Evolution in Islam

[jay786]

What does Islam think about the whole concept of Evolution?

 

[Ramadhan]

One thing is for sure, Adam and Hawa were already in the perfect form of human when created and even given knowledge about so many things.

As for animals and plants, we do not know for certain.
Microevolution and adaptation in animals and plants have been directly observed, but macro-evolution in larger species cannot be proven.

 

[Sampharo]

Islam does not have a specific stance towards evolution, it is evolution that violates basic givens of Islam and the other Abrahimic extracted religions in that Adam and Eve are the origin of mankind, and that animals and plants were created separately and individually designed.

Evolution however in terms of living creature mutation to produce different animals, or that all living things are related to each other and descended through ancestral micro-organisms that came about from a bolt of lightening striking some amino acids triggering life, or the view that humans are evolved apes, have all recently been re-examined and scientifically disproven outside the religious realm, and for most people the theory of evolution is now defunct.

Adaptation of living things to their environment, natural selection, and survival of the fittest that have been observed and measured are not in contraction with any religious texts.

 

[Lynx]

Certainly, Adam and Eve being made perfectly and then giving birth to other humans is problematic in light of evolution (which is btw the currently accepted model of how living things exist as you see them today by most biologists).

 

[tango92]

Islam does not have a specific stance towards evolution, it is evolution that violates basic givens of Islam and the other Abrahimic extracted religions in that Adam and Eve are the origin of mankind, and that animals and plants were created separately and individually designed.

Evolution however in terms of living creature mutation to produce different animals, or that all living things are related to each other and descended through ancestral micro-organisms that came about from a bolt of lightening striking some amino acids triggering life, or the view that humans are evolved apes, have all recently been re-examined and scientifically disproven outside the religious realm, and for most people the theory of evolution is now defunct.

Adaptation of living things to their environment, natural selection, and survival of the fittest that have been observed and measured are not in contraction with any religious texts.

salaam bro, where can i find said scientific research?

 

[Skavau]

Evolution however in terms of living creature mutation to produce different animals, or that all living things are related to each other and descended through ancestral micro-organisms that came about from a bolt of lightening striking some amino acids triggering life, or the view that humans are evolved apes, have all recently been re-examined and scientifically disproven outside the religious realm, and for most people the theory of evolution is now defunct.

Abiogenesis has nothing to do with Evolution. Abiogenesis is about the origin of life, whereas Evolution talks about the origins of species. I seriously doubt your credibility on a specific topic when you demonstrate an inability to even understand the meaning of it.

Moreover, there is no serious debate over the validity of evolution by the scientific community. It is overwhelming accepted as both a fact and a theory. Every single credible scientific establishment in the entire planet accepts evolution. Every single credible university on the entire planet accepts it as completely valid. The whole notion that evolution is being dropped, or discarded en masse is a complete fabrication by the bogus creationist movement.

In any case, you are right about just one thing. Islam has nothing to say on it specifically and acceptance of evolution by Muslims is greater than Christians (perhaps excluding Catholics) in my experience.

 

[Skavau]

salaam bro, where can i find said scientific research?

http://www.talkorigins.org/

For, real information.

 

[Sampharo]

Abiogenesis has nothing to do with Evolution. Abiogenesis is about the origin of life, whereas Evolution talks about the origins of species. I seriously doubt your credibility on a specific topic when you demonstrate an inability to even understand the meaning of it.

You are free to doubt whatever you want and still be pointless as with vast majority of your posts, just because you chose to dig at an older incidence of part of the theory of evolution and take on the minority view that wished to treat them separately, a movement growing today after its foundation, the Miller-Ulrey experiment, was completely bashed to pieces.

Charles darwin presented origin of life as a fundamental portion of his theory of evolution, and your sad attempts at casting doubt at my credibility is not helping revive it because it's not me who's claiming anything.

Moreover, there is no serious debate over the validity of evolution by the scientific community. It is overwhelming accepted as both a fact and a theory. Every single credible scientific establishment in the entire planet accepts evolution. Every single credible university on the entire planet accepts it as completely valid. The whole notion that evolution is being dropped, or discarded en masse is a complete fabrication by the bogus creationist movement.

In any case, you are right about just one thing. Islam has nothing to say on it specifically and acceptance of evolution by Muslims is greater than Christians (perhaps excluding Catholics) in my experience.

Now you are creating a delusion. Feel free to swim in it by yourself. This forum has already had enough evolution arguments and almost everyone here is familiar with and knows how to repost Harun Yahya articles or visit www.evolutiondeceit.com and wouldn't even bother anymore with your nonsense.

 

[Lynx]

You are free to doubt whatever you want and still be pointless as with vast majority of your posts, just because you chose to dig at an older incidence of part of the theory of evolution and take on the minority view that wished to treat them separately, a movement growing today after its foundation, the Miller-Ulrey experiment, was completely bashed to pieces.

Charles darwin presented origin of life as a fundamental portion of his theory of evolution, and your sad attempts at casting doubt at my credibility is not helping revive it because it's not me who's claiming anything.

Even if God created the first lifeforms it would not make a difference to evolutionary theory in any way. Evolution does not talk about how life came into existence; it only talks about how, after life came into existence, it forms the diversity of animals you see today.

Also, Darwin laid the framework for evolution but the evolutionary theory of today is far far far more advanced than what Darwin talked about. Darwin didn't even know about DNA for instance.

Last, there has been more and more miller-urey type experiments done that have not been bashed to pieces. I can link you some of these newer studies if you want.

 

[Skavau]

You are free to doubt whatever you want and still be pointless as with vast majority of your posts, just because you chose to dig at an older incidence of part of the theory of evolution and take on the minority view that wished to treat them separately, a movement growing today after its foundation, the Miller-Ulrey experiment, was completely bashed to pieces.

Minority view? Every single reputable scientific establishment has evolution as distinct from abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is research into the origin of life from from inanimate matter. Evolution is the study of how living things change over time.

Evolution and belief in God do not conflict. Your complaint about evolution being invalid because our understanding of abiogenesis is not complete, or rooted with historical inaccuracy is about as coherent as complaining that the general theory of relativity is invalid because it doesn't explain where gravity came from.

Charles darwin presented origin of life as a fundamental portion of his theory of evolution, and your sad attempts at casting doubt at my credibility is not helping revive it because it's not me who's claiming anything.

No he did not, and I challenge you to back this claim up specifically. I also want you to explain why and how that even if Charles Darwin did include abiogenesis as an aspect of evolution - how that has any baring on our understanding of evolution now.

I mean, you do understand that the study of evolution has significantly moved on since Charles Darwin died well over 100 years ago now?

In any case, I suggest you read this quote:

Darwin wrote in correspondence that:

It will be some time before we see 'slime, protoplasm, &c.' generating a new animal. But I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant 'appeared' by some wholly unknown process. It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter. [29 March 1863, quoted in Francis Darwin, The Life of Charles Darwin, London, John Murray, 1902, p267]

Source

Now you are creating a delusion. Feel free to swim in it by yourself. This forum has already had enough evolution arguments and almost everyone here is familiar with and knows how to repost Harun Yahya articles or visit www.evolutiondeceit.com and wouldn't even bother anymore with your nonsense.

Adnan Oktar is not a credible scientist.

 

[جوري]

salaam bro, where can i find said scientific research?

here are two very in depth scientific articles on evolution.

http://www.iscid.org/papers/Mullan_PrimitiveCell_112302.pdf
http://arxiv.org/ftp/q-bio/papers/0603/0603005.pdf

pioneers and real science seekers, don't appeal to authority as their pièce de résistance when at a loss to defend folly otherwise!

 

[The Adogmatist]

pioneers and real science seekers, don't appeal to authority as their pièce de résistance when at a loss to defend folly otherwise!

I completely agree with your quote, arguments from authority has no place in honest search for knowledge.

However, I'm having some problems understanding the articles you linked to. The first one seems to not address evolution at all, but rather abiogenesis. Also, it seems to investigate the mathematical probability of making a modern cell using only random chance. The second article also talks about random Brownian motion. Yet the whole idea of evolution by natural selection is that it is not random, why do both articles treat a non-random process as random?

Also, why do none of them talk about biology, and empirical observations made of living organisms? It is nice to do theoretical calculations like they do, but it is necessary to check those calculations with empirical evidence. If I calculate that a stone does not fall to the ground, yet when I drop it it falls, is it not my calculations that needs to be checked more closely?

 

[جوري]

I completely agree with your quote, arguments from authority has no place in honest search for knowledge.

However, I'm having some problems understanding the articles you linked to. The first one seems to not address evolution at all, but rather abiogenesis. Also, it seems to investigate the mathematical probability of making a modern cell using only random chance. The second article also talks about random Brownian motion. Yet the whole idea of evolution by natural selection is that it is not random, why do both articles treat a non-random process as random?

Also, why do none of them talk about biology, and empirical observations made of living organisms? It is nice to do theoretical calculations like they do, but it is necessary to check those calculations with empirical evidence. If I calculate that a stone does not fall to the ground, yet when I drop it it falls, is it not my calculations that needs to be checked more closely?

Greetings Adogmatist and :welcome: aboard.

empiricism is by definition based on speculations rather than experimentation, all the sciences are intertwined as such you can't view one science without the other. You can't discuss biology without delving into genetics or physics without mathematics and all of them are leaves to the same tree.
Now, I don't how evolution can exist independent of abiogenesis or panspermia or whatever other belief that divorces itself from the notion of creation as absurd as it is. Why should we stop or start from a point that is neat and ignore the step preceding that point especially that we collectively agree that humans in their modern form didn't always exist?

Showcasing perfect complete specimen next to each other doesn't denote 'evolution' happened as also that term is a catchall, as we need to define the difference between macro and micro-evolution. Certainly adaptation is observed and noted, speciation on the other hand isn't..

The mechanisms stated for said speciation in fact yield a completely different outcome than proposed and I have discussed that in quite the detail in our previous (and if I may add numerous) evolution threads in the health and science section, I don't really want to delve into the topic any more than is necessary for our purposes here least of which when we border upon philosophy..

all the best

 

[Sampharo]

Minority view? Every single reputable scientific establishment has evolution as distinct from abiogenesis.

You are using the term "Every single reputable scientific establishment" to refer to a hidden condition in your mind that ONLY includes those that obnly cling to evolution, and are representing less than 25% of the universities of the World today perhaps?! In your little delusional claims you forgot to mention that more than 70% of the universities of the World including the oldest five consider evolution as defunct and assert that direct creation has much more established evidence. Of course you being an athiest will prefer to "professionally disbelieve" and self-declare that such institutions are not scientific or not secular. That is the whole premise of the claim that "support for evolution is almost universal" in that it is universal amongst the people who supported it, and all those who don't support it are immediately branded as non-secular unscientific religious dogma.

Evolution and belief in God do not conflict.

Again in your own little world of athiesm maybe. As I said and as scholars have agreed: Foundational documented evidence of Islamic, christian, and Judaic books are fundamental to that living creatures were created separately and individually. Fish did not slither on land and got lungs because they "needed" it, nor did birds descend from reptiles, nor did multicellular organisms evolve out of single-celled ones.

Your complaint about evolution being invalid because our understanding of abiogenesis is not complete

What nonsense that I never even thought of! I never made such a complaint nor need to. Evolution is defunct by scientific analysis and research and experiments that showed it to be impossible, had nothing to do with the first moment of birth of life on Earth.

I mean, you do understand that the study of evolution has significantly moved on since Charles Darwin died well over 100 years ago now?

Does not matter how far it moves, as long as it abides by the notion that animals mutate out of need of improvement and that birds descended from reptiles and humans from apes, it is still a laughable disproven theory. However with the lack of information in Darwin days it was understandable to make such assumptions, but with the line of supporting evidence that Darwin himself lined up and said needs to be found but until now hasn't been found (or was found and proven fabricated) and with the sufficient information about the complexity of single-cell organisms and the scientific evidence that disproved the possibility of evolution found today, it is ludicrous to continue pushing for this defunct theory.

Adnan Oktar is not a credible scientist.

To your minority maybe, along with any scientist who supports creation and intelligent design with evidence and correct analysis. Just deal with it: More than 60% of people do not believe in evolution anymore in the Western (secular) countries, (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/02/12/1791814.aspx) and more than 90% in Middle Eastern and Asian ones also believe in distinct creation of first life and each individual family of animals down to the creation of Adam and Eve.

Of course I know you love having the last word so go ahead and make your incessent arrogant nonsensical arguments and flood us with misinformation and false statistics and blow off your steam, then smile to yourself having scored another victory for the evolution athiest camp, for that is what you like to do as "a professional disbeliever".

I however will not waste my time with any further discussion on this matter, as I explained before it was discussed to pieces on this forum already.

 

[- Qatada -]

Certainly, Adam and Eve being made perfectly and then giving birth to other humans is problematic in light of evolution (which is btw the currently accepted model of how living things exist as you see them today by most biologists).

Not really

Wouldn't the children of Adam die of inbreeding due to incest?

Now to answer the question;

Mutations also aren't as common as you make it seem, and it is very unlikely that the first children already all had these mutations. It would probably take several generations.

Secondly, merely for the sake of argument, even if their children would have these mutations, it's highly unlikly for them to all have the same mutations, hence the second generation will not have an issue with this either.

And thirdly, again, as muslims we don't believe in the existence of chance, everything follows a cause and effect. And you build on the premise that indeed an omnipotent and omniscient God created them, then it seems perfectly plausible that God didn't "cause" any mutations to occur in the first few generations, untill there was a large enough population to intermingle. ​

 

[- Qatada -]

Abiogenesis has nothing to do with Evolution. Abiogenesis is about the origin of life, whereas Evolution talks about the origins of species. I seriously doubt your credibility on a specific topic when you demonstrate an inability to even understand the meaning of it.

Quoting Abdul Fattah aka steve;

Evolution is a tricky and controversial subject. To avoid semantic misunderstanding, lets consider some definitions. The word evolution, could technically speaking refer to practically anything, since so many things can evolve one way or the other. However when most people use the word evolution without clarifying which evolution they are referring to, they usually mean "the evolution of the different species". I can understand why people would simply say "evolution" for practical reasons, but that is somewhat confusing. Because of this, many people think that the the term "evolution of the different species" refers to exactly the same as "biological evolution". I would disagree and say that although the evolution of the different species is indeed a part of biological evolution, the term biological evolution entails a lot more than just that.

• Biological evolution.
  This general term can be split up into two separate theories:
  • Evolution of life out of lifeless matter a.k.a. abiogenesis.
    This is the theory on how the first biological life evolved out of lifeless matter on earth.
  • Evolution of the different species a.k.a. origin of the different species. This is a group name for several other theories such as the theory of genetic mutation, survival of the fittest, genetic drift, and so on. These theories can be mainly categorized into three segments:
    • The theory of micro evolution.
      How genetic drift trough variation and mutation creates new breeds of a certain specie that then grow larger in numbers trough survival of the fittest.
    • The theory of macro evolution.
      How mutations on a genetic level can cause new species.
    • The theory of common descent.
      How trough micro and macro evolution, all existing creatures evolved out of the same ancestral being. This is not a scientific theory but a historical one. In other words it doesn't tell us something about the nature of physics, or the physics of nature, instead it speculates on how the currently existing organisms have evolved in the past.

http://seemyparadigm.webs.com/evolution.htm


​

So he's saying that it can be argued that abiogenesis is part of evolution [although he prefers to use the term Biological evolution for this], and if someone was to have a whole debate over this issue - they'd just be arguing semantics.

 

[Skavau]

You are using the term "Every single reputable scientific establishment" to refer to a hidden condition in your mind that ONLY includes those that obnly cling to evolution, and are representing less than 25% of the universities of the World today perhaps?!

Can you give me statistics on this please? Why do you suppose by the way that all of the top universities, all of the top scientists and all of the most valued scientific research outfits on the entire planet accept evolution?

Please prove to me that only 25% of universities accept evolution. Here, I'll give you my information:

Level Of Support For Evolution. That includes many links to other sources about the level of support for evolution (including the humourous project steve).

In your little delusional claims you forgot to mention that more than 70% of the universities of the World including the oldest five consider evolution as defunct and assert that direct creation has much more established evidence. Of course you being an athiest will prefer to "professionally disbelieve" and self-declare that such institutions are not scientific or not secular.

[Citation needed]

To your minority maybe, along with any scientist who supports creation and intelligent design with evidence and correct analysis. Just deal with it: More than 60% of people do not believe in evolution anymore in the Western (secular) countries, (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archi...2/1791814.aspx) and more than 90% in Middle Eastern and Asian ones also believe in distinct creation of first life and each individual family of animals down to the creation of Adam and Eve.

No, that's just America (your link). I don't really care what the general public thing about evolution.

I note you did not address my refutation on your claim about Charles Darwin.

 

[Skavau]

So he's saying that it can be argued that abiogenesis is part of evolution [although he prefers to use the term Biological evolution for this], and if someone was to have a whole debate over this issue - they'd just be arguing semantics.

No sir, go and find me any scientific definition for evolution and tell me where it necessarily includes abiogenesis. Abdul just made the claim that somehow, abiogenesis is a part of it.

 

[- Qatada -]

Quoting Abdul Fattah again;

​

Theory or hypothesis?​

Just as with abiogenesis, common descent is closer to being a hypothesis rather then a theory. And just like abiogenesis, it's strictly speculation at this point. There's no proof, no falsifiability and no testability. The hypothesis is based on the sweeping generalization that since some organism evolved from one another, all must have evolved from the same one! This is obviously a logical fallacy. But more importantly, one could argue that since this theory speculates on what happened in the past; that this is actually a history theory build on different scientific theories rather then a scientific theory itself!

http://seemyparadigm.webs.com/evolution.htm

 

[- Qatada -]

No sir, go and find me any scientific definition for evolution and tell me where it necessarily includes abiogenesis. Abdul just made the claim that somehow, abiogenesis is a part of it.

I don't really care if it didn't. Sampharo made a point against abiogenesis because that's an issue which is more controversial and hypothetically leads towards evolution. If he made a mistake, so what?