How do evolution and creationism clash?

	Creation	Cosmological Origins & Evolution
Cause	God was the Cause For every effect, there is a cause. This argument is intuitively clear.	Evolution is not cosmology or asronomy - it makes no statement either way about how the universe began.
Origin	The universe was spoken into existence by God's Word. Intuitive argument	As above; evolution does not deal with the origin of the universe.
Energy	We are devolving Energy goes from a state of usable energy to less usable energy Laws of Thermodynamics are not violated.	We are evolving biologically but universally entropy is increasing. Biological evolution is not happening in a closed system. The Laws of Thermodynamics are not violated.
Space	Earth created first (day 1) Stars came afterwards (day 4) with the sun and moon.	As above; evolution makes no statement regarding space, the other planets, the sun or any other celestial object.
Earth's Covering	Water, prior to God forming the earth out of chaos	Earth formed from the accretion disk of rocky material orbiting the young sun. Originally molten rock, cooled to provide solid suface and oceans can form.
Time Constraints	6 Days - The creation of the World was finished in six days and is no longer taking place. Based on faith in Biblical account.	Cosmic time-frame. Expansion 15 billion years ago; earth formed by natural processes 4.6 billion years ago. The world is in a continuous process of change. Based on interpretation of available evidence.
Quality	Very Good	Mysterious, Violent, Able to be manipulated and studied.
Planning of Life	By design	Random processes combined with constraints of available materials and energies.
Origin of Life	God Life comes from life (intuitive and observable), no known exceptions.	Forces of Nature It is possible for life to come from non-life (not observable outside of geological time-frames).
Time needed for Life	2 Days (Faith based) - all animal/human life was created on day 5 and 6.	Undetermined time; at least millions of years. Process is not fully known but a matter of continued research. Evidence driven.
Species	Kind begets kind. This is intuitively sound.	Organisms can be modified significantly over time, genotypically and phenotypically. Conclusions derived from evidence
Animal Life	Birds first, then Reptiles	Reptiles first, then Birds
Human Life	Man was created on day six Man is made in the image of God.	Mammalian life becomes dominant 65 mya. Primates appear >10 mya. Homo genus diverges 5 to 7 mya. Homo sapiens appears 200 tya.
Beginning of Death	After Adam sinned, not a process of creation - it is a product of man's sin.	Always present, part of the natural process. What is not observable (condition after death) cannot be known.
Cause of Death	Sin. There was no death before Adam sinned (plant life not included), the breath of life was breathed into animals but not plants.	Natural process, existed from the beginning of life
Spiritual Death	Both physical and spiritual, you will give an account of your life after you die.	Physical only; accountability is of no account from perspective of natural science. Many scientists are deeply religious, from every possible faith. But questions of Spiritual death are not within the realm of natural science. No clash with creationism.
Sediment Layers, Canyons	Form rapidly (liquefaction). Witnessed during Mt. St. Helens. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.	Form at various speeds, but generally slowly. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.
Fossil Creation	Catastrophic events, rapid burial in water.	Catastrohpic events, rapid burial in water followed by silt cover. Encapsulation in amber, or submersion in tar or other hydrocarbons.
Marine fossils on Mountains	Global flood, Genesis account Rapid 40 day/night event Springs of the deep broken up All creation perished All mountains covered by at least 20 ft. About 200 legends from cultures all over the world.	Local floods, earth sinking into the ocean and rising again, or original mountain formation from ocean floors or tidal basins.
Trees through layers	Fossilized trees spanning many layers indicates rapid burial by water, observable with Mt. St. Helens. Can be created in one week.	Over many years plant life died, sank into the earth, and coal formed. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.
Coal, Oil, Petrified Wood	Coal, Oil, Petrified Wood, can all be made in a matter of weeks.	Coal, Oil, Petrified Wood take millions of years to form in nature. This cannot occur naturally in weeks. Based on interpretation of selected evidence.
Biblical Day	Recognize that the Biblical day means 24 hours and accept it as fact Hebrew word "Yom", in all cases, means short period of time defined to be evening and morning days are distinguished between seasons and years (Genesis 1:14) God's own word (Exodus 10:11) writing style of Genesis is narrative, not poetic genealogy of human race given	Some believe that the Biblical day means 24 hours but consider biblical accounts to be literary and non-scientific. Those who reconcile science and creation interpret Biblical days to mean millions of years. The actual length of the day changes throughout the year. The 24 hour period defined as mean (average) solar day. Astronomical evidence strongly suggests that the earth is slowing down over time, and days were considerably shorter than 24 hours in the earliest days of the planet.

Evolution and Creationism (often called Intelligent Design or ID) are two separate hypotheses describing how the world began. Neither Creation nor Evolution has been directly observed. Proponents of ID insist that not enough time has elapsed for any naturalist theory to account for the variety of life that has existed on earth. They do not hold to the Young Earth ideas of scriptural fundamentalists, so they are open to an understanding that the earth and the universe may be billions of years old. Science is based on experimentation and on man's observations of the physical universe, and as such, elements of the theory can be experimentally ruled out, but the theory itself cannot be proven. Most fundamental theories of science cannot be proven beyond all doubt. Evolution must be judged against the best available evidence and its interpretation, what could be called naturalist faith. Creationism must ultimately be taken on religious faith.

Creationism is the belief that the world was created (made from nothing) by God. According to the Bible, He spoke the world and life (plants, animals, insects, etc.) on the earth into existence during the course of six days [for those who hold to the Young Earth concept, a concept held in contempt by ID scientists]. Creationism is the belief of many Christians and is based on the first two chapters of Genesis, which detail God's firsthand account of creation as given to Moses through divine inspiration.

Evolution is the theory that the world's living things, even many that appear too diverse from one another to be related, have descended from some common ancestors far in the past. Over many millions of years, current life forms developed by way of the impact of electrical, biochemical, genetic and enviromental forces. Evolution itself addresses the diversity of life forms on earth and not origins of life itself. Various branches of organic chemistry and biochemistry are combining with physics and evolution theorists to explore various pathways to the origins of life. The theory of evolution was introduced by Charles Darwin in his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Evolution is currently the accepted theory of diversity by naturalists and humanists and by the great majority of scientists.

Choosing what to believe is often difficult. With little effort one may find information and 'proofs' on either side of the issue. This particular decision is further complicated by the fact that people from each position will examine the very same data and come to radically different conclusions from it. Creationists often challenge the methods used by field scientists in gathering dating or assembling of fossil and geological materials, and the ways of estimating the current age of the earth or of the universe.


Answer 2:

There are many who believe there is no clash between science and the Bible. If God created everything, including giving man the intellect to discover the sciences, then science and religion must agree or else one is in error. If each 'day' of creation in the Bible is viewed as a geological Age/Eon, there is NO conflict (with the exception of the sun, which appeared before the planet Earth).
 

Answer 3:

The clash between the two has more to do with ideologies than with science or religion per se. Science is a convenient backdrop for the clash/debate. Proponents of ID (Intelligent Design) have an agenda (The Wedge Strategy) to bring God into prominence, particularly in the US, throughout the fields of education, research and politics. This is publicly and widely known. The ID spokespeople are engaged in a campaign to bring what they see as various shortcomings and inadequacies in evolutionary biology and cosmology before the public forum for exposure and debate. They are introducing concepts like 'irreducible complexity' in an attempt to prove to the general public that design (and ultimately God) is responsible for all of creation and most importantly life. [This is a crude example of IC, and may not be currently held as such by ID proponents: Consider the eyeball and the specialized area of the brain needed to turn optical signals into vision. ID proponents might argue that the eye and the specialized brain area are different organs; how could one evolve without the other already existing? The conclusion of ID: this is an absolute, unchallengeable example of intelligent design, because all the structures needed to mediate vision comprise a system which is irreducibly complex.] The ID specialists are also attempting to develop a mathematical model, presented by Dembski (its inventor) as an explanatory filter, incapable of generating false negatives (see discussion) according to Dembski, for the detection of design that cannot have come about by natural means. These ideas are shown to be deeply flawed by professional statisticians, mathematicians, logicians and scientists in their published critiques.

More importantly, after 10 or 15 years there is no substantial history of professional research papers, peer reviewed, backing up any of their claims. There are many popular books that are successfully enticing the uninformed public into questioning a lot of science that requires more than a layman's grasp to understand. Yet these scientists continue to stir the public, more to gain political advantage rather than to advance science.

Writing books that claim to contain the author's laws of intelligent design, and that these laws should be considered by the scientific community as equal to the laws of thermodynamics, takes more than a little ego. Professional scientists would lose their careers for making such claims in the arena of actual replicatable research and professional peer review. But these materials are not written to or for professionals, and are not written in support of ID or Creationism as science. They are written to demolish current evolution-based theories in the minds of the public. Their conclusion is that if there are flaws in evolutionary theory, or biological theory in general, then the only alternative is creation by God. This is a serious logical fallacy. There are issues and problems in every single intellectual endeavor, including science. New understanding comes to light as a result of research-- that is what science is; that is how it operates.

The clash comes by way of ideology, and the essential desire of The Wedge to dominate public policy.