Creation arguments vs. evolution arguments?

[Muhammad]

Greetings root,

I find it hard to imagine a way in which a thousand-ton piece of metal could fly through the air. Therefore, airplanes will never work..................................

Exactly, someone needs to manufacture the aeroplane, someone with the capability... things don't happen by themselves, no matter how small they might be.

It's high time creationists stop saying this downright LIE. Science does not support a creationist view.

Firstly, not all creationists believe in the exact same things or rely on the same evidence so I hope you are not grouping them all under one Umbrella - something which came to mind when I glanced at your site.

Science cannot disprove the existence of God, and I guess the real question that should be asked is how well science truly supports the evolutionist view, since I have already tried to explain that creationists do not believe in what they do because they have scientific evidence. Among the evidences that we do believe in is the Qur'an - something which non-religious people immediately cast aside even though they have not taken time out to actually consider it as being acceptable. I shall quote from an article from Dr. Zakir Naik:

Let us apply this theory of probability to the Qur’an, and assume that a person has guessed all the information that is mentioned in the Qur’an which was unknown at that time. Let us discuss the probability of all the guesses being simultaneously correct.
At the time when the Qur’an was revealed, people thought the world was flat, there are several other options for the shape of the earth. It could be triangular, it could be quadrangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, heptagonal, octagonal, spherical, etc. Lets assume there are about 30 different options for the shape of the earth. The Qur’an rightly says it is spherical, if it was a guess the chances of the guess being correct is 1/30.

The light of the moon can be its own light or a reflected light. The Qur’an rightly says it is a reflected light. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/2 and the probability that both the guesses i.e the earth is spherical and the light of the moon is reflected light is 1/30 x 1/2 = 1/60.

Further, the Qur’an also mentions every living thing is made of water. Every living thing can be made up of either wood, stone, copper, aluminum, steel, silver, gold, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, oil, water, cement, concrete, etc. The options are say about 10,000. The Qur’an rightly says that everything is made up of water. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/10,000 and the probability of all the three guesses i.e. the earth is spherical, light of moon is reflected light and everything is created from water being correct is 1/30 x 1/2 x 1/10,000 = 1/60,000 which is equal to about .0017%.

The Qur’an speaks about hundreds of things that were not known to men at the time of its revelation. Only in three options the result is .0017%. I leave it upto you, to work out the probability if all the hundreds of the unknown facts were guesses, the chances of all of them being correct guesses simultaneously and there being not a single wrong guess. It is beyond human capacity to make all correct guesses without a single mistake, which itself is sufficient to prove to a logical person that the origin of the Qur’an is Divine.

From http://www.irf.net/irf/comparativereligion/index.htm.http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=31

In a religious context, 'faith' and 'truth' are almost synonyms. And faith is automatically good. If an idea is considered truth in your religion, and you don't have faith in it, that's a reflection on your failure as a faith-holder rather than the idea's failure to be true. If you don't have enough faith on a given subject, you should work harder at it.

No actually faith is not automatically good or else all religions would be acceptable. Faith in the truth is what really matters, i.e. Islam - belief in the existence of One God. And if you don't believe in the truth then obviously that is a failure.

In the sciences, that kind of faith is not a virtue; it's a personal failing. Imagine a bridge engineer being invited to "have more faith" that a design has enough steel in it to keep his bridge from collapsing. His faith has nothing to do with it; either the bridge stays up, or it falls down. Faith in the sense of 'letting yourself be persuaded without adequate evidence' is morally wrong in that context. If the bridge engineer does so, and people die in the collapse, he's murdered them.

This is where you are getting confused. The fact of the matter is that if you believe in something that is true, and when it does have adequate evidence, then you are not letting yourself be persuaded into anything. You are making it seem as though, with faith, one can believe in anything, when in actual fact there is right and wrong, just like how the bridge either stays up or it doesn't.

Scientists, or the good ones, feel the same way about their theories that good engineers feel about their bridges. It's their job to make them right, not to convince themselves for their own emotional comfort that they're already right, pretty much, close enough.

If a scientist says "I have faith this theory is true," he doesn't or shouldn't mean it in the religious sense of "I commit myself to this no matter what the evidence may say, forever. Don't try to change my mind, here I stand."

And similarly if something contradicts what is right then we reject it also. And our criterion of what is right and wrong is of course the Ultimate Guidance - the Qur'an and the Last Prophet's teachings (pbuh) - and such guidance is good enough evidence, although people don't like to believe it - the ones who don't like to change their minds and therefore will not accept anything unless it can be proven in a test tube. Let me ask you, how can you disregard a source if you have not read it?

Instead, he means or ought to mean "I've tested this theory, and I've seen the results of other people's tests, and I'm as sure as I can possibly get on the available evidence that this theory is as close to right as we can get. Unless something else really radical turns up. Keep me posted."

There are some who will forever lie in wait for evidence from every direction to prove what they wish to be true, yet they will refuse to look at the evidence that is already complete before their eyes in disgust that such ideas do not agree with their desires.

Which, incidentally, is one reason why scientists in their professional personas are very sparing with words like 'faith' and 'truth'. Just as the bridge engineer is supposed to know exact breaking strains rather than "probably close enough," scientists are expected to be able to state exactly how confident they are in a given proposition and why they feel that confidence. Faith and truth imply absolutes, which in a scientific context implies glossing over small details that might contradict those absolutes.

Well in that case, why are we being taught that the Big Bang is the ultimate reason why we are here and expected to just "gloss over" the fact that you can't even explain how its constituents arrived?! I wouldn't be so sure to state science is the side so confident! You know as well as I do that there are realms of science that cannot be fully explained nor proven, yet scientists have faith to believe in them because they need an answer to life's questions. Yet with religion we are not held back by slow scientific progressions as we can reach the truth with tools that penetrate beyond the bounds of the laboratory.

I don't beleive in ghosts

Which is totally besides the point!

Regards.

 

[root]

All Quotes by Mohammed

Exactly, someone needs to manufacture the aeroplane, someone with the capability... things don't happen by themselves, no matter how small they might be.

Nice answer, but I was referring to finding a plane in an imaginable era where flight was not possible. By not understanding the laws of flight one could never imagine it "flying"

Firstly, not all creationists believe in the exact same things or rely on the same evidence so I hope you are not grouping them all under one Umbrella - something which came to mind when I glanced at your site

Your right. And only adds to my suspicions because it is not individual beleif in the same things but religous, your idea of ID will be based on the faith you follow....

Science cannot disprove the existence of God, and I guess the real question that should be asked is how well science truly supports the evolutionist view,

Evolution is science, creationism is not.

since I have already tried to explain that creationists do not believe in what they do because they have scientific evidence. Among the evidences that we do believe in is the Qur'an

OK, "Among" implies more than one source. Your either deliberately misleading or you can post "evidence" other than the Koran!

- something which non-religious people immediately cast aside even though they have not taken time out to actually consider it as being acceptable.

Of course they don't. For they would need to establish which one of the many religions was actually truthull............ We don't teach religion in Science class for a reason. Have you ever been taught evolution in religous education..... It's a nonesense.

At the time when the Qur’an was revealed, people thought the world was flat, there are several other options for the shape of the earth. It could be triangular, it could be quadrangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, heptagonal, octagonal, spherical, etc. Lets assume there are about 30 different options for the shape of the earth. The Qur’an rightly says it is spherical, if it was a guess the chances of the guess being correct is 1/30.

If this is true, and I don;t think it is can you explain why prominent Islamic scholars thought the earth was flat if the koran clearly stated the opposite!!!!

The light of the moon can be its own light or a reflected light. The Qur’an rightly says it is a reflected light. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/2 and the probability that both the guesses i.e the earth is spherical and the light of the moon is reflected light is 1/30 x 1/2 = 1/60.

This is strange, the Moon does not ommit it's own light. it only reflects and the odds are 50/50!!!!! the earth being spherical is another issue

The Qur’an speaks about hundreds of things that were not known to men at the time of its revelation

The Koran is interpreted as knowing the truth after the discovery is made. never before

This is about evolution v creationism, so far

There are some who will forever lie in wait for evidence from every direction to prove what they wish to be true

and their are some who will beleive anything even without evidence.....

This has all gone off-topic, congrats for wasting the thread!!

No offence intended..........

Regards

Root

 

[Uthman]

This has all gone off-topic, congrats for wasting the thread!!

Isn't that the nature of discussion? Oh, this is even more off-topic . . .

 

[Muhammad]

Nice answer, but I was referring to finding a plane in an imaginable era where flight was not possible. By not understanding the laws of flight one could never imagine it "flying"

Hello again root,

OK with regards to this quote, I assume it originated in an attempt to illustrate creationist thinking, and therefore I don't think it is very accurate. Using the same example, I think the case is more like we have viewed the proposed explanation for laws of flight by some people and seen how, according to those, the aeroplane could never become airborne due to flawed reasoning behind it.

Initially we were discussing spontaneous formation but now that you have changed course to explain by "lack of understanding", I must correct your new analogy.

Your right. And only adds to my suspicions because it is not individual beleif in the same things but religous, your idea of ID will be based on the faith you follow....

And therefore each faith should be addressed seperately rather than as one entity.
Btw - What's ID?

Evolution is science, creationism is not.

That kind of explains where you're coming from, although I am not so sure that it is true. The study of science is one thing, but belief in evolution is more like a proposed idea, after all, I believe it was you who said earlier that science is merely a tool rather than a belief.

OK, "Among" implies more than one source. Your either deliberately misleading or you can post "evidence" other than the Koran!

Yes, definitely the Qur'an is not the only source from which we get our knowledge and understanding from. I thought I had elaborated on this earlier and did not want to seem repetitive - not to mention I explained a bit later on in my post but anyway: Throughout history, God has been sending Prophets and scriptures to countless nations in order to guide and remind them of the truth. The final Messenger, as you know, was Muhammad (pbuh) and he came with the Qur'an. The Qur'an abrogates all previous scriptures and remains the final guidance, along with the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) (which were also revealed from God but not part of the Qur'an) and these are the last two revelations from God addressed to all mankind until the Day of Ressurection.

So in the context of our discussion, I am trying to explain that a Muslim's faith does not depend on scientific theories and what can be proven in a lab, but rather what God has taught us. And it follows that science can never be in contradiction with Islam when the Creator of the heavens and the earth is the One who revealed the Qur'an!

Of course they don't. For they would need to establish which one of the many religions was actually truthull............ We don't teach religion in Science class for a reason. Have you ever been taught evolution in religous education..... It's a nonesense.

Well if I am not mistaken, I believe you haven't read the Qur'an yourself and I know there are plenty of others who simply take what they like and misinterpret at their will. If you really wanted to establish which was the truthful religion then you would look at each scripture in turn and examine it in the correct manner (note: this does not mean referring to articles of liars and ill-taught people). But how many people are actually doing this?

And yes I am capable of understanding that if you want to learn religion, you don't walk into a science class, even though science can be closely associated with religion if taught in the proper context.

If this is true, and I don;t think it is can you explain why prominent Islamic scholars thought the earth was flat if the koran clearly stated the opposite!!!!

Can you please point out which "prominent" Muslim Scholars you are referring to?

This is strange, the Moon does not ommit it's own light. it only reflects and the odds are 50/50!!!!! the earth being spherical is another issue

The article clearly says "The Qur’an rightly says it is a reflected light" so nobody is saying the moon emits its own light, but merely that it could have been thought to do so when it was not discovered. And it does say the chances of this being correct, if a guess, is 50:50, but if you take the chance of this being correct along with the chance that the guess the earth is spherical (which, if a guess, had a much smaller probability of being correct) being correct, the total probability becomes even smaller that both were guessed correctly. It's simple maths, not trying to compare two seperate ideas.

The Koran is interpreted as knowing the truth after the discovery is made. never before

That is a lie: Muslims have believed every word of the Qur'an since its revelation and when discoveries proved its text, this only strengthened their faith. The Qur'an itself states it is the truth:
[2.252] These are the communications of Allah: We recite them to you with truth; and most surely you are (one) of the apostles.

Anyway I fail to see the reasoning behind your statement because it is not as though the Qur'an is changed in light of recent findings - it has always been the same script no matter what has been the belief of mankind.

This is about evolution v creationism, so far

And seeing that is the topic of this thread, I don't know why you should state it again.

and their are some who will beleive anything even without evidence.....

I spent half the post talking about evidence... hopefully it can clarify your claim.

This has all gone off-topic, congrats for wasting the thread!!

No offence intended..........

Well sometimes you have to go off-topic to view the context or gain a deeper understanding of what is being discussed. Seeing as we are still having a discussion that is based around the topic of the thread, I don't see how it is wasted at all.

Regards.

 

[Bittersteel]

Anyway I fail to see the reasoning behind your statement because it is not as though the Qur'an is changed in light of recent findings - it has always been the same script no matter what has been the belief of mankind.

and bro Muhammad surely umm...someone has studied the ancient Qurans and they are similar aren't they?The ones in Tashkent Topkapi?

they too contain the miracles don't they?

 

[czgibson]

Btw - What's ID?

Sorry to butt in here - for the purposes of understanding, ID refers to "Intelligent Design Theory", which is a revamped version of the (very old) argument from design used by theists and creationists to defend belief in god.

 

[root]

Sorry to butt in here - for the purposes of understanding, ID refers to "Intelligent Design Theory", which is a revamped version of the (very old) argument from design used by theists and creationists to defend belief in god.

To add to that. czgibson is correct, it is a revamped version of "Creationism". Finding a distinct lack of scientific support and by this I mean scientific proof the nature of the arguement went through a distinct change. Creationism is the view that the Genesis account for "creation" is correct and accurately describes how we came to be as humans. ID is the new brand that argues that complexity of design must have a designer (an intelligent designer). This then allows lots of manouvering and co-operation from various religions under an ID umbrella, often Intelligent Design can nearly always be debated upon without mentioning who the "creator" actually is. Thus scrapping the whole "who is god" hypothosis.

ID is classed as a non-scientific because it breaks many valuable laws of science in that the subject must be testable cross referenced and able to make several predictions. ID can do none of this and is the reason it is left out of the science class and used for religous teachings onlym, In science ID is a lie. because we cannot understand a complex issue, does not imply we will never understand such issues in the future.

 

[Muhammad]

and bro Muhammad surely umm...someone has studied the ancient Qurans and they are similar aren't they?The ones in Tashkent Topkapi?

they too contain the miracles don't they?

The Qur'an has been preserved throughout the ages in its original form as Allaah has promised to keep it that way.

Sorry, I don't know what Tashkent Topkapi is, but I do know that the Qur'an we read today is the same Qur'an that was revealed to Muhammad (peace and belssings of Allaah be upon him).

 

[Danish]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!


Harun yahya has refuted "Evolution in Quran" as well as the theory...it was in his website darwinwatchout.com i think where he refuted "Evolution in Quran" thesis

 

[root]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!

Harun yahya has refuted "Evolution in Quran" as well as the theory...it was in his website darwinwatchout.com i think where he refuted "Evolution in Quran" thesis

hmmm, refuting the theory of evolution. I tried the link but no luck. What is the URL please.

Regards

Root

 

[Danish]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!


he got several sites, he published many books on evolution...he is a famous anti-evolutionist scientist in turkey...his official site is http://www.harunyahya.com/

 

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!


the links are actually:
http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/
http://www.darwinism-watch.com/index.php
http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/

 

[root]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!

Hi All

Thanks for the links, I never got past the first paragraph. The page in question is: http://www.harunyahya.com/articles/unique_deception_evolution.php

The way that for 150 years certain people have been devoted to such an extraordinarily illogical belief as the theory of evolution is a great miracle created by God by making use of Satan. Those with good sense and faith in God and who are aware of this miracle have been waiting for 150 years to see just when evolutionists would become aware of this deception of Satan's, and have been using various means of suggestion, employing scientific and rational methods, to awaken them.

OK, right from the word go. I don't think your average muslim would be in the right frame of mind to even begin on the basic principles of evolution. before he even reads a single word of evolution, he has already been told the origin of evolution is satans work. Of which is a question of belief and not science.

The way that hundreds of thousands of professors, scientists, university students and doctors have blindly believed in the exceptionally illogical claims of the theory of evolution is a historical phenomenon that will be remembered with astonishment in no more than 20 years, and will be the subject of jokes and sketches.

I like jokes and sketches, when appropriate that is. So I will save it for later.

Believers in evolution fall under the spell of the Latin terminology and pompous language employed by evolutionist scientists, saying, "whatever they say must be true," and do not think about the real meaning of what they are told. One of the most effective ways of getting these people to think is to explain what the theory of evolution actually maintains in a very clear and simple manner, and thus to remove the spell under which they have fallen.

Now, already I am bored with the constant attack on how evil and stupid I am and how I am either controlled by satan or under a magic spell. Can he just please talk the talk.

The Claims of the Theory of Evolution Are a Complete Violation of Reason and Logic

The big build up and drum roll please.

According to the unscientific and irrational claim of the theory of evolution, the nothingness in the infinite universe gradually gave rise to mankind as a result of chance developments.

Blatant Inaacuracy #1: The theory of evolution is the theory of a Gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex and better form. It has zippo to do with the origins of the first molecules, how life initiatially started and absolutely bugger all to do with the formation of the Universe as the writer implies.

How can you discuss "evolution" when you don't even know what evolution involves!!!

Now, as promised. if he like his jokes then so do I. Please find below the "Biology Exam" for proposed scientific school test.


Do you know of any building that didn't have a builder? [YES] [NO]
Do you know of any painting that didn't have a painter? [YES] [NO]
Do you know of any car that didn't have a maker? [YES] [NO]

If you answer "Yes" to any of the above please state references and sources.

 

[- Qatada -]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!

Do you know of any building that didn't have a builder? [YES] [NO]
Do you know of any painting that didn't have a painter? [YES] [NO]
Do you know of any car that didn't have a maker? [YES] [NO]

If you answer "Yes" to any of the above please state references and sources.

all praise is due to Allah (swt) and his beloved prophet (salallahu alahi hi wasalam) and the prophet (salallahu alai hi wasalam)'s family and all who follow them.

lol i can't believe it, a building can't be built without a creator yet the whole planets and the universe got created 'by chance?' yet at the same time all of them orbit the sun perfectly, theres always a certain number of months within a year and that never changes:


"It is He Who made the sun to be a shining glory, and the moon to be a light of beauty, and measured out stages for it, that you might know the number of years and the count of time. Allah did not create this except in truth and righteousness. And He explains His signs in detail, for those who understand" (10:5).

if its just a accident then why is everything so perfect? why couldn't they have been 250 dayz in one year and 365 in another? even man made buildingz have flaws in yet the earths been here for thousands of years and everythings so perfect. - the reasons obvious: and thats cz theres a greater power who controls all this - and thats Allah (swt).

Allah (swt) knows best...

 

[czgibson]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!

Greetings,

I've just finished reading the article linked by Danish. It's quite amazing really. One of the least scientific pieces of writing I've ever seen; filled with weak straw man arguments and ad hominem attacks. It's one of the most blatant misrepresentations I've ever seen of what the theory of evolution actually is. If anyone thinks this writer's views actually have anything to do with evolution, I would suggest they go to the source and read some Darwin. It's best to find out what the theory actually is before deciding that it is unbelievable.

Peace

 

[root]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!

The presumed embarrassment of the test-taker when faced with this task perfectly expresses the incredulity many people feel when they confront Darwin's great idea. It seems obvious, doesn't it, that there couldn't be any designs without designers, any such creations without a creator.

Well, yes - until you look at what contemporary biology has demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt: that natural selection - the process in which reproducing entities must compete for finite resources and thereby engage in a tournament of blind trial and error from which improvements automatically emerge - has the power to generate breathtakingly ingenious designs.

Take the development of the eye, which has been one of the favorite challenges of creationists. How on earth, they ask, could that engineering marvel be produced by a series of small, unplanned steps? Only an intelligent designer could have created such a brilliant arrangement of a shape-shifting lens, an aperture-adjusting iris, a light-sensitive image surface of exquisite sensitivity, all housed in a sphere that can shift its aim in a hundredth of a second and send megabytes of information to the visual cortex every second for years on end.

But as we learn more and more about the history of the genes involved, and how they work - all the way back to their predecessor genes in the sightless bacteria from which multicelled animals evolved more than a half-billion years ago - we can begin to tell the story of how photosensitive spots gradually turned into light-sensitive craters that could detect the rough direction from which light came, and then gradually acquired their lenses, improving their information-gathering capacities all the while.

We can't yet say what all the details of this process were, but real eyes representative of all the intermediate stages can be found, dotted around the animal kingdom, and we have detailed computer models to demonstrate that the creative process works just as the theory says.

All it takes is a rare accident that gives one lucky animal a mutation that improves its vision over that of its siblings; if this helps it have more offspring than its rivals, this gives evolution an opportunity to raise the bar and ratchet up the design of the eye by one mindless step. And since these lucky improvements accumulate - this was Darwin's insight - eyes can automatically get better and better and better, without any intelligent designer.

Brilliant as the design of the eye is, it betrays its origin with a tell-tale flaw: the retina is inside out. The nerve fibers that carry the signals from the eye's rods and cones (which sense light and color) lie on top of them, and have to plunge through a large hole in the retina to get to the brain, creating the blind spot. No intelligent designer would put such a clumsy arrangement in a camcorder, and this is just one of hundreds of accidents frozen in evolutionary history that confirm the mindlessness of the historical process.

If you still find Test Two compelling, a sort of cognitive illusion that you can feel even as you discount it, you are like just about everybody else in the world; the idea that natural selection has the power to generate such sophisticated designs is deeply counterintuitive. Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of DNA, once jokingly credited his colleague Leslie Orgel with "Orgel's Second Rule": Evolution is cleverer than you are. Evolutionary biologists are often startled by the power of natural selection to "discover" an "ingenious" solution to a design problem posed in the lab.

This observation lets us address a slightly more sophisticated version of the cognitive illusion presented by Test Two. When evolutionists like Crick marvel at the cleverness of the process of natural selection they are not acknowledging intelligent design. The designs found in nature are nothing short of brilliant, but the process of design that generates them is utterly lacking in intelligence of its own.

Intelligent design advocates, however, exploit the ambiguity between process and product that is built into the word "design." For them, the presence of a finished product (a fully evolved eye, for instance) is evidence of an intelligent design process. But this tempting conclusion is just what evolutionary biology has shown to be mistaken.

Yes, eyes are for seeing, but these and all the other purposes in the natural world can be generated by processes that are themselves without purposes and without intelligence. This is hard to understand, but so is the idea that colored objects in the world are composed of atoms that are not themselves colored, and that heat is not made of tiny hot things.

The focus on intelligent design has, paradoxically, obscured something else: genuine scientific controversies about evolution that abound. In just about every field there are challenges to one established theory or another. The legitimate way to stir up such a storm is to come up with an alternative theory that makes a prediction that is crisply denied by the reigning theory - but that turns out to be true, or that explains something that has been baffling defenders of the status quo, or that unifies two distant theories at the cost of some element of the currently accepted view.

To date, the proponents of intelligent design have not produced anything like that. No experiments with results that challenge any mainstream biological understanding. No observations from the fossil record or genomics or biogeography or comparative anatomy that undermine standard evolutionary thinking.

Instead, the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist's work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a "controversy" to teach.

Note that the trick is content-free. You can use it on any topic. "Smith's work in geology supports my argument that the earth is flat," you say, misrepresenting Smith's work. When Smith responds with a denunciation of your misuse of her work, you respond, saying something like: "See what a controversy we have here? Professor Smith and I are locked in a titanic scientific debate. We should teach the controversy in the classrooms." And here is the delicious part: you can often exploit the very technicality of the issues to your own advantage, counting on most of us to miss the point in all the difficult details.

William Dembski, one of the most vocal supporters of intelligent design, notes that he provoked Thomas Schneider, a biologist, into a response that Dr. Dembski characterizes as "some hair-splitting that could only look ridiculous to outsider observers." What looks to scientists - and is - a knockout objection by Dr. Schneider is portrayed to most everyone else as ridiculous hair-splitting.

In short, no science. Indeed, no intelligent design hypothesis has even been ventured as a rival explanation of any biological phenomenon. This might seem surprising to people who think that intelligent design competes directly with the hypothesis of non-intelligent design by natural selection. But saying, as intelligent design proponents do, "You haven't explained everything yet," is not a competing hypothesis. Evolutionary biology certainly hasn't explained everything that perplexes biologists. But intelligent design hasn't yet tried to explain anything.

To formulate a competing hypothesis, you have to get down in the trenches and offer details that have testable implications. So far, intelligent design proponents have conveniently sidestepped that requirement, claiming that they have no specifics in mind about who or what the intelligent designer might be.

To see this shortcoming in relief, consider an imaginary hypothesis of intelligent design that could explain the emergence of human beings on this planet:

About six million years ago, intelligent genetic engineers from another galaxy visited Earth and decided that it would be a more interesting planet if there was a language-using, religion-forming species on it, so they sequestered some primates and genetically re-engineered them to give them the language instinct, and enlarged frontal lobes for planning and reflection. It worked.

If some version of this hypothesis were true, it could explain how and why human beings differ from their nearest relatives, and it would disconfirm the competing evolutionary hypotheses that are being pursued.

We'd still have the problem of how these intelligent genetic engineers came to exist on their home planet, but we can safely ignore that complication for the time being, since there is not the slightest shred of evidence in favor of this hypothesis.

But here is something the intelligent design community is reluctant to discuss: no other intelligent-design hypothesis has anything more going for it. In fact, my farfetched hypothesis has the advantage of being testable in principle: we could compare the human and chimpanzee genomes, looking for unmistakable signs of tampering by these genetic engineers from another galaxy. Finding some sort of user's manual neatly embedded in the apparently functionless "junk DNA" that makes up most of the human genome would be a Nobel Prize-winning coup for the intelligent design gang, but if they are looking at all, they haven't come up with anything to report.

It's worth pointing out that there are plenty of substantive scientific controversies in biology that are not yet in the textbooks or the classrooms. The scientific participants in these arguments vie for acceptance among the relevant expert communities in peer-reviewed journals, and the writers and editors of textbooks grapple with judgments about which findings have risen to the level of acceptance - not yet truth - to make them worth serious consideration by undergraduates and high school students.

SO get in line, intelligent designers. Get in line behind the hypothesis that life started on Mars and was blown here by a cosmic impact. Get in line behind the aquatic ape hypothesis, the gestural origin of language hypothesis and the theory that singing came before language, to mention just a few of the enticing hypotheses that are actively defended but still insufficiently supported by hard facts.

The Discovery Institute, the conservative organization that has helped to put intelligent design on the map, complains that its members face hostility from the established scientific journals. But establishment hostility is not the real hurdle to intelligent design. If intelligent design were a scientific idea whose time had come, young scientists would be dashing around their labs, vying to win the Nobel Prizes that surely are in store for anybody who can overturn any significant proposition of contemporary evolutionary biology.

Remember cold fusion? The establishment was incredibly hostile to that hypothesis, but scientists around the world rushed to their labs in the effort to explore the idea, in hopes of sharing in the glory if it turned out to be true.

Instead of spending more than $1 million a year on publishing books and articles for non-scientists and on other public relations efforts, the Discovery Institute should finance its own peer-reviewed electronic journal. This way, the organization could live up to its self-professed image: the doughty defenders of brave iconoclasts bucking the establishment.

For now, though, the theory they are promoting is exactly what George Gilder, a long-time affiliate of the Discovery Institute, has said it is: "Intelligent design itself does not have any content."

Since there is no content, there is no "controversy" to teach about in biology class. But here is a good topic for a high school course on current events and politics: Is intelligent design a hoax? And if so, how was it perpetrated?

 

[Muhammad]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!

Hello root!

OK, right from the word go. I don't think your average muslim would be in the right frame of mind to even begin on the basic principles of evolution. before he even reads a single word of evolution, he has already been told the origin of evolution is satans work. Of which is a question of belief and not science.

No, I think you have misunderstood what has been said in the paragraph:

the theory of evolution is a great miracle created by God by making use of Satan. Those with good sense and faith in God and who are aware of this miracle have been waiting for 150 years to see just when evolutionists would become aware of this deception of Satan's,​

Thus he is not saying that evolution itself is a work of Satan, but rather the "extraordinarily illogical belief as the theory of evolution" is from the works of Satan. I am not saying I agree with this, but simply what the author of the article was saying. Yet seeing how Satan is trying his best to divert humankind from the True Path, I see no reason why he has nothing to do with misguiding people into believing in theories such as that of evolution.

Now, already I am bored with the constant attack on how evil and stupid I am and how I am either controlled by satan or under a magic spell. Can he just please talk the talk.

There's no need to feel that way. For one thing, we as Muslims have to put up with people discrediting the Qur'an without reading it, and people making unfounded claims on our Prophet (pbuh) and yet you think you are the only one who is bored with attacks on your doctrine?!

And secondly, the author was not implying you were evil or controlled by Satan, so I think you have shown bias before you even gave the article a deserving open-mind. If you didn't like the opening, then you could have just ignored it and moved on rather than ignored the whole article.

Blatant Inaacuracy #1: The theory of evolution is the theory of a Gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex and better form. It has zippo to do with the origins of the first molecules, how life initiatially started and absolutely bugger all to do with the formation of the Universe as the writer implies.

How can you discuss "evolution" when you don't even know what evolution involves!!!

theory of evolution
n : (biology) a scientific theory of the origin of species of plants and animals

Is not the origins of the first molecules related to the origin of the plants and animals? You might be talking about natural selection but I believe that is only a part of the bigger picture of the theory of how life started. You seem to be finding excuses to avoid the article...

Do you know of any building that didn't have a builder? [YES] [NO]
Do you know of any painting that didn't have a painter? [YES] [NO]
Do you know of any car that didn't have a maker? [YES] [NO]

If you answer "Yes" to any of the above please state references and sources.

I didn't really get that. I don't think anyone can answer 'Yes' and if they did, then they should rightly provide their sources. It only seems to illustrate the belief of atheists: that our world was created without a Creator!

One of the least scientific pieces of writing I've ever seen

If you are referring to the same article that we are discussing here, then I believe it was not a good choice since it does not have much scientific content. There are many articles on that site, perhaps you can try some others.

Peace.

 

[root]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!

Hi Muhammad,

theory of evolution
n : (biology) a scientific theory of the origin of species of plants and animals

Is not the origins of the first molecules related to the origin of the plants and animals? You might be talking about natural selection but I believe that is only a part of the bigger picture of the theory of how life started. You seem to be finding excuses to avoid the article...

What Evolution IS and IS NOT

there’s a lot of confusion about this. Basically, this is what evolution is:

The change in allele frequency in a population over time

Creationists generally define evolution thus:

Evolution is the process whereby humans came from nothingness, without the aid of a god. (The Creator)

This is not the scientifically definition of evolution. For a start, the last bit ('without the aid of a god') is not part of the theory of evolution. In addition, by defining evolution as every process that happened in the chain of events that, starting from nothing, resulted in mankind, you are including a lot of theories which are not covered by the scientist's definition of evolution. Since ultimately Evolution does not seek to explain in full the very origins of the Big Bang since one could cause contoversy in this area as an indirect means of causing controversy to the theory of Evolution. Indeed as you have indicated below:

Is not the origins of the first molecules related to the origin of the plants and animals? You might be talking about natural selection but I believe that is only a part of the bigger picture of the theory of how life started. You seem to be finding excuses to avoid the article...

If you start on the premis that for the evolution of man within primates requires the full understanding of how the first molecules related, then one can easily add that to support the theory of evolution one must be able to scientifically prove the birth of the universe which require the big bang theory.

I don't think you have read my last post before this one. (Look UP)!

Regards

Root

 

[Muhammad]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!

Greetings root,

While you might not be the author of this article (in post no.13), I have still referred to him as "you" - just in case you got a bit confused. And in my opinion, intelligent design and creationism are hardly any different and seem to only complicate matters therefore I have treated the two as though they are almost one, and of course I am speaking from an Islamic viewpoint in the discussion

The presumed embarrassment of the test-taker when faced with this task perfectly expresses the incredulity many people feel when they confront Darwin's great idea. It seems obvious, doesn't it, that there couldn't be any designs without designers, any such creations without a creator.

Well, yes -

So you do admit that it's illogical to believe in a creation without a Creator!

until you look at what contemporary biology has demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt:

I don't think it's right to say "beyond all reasonable doubt". It has been mentioned earlier that

The probability of such a chance occurrence leading to the formation of one of the smallest protein molecules is unimaginably small. Within the boundary conditions of time and space which we are considering, it is effectively zero.​

As is stated towards the end of the article, there are many controversies in science and thus its a grossly inaccurate assertion to say that there are no doubts.

that natural selection - the process in which reproducing entities must compete for finite resources and thereby engage in a tournament of blind trial and error from which improvements automatically emerge - has the power to generate breathtakingly ingenious designs.

The very words "trial and error" and "breathtakingly ingenious designs" don't seem to go very well together, logically speaking. It might be worth mentioning the definition of design:

1. To plan out in systematic, usually graphic form
2. To create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect
3. To have as a goal or purpose; intend.
4. To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner.

And so you are saying by blind experimentation, everything was created in an orderly, systematic procedure - all with a purpose and in a highly skilled manner?!

If we did an experiment in the lab based on trial and error, we would not expect to achieve good results without getting a random assortment of failures and successes first. If such an experiment were carried out on a large scale as the universe, would not the failures be that much more fatal and thus destructive to life? Yet the very fact that life keeps running so smoothly is evident of a clear design beyond mere trial and error.

But as we learn more and more about the history of the genes involved, and how they work - all the way back to their predecessor genes in the sightless bacteria from which multicelled animals evolved more than a half-billion years ago - we can begin to tell the story of how photosensitive spots gradually turned into light-sensitive craters that could detect the rough direction from which light came, and then gradually acquired their lenses, improving their information-gathering capacities all the while.

Harun Yahya refutes these claims and explains how even primitive eyes could not have emerged by chance, at the same time and in the same being. Read here.

We can't yet say what all the details of this process were, but real eyes representative of all the intermediate stages can be found, dotted around the animal kingdom, and we have detailed computer models to demonstrate that the creative process works just as the theory says.

Unfortunately, Computer models are not the same as real-life scenarios.

All it takes is a rare accident that gives one lucky animal a mutation that improves its vision over that of its siblings; if this helps it have more offspring than its rivals, this gives evolution an opportunity to raise the bar and ratchet up the design of the eye by one mindless step. And since these lucky improvements accumulate - this was Darwin's insight - eyes can automatically get better and better and better, without any intelligent designer.

Brilliant as the design of the eye is, it betrays its origin with a tell-tale flaw: the retina is inside out. The nerve fibers that carry the signals from the eye's rods and cones (which sense light and color) lie on top of them, and have to plunge through a large hole in the retina to get to the brain, creating the blind spot. No intelligent designer would put such a clumsy arrangement in a camcorder, and this is just one of hundreds of accidents frozen in evolutionary history that confirm the mindlessness of the historical process.

Oh, so now that you don't understand something, it's a fault of God is it, but anything that's too good to be true is down to a bit of luck and chance...

Intelligent design advocates, however, exploit the ambiguity between process and product that is built into the word "design." For them, the presence of a finished product (a fully evolved eye, for instance) is evidence of an intelligent design process. But this tempting conclusion is just what evolutionary biology has shown to be mistaken.

Yes, eyes are for seeing, but these and all the other purposes in the natural world can be generated by processes that are themselves without purposes and without intelligence.

Which goes to show that natural selection could not account for such marvelous design, for if it really is "without purpose" and "without intelligence", why are "ingenious designs" attributed to such processes?

This is hard to understand, but so is the idea that colored objects in the world are composed of atoms that are not themselves colored, and that heat is not made of tiny hot things.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the argument. We might as well add in, "and eyes are not made up of tiny seeing things"! You are digging the hole deeper for yourself when you say "this is hard to understand", for indeed, the very concept that purposeless and random processes created working complexities is what people like me are wondering ourselves. Coloured objects might consist of colourless atoms, but those atoms did not spontaneously appear and form into that object of their own accord.

To date, the proponents of intelligent design have not produced anything like that. No experiments with results that challenge any mainstream biological understanding. No observations from the fossil record or genomics or biogeography or comparative anatomy that undermine standard evolutionary thinking.

And having an understanding of the Islamic faith to some degree, I would have thought that you understood that we do not base our beliefs on scientific discoveries or else we would have published our own journals by now!

Instead, the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist's work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a "controversy" to teach.

OK how shall I put this, its "one of the most blatant misrepresentations I've ever seen" and "one of the least accurate pieces of writing I've ever seen" and you know, I think I am getting tired of being told how I don't know what the theory of evolution really means or involves or how I am misunderstanding scientists.

Note that the trick is content-free. You can use it on any topic. "Smith's work in geology supports my argument that the earth is flat," you say, misrepresenting Smith's work. When Smith responds with a denunciation of your misuse of her work, you respond, saying something like: "See what a controversy we have here? Professor Smith and I are locked in a titanic scientific debate. We should teach the controversy in the classrooms." And here is the delicious part: you can often exploit the very technicality of the issues to your own advantage, counting on most of us to miss the point in all the difficult details.

Codswallop.

"You haven't explained everything yet," is not a competing hypothesis.

Actually it is, because if you want a theory to be accepted then at least explain it to the full rather than leaving gaps here and there (when there shouldn't be any) for assumptions.

But intelligent design hasn't yet tried to explain anything.

Yes it has, only that it doesn't use science to do it.

To formulate a competing hypothesis, you have to get down in the trenches and offer details that have testable implications.

I guess this is the difference between religion and science - we don't make our own hypotheses, we understand everything in light of what God taught us.

So far, intelligent design proponents have conveniently sidestepped that requirement, claiming that they have no specifics in mind about who or what the intelligent designer might be.

It's quite pointless arguing this, since we have already established elsewhere on this forum that believing in God is an act of faith, and therefore is not something that can be scientifically proven. There are Signs and Revelations, but not laboratory results or else the whole concept of life being a test somehow wouldn't seem to fit anymore.

The whole thing about the engineer coming from another galaxy is plain stupidity and I could not see its relevance in the discussion. Since we already know Who is the Creator and why we are here, that seems like something for you to ponder over in your own leisure time.

SO get in line, intelligent designers. Get in line behind the hypothesis that life started on Mars and was blown here by a cosmic impact.

Lol, you know that sounds almost as absurd as the engineer-from-another-galaxy-coming-to-earth hypothesis!

Get in line behind the aquatic ape hypothesis, the gestural origin of language hypothesis and the theory that singing came before language, to mention just a few of the enticing hypotheses that are actively defended but still insufficiently supported by hard facts.

Well at least the author admits the "insufficiently supported by hard facts" bit, which kind of disappoints the reader to say the least. After all this rubbish about "intelligent design proponents" not showing hard evidence, materialists can't even do it themselves and come up with such unbelievable conclusions and act as though they're the first thing that would come to mind when someone should wonder about the origin of life!

Peace.

P.S. Thankyou for clarifying the meaning of evolution; I will be more careful when discussing it with you. As an additional question, what name do you give the formation of the Universe - abiogenesis?

 

[czgibson]

Re: Evolution Was First Said In Quran, It Almost Demands Believing On It!

Hi Muhammad,

If you are referring to the same article that we are discussing here, then I believe it was not a good choice since it does not have much scientific content. There are many articles on that site, perhaps you can try some others.

Yes, I'm talking about the same article. It purports to be scientific, but it is not.

I've had a look at various other articles on the site, and aside from containing blatant factual inaccuracies, they use similar tactics to those in the article that attempts to refute evolution: Misrepresent the arguments and ideas of, say, Kant, Freud or Darwin, then demolish the weak misrepresented arguments. This is commonly known as the straw man fallacy, and the author is guilty of it in so many places that I don't know where to start in explaining his errors. Here are two, just for starters, both from the article "The Fall of Atheism":

Immanuel Kant: Proposed the idea of a universe without a beginning or an end. He was terribly wrong.

Kant did propose this idea, but he did not suggest at any time that this was his final view on the matter. He actually said that it is possible to construct arguments to demonstrate both that the universe is eternal and that it began at a finite point in time. Which of the two views somebody believes is, according to Kant, not something that can be determined by logic. This is one of his famous "antinomies" (paradoxes) of space and time.

In fact, a world without religion actually brought them to an unhappy end. The hippy leaders of the 1960s either killed themselves or died from drug-induced comas in the early 1970s.

This is such a load of nonsense it's difficult to see where the author got the idea from in the first place. For a start, "Imagine" by John Lennon, which talks about a world with no religion, was not released until 1971, so although it shares some of the ideals of the 1960s youth movements, to say that it was a guiding work for them is simply wrong. Also, John Lennon himself provides an obvious example against the author's assertion about how "hippie leaders" met their ends. Lennon, possibly the single person the hippies looked up to most, did not kill himself or die from a coma - he was assassinated in December 1980.

These two inaccuracies are just the tip of the iceberg. The author is clearly convinced of his position, and is prepared to distort the facts beyond recognition in order to support his case. This is clearly not how reasoned argument should proceed.

Peace