Belief in God and the theory of evolution are not incompatible for all. After the initial shock caused by Darwins writings, Christian thinkers, for example, admitted that he had to be taken into account. The French scientist and theologian Franois Euv agreed with that concept, stating: “The Darwinian view must be taken seriously. Undeniably, it is the comprehensive framework in which scientists develop their businesses. Whatever are the necessary adjustments to theory, as in every scientific field, it must recognize that we have moved to another area of representation in which our great religious texts were written. It is in this space that the faith of Christians must speak to today. This requires revisions in the way we refer to the “doctrine” (…) To put it briefly, the God of the Bible is more of a God of the history of the cosmos rather than a God in the classic sense of an immutable order. ” In 1996, Pope John Paul II spoke at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: “(…) New knowledge leads to the acknowledgement of changes to more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory is gradually imposed on the minds of researchers, following a series of discoveries in various disciplines of knowledge. Convergence, not sought or induced, constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.”
John Paul II added however that there are several theories of evolution. In September 2008, the Anglican Church of England formally apologized to Darwin its once hostile reaction to the theory of evolution. The Reverend Malcolm Brown wrote that the church was sorry to have encouraged believers not understand Darwin.
In the United States, however, among evangelicals, current creationist thinking, in reaction to the theory of evolution remains very strong. The battle is played out in the public school system, even though the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 1987 that creationism was a religious belief and was therefore not required in the curriculum. In 2005, a US federal court concluded that intelligent design (the evolution of species as organized by a superior intelligence) was not a scientific theory and therefore could not be taught in schools as a counterweight to Darwinism. In the Muslim world, “The Atlas of Creation”, published in 2006, made headlines.
According to this book of nearly 800 pages, written by the Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar, the evolutionary theory is not based on scientific evidence and Darwinism is the basis of several so-called violent ideologies, like Nazism and terrorism. Believers are divided. Some accept the theory of evolution, others — whether creationists, Christians or Muslims – reject it and consider it dangerous. The creationist doctrine is not based on a scientific approach, but on a literal reading of the Bible or the Koran, and operates as a critique of Darwinism.
The duty of fairness and impartiality requires journalists to give equal access to religious belief and scientific theory without giving them equivalence. The host of the nightly news program, Tljournal has not violated journalistic standards and practices of Radio-Canada, when she said that “the proponents of creationism always deny the obvious.”
