Haha, jokes aside.
I read the Feb 2009 issue of National Geographic and it featured the main article entitled:
“What Darwin Did Not Know” as a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Darwinian idea.
The article started off with history; about Charles Darwin’s voyage to the South America, Galapagos included, on HMS Beagle in the early 1800s.
It was on this voyage that Darwin began to develop his incendiary idea, that was to challenge the Christian authorities back at home (England).
He maintained a personal diary, in which he jotted down his thoughts and early postulations. On the isolated islands of the Galapagos, he observed many different species of turtles with markedly different shell shapes. And who could forget, the legendary, Darwinian icon, the finches. Finches with different beak sizes, shapes, stripes etc. And he proposed one thing, that they all had a common ancestor and changed, evolved, transmutated, (Nat Geo says Darwin used the word transmutated instead of evolved) over time across many generations of progeny.
In the article, they claimed to have found a new revelation about Darwin’s history; that his ingenuity that beget Darwinism started earlier than the HMS Beagle voyage, which is generally accepted to be single event or episode that sparked the Darwinian idea. I felt rather disgusted at this; because they seem to champion Darwin even further, by claiming that he actually had thought of this brilliant theory years before HMS Beagle.
Anyway, they noted that back at home, Darwin had been studying fossils, although he was no paleontologist. Some of the specimens he mingled with included an extinct giant sloth, and the taxodon, an early mammal that had the features of other mammals. All these led him to the idea that some sort of evolution, or change, must have happened.
He sent the specimens of finches and armadillos to experts in England for examination. It was here that he surmised even more about his theory.
He did not immediately publish his groundbreaking work, The Origin of Species, for fear of resistance from the then powerful Anglican Church of England. But in his private life, he was already an established Darwinist.
Some years after the Beagle voyage, he published The Origin of Species, which is more of a scientific academic material. (I saw one version of the Origin of Species published by Penguin, which typically publishes works of literatue in the likes of Macbeth and Animal Farm).
The Origin is already controversial enough. And in it, Darwin did not tackle the evolution of Humans. He dealt with that only years later before his death, in his book titled The Descent of Man.
It is noted that the notion of the survival of the fittest/most well adapted/sexes was not from Darwin himself. It was from another person whose name I can’t recall at the moment. Anyway, that person saw that when animals give birth to a large number of offspring, few will make it into adulthood to reproduce. Hence the idea of survival of the fittest.
In Darwin’s time, he had a particular trouble with the male peacock’s feathers. It is too aesthetically pleasing to be a product of chance, randomness, that is inherent in evolution. Darwin said “ the peacock’s feathers make me sick.”
The Beautiful Feathers of the Peacock
So now comes the survival of the sexes. 2 views into this:
1. A nice feather to attract mate -> higher chance of mating and reproduction
2. A beautiful feather indicates fitness, health etc.
But then again, it does not answer the why aesthetically pleasing part. The wishy-washy answer is always as such: Due to our long exposure, from the time of our ancestors, we have viewed such feathers, an indicator of fitness, as beautiful precisely because it (feathers that are beautiful) reflects a healthy individual.
=) so amacam?
What has it got to do with us, how does this impact the Muslim?
We know for certain and with conviction that Adam and Eve were the first parents of all humans.
The issue of variation in organisms.
We need to understand the current accepted biological definition of Species:
A species in one which members can interbreed with one another to produce fertile, viable offspring.
Tigers and Lions are different species. Records of cross-mating between the two have produced Ligers, but Ligers are not fertile and cannot reproduce. Hence tigers and lions are different species. Same for donkey and horse.
We need to understand that variation exists even within a species. And we seriously need to tackle the question of when will variation be too much such that organisms are now two different species. This is the wishy-washy part.
In all likelihood, the finches Darwin saw were just variations of the same species, perfectly viable and can produce fertile offspring. We do see this today.
Variation seen in Finches
In humans, and in Islamic literature, biological variation is an accepted phenomenon. From one pair of parents, we now have so many races, all perfectly viable. It is absurd and unethical to assert otherwise, lest we be like some race who declare only themselves humans, and that the gentiles are animals (ooops! I have disclosed the race when I said gentiles, because gentiles are non-____).
Islam promotes the establishment of relationships (silatur rahmi) between different races, encourages marriage into different families or even races (usually done during conquests), and strongly discourages close-relationship marriages. At the very least, this is encouraged from the societal perspective.
But the wisdom of God and His Messenger is transcendent. We now see its significance/importance in modern biology, Down’s syndrome, genetic inbreeding etc.
Another one about variation.
A hadith about a man who came to the Prophet s.a.w. to complain. (exact hadith or reference I am not very sure, but I know this hadith exist)
The man complained to the Prophet s.a.w. that he suspected his wife was unfaithful and had had a one night stand with another man before. His basis for suspicion: he had a son who looked significantly different from the rest of the family(siblings and parents).
The Prophet s.a.w. replied to this effect:
“No, don’t talk nonsense. Have you seen the camels (or was it sheep, not very sure)? Have you noticed how one of their young can be very different from the rest? How one can be so much whiter etc?”
Subhanallah, it is so heartening to listen to the Prophet’s hadith, especially when he reveals his wisdom.
Maa yanthiqu ‘anil hawaa, in huwa illa wahyui yuuhaa…
So , quite clearly, variation is acknowledged in Islam.
The question now is, when does variation constitute Darwinism?
Also, we must bear in mind that Darwinists like to lay claims on so many theories; on our part, we must therefore be prudent in rejecting only that which contradicts the Quran. Darwinists lay claims to so many other theories, some of which are genuinely true and accepted in Islam such as genetic variation. As such, we cannot dismiss all these theories altogether.
Islam affirms that Man came from Adam and Eve, other explanations are wrong.
As for animals, it is never mentioned in Islamic literature that God fixed a certain number of species in this world. And that for every species there is their version of Adam and Eve. It could very well be the case that God allowed variation in animals such as finches, and that it is only us who want to see them as different species. So to assert that those different finches had a common ancestor would not be as rejecting of our aqidah as asserting that Man descended from Apes would be.
Another issue highlighted in Feb 2009 Nat Geo was that the same genes across different species control the same expressions. This, they say, is proof of evolution. That Man and chimpanzees are more than 95% similar was declared when the Human Genome was fully mapped in 2003. Again, purported to be evidence for evolution.
The same genes that control the expression of limbs in humans, when altered in stingrays produced predictable results of a differed set of fins. They have already, prior to this, established the fins of stingrays and our hands as corresponding or analogous parts in trying to come up with a relationship for evolution.
Very smacking against fellow creationists. Therefore we must have knowledge.
The striking similarity between Man and Chimpanzees is not to be wholesale accepted as solid evidence for evolution. Whales and earthworms are more than 90% similar. Relationships that go against the Darwinists’ Tree of Life also produced high percentages of similarity. Apes and cows are also very similar genetics wise. Reason: Organisms live in the same environment and thus have the same tasks of metabolizing the same kind of amino acids, sugars, oxygen etc.
Anyways, similarities can also mean another thing; One shared Creator who designed and created variation.
Like I said, this thing about variation is very wishy-washy.
But certain impasses to Darwin still stand:
How to account for the Origin of life? When in fact DNA itself is a highly complicated, organized structure?
Photosynthesis, a process we cannot replicate even till today, yet it was up and running millions of years ago.
How to explain fossil records of an explosion (sudden appearance) of complexed organisms fully formed?
Where are the supposed to-be-many intermediates?
Whatever happened to living fossils, which for so many millions of years have not changed from their fossil ancestors?
To assert that random mutations to an already organized, complex system can produce greater organization or enhancement is to go against the Third Law of Thermodynamics, that all organized systems tend towards disorderliness.
How to explain intangible qualities like intelligence, perceptions, emotions? Are they just results of hormones?
Stand unfettered in the face of Darwinism. Bear full conviction that Man descended from Adam and Eve, and not apes.
When coming up with Darwinistic ideas, Darwinists always have this conviction ready at the back of their mind, that this world is all material. Nothing immaterial exists, God does not exist.
And they have an undying propensity to herald and champion Darwinism, and extrapolate it into other non-related fields such as sociology and astronomy. All these in denying the Existence of God.
Richard Dawkins unreservedly declared that there is no Darwinism without Atheism.
But do not be afraid, truth shall manifest and falsehood defeated. Darwinism is not all of Biology, or science for that matter.
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