IslamiCity.org Homepage
Forum Home Forum Home > General > Science & Technology
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - Creation Versus Evolution  What is Islam What is Islam  Donate Donate
  FAQ FAQ  Quran Search Quran Search  Forum Search   Events   Register Register  Login Login

Creation Versus Evolution

 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <1 345
Author
Message
semar View Drop Down
Senior Member
Senior Member
Avatar
Male Islam
Joined: 11 March 2005
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 1830
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote semar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 July 2008 at 11:00pm

Inayat Bunglawala vs Harun Yahya


A head to head debate about evolution and the origins of life from a Muslim perspective
(Please feel free to add your comments by clicking here after reading this debate...)
 
Inayat Bunglawala to Harun Yahya:

Your many professionally produced books, CDs and DVDs seeking to expose the alleged fallacy of the theory of evolution have been widely distributed and translated into numerous languages and have brought you a large readership and following amongst Muslims in recent years. In Islamic bookstores throughout Europe and the US it is your striking and colourful works that stand out most clearly.


In common, I suppose, with many believers in God, I had always been uncomfortable about the implications of Darwin's theory and as it happens your book, The Evolution Deceit, which I first read in the late 1990s, played perfectly to my prejudices. The book contained many seemingly authoritative quotations from respected scientists expressing their incredulity at Darwin's theory and pointing out its weaknesses.

It was only when I began reading the works of those very same scientists, including Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, Colin Patterson etc first hand that I realised just how selective and misleading the quotations in your books were. Biological evolution was an established fact. The "theory" part referred to the mechanism by which evolution had occurred and far from being on the verge of collapse, it was in vibrant health and had been shown in test after test to have immense explanatory power.

Evolutionary theory helps shed light on a multitude of scientific questions including providing a compelling explanation for why a dispassionate study of the fossil record shows the gradual and sequential appearance on earth of single-celled organisms, then fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, and also why humans � as well as other animals � have numerous suboptimal characteristics. What mechanism do you propose better explains these phenomena?

Human beings are instructed in the Qur'an by God to undertake a study of the creation of the heavens and the earth. Our enemy is surely not evolution, but ignorance.
Salaams,
Inayat


Harun Yahya to Inayat:
Allah has no need of natural causes. It is sufficient for our Lord to command a thing to "Be!". However, it is also certain that had he so wished, Allah could have made evolution responsible for the emergence and development of all entities. In that case, there should have been countless proofs of such a creation. And we would then have been the first to believe and espouse the idea that Allah created life by way of evolution.

But there is not a single piece of evidence on Earth showing that evolution ever happened.

�The fossil record contains not a single intermediate form among the many trillions that must once have lived;
�Evolutionists are still unable to explain how the first cell might have emerged by way of evolution;
�They are unable to point to any concrete evidence that living things developed in stages, as you maintain;
�Even laboratory studies have failed to witness the evolutionary power of so-called evolutionary mechanisms;
�I announced, in the presence of the press, that if Darwinists were to produce a single intermediate form to confirm this imaginary transition, I would give them a prize of 10m New Turkish Lira (approximately $8.2m). But no one has come forward to claim it. That is clear proof that evolution is a lie.

We point to 100m living fossils that show the whole world that evolution is a big lie. Darwinists, on the other hand, are unable to point to a single fossil transitional form supporting evolution. That alone is enough to declare the collapse of the theory.

Darwinists have been using no scientific but a psychological technique to mislead people for 150 years. Darwinists have been stunned by the way the Atlas of Creation has put an end to this deception. The fact that it is now revealed to the whole world that evolution has been annihilated is the reason of the shock effect of this work in US, and especially in Europe, and why they have suddenly attempted to ban it.

The proofs that our Lord reveals to believers in the heavens and the earth show that he has created all things from nothing with a single command. What Darwinism, which takes chance as its deity, seeks to do is to turn people away from faith in Allah. It is essential that all those who properly appreciate the might of Allah must not fall into this great error.
Sincerely yours,

Adnan Oktar (AKA Harun Yahya)

Inayat to Harun Yahya:
In your many published works you enthusiastically accept the big bang theory. You agree that the stars and planets evolved over a period of billions of years. According to our best current understanding, planet Earth was formed some 4.5 billion years ago, that is around 10 billion years after the big bang. It is a curious truth that � in common with many anti-evolutionists (excepting young earth creationists) � in your many writings you have no problem accepting the fact of cosmological evolution and geological evolution, but you baulk when it comes to biological evolution.
I am happy take up your challenge regarding fossils that exhibit transitional features (and should, in theory at least, soon be a multimillionaire). That stalwart of Christian creationism, Duane Gish, whom you have invited to Turkey to speak at your Science Research Foundation conferences, used to claim that transitional creatures linking land mammals to the cetaceans (swimming mammals such as whales and dolphins) were biologically impossible. However, according to Kenneth Miller, by 1994, a team of paleontologists from the University of Michigan led by Philip Gingerich:

� found, not one, but three intermediate species linking land mammals to the archeocetes, the oldest swimming mammals. The midpoint of the series, a marvellous animal called ambulocetus natans ('the swimming whale who walks') displayed exactly the combination of terrestrial and aquatic adaptations that critics of evolution had called impossible, even in principle.

So the historical record displays clearly the beautiful convergence of theory and fact.

Darwin's theory of natural selection also explains why, for example, we share 98.4% of our genes with chimps, why vertebrate forelimbs while adapted for many different purposes all contain the same bones, and also explains the phenomenon of pesticide resistance in insects and antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

It also accounts for the appearance of at least 22 different elephant-like species in just the last 6 million years.

Please explain how your theory of creationism fits the above known data more precisely?

I can understand your concerns about the atheist agenda that seems to drive some scientists, but as you must surely know, many prominent scientists are perfectly able to reconcile their belief in God with the theory of evolution. With their strident atheism Dawkins and co have undoubtedly prevented many believers from taking evolution seriously, but by the very same token, I hope you will agree that simple-minded creationist views have also unfortunately prevented many people from taking God seriously.
Salaams,
Inayat

Harun Yahya to Inayat:
The whole universe was created through the big bang, which Darwinists are by no means able to account for and which reveals almighty Allah's marvelous artistry. It is again the fossil record that shows us the history of living creatures' creation on earth.

Approximately 3.6bn-year-old bacteria of a complexity no different than that of today's bacteria show that the history of life goes back billions of years. As you too would agree, this acknowledgment is by no means an acknowledgment of evolution in geological or cosmological or biological sense. Evolution claims that all these processes occurred by chance � a claim that definitely denies a creator. Any man of understanding can see that the magnificent and awe-inspiring balance in the universe is a work of art revealing Allah's sublime creation.

If evolution had taken place, then there should be millions of fossils showing that living things assumed their present forms on a stage-by-stage basis. The fossil record should contain strange creatures with organs not fully-developed, with pathological characteristics, with features belonging to many different species. Specimens unearthed from beneath the ground should bear the signs of a strange world like that of the Island of Dr Moreau, and fossils showing that strange creatures like those on the island had once existed should frequently be found.

However, all the 100 million fossils found to date show that living things in the past were perfect and flawless with all their features intact. The more the earth is excavated, the more new fossils of perfectly-formed living things are discovered. Not one odd-looking specimen has been found. (For details, see www.fossil-museum.com and www.darwinism-watch.com.) In short, fossils are concrete proof that evolution never happened.

The first thing Darwinists need to explain is how life originally emerged. The idea that the first living cell appeared spontaneously once sufficient time had elapsed from a muddy collection of earth and stone under the effect of lightning is something not even a primary school student would believe, a claim devoid of any scientific validity.

At the level of 21st century science and technology, when the cell is known to have a more complex structure than a metropolis, nobody will believe that life appeared by chance. If it is claimed, despite hundreds of scientific findings, that inanimate matter can turn into living entities, then they can test whether this actually happens or not.

Let them add as many chemicals as they like to a collection of mud and use whatever external factors they so choose, and wait for years for butterflies, cats, rabbits, tigers, orchids, carnations, cherries, strawberries and, most importantly, human beings capable of building civilisations, to emerge from it. They can even hand on the duty of standing sentry over that mud from one generation to another, and thus wait for millions, even trillions, of years. But will even a single protein ever emerge from it, let alone living things with very different characteristics? Of course not. Science in the 21st century has proved that it is impossible for even a single protein to emerge by chance. Unable to account for the emergence of a single protein, evolution is a theory that has been defeated right from the outset.

For the invalidity of ambulocetus natans, see here. For variation and antibiotic resistance, see here.

Best Regards,
Adnan Oktar (AKA Harun Yahya)

Inayat to Harun Yahya:
You issued a familiar creationist challenge to name a single fossil that exhibited transitional features. When I provided one that is extremely well known in scientific circles, you fell back on the equally familiar creationist tactic of simply rejecting it. There are many other examples I could have named including the even better known Archaeopteryx which was an early bird that displayed many clear reptilian characteristics, including having teeth. Its features were precisely what one would expect for a bird that had evolved from earlier reptilian ancestors. You will be aware that no modern bird has any teeth, though interestingly, embryo birds do have tooth buds that are suppressed from developing. Natural selection provides a compelling account for why this happens.

In fact, every single fossil discovered to date displays a clear relationship to its earlier ancestors � just as you would expect according to evolutionary theory. How does your creationist theory which considers that each individual species was instantaneously beamed into existence better explain these observations?

I am unsure what you meant to imply by stating that the theory of evolution cannot provide an explanation for the big bang. Neither can Einstein's theory of gravitation, but presumably you do not reject the phenomenon of gravity on that account?

I think it is a very unwise strategy to pin your faith on there never being a proper scientific explanation for how the first living cell arose. This "God of the gaps" approach relies on our present ignorance on particular issues remaining eternal. I will quote from the scientist (and believer), Kenneth R Miller's Finding Darwin's God:


There is no religious reason, none at all, for drawing a line in the sand at the origin of life. The trend of science is to discover and explain, and it would be foolish to pretend that religious faith must be predicated on the inability of science to cross such a line. Evolution, after all, does not require that life must have originated from naturalistic causes � only that its biological history is driven by the same natural forces we observe every day in the world around us.

You appear to insist that the theory of evolution denies the existence of a creator. That is simply not true. Science is utterly agnostic on the God question and cannot adjudicate one way or the other. It is appropriate for us as believers to discover how God created the universe around us and I personally have found it a truly wondrous experience. It is surely not for us to, in effect, tell God what he can and cannot do.

Salaams,
Inayat


Harun Yahya to Inayat:
It would seem that, as is the case with many Muslim evolutionists, you have misinterpreted Darwinists' claims on the subject of intermediate forms. All the specimens unearthed to date and alleged by Darwinists to be intermediate forms in fact belong to flawless, perfectly formed life forms. Archaeopteryx is one that Darwinists for many years maintained was an intermediate form. The fact is, however, that Archaeopteryx is a flawless birdwith perfect wings and a perfect flight system.

Moreover, as can be seen from the fossil record, Confuciusornis, more or less a contemporary of Archaeopteryx, was also a perfect flying bird.
The impossibility of what evolutionists claim to be an intermediate form living at the same time as a true bird totally discredits all their claims regarding Archaeopteryx. The other few specimens that Darwinists have depicted as intermediate forms belong either to perfect life forms or else to hoax fossils manufactured by evolutionists.

The fact is that the living things referred to as transitional forms by evolutionists would have been very odd-looking entities, with limbs protruding from the most unlikely places, with ears where their eyes ought to be, legs protruding from their ears, with fins on one side of their bodies and legs on the other. And there would have been billions of them. There should be thousands, millions of intermediate form fossils pointing to a transition between fish and reptile fossils discovered. This should also apply to insects and flies, and there should be billions of fossils of peculiar creatures that resemble neither insects nor flies. Yet all of the 100 million or so fossils unearthed to date belong to perfectly-formed living entities.

According to Darwinian claims a life form should undergo millions of supposed changes in the transition to another life form by way of natural selection. Darwinists came up with the Coelacanth as an intermediate form candidate. But when a living specimen was recently caught in the sea it was realised that this was merely a deception. They realized that it was a bottom-dwelling fish possessed of a flawless complexity. What Darwinists do is to engage in speculation regarding perfect fossils, since they are unable to obtain a real intermediate form fossil, or else they resort to fraud by producing fantastical reconstructions by adding an ape jaw to a human cranium, adding feathers to a dinosaur skeleton, or speculating on a single wild pig tooth.

Those who suggest that the theory of evolution is not incompatible with the fact of creation are mistaken on one very important point: these circles imagine that Darwinism's main claim is the thesis that "living species emerged by evolving from one another". Their actual claim, however, is that "life emerged by chance, through unconscious mechanisms".

In their view, life appeared spontaneously from inanimate matter, with no creator being involved (Allah is beyond that). According to this heretical claim of materialist philosophy, both matter and life are without beginning and without end. That is why they so bitterly opposed the scientific discovery of the big bang � a fact that states that the universe did have a beginning, scientifically proving a major reality indicated by Allah in the Qur'an 1400 years ago.

"It is we who have built the universe with (our creative) power, and, verily, it is we who are steadily expanding it." (Surat adh-Dhariyat: 47)
In addition, Darwinists are unable to explain how such a bright, vivid, lively and three-dimensional world forms inside the human brain. Not even the most advanced television produced by the world's leading television manufacturer can provide the three-dimensional, brightly coloured and clear image you are seeing at the moment.

In the same way, not even the most high-tech music sets, the most advanced speakers can match the sound quality and perfection perceived by the ear. There is no hiss or crackling or loss of quality in that sound formed in the brain. Only a constant clarity and perfection. There is a perfectly regulated system that perceives sound where there is no sound and that sees light where there is no light.

It is impossible for that perfection to emerge through evolution and by random coincidences. No man-made sound or visual equipment has ever managed to match the sensitivity and achievements of the ear and eye.
Salaams,

Adnan Oktar (AKA Harun Yahya)

To visit our group on google please clcik on Harun Yahya Google Group
To visit our site please click on Harun Yahya Group.com


Edited by semar - 07 July 2008 at 11:06pm
Salam/Peace,

Semar

"We are people who do not eat until we are hungry and do not eat to our fill." (Prophet Muhammad PBUH)

"1/3 of your stomach for food, 1/3 for water, 1/3 for air"
Back to Top
Hammy07 View Drop Down
Starter
Starter
Avatar
Joined: 07 July 2008
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 4
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hammy07 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 July 2008 at 11:07am

There is no such thing as a "transitionary" form. Every life form is transitionary. Species do not turn into other species, they evolve characteristics by mutation and natural selection, therefore we will always find lifeforms in a "perfect" state because they lived, grew to a certain size, then died. Fossils are not the norm, they only occur in very specific geological conditions.

Genetic data showing how every single life form shares genetic material, is the undeniable proof that all life has shared ancestry.
 
Harun Yahya also assumes that A evolves into B, it doesn't, he thinks there is a purpose for evolution and a destination. Evolution is not linear, it's organic. The human being is not the pinnacle of evolution, most humanoids died out and didn't live too long, we are not very well equipped to deal with the natural environment, therefore, only the most intelligent survived, their generation produced intelligent children, when the environment changed, only the most intelligent were capable of surviving long enough to mate with a female. This over thousands of years is why our brains are so large.
 
Harun Yahya fails to realise one important thing. Every lifeform today had successful ancestors, every one of them lived long, healthy enough to procreate, their traits made them successful, the VAST majority who were NOT successful died, and thus, did not pass on their traits. 99.9% of all life is extinct. That is not a perfect creation at all, it's entirely trial and error.
 
Also, what Yahya wants is INTERESTING physical transitions, things that look odd. That's hardly a robust way for scientific research.
 
I mean, believing man was made from clay, and coz he ate an apple, he got punished, lived for several centuries and was 60 feet tall, why would anyone take this ancient myth over biological evolution.
 
Humans perfect? I doubt it. If you can believe Noah put all the animals in his boat and lived 900 years, and then reject proven science, it shows quite clearly humans have a LONG way to go before becoming a perfectly functioning life form.
Back to Top
Sawtul Khilafah View Drop Down
Senior Member
Senior  Member
Avatar
Joined: 20 July 2006
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 623
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sawtul Khilafah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 July 2008 at 7:32pm

How could a MUSLIM believe in evolution?

The Qur'an says the creation of Jesus (pbuh) was like the creation of Adam (pbuh).

So how can you say that Adam was evolved from Apes when his creation was like that of Jesus?

 
Back to Top
Hammy07 View Drop Down
Starter
Starter
Avatar
Joined: 07 July 2008
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 4
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hammy07 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 July 2008 at 8:01pm
In 1377 a famous Muslim scholar observed this fact.
 

Ibn Khaldun wrote the following on the biological theory of evolution:[25]

"This world with all the created things in it has a certain order and solid construction. It shows nexuses between causes and things caused, combinations of some parts of creation with others, and transformations of some existent things into others, in a pattern that is both remarkable and endless."

"One should then take a look at the world of creation. It started out from the minerals and progressed, in an ingenious, gradual manner, to plants and animals. The last stage of minerals is connected with the first stage of plants, such as herbs and seedless plants. The last stage of plants, such as palms and vines, is connected with the first stage of animals, such as snails and shellfish which have only the power of touch. The word 'connection' with regard to these created things means that the last stage of each group is fully prepared to become the first stage of the newest group."

"The animal world then widens, its species become numerous, and, in a gradual process of creation, it finally leads to man, who is able to think and reflect. The higher stage of man is reached from the world of monkeys, in which both sagacity and preception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. At this point we come to the first stage of man. This is as far as our (physical) observation extends."

 
 
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <1 345
  Share Topic   

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 12.03
Copyright ©2001-2019 Web Wiz Ltd.