowly, but the fossil record
Evolutionary Terms to Know
Evolution: Evolution consists of changes in the heritable traits of a population of organisms as
generations replace one another.
Fossil: A remnant or trace of an organism of a past age, such as a skeleton or leaf imprint, embedded,
and preserved in the Earth's crust, usually in stratified rock.
Transitional fossil: A fossil or group of fossils representing a series of similar species, or families,
that link an older group of organisms to a younger group. Often, transitional fossils combine some
traits of older, ancestral species with traits of more recent species (for instance, a series of transitional
fossils documents the evolution of fully aquatic whales from terrestrial ancestors).
Adaptation: The adjustment or changes of an organism to become more suited to an environment.
According to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, organisms that have traits that
enable them to better adapt to their environment will be more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass
more of their genes on to the next generation.
Acquired trait: A phenotypic characteristic, acquired during growth and development, that is not
genetically based and therefore cannot be passed on to the next generation (for example, the large
muscles of a weightlifter).
Ancestral homology: Homology that evolved before the common ancestor of a set of species, and
which is present in other species outside that set of species. Compare with derived homology.
Common ancestor: The most recent ancestral form or species from which two different species
evolved.
Mutation: A change in genetic material that results from an error in replication of DNA. Mutations
can be beneficial, harmful, or neutral.
Natural selection: The differential survival and reproduction of classes of organisms that differ from
one another in one or more usually heritable characteristics. Through this process, the forms of
organisms in a population that are best adapted to their local environment increase in frequency
relative to less well-adapted forms over a number of generations. This difference in survival and
reproduction is not due to chance.
Sedimentary: Rocks formed of particles deposited by water, wind, or ice.
Selective breeding: The intentional breeding of organisms with desirable traits in an attempt to
produce offspring with enhanced characteristics or traits that humans consider desirable. also known
as "artifical selection"
Speciation: The evolutionary processes through which new species arise from existing species.
Species: species consist of individuals that can interbreed with each other.
Survival of the fittest: the survival of only those organisms best able (fittest) to obtain and use
resources, resulting in the evolution of organisms that are best adapted to the environment. Most
modern biologists no longer use this term when describing or discussing natural selection.
According to the Interacademy Panel (IAP – a network of science academies) about Evolution:
http://www.interacademies.net/Object.File/Master/6/150/Evolution%20statement.pdf
We agree that the following evidence-based facts about the origins and evolution of the Earth and of
life on this planet have been established by numerous observations and independently derived
experimental results from a multitude of scientific disciplines. Even if there are still many open
questions about the precise details of evolutionary change, scientific evidence has never contradicted
these results:
1. In a universe that has evolved towards its present configuration for some 11 to 15 billion years, our
Earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago.
2. Since its formation, the Earth – its geology and its environments – has changed under the effect of
numerous physical and chemical forces and continues to do so.
3. Life appeared on Earth at least 2.5 billion years ago. The evolution, soon after, of photosynthetic
organisms enabled, from at least 2 billion years ago, the slow transformation of the atmosphere to
one containing substantial quantities of oxygen. In addition to the release of the oxygen that we
breathe, the process of photosynthesis is the ultimate source of fixed energy and food upon which
human life on the planet depends.
4. Since its first appearance on Earth, life has taken many forms, all of which continue to evolve, in
ways which palaeontology and the modern biological and biochemical sciences are describing and
independently confirming with increasing precision. Commonalities in the structure of the genetic
code of all organisms living today, including humans, clearly indicate their common primordial
origin.
FOSSILS
The following is from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/educators/teachstuds/pdf/unit3.pdf
It is very unusual to find transitional fossils because only a small proportion of organisms ever become
fossils. For this reason it is very unlikely that every transition in the evolution of a species will be
recovered. Also, many fossils may represent dead ends in evolutionary branches. Often what we find
are fossils from different branches, ―close cousins‖ in the family tree. It is very unlikely to ever find
the common ancestor, but close cousins, bearing intermediate traits, suggest a likely path followed by
a direct ancestor.
In addition to fossil evidence, paleontologists depend on anatomical evidence to determine
evolutionary relationships. For example, the front fin of a whale shares homologous structures,
including the humerus, radius, and ulna bones, with the front limbs of other mammals such as humans,
wolves, and sea lions, indicating common ancestry.
Molecular evidence also contributes to the picture of how whale evolution and other evolution has
occurred. Molecular biologists are able to determine and compare the DNA base sequences and the
amino acid sequences of the same proteins from different animals. The less closely related species
are, the more differences there are in their DNA base or amino acid sequences, as there would be more
time for mutations to accumulate. Conversely, the more closely related species are, the fewer
differences there are.
Paleoanthropologists have several ways to determine the age of fossils.
The simplest, relative dating, relies on the fact that older deposits are found below more recent
geological layers in places where geological activity has not disturbed the original orientation of the
layers. If two objects are found in the same layer, it is assumed they existed in the same time period.
Radiometric dating techniques, which are based on the knowledge that radioactive isotopes break
down or decay at a constant rate, can give more precise and reliable information. The rates of decay are
known as half-lives, the time it takes for one-half of the original isotopes in a sample to decay into
different isotopes. Each different kind of radioactive isotope decays at a different, known rate. Since
scientists know what isotopes the original element will decay into, they can measure the proportion of
the original isotope in relation to the proportion of the products of decay and then calculate the years
that have passed. For more information on dating,