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Evolution - the last gasp of a dying dogma By Dr. Ahmed Mahmoud Introduction: Evolution describes the change in genetic material of a population of organisms through successive generations. The accumulation of these small changes over time can cause substantial changes in a population, a process that can result in the emergence of new species (or speciation). Proponents of this theory postulate that similarities among species suggest that all known species are descended from a common ancestor through this process of gradual divergence.
New or existing information? The process is sometimes divided into macroevolution (true evolution), and microevolution (variation), and this distinction is very important as they are two distinct phenomena but evolutionists tend to bundle them together to give their theory more credibility. Microevolution describes the variation within the genetics of a species that allow predominant traits within species to change in response to environmental factors with the most useful traits in each environment surviving. For example, the fastest cheetahs in the Serengeti will survive as they are more likely to catch Gazelles. Equally the fastest Gazelles will survive, as they are more likely to evade the cheetahs. So the existing genes within the species that cause the animals to move faster will survive. Hence they will be selected for and become predominant. I prefer not to use the term microevolution, and would rather call this process adaptation utilising existing variation in the genetics of the species, as no new information has been added, but pre-existing traits have been selected based on environmental pressures.
Macroevolution - or what I will term evolution from now on in this essay, involves two main mechanisms. Genetic mutations which are postulated to alter traits in the species, adding information to the genome, and natural selection, which then selects any beneficial traits, as they are the traits which will survive. The occurrence and selection of further beneficial mutations is alleged to eventually produce different species and phyla. The crux of this discussion is the following. There are only two possibilities to the origin of all forms of life. There is the Darwinist view that life was a random, chance occurrence, in other words, a pointless accident, and that divergent evolution then led to the appearance of all life forms, and that the theists are deluded, or the alternative view that Allah created the universe and everything in it, including all forms of life, and that all his creation down to the cells and even further to the atoms and electrons, are absolute miracles. This second view would necessitate that evolution is a fraud perpetrated on the people by the institutions that control science and education, who will fabricate and manipulate evidence without hesitation, to prolong the life of their theory.
Evolution underlies the prevailing global system: Evolution is a dangerous, deceptive theory, supported by the establishment, and pushed by all the institutions to break our connection with a creator. It is the bedrock of the materialist philosophy which denies Allah and any accountability for one’s actions, and allows for colonialism, racism, slavery and blind individualism as natural states that exist, as a consequence of the principle of survival of the fittest (natural selection) which pervades all of nature. Natural selection assumes that only a few individuals in each generation will survive, since resources are limited and organisms will produce more offspring than their environment can support. All must therefore use whatever means are at their disposal to survive, and the strongest who have adapted best will survive and evolve, whereas the weak and poorly adapted will die off and become extinct. This cleansing of the weak is necessary to purify the gene pool and prepare it for the next evolutionary step. This same thinking is applied to socioeconomic frameworks, and has resulted in the disastrous situation we find the world in today, dominated by imperialism, war and exploitation.
Clearly, it is important for the Muslim ummah to be well informed about this issue, so as not to be deceived into accepting a theory whose proponents control every scientific discipline, and which is accepted as gospel by media and educational establishments. It is therefore the purpose of this essay to outline the main pillars of evolutionary thinking and tackle them one by one to illustrate the fallacy of the theory.
The Challenge: There simply isn’t any concrete evidence for evolution. Circumstantial evidence which you will find presented can easily be accounted for by the alternative explanation, especially when the evolution tinted spectacles used to examine the raw data have been removed. The essence of evolution can be summed up in 4 points, where evidence should exist in abundance: 1. Spontaneous generation (or Abiogenesis) - the chance appearance of the first life form, a unicellular bacteria. 2. Successive mutations in DNA code can lead to increased information. 3. All complex systems and species evolved via this mutation method over millions of years, through the mechanism of natural selection. 4. Ample evidence of transitional fossils must exist, as these species evolved over millions of years and would have been in transition for longer than they would have been stable species. If any of these four points could be comprehensively refuted, then the house of cards which is Neo-Darwinian evolution would come tumbling down. At this point however, it is worth asking about the nature of the evidence available and the methods used by scientists to come by this evidence and formulate conclusions.
The scientific method: Sometimes, being raised in the sciences as many of us are these days, you start to believe that science is flawless and scientific findings carry immense weight, with scientific experimentation being the benchmark by which any proposition or theory is evaluated. Now, the scientific method in its essence is not flawed, but all experiments are based on assumptions. If any of those assumptions are incorrect, or any confounding factor has been overlooked, or the studies have any ingrained bias, then the whole method collapses, and the results will be unreliable. As an example, one can examine how medical practice changes every year. New research constantly churns up new treatments and discounts older ones. New studies criticize older ones and point out weaknesses. Much of what we thought true 50 years ago has been discounted today. The studies are funded by pharmaceutical companies to support their latest medications with an evidence base. There is clearly ingrained bias in the entire system. Something similar is true of evolution. Evolutionists, who control all the funding, invariably do research to back up their world view, and always with the assumption of the truth of evolution. This ingrained bias makes the results, and especially the conclusions drawn from them, susceptible to extreme errors. As Professor Richard Lewontin, a Harvard geneticist, admitted in the New York Review in January 1997, “Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to the understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science, in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” This reminds us of the ayah in surat Al-A’raf, 132,
“They said: No matter what kind of sign you bring us to bewitch us, we will not believe in you.” and Surat al-infitar, 6-8
“O man! What has deluded you in respect of your Lord? He who created you and formed you and proportioned you and assembled you in whatever way he willed.”
The proponents of evolution will stop at nothing to deny creation, to deny their Lord, because to accept him would be ‘unscientific’ (despite the clear scientific evidence for design of life) but more importantly would signify, as they see it, the surrender of the scientific world to the theist, and the surrender of their freedoms to their Lord.
How very different the conclusions would be if the research was done in the true Islamic state by top Muslim geneticists and palaeontologists, who have made the correct assumption of the eternal creator. Then you would see completely different research, results and conclusions, using the scientific method. The fossils and genetics would be interpreted in a completely different manner. However, in the absence of unbiased research, we are left with the basic rational method of thinking as the only true method, whereby we sense the reality in front of us, and come to conclusions based on previous information we have, using our intellect. Reality tells us that life only comes from life. Reality tells us that matter or energy only come from matter or energy. Reality tells us that chance cannot create. Reality tells us that matter cannot create itself, it cannot organize itself, and it has no intelligence. Rational thought will always lead to an unlimited, independent, eternal entity who created man, life and the universe, and sustains them. That aside, we will return to the above discussion and look at the available scientific evidence for the 4 evolutionary statements.
1: Abiogenesis: In Darwin’s time, the complexity of life was not at all understood. It was thought that mud could spontaneously generate bacteria - i.e. that life could easily appear from non-life, and that the cell was truly simple. The theory would have been rejected out of hand had scientists known what we know today. We understand that the cell is more complex than a city. It contains databanks, administration centres, power stations, factories, transport links, pipelines, laboratories, refineries, border guards to control incoming and outgoing materials and much more. We are still uncovering complexity, especially in the field of genetics. The most modern cutting edge technology could never get close to creating a cell, or even one of its parts, yet evolution claims that chance did just that. The machines of the cell that do all the work, are proteins. One cell will contain tens of thousands of proteins. The most simple bacteria cell imaginable would still contain at least 500 proteins. Each protein is made of a specific chain of amino acids which then fold up into a functional 3 dimensional shape. Amino acids can all be right or left handed depending on the configuration of the side chains. Strangely only left handed amino acids are seen in all forms of life. In the laboratory when we synthesize amino acids we get a 50/50 mix of left and right handed molecules, and even with our advanced technology we do not currently know of any way to separate the mirror images from each other. How did Darwinian evolution manage it? In addition, amino acids can bond together with various types of bond, but the only bond which will give rise to proteins is the peptide bond. No other bonds are tolerated in the protein molecule. The likelihood of amino acids in nature bonding via a peptide bond is again approximately 50%.
Protein - what are the chances? Now if we take an average protein of about 300 amino acids in length. What would the probability be of forming this average length protein by chance with the correct sequence of left handed amino acids all bonding via peptide bonds? The answer is in the region of one chance in 10500. In mathematics, chances of less than one in 1050 are considered zero. There are probably 1090 atoms in the Universe, which is estimated to be 1017 seconds old. So if the entire Universe was amino acid soup constantly making amino acid chains since the beginning of time, to try to form the above mentioned protein, the chances would still be zero. Even if you had quadrillions of universes made of pure amino acids, your chances would still be zero. Can you see how preposterous this is? This probability is large enough to sink Darwinism and all its fables. A single protein buries Darwin’s theory and they will never be able to account for it. Now leave the protein aside and consider the first cell with thousands of proteins, and you can now see the absolute bankruptcy of this theory. A protein cannot function outside of the cell. Nor can a cell function without proteins. So the first cell with all the proteins necessary for life must have come into existence simultaneously, an evident impossibility.
Primordial conditions: Evolutionists invariably point to the 50 year old Miller experiments when discussing abiogenesis. Using an atmosphere of ammonia and methane with an energy source, he managed to produce a very small amount of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Experiments since then have assumed the presence of all amino acids, and simulating all manner of primordial environments have been unable to produce a single protein. Even the Miller experiments have since been debunked. The atmosphere was actually likely to have been much less reactive, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Equally the use of a cold trap to isolate any amino acids formed, prevented the likely immediate breakdown of these amino acids. In any case, Miller managed to produce less than half the necessary amino acids for life, even with his incorrect assumptions and bias. He also produced them in a 50/50 mix of left and right handed amino acids. How was nature to separate them? In addition there is a catch 22. If the primordial atmosphere contained oxygen, amino acids will be broken down and oxidized. If the atmosphere contained no oxygen, then the ozone layer would be absent, and the ultraviolet rays would degrade all organic compounds. So they claimed that the reactions must have taken place in water (which would shield from UV radiation), but this is also discredited as proteins are readily broken down and hydrolyzed in water, and extremely unlikely to be formed. So there was no amino acid soup, and there were no organic molecules in the primordial atmosphere.
DNA - not just matter: The next roadblock for evolution came with genetics. A molecule made of phosphates, sugars, proteins and nucleotides named deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), was able to code all the information necessary to assemble the whole organism along with how this information would be expressed and when. Even today we haven’t understood the full function of DNA but we do know it carries billions of bits of information by means of the arrangements of the four nucleotide bases in the DNA molecule. This is much like a modern day computer program but far more complex. The 300 amino acid long protein mentioned above, would be coded by about 1000 nucleotide bases in the DNA. It is the precise arrangement of the bases in the DNA that will lead to the precise arrangement of the amino acids in the protein molecule during translation. Translation is the mechanism by which this code is translated into the desired protein, by a multitude of other proteins, enzymes, and complex cell machinery. Again the chances of getting the right DNA coding sequence for a specific protein as above, at random, is in the region of one in 10 to the power 600 - i.e. absolutely impossible. All life has been produced by codes in the language of DNA. An all powerful, all knowledgeable common designer prevails over the entire Universe. Information can never be reduced to matter, and is always the result of intelligence.
Chicken or egg? Another serious question arises now. DNA is the code which is absolutely necessary for the formation of proteins, but the code itself cannot be translated without the existence of multiple other proteins needed for translation. Indeed the DNA itself cannot even be copied without multiple different proteins available to transcript it. There is an insurmountable paradox here. The code can only be translated by the products of translation. The very proteins that translate DNA are themselves coded in DNA. So we have a chicken and egg problem, with only one solution. There is no hypothetical chance mechanism that could bring about the gene-protein code. It is clearly designed. Both DNA and protein were created together by the all powerful creator in the first living cell.
Primitive Cell? There is no such thing as a primitive cell. The simplest bacterial cell we can possibly imagine will still require at least 600 proteins, DNA, a cell membrane, RNA, nucleotides, lipid molecules, sugar molecules, 20 types of amino acids available for protein synthesis, some type of protein assembly machinery, a system of translating the DNA code into protein sequences, error correction systems, some form of energy capturing and converting machinery, suitable supplies of inorganic elements necessary for life, and of course the correct chemical combination and structural arrangements of these parts. This would be the first reproducing entity, so the above mechanisms would all have to be randomly synthesized at the same time. This is clearly completely preposterous. The most advanced technology and the best brains on this earth cannot even put together one DNA molecule, so for chance to put the above cell together, it is something only the one blinded by ideological dogma could believe. Allah says in Surat AlBaqara: 170-171
“The likeness of those who do not believe is that of the beast which, call out to it as one may, can hear nothing but a shout and a cry. Deaf, dumb and blind. they do not use their intellect.” and in surat Al-A’raf: 179
“They have hearts with which they do not understand. They have eyes with which they do not see. They have ears with which they do not hear. Such people are like cattle. No, they are even further astray! They are the unaware.”
As Crick, one of the discoverers of DNA, and a persistent staunch evolutionist said, in a moment of clarity: “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.” Similarly prominent former staunch atheist and evolutionist Anthony Flew reversed his positions late in his life, stating: “Biologists’ investigation of DNA has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved.” The cell is an organized system containing highly complex structures and processes. It requires intelligence, knowledge and planning. Matter has no self organizing properties. If it did, we would have been able to demonstrate this property in the laboratory. Professor Sir Fred Hoyle, a famous English mathematician and astronomer puts it like this: “If there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems towards life, its existence should easily be demonstrable in the laboratory. One could, for instance, take a swimming bath to represent the primordial soup. Fill it with any chemicals of a non biological nature you please. Pump any gases over it, or through it, you please, and shine any kind of radiation on it that takes your fancy. Let the experiment proceed for a year and see how many of the 2000 enzymes (proteins produced by living cells) have appeared in the bath. I will give the answer, and so save the time and trouble and expense of actually doing the experiment. You will find nothing at all, except possibly for a tarry sludge composed of amino acids and other simple organic chemicals.”
2: Mutations in DNA can lead to increased information and complexity of life: The above discussion illustrates the scientific impossibility of what they refer to as abiogenesis, the random appearance of life. In the following section we shall assume the appearance of life forms and discuss whether mutations can be beneficial to those life forms.
Ideological necessity: Darwin’s original theory owed much to the Lemarkic idea that traits gained during an organism’s lifetime would be passed on to its offspring. Darwin of course added that Natural Selection would be the mechanism that filtered the useful from the useless. However, as it became clear that traits were coded in DNA, in the mid twentieth century, a new method of adding traits was needed, as the magical adaptation to the environment had been discredited. Now imagine, it is 1955, genetics has just been uncovered, and it has been shown that every physical and biochemical trait in the body is coded precisely by an elaborate nucleotide base coding system. Ration would immediately accept an intelligent creative force. Right there, in the nucleus of every cell we find the signature of a creator, an awesome, unlimited designer. This conclusion being unpalatable for the establishment, and the whole system which had been constructed on this Darwinian framework, a method for new traits to be added to this DNA had to be found, to keep the theory alive. Thus, through ideological necessity, was Neo-Darwinism born. The only mechanism which could change the information carried in DNA was that of random unguided mutations in this complex code. That was the only way that Allah could now be kept out of the picture. Michael Denton, professor of molecular biology writes: “To the sceptic, the proposition that the genetic programs of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence.”
The idea that random mutations can lead to complex systems is akin to saying that an earthquake can improve the structure of a building, or a tornado can blow through a junk yard and construct a Boeing 747. Can random keystrokes upgrade a computer program? Any random change in a highly ordered system is always destructive. As Bill Gates has noted: “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.” MIT’s Murray Eden found that when we make random changes to computer programs: “We find that we have no chance even to see what the modified program would compute: it just jams.” Similarly, random changes in DNA code would just damage or destroy the organism.
Beneficial mutations? Evolutionists are still unable to provide examples of any beneficial, information increasing mutations. The most often cited example of antibiotic resistance in bacteria is actually just simple variance, with resistance genes coded into some bacteria which can then transfer them to other bacteria. Other bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics by deletion mutations, where the antibiotic binding site on the bacteria is damaged, so the antibiotic can no longer bind to and destroy the bacteria. This may be temporarily beneficial, but is certainly not an increase in information, but the opposite in fact is true. Hollywood would have us believe in mutant X-men, but mutation has never resulted in any significant benefit, only disorder and death as amply proved by the offspring of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Depleted Uranium munitions used in Iraq. Indeed, experiments over 70 years with tens of thousands of generations of fruit flies being bombarded with X-Rays to speed up alleged evolution have not produced a single positive mutation, only disorder and death. These flies produce a new generation every 11 days, but after 70 years of breeding and mutation, not a single new enzyme has been produced. Fruit fly researcher Michael Pitman puts it well: “Morgan, Goldschmidt, Muller, and other geneticists have subjected generations of fruit flies to extreme conditions of heat, cold, light, dark, and treatment by chemicals and radiation. All sorts of mutations, practically all trivial or positively deleterious, have been produced. Man-made evolution? Not really: few of the geneticists’ monsters could have survived outside the bottles they were bred in. In practice mutants die, are sterile, or tend to revert to the wild type.” Similarly E Coli bacteria have been bred for millions of generations and no new species has ever been observed.
Variation: All dog and horse breeders know that selective breeding can build strength and speed, but there is a ceiling beyond which you cannot pass - no new species has ever been bred. Allah incorporated genetic variability within species to give species the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, in what is sometimes misleadingly called micro-evolution. This is a blessing from Allah and has clearly been coded into the genetics of species, while all the time Allah watches over them. It allows species to adapt to environmental changes, and without it species would be very brittle, and would die off under any environmental pressure. The genetic variance in species gives each species a deck of cards to work with. You can shuffle the pack, but never add more cards. Obviously, the existence of a pre-programmed genetic variance is one thing, and the ability of an organism to add huge amounts of information to its code to account for new organs and species is something totally different and clearly impossible without external interference. Time is not a deity. It has no intelligence or creative ability. It can neither build a boat, nor repair a house, nor produce information, without intelligent input. Matter is not information, nor is it self-organizing. The evolutionary changes which mutations need to account for are complex, ordered, specific increases in information and organization. Information always requires intelligence. Without it, matter tends towards anarchy or chaos, not perfect organized structures.
Proteins cannot evolve: The situation gets even worse for the Darwinists. For the theory to work, each mutation must lead to a more stable form or an equally stable form, just to survive, or it will be selected out. However a study by Axe in 2000 found that multiple position amino acid substitutions inevitably result in loss of protein function. He concluded that functional proteins represent highly isolated and improbable arrangements of amino acids. Yet for one protein to evolve into another would require specified changes at many sites. Clearly random changes in protein sequencing will result in functional loss long before any novel protein will emerge. Non functioning proteins will thus be eliminated by natural selection as they serve no purpose, and waste needed resources. So how do brand new proteins needed for say bird wings or eye retina evolve - they simply cannot. The mutation mechanism is also unable to account for the rapid appearance of complex structures in the Cambrian explosion. There simply isn’t enough time. (See point 4).
In conclusion, mutations occur incoherently. They are not complementary or cumulative in a given direction, but purely random. They cannot plan ahead. They cannot add new information, nor can they produce new life-forms. They can merely modify what pre-exists, but they do so in disorder. As soon as some disorder, however slight, appears in a highly organized being, sickness, then death follow. There is no possible compromise between the phenomenon of life, and anarchical change. Ideological necessity has forced Darwinists to prop up a bankrupt theory. They are being driven into a corner and their stance is becoming more dogmatic and defensive, as the weaknesses in their theory surface with increasing regularity. But where will they escape from the reality of our Lord? Allah says:
“Man will say on that day, “Where is the place of escape?” No there is no refuge! To your Lord that day is your final and permanent return!” (75:10-13)
3: All organisms and complex systems evolved via a process of random mutations guided by natural selection: The above discussion (in point 2) was focussed on how mutations cannot add any information to the genome. Point 3 leads on from point 2 and is linked to it, the difference being that here we are asking - even if mutations could add some information to the genome, is it possible that they could account for complex structures and mechanisms? We will begin by continuing our previous analogy between DNA code and complex computer programming. In the words of prominent mathematician and computer engineer Granville Sewell: “If a billion engineers were to type at the rate of one random character per second, there is virtually no chance that any one of them would, given the 4.5 billion year age of the Earth to work on it, accidentally duplicate a given 20 character improvement. Thus our engineer cannot count on making any major improvement through chance alone. But could he perhaps make progress through the accumulation of very small improvements? The Darwinist would presumably say, yes, but to anyone who has had minimal programming experience, this idea is equally implausible. Major improvements to a computer program often require the addition or modification of hundreds of interdependent lines, no one of which makes any sense, or results in any improvement, when added by itself. Even the smallest improvements usually require adding several new lines. It is conceivable that a programmer unable to look ahead more than five or six characters at a time might be able to make some very slight improvements to a computer program, but it is inconceivable that he could design anything sophisticated without the ability to plan far ahead and to guide his changes towards that plan.” At every level of the biological hierarchy, organisms require specified and highly improbable arrangements of lower level constituents in order to maintain their form and function. Genes require specified arrangements of nucleotide bases, proteins require precise amino acid sequences, and new cell types require specialist arrangements of systems of proteins which define the cell type. Body plans require specialized arrangements of cell types and organs. Organisms not only contain information rich components, but the arrangement of these components is also precise and of paramount importance. Each system, just like our manufactured goods, is complex and integrated. If you take any piece out of the system, it ceases to be functional, just as if you took a component out of a telephone or television, it would become useless. The term ‘irreducible complexity’ was coined by Professor Michael Behe to describe this phenomenon of systems only being useful once fully formed and complete. These complex systems can thus never be explained by a multitude of random changes over millions of years. This is because they are utterly useless and functionless if not complete. Therefore that ‘magical’ force of natural selection will never select for these useless unfinished systems as they will confer no advantage to the organism. Moreover, any useless genetic information will be eliminated as it will utilize much needed resources in a fruitless manner. Natural selection cannot plan for the future. Everything that randomly forms has to be useful in the here and now, or it will be eliminated. Irreducibly complex systems can therefore never be formed by this mechanism. All organisms, and indeed all cells, are full of irreducibly complex systems.
The bacterial flagellum: Michael Behe quotes the very simple example of the bacterial flagellum, a whip like organ which single celled bacteria use to move about in a liquid environment. The flagellum moves by means of an organic motor which rotates at a speed of up to 100,000 rpm, constructed using 40 different proteins in a very specific arrangement. If any single one of these proteins is absent, or the arrangement is altered in any way, the organic motor will no longer be able to fulfil its function. Recent experiments also show that if any one of the 38 genes that code for the various flagellar proteins are purposely damaged, the system becomes completely useless and fulfils no other function. Thus the system is irreducibly complex. Not only do these 40 distinct proteins have to be manufactured, but they all have to be arranged perfectly. Information also has to be available regarding a control system which tells the flagellum when to rotate, stop or reverse. Any rational individual can clearly see that there is no mechanism which can produce all of this in tiny steps over millions of years. Neo-Darwinism can never account for this.
Blood clotting: Another classic example is the blood clotting cascade which contains over 20 proteins, each one intricately involved in the pathway that causes clotting of blood at the right place and the right time, and removal of clots once their function has been fulfilled, as well as prevention of unnecessary clots. One protein in the cascade activates the next in a domino like fashion. Remove any one of these dominos and the consequences will be grave for the survival of the organism. Minor trauma might lead to uncontrolled haemorrhage. This cascade is useless unless all components are present. This type of irreducible complexity is mirrored in the vast majority of systems in life. Darwinists are still unable to explain any of these complexities. Cell biologist and evolutionist Franklin Howard writes in ‘The way of the cell’, for Oxford University press: “There are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”
The complexity of life: Unfortunately for proponents of evolution, as the decades pass by, the complexity of the cell is found to be more and more astounding as we delve deeper into its structure and function. Nearly every major process in the cell is carried out by assemblies of ten or more proteins which interact with numerous other large protein complexes. Cell Biologist Bruce Alberts says: “The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.” Molecular machines and proteins that only function in conjunction with other proteins in complexes, interacting with other complexes, cannot be explained by Neo-Darwinism, as they require planning, intelligence and knowledge of what each protein’s function will be in the completed system. Similar problems are encountered with all biochemical processes, like photosynthesis and respiration which are clearly irreducible.
Larger organs: Turning now to larger systems like organs, we find the same principle exists here. There is the classic example of the wing, allegedly mutated from the forelimb, but a wing is a hindrance unless complete, as it will neither allow flight, nor the previous functionality of the limb. How could a useless, mutated forelimb be preserved by natural selection for millions of years while it waits for necessary mutations that will produce useful wings, strong chest muscles to support flight, feathers, increased blood supply, nervous innervation, and other necessary physiological changes? There would be no advantage to select for. In fact the mutant would never survive one month, let alone millions of years. Other examples like the kidney and the heart also have irreducibly complex cores. Then there is the perfect example of the eye, made up of over 40 complex parts including the cornea, lens, iris, retina, choroid, optic nerve, tracts and optic centre in the brain. How did all these parts randomly evolve together? They are perfectly integrated and any changes to the system would be severely deleterious. Evolutionists claim that it all began with a light sensitive spot which randomly formed, but even that is far from simple and in fact clearly irreducibly complex. A group of cells need to suddenly develop the ability to change light into electrical signals, then there needs to be a neural network to the brain, and a region of the brain which can evaluate and understand these signals. To change light into electrical signals requires the existence of multiple new proteins with complex domino chain interactions. Any one missing molecule renders the biochemistry useless. So clearly sight is irreducibly complex. In typical Darwinian style, it’s easy to say light sensitive spot and brush it off nonchalantly, but a light sensitive spot is something more complex than much of our man made technology.
I will end this subsection with an apt quote from biochemistry professor Michael Denton, which illustrates that not only are evolutionary mechanisms incapable of accounting for irreducibly complex systems, but they would even be unable to bring about any significant changes in such systems: “In complex systems like a watch or living system, all the subsystems are intensely integrated. Engineering changes in such systems is complex because each change to any one subsystem must be compatible with the functioning of all the other subsystems. Any change beyond a trivial degree is bound to necessitate intelligently directed compensatory changes in many of the interacting subsystems. In this context, it is hard to understand how undirected evolution via a series of independent changes could ever produce radical redesign in any sort of system as complex as a living organism. It is precisely this integrated complexity which provides a major barrier to engineering radical change in living things from viruses to mammals.”
4: Numerous transitional fossils must exist: Over the last 150 years of palaeontology, many hundreds of millions of fossils have been unearthed, representing 300,000 or so different species. The fossil record is indeed rich, and gives us a reasonably comprehensive record of life on our planet. The theory of evolution would predict a multitude of indeterminate species in the fossil record, linking species with their ancestors over millions of years. Large anatomical changes like those from fish to amphibians, or reptiles to mammals would require many tens of millions of years via a gradual process of random mutations aided by natural selection. The intermediate forms between the species should therefore be very well represented in the fossil record, outnumbering the well defined species. The larger the changes between species, the more transitional forms we should encounter.
Darwin’s Dilemma: Darwin himself put it like this: “Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?” He also wrote: “Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.” 150 years later, and Darwin’s objection still stands, solidified by hundreds of millions of fossils. The fossil record should be confused, overlapping and poorly defined, with species merging into other species, with partially formed systems and structures abound. Instead we find the absolute opposite. Two phenomena characterize the fossil record: Sudden emergence of new fully formed species, and stasis (lack of change).
Punctuated Equilibrium: The late Stephen Gould, professor of Palaeontology at Harvard and a leading evolutionist put it like this: “The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear... 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.” What is meant by inference? It is clear that evolutionary trees are drawn up by evolutionists on the basis of minimal information. The rest is extrapolated from what they would expect, given the fact of evolution. This is intellectual dishonesty at its worst. In the face of this lack of evidence, Gould along with his colleague Eldredge formulated a new theory - Punctuated Equilibrium - in the 1970s, to try to reconcile the theory with the fossil evidence. They theorized that large evolutionary jumps occurred, rather than gradual changes. But the changes to the theory that palaeontology required, were completely rejected by geneticists. Large mutations in the genome will always cause deformity or death and could never account for new structures and body plans.
British Museum: The British museum of natural history boasts the largest collection of fossils in the world. Dr Colin Patterson, Senior Palaeontologist at the British museum and editor of a prestigious scientific journal is a well known expert with an intimate knowledge of the fossil record. When asked why he had not included a single photograph of a transitional fossil in his book ‘Evolution’, he responded: “I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them...... As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.”
The Cambrian Explosion - the final nail in the coffin: The fossil record shows that from 4 billion years ago to 600 million years ago our ecology was virtually unchanged with single celled organisms. In the Ediacaran period up to 540 million years ago some simple soft bodied multicellular organisms appeared with no ancestors in the fossil record. The Cambrian period 540 to 480 million years ago is characterized by the sudden appearance of complex, fully formed organisms. Around 50 phyla (classes of living things) appeared very suddenly at the start of the Cambrian period, in a biological “big bang”, known as the Cambrian explosion. Considering that only 3 phyla existed in the Ediacaran period, with no complex organs, and that even today there are only 35 phyla, the significance of the Cambrian evidence cannot be overstated. Highly accurate Zircon dating has proved that the Cambrian explosion happened over just 5 million years, a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. In that timescale, a stunning variety emerged, with complex organs and structures never seen before. Eyes, gills, feet, feelers, stomachs, circulations, digestive systems, nervous systems, immunity as well as new physiological and developmental systems all emerged fully formed and in perfect harmony, with no ancestral fossils at all. So more structures emerged in the Cambrian than are present today, in a worldwide explosion of life that emerged extremely suddenly. The so called tree of life which suggests that all life diverged from the first living cell, becoming gradually more complex and wide-ranging, has been turned on its head by the sudden appearance of more classes of living things than exist today, 500 million years ago. Evolution can never explain this because each of these organisms that emerged were created perfectly and fully formed. In addition, a number of these complex Cambrian creatures are unchanged to this day, having resisted alleged evolutionary forces for over 500 million years despite environmental changes. The first eye appears in the Cambrian in the Trilobite, fully formed, each eye comprising over 3000 bifocal lenses and sharper vision than the arthropods of today, but with no precedents, i.e. no simpler eyes or half formed eyes in the fossil record previously. As with all of the other perfectly formed structures seen in the Cambrian, where are all the mutant forms in the fossil record that must have been produced with such radical, rapid, random change? Where are all the partially formed structures? Where are the transitional fossils? They simply don’t exist. Only creation can account for what we see here in the fossil record.
Sea of gaps: There is no continuous spectrum of barely distinguishable intermediates. The fossil record is a sea of gaps. Species never evolve into new species, but are replaced in the fossil record, one by another. Large transitions between for example fish and land dwelling animals would anyway be theoretically impossible. The fish would need to develop lungs, kidneys and weight bearing limbs to have a chance of survival on land, and it would need to do that in a single generation because none of these traits would be selected for in water dwelling fish. Similar problems can be found in any of the supposed evolutionary pathways. Bird wings for example along with the flight muscles, tendons, nerves and blood vessels needed for their function. How did these evolve? What use is quarter of a wing? The creature would have struggled to fly or run, with mutated forelimbs, and would never have survived. Why do all fossils show fully formed wings? Equally the structure of the bird lung with its unidirectional air flow is so different to that of its supposed ancestor, the reptile, that Darwinists are unable to come up with any hypothesis whatsoever, as there is no conceivable chain of events that could evolve the lung from the reptile form into the bird form, without the certain death of the organism, and the fossil record as usual offers up no intermediates.
Bedtime stories: All of these issues do not deter evolutionists who will see whatever they want to see in any structure. Henry Gee, an evolutionist, and a nature science writer, wrote in 1999: “To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story - amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.” Evolutionists can only postulate transition fossils, but with no certainty, and no evidence. Misleading reconstructions are assembled on the basis of fragments. There is no string of transitional fossils for any single assumed macroevolutionary event. Moreover ‘living fossils’ are all around us. 3.4 billion year old algae and bacterial fossils are identical to present forms. 500 million year old (myo) crustaceans, 450 myo scorpions, 450 myo crabs, 350 myo ferns, and countless other fossils are all identical to present forms. Species were created in stages by an omnipotent creator, and introduced at the perfect time when Allah had optimized the conditions for them. Every created organism established the correct balance for the next creation over long periods of time within a delicate ecosystem.
Miracle: Before concluding, it is worth mentioning one further issue. Evolutionists have gotten into the habit of trying to belittle Allah’s creation. Dawkins and “the blind watchmaker” is the perfect example. Because science can now describe a small portion of Allah’s creation, and we know how some of life’s mechanisms work, it doesn’t mean that it ceases to be amazing, and indeed miraculous. Science is geared to answering the question how? It can never answer the question why? Why were we created? Why do we feel the need to worship? Science can never explain the mind and consciousness. Who is it that senses? Science can only describe how some things work. It has become a soul destroying materialistic discipline in its current western form. They hope that by explaining the intricacies of life, they can consign creation to the dustbin of history. In the meantime they constantly try to point out flaws in Allah’s creation, to discount him. Note the arrogance of man who can’t create a protein, attempting to belittle Allah’s magnificent creation at any opportunity and rejecting him, when he does not have the intellect to understand the creation, or the wisdom behind it. Remember Darwin’s list of over 100 vestigial organs (useless organs in the body which were thought to be evolutionary remnants). Every single one of these organs has been found to have a function, and some of them were vital to the survival of the organism. Now they talk about vestigial or junk DNA - but even as they speak, studies confirm that the entirety of the DNA coding is being used in exceedingly complex interactions we do not as yet fully understand. The history of the theory of evolution turns out to be the history of man’s ignorance. Meanwhile, the manifestation of Allah’s greatness in his creation is more apparent by the day.
One miracle after another: The universe is full of great miracles. Take the human brain with trillions of nerve synapses, each capable of being stimulated 15 times per second - awesome processing power. Take the trillions of atoms which make up a cell. How did they come together in such a perfect order? Take embryological stem cells, which differentiate into every type of cell in the body - nerve cells, bone cells, blood cells, retinal cells - all completely different, but each so complex and perfect in its own right. We still don’t even know what triggers stem cells to differentiate. The arrogance and the ignorance of man are breathtaking. Life is based on tiny molecular machines - protein complexes. What intelligence gave each molecule its attributes? What intelligence determined that sequences of amino acids would fold into 3D structures to carry out all the work of life? What intelligence was the architect of the highly complex DNA molecule, and the processes of transcription and translation? What intelligence indeed is responsible for the human soul, and human creativity? There is no end to the miracles of creation, if man would only open his eyes, even down to the smallest detail. The density of ice for example, the only solid that is less dense than its liquid form, allows ice to float on water. If like other compounds ice had been heavier than water, the rivers and seas would have frozen over and all life would have died out, but instead the layer of ice on the top of the water insulates and protects the life below. Glory be to Allah. Simple but absolutely vital to life.
The perfect constants: Then there are the constants of physics. The initial conditions of the universe were delicately balanced to allow life. Miniscule alterations in the values of the expansion rate of the universe, or the speed of light, or gravitational or electromagnetic attraction forces, would render life totally impossible. This fine-tuning of the universe, this miracle, is known as "the anthropic principle", strongly suggesting a pre-existing intelligent designer. Physicist Paul Davies comments, “The impression of design is overwhelming”. The Universal constants are all perfect for life. Changes would be very detrimental indeed. All this beauty and organization is a reflection of Allah’s beauty in creation, and a manifestation of his infinite knowledge. Life only comes from life, and it is Allah who is Al-Hayy, the ever living creator and sustainer of all life, who has created the Universe in a perfect way to support life.
“And he has subjected to you, as from him, all that is in the heavens and on earth: Behold, in that are signs indeed for those who reflect.” (Surah 45:13)
“So which of the blessings/favours of your Lord will you deny” (Surah 55 Al Rahman)
Conclusion: The evidence is now overwhelming that evolution is a dying theory. It will be kept on life support for the foreseeable future as there is no alternative available to the materialists. This means constantly hyping the theory, getting evolutionary ideologues like Dawkins (the author of the God delusion and the selfish gene) and Ken Miller (the staunchly evolutionary lawyer who was involved in the court proceedings surrounding the teaching of intelligent design in US schools) into the public eye regularly, smothering any dissenting voices completely, and most importantly indoctrinating the young in pseudo educational establishments. This is the last stand of evolution, where they plan to win the war, and transform a weak, groundless theory with little evidence into an established fact. Ask most people on the street, they will say we evolved from monkeys, but ask them the evidence and they will likely look at you blankly. As long as the establishment and media are pushing this theory, the average man will not delve any further. If the case against evolution were truly laid down to the common man, the impossibility of abiogenesis, the fallacy of random mutations increasing information, the irreducibility of complex structures, and the sea of gaps that is the fossil record, then I think the results would be quite different.
Indoctrinating the masses: Science has been hijacked by materialist philosophy. As the scientific evidence changes, the theory is twisted to fit the evidence and vice versa. The evidence is always analysed with preconceived Darwinian assumptions. The theory is so fluid; it can be manipulated to take any shape. They cannot allow it to break; therefore it just bends and twists. If abiogenesis is impossible, they claim unknown primordial conditions. If mutations are known to be harmful, they claim we just haven’t had enough time to see natural selection work. Whatever they find in the fossil record, they draw new family trees to accommodate. Lemarkic evolution becomes Neo-Darwinian with the findings of genetics. The theory changes as required and will continue to do so. Today’s “science” will never surrender to the creator of the laws of science and the men of science. In reality, few of the stories of evolution can be tested. They are not scientific, and have no scientific support. Instead “Events with an infinitesimally small probability could not fail to occur”; the magic wand of evolution that perfectly fulfils every creature’s needs. Here miracles are performed not by Allah, but instead by Mother Nature, and natural selection. This is a cult-like superstition. It is rather the Darwinists who are fanatical in their expression of their deeply held blind faith. It is the Darwinists who will respond to flaws in their theory with ultra defensive, evasive and irrational responses. It is the Darwinists who try to bamboozle the common man with complicated incomprehensible scientific jargon to cover up the manifest inconsistencies in their theory. Fairy tales are repeatedly taught with such confidence and assured superiority, so as to totally confound the masses. Darwinism is dogma, and the greatest deception in the history of science.
Inevitable demise: Clearly, once the western scientific community accept that the theory of evolution is bankrupt and proven to be false, they will be left with no alternative other than to accept that the universe and the life we find in it are created. This will force them to question the very basis of their existence and cause the collapse of their Darwinian individualistic, exploitative systems. Thus they feel they have no choice but to defend Darwinism until their dying breath, and resuscitate the theory by any means necessary, because to pull the plug on this theory is to accept the creator of the universe, with all the profound consequences that this would entail. After the bloody struggle between the church and the materialists in the middle ages, in which they gained the advantage, they will never willingly surrender the almost divine position they have struggled to attain for science. But as science develops and looks deeper into life, the inherent design is becoming more apparent for all to see, and the intelligence behind life undeniable. Science has thus driven them full circle back to their lord, but there is a great unwillingness on their part to complete the journey, and so a dying theory takes its last gasp.
Allah says “We will show them our signs in the horizons, and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this is the truth. Is it not enough that your lord is witness over all things?”(Quran 41:53)
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