by Bryan Sherwood

Created on: March 09, 2009

Scientists estimate that the common ancestor shared by humans and chimpanzees lived some 5 to 8 million years ago. Humans and bacteria obviously share a much more distant common ancestor, but our relationship to these single-celled organisms is no less real. -Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

Statements written from evolutionist standpoints, such as this one, remain relatively common throughout our world today. However, many people wonder whether or not time, chance, and the process of natural selection are sufficient for explaining the origin of life on Earth. Then again, many remain skeptical regarding the theory of intelligent design as well. Questions such as these that have caused years of controversy in the scientific field. Even today, the two main explanations for the origin of life remain evolution and intelligent design.

Many respected and infamous evolutionary thinkers in history, such as Francis Crick, James Watson, and Richard Dawkins, believe that all living things arose from a single, unicellular organism that experienced gradual changes over time to produce the diversity in living things today. Most credit Charles Darwin, a naturalist that lived during the 19th century, for this concept. Those who support this type of evolution, commonly known as neo-Darwinism, believe that all living things undergo gradual changes resulting from natural selection acting upon random genetic mutations. Natural selection, frequently referred to as the "survival of the fittest", receives basis upon the idea of functional advantages within an organism. Basically, mutations within an organism that benefit the organism remain to pass onto future generations. Unfavorable variations then, are rejected and never passed on (since not enough of the organisms survive to keep on reproducing). Neo-Darwinism states that life results from purely natural and random forces, thus removing all ideas of an intelligent designer from the progress of life. This means, according to the theory of evolution, that there is no ultimate meaning or purpose in life, no afterlife, and no foundation for morals or ethnics. In addition, evolutionists believe that free will simply remains a human myth. Asides from natural selection, evolutionists have also brought up a theory known as co-option. Co-option basically revolves around the idea of borrowing pre-existing parts already found in an organism in order to make a better, more advantageous system. Time, chance, and natural selection are all

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