Objections to evolution have been raised since evolutionary ideas came to prominence in the 19th century. When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution (the idea that species arose through descent with modification from a single common ancestor in a process driven by natural selection) initially met opposition from scientists with different theories, but eventually came to receive overwhelming acceptance in the scientific community. The observation of evolutionary processes occurring (as well as the modern evolutionary synthesis explaining that evidence) has been uncontroversial among mainstream biologists since the 1940s. Since then, most criticisms and denials of evolution have come from religious groups, rather than from the scientific community. Although many religious groups have found reconciliation of their beliefs with evolution, such as through theistic evolution, other religious groups continue to reject evolutionary explanations in favor of creationism, the belief that the universe and life were created by supernatural forces. The U.S.-centered creation–evolution controversy has become a focal point of perceived conflict between religion and science. Several branches of creationism, including creation science, neo-creationism, and intelligent design, argue that the idea of life being directly designed by a god or intelligence is at least as scientific as evolutionary theory, and should therefore be taught in public education. Such arguments against evolution have become widespread and include objections to evolution's evidence, methodology, plausibility, morality, and scientific acceptance. The scientific community does not recognize such objections as valid, pointing to detractors' misinterpretations of such things as the scientific method, evidence, and basic physical laws. History Evolutionary ideas came to prominence in the early 19th century with the theory (developed between 1800 and 1822) of the transmutation of species put forward by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829). At first the scientific community - and notably Georges Cuvier (1769 - 1832) - opposed the idea of evolution. The idea that laws control nature and society gained vast popular audiences with George Combe's The Constitution of Man of 1828 and with the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation of 1844. When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, he convinced most of the scientific community that new species arise through descent through modification in a branching pattern of divergence from common ancestors, but while most scientists accepted natural selection as a valid and empirically testable hypothesis, Darwin's view of it as the primary mechanism