What Was Darwin's Theory Of Natural Selection?

Although Charles Darwin formulated his idea of natural selection at age thirty, he published his work years later for fear of the controversy that would overshadow his work. Darwin’s theory of natural selection challenged the normal science of the time: the belief that a divine creator created all the species, which were incapable of change. Darwin’s theory also challenged the overarching authority of the time: the church, which supported the ideology of God creating a static species. Furthermore, Darwin lacked the evidence that would convince the scientific community that fully believed in life being created by a divine being. Fossil evidence of the time did not show the transitional or intermediate forms that his theory called for. Nor, could
Ussher claimed in The Annal of the World, according to the bible the Earth was 6000 years old because the “…true Nativity of our Savior was full four years before the beginning of the vulgar Christian era, as demonstrable by the time of Herod's death.” According to the bible, “ the building of Solomon's Temple was finished in the 3000 year of the World and in the 4000 year of the world…” Mary was impregnated with Christ. This claim was detrimental to Darwin’s theory of natural selection because 6,000 years was not enough time for life to reach the complexity of man through evolution. Moreover, scientific authority, Lord Kelvin’s theory of the consolidation of earth claimed that the Earth was to be no less than 20 million and no more than 40 million years old. Kelvin’s claim made Darwin’s theory improbable because that age would not have allowed life to evolve to the complexity it has today. English clergyman, William Paley claimed that the level of complexity found in humans could not have come from random adaptation, just like the complex inventions of man. In Natural Theology, Paley juxtaposes the complexity of a watch and the complexity of