ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what the natural sciences have discovered concerning the origin of the universe and the planet on which people live. It examines what the natural scientists know about how life on earth began. The chapter discusses the basic premise of the theory of evolution, as well as its principal concept, natural selection. It explains the importance of genetics as a tool of natural science. The chapter focuses on the historical stages of human evolution as shown by the fossil record and also examines the biological foundations of human culture. As the societies of the West embraced Christianity, however, they tended to discount any explanation that went against the teachings of the Bible. Natural selection is a process that, in simplified form, works this way: some individuals, out of the total population of a particular territory, are born with a random feature let's say, a thumb that can be opposed to the rest of the fingers on the hand.
