Harun Yahya is a very dodgy site. I'll try to disprove some of it's claims here.
No advantageous mutations: Adan Oktar claims that there have been no advantageous mutations. This is simply a lie. Some bateria have recently aquirred a mutation that allows them to digest a chemical that exists in nylon waste that didn't exist in nature before the 1930's, when nylon was discovered. Some people in Italy have a mutation that stops them from catching osteoporosis. Some other people have inherited a mutation that helps prevent heart disease.
Natural selection doesn't work: Adan Oktar also claims that natural selection does not work. There have been many examples of natural selection, such as the peppered moth incident.
I strongly suggest for Muslims not to listen to Harun Yahya, as it is not for us to be fooled.
The Peppered Moth - An Update
(From Ken Miller's Evolution Page)
For years the story of the peppered moth, Biston betularia, has provided one of the best-known examples of natural selection in action. The story of the moth was outlined on pages 297-298 of the Elephant Book, and highlights the experiments of British ecologist H. B. D. Kettlewell.
However, a recent book by Michael Majerus (Melanism -Evolution in Action) makes it clear that the peppered moth story has changed in recent years.
The Peppered Moth is routinely used as an example of evolution.
But is this well-known story wrong?
The light-colored form of the moth, known as typica, was the predominant form in England prior to the beginning of the industrial revolution. Shown at left, the typica moth's speckled wings are easy to spot against a dark background, but would be difficult to pick out against the light-colored bark of many trees common in England.
The "typica" form of the moth.
Around the middle of the 19th century, however, a new form of the moth began to appear. The first report of a dark-colored peppered moth was made in 1848. By 1895, the frequency in Manchester had reached a reported level of 98% of the moths.
This dark-colored form is known as carbonaria, and (as shown at right), it is easiest to see against a light background. As you can well imagine, carbonaria would be almost invisible against a dark background, just as typica would be difficult to see against a light background. The increase in carbonaria moths was so dramatic that many naturalists made the immediate suggestion that it had to be the result of the effects of industrial activity on the local landscape.
The "carbonaria" form.
As noted on page 297 of the Elephant Book, coal burned during the early decades of the industrial revolution produced soot that blanketed the countryside of the industrial areas of England between London and Manchester. Several naturalists noted that the typica form was more common in the countryside, while the carbonaria moth prevailed in the sooty regions. Not surprisingly, many jumped to the conclusion that the darker moths had some sort of survival advantage in the newly-darkened landscape.
In recent years, the burning of cleaner fuels and the advent of Clean Air laws has changed the countryside even in industrial areas, and the sootiness that prevailed during the 19th century is all but gone from urban England. Coincidentally, the prevalance of the carbonaria form has declined dramatically. In fact, some biologists suggest that the dark forms will be all but extinct within a few decades.
For evolutionary biologists, the question behind the rise and fall of the carbonaria form is "Why?" Why should the dark phenotype have appeared so suddenly, come to dominate the population in industrial areas, and then have declined just as sharply when levels of pollution declined? To many biologists, the answer seemed obvious. In areas where pollution had darkened the landscape, the darker moths were better camouflaged and less like to be eaten by birds. Under less-polluted conditions, the light-colored moths prevailed for similar reasons.
But was the obvious answer correct? That's what Kettlewell set out to check in a series of classic studies carried out in the 1950s. As described in Chapter 14 of the text, his results seemed to confirm that background camouflage was the key:
What I don't understand is why the GCSE/A-Level questions have not been updated.
