CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
The subject we have explained so far is one of the greatest truths you will ever read in your lifetime. Proving that everything we see and refer to as "the material world" is actually in our minds, that we can never have direct experience of the material originals existing outside, is important in comprehending the existence of God and His creations and to understanding that He is the only absolute Being.
The person who understands this will realize that the world is not the sort of place that most people surmise. Not an absolute place with an exterior existence, as supposed by those who wander aimlessly about the streets, get into fights in pubs, show off in luxurious cafes, brag about their property, or who dedicate their lives to hollow aims. The world is an image we see in our brain, whose original we can never reach. All of the people cited above watch these perceptions in their minds, yet are unaware of this.
This very important concept undermines the materialist philosophy that denies the existence of God. This is why materialists like Marx, Engels, and Lenin panicked, became enraged, and warned their followers "not to think over" this concept when told about it. Such people are so mentally deficient that they cannot even comprehend the fact that perceptions are formed inside the brain. Assuming that what they watch in their brains is the "external world," they cannot comprehend obvious evidence to the contrary.
This unawareness is the outcome of the lack of wisdom God gives to disbelievers. As it is said in the Qur'an, the unbelievers "have hearts wherewith they understand not, eyes wherewith they see not, and ears wherewith they hear not. They are like cattle-nay more misguided: for they are heedless [of warning]." (Surat al-A'raf: 179)You can explore beyond this by using the power of your personal reflection. Concentrate your attention, and ponder on how you see the objects around you and feel their touch. Think heedfully, and you can feel that the being that thinks and reads this book at this moment is only a soul, who watches the perceptions called "matter" on an inner screen. Anyone who grasps this has moved away from the domain of the material world that deceives a major part of humanity and has entered the domain of authentic existence.
This reality has been understood by a number of theists or philosophers throughout history. Even though the Wahdatul Wujood view has deviated from the truth by misunderstanding this reality and rejecting the existence of all creation, great scholar Imam Rabbani set the right measure on this subject. According to Imam Rabbani, all beings are "shadow beings" relative to Allah.
Islamic intellectuals such as Imam Rabbani, Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi and Mevlana Cami realised this fact from the signs of the Qur'an and by using their reason. Some Western philosophers like George Berkeley have grasped the same reality through reason. Imam Rabbani wrote in his Mektubat (Letters) that the whole material universe is an "illusion and supposition (perception)" and that the only absolute being is God:
God... The substance of these beings which He created is but nothingness... He created all at the sphere of senses and illusions... The existence of the universe is at the sphere of senses and illusions, and it is not material... In real, there is nothing in the outside except the Glorious Being, (Who is God).204
However, the number of those who have understood this fact throughout history has always been limited. Great scholars such as Imam Rabbani have written that it might have been inconvenient to tell this fact to the masses and that most people would not be able to grasp it.
However, in the age we live in, this fact has been made empirical by the body of evidence put forward by science. For the first time, the fact that matter is not absolute and our knowledge of it is extremely limited is described in a concrete, clear, and explicit way.
For this reason, the 21st century will be a turning point when people in general will comprehend the Divine realities and be led in crowds to God, the only Absolute Being. In the 21st century, materialistic 19th-century creeds will be relegated to the trash-heaps of history; God's existence and creation will be grasped; facts like spacelessness and timelessness will be better understood. Humanity will break free of the centuries-old veils, deceits, and superstitions enshrouding us.
It's not possible for any shadow being to impede this inevitable course.
RELATIVITY OF TIME AND THE REALITY OF FATE
Everything related so far demonstrates that we never have direct contact with the "three-dimensional space" of reality, and that we lead our whole lives within our minds. Asserting the contrary would be to profess a superstitious belief removed from reason and scientific truth, for by no means can we achieve direct contact with the original of the external world.
This refutes the primary assumption of the materialist philosophy underlying evolutionary theory—the assumption that matter is absolute and eternal. The materialistic philosophy's second assumption is that time is also absolute and eternal—a supposition just as superstitious as the first.
The Perception of Time
What we call "time" is in fact a method by which one moment is compared to another. For example, when a person taps an object, he hears a particular sound. If he taps the same object five minutes later, he hears another sound. Thinking there is an interval between the two sounds, he calls this interval "time." Yet when he hears the second sound, the first one he heard is no more than a memory in his mind, merely a bit of information in his imagination. A person formulates his perception of time by comparing the moment in which he lives with what he holds in memory. If he doesn't make this comparison, he can have no perception of time either.
Similarly, a person makes a comparison when he sees someone enter through a door and sit in an armchair in the middle of the room. By the time this person sits in the armchair, the images of the moment he opened the door and made his way to the armchair are compiled as bits of information in memory. The perception of time takes place when one compares the man sitting on the armchair with those bits of recalled information.
Briefly, time comes about as a result of comparisons of information stored in the brain. If man had no memory, his brain could not make such interpretations and therefore, he would never form any perception of time. One determines himself to be thirty years old, only because he has accumulated in his mind information pertaining to those thirty years. If his memory did not exist, then he could not think of any such preceding period and would be experiencing only the single "moment" in which he was living.
The Scientific Explanation of Timelessness
We can clarify this subject by quoting various scientists' and scholars' explanations. Regarding the idea of time flowing backwards, François Jacob, a famous intellectual and Nobel laureate professor of genetics, states the following in his book Le Jeu des Possibles (The Play of Possibilities):
Films played backwards let us imagine a world in which time flows backwards. A world in which cream separates itself from the coffee and jumps out of the cup to reach the creamer; in which the walls emit light rays that are collected in a light source instead of radiating out from it; a world in which a stone leaps up to a man's hand from the water where it was thrown by the astonishing cooperation of innumerable drops of water surging together. Yet, in such a time-reversed world with such opposite features, our brain processes, and the way our memory compiles information, would similarly function backwards. The same is true for the past and future, though the world will appear to us exactly as it does currently.205
But since our brain is accustomed to a certain sequence of events, the world does not operate as related above. We assume that time always flows forward. However, this is a decision reached in the brain and is, therefore, completely relative. In reality, we never can know how time flows—or even whether it flows or not! This is because time is not an absolute fact, but only a form of perception.
That time is a perception is also verified by Albert Einstein in his Theory of General Relativity. In his book The Universe and Dr. Einstein, Lincoln Barnett writes:
Along with absolute space, Einstein discarded the concept of absolute time—of a steady, unvarying inexorable universal time flow, streaming from the infinite past to the infinite future. Much of the obscurity that has surrounded the Theory of Relativity stems from man's reluctance to recognize that sense of time, like sense of color, is a form of perception. Just as space is simply a possible order of material objects, so time is simply a possible order of events. The subjectivity of time is best explained in Einstein's own words. "The experiences of an individual," he says, "appear to us arranged in a series of events; in this series the single events which we remember appear to be ordered according to the criterion of 'earlier' and 'later'. There exists, therefore, for the individual, an I-time, or subjective time. This in itself is not measurable. I can, indeed, associate numbers with the events, in such a way that a greater number is associated with the later event than with an earlier one.206
As Barnett wrote, Einstein showed that, "space and time are forms of intuition, which can no more be divorced from consciousness than can our concepts of color, shape, or size." According to the Theory of General Relativity: "time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it."207
 Our subjective perception of time arises from comparing and contrasting one moment with another. For example, we imagine that specific intervals of time pass between the sowing of a seed, the blooming of flowers from the resulting plant, and those flowers being cut and arranged in a bouquet—and we call this "time." But in reality, time is a perception that arises from contrasting what is occuring "at this moment" to specific events that have happened before. |
Since time consists of perception, it depends entirely on the perceiver—and is therefore relative.
The speed at which time flows differs according to the references we use to measure it, because the human body has no natural clock to indicate precisely how fast time passes. As Barnett wrote, "Just as there is no such thing as color without an eye to discern it, so an instant or an hour or a day is nothing without an event to mark it."208
 The relativity of time is plainly experienced in dreams. Although what one perceives in a dream seems to last for hours, in fact, it only lasts for a few minutes, and even a few seconds. |
The relativity of time is plainly experienced in dreams. Although what we perceive in a dream seems to last for hours, in fact, it only lasts for a few minutes, and often even a few seconds.
An example will clarify the point. Assume that you were put into a room with a single window, specifically designed; and were kept there for a certain period of time. A clock on the walls shows you the amount of time that has passed. During this "time," from the room's window, you see the sun setting and rising at certain intervals. A few days later, questioned about the amount of time spent in the room, you would give an answer based on the information you had collected by looking at the clock from time to time, as well as by counting how many times the sun had set and risen. Say, for example, you estimate you'd spent three days in the room. However, if the person who put you in there says that you spent only two days in there; that the sun you saw from the window was falsely produced; and that the clock in the room was especially regulated to move faster, then your calculation would be erroneous.
This example dramatizes that the information we have about the rate of time's passing is based only on references that change according to the perceiver.
That time is relative is a scientific fact, also proven by scientific methodology. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity maintains that the speed of time changes depending on the speed of the object and its distance from the centre of gravity. As speed increases, time is shortened—compressed—and slows down until it approaches to the point of stopping entirely.
Einstein himself gave an example. Imagine two twins, one of whom remains on Earth while the other goes into space at a speed close to the speed of light. On his return, the traveller will find that his brother has grown much older than he has. The reason is that time flows much more slowly for the person who travels at near-light speed. What about a space-travelling father and his son who stays behind on Earth? If the father were 27 years old when he set out, and his son was only three, the father, when he comes back 30 years later in Earth time, will be only 30, whereas his son will be 33 years old!209
This relativity of time is caused not by clocks slowing down or running fast. Rather, it's the result of the differentiated operational periods of the entire material system, as deep as sub-atomic particles. In such a setting where time stretches out, one's heartbeat, cell replications, and brain functions all operate more slowly. The person continues with his daily life and does not notice the slowing of time at all.
Relativity in the Qur'an
 Time is a concept entirely contingent on the perceiver. While a certain time period seems long for one person, it may seem short for another. In order to understand which one is right, we need sources such as clocks and calendars. It is impossible to make correct judgments about time without them. |
The conclusion to which we are led by the findings of modern science is that time is not an absolute fact as supposed by materialists, but only a relative perception. What is more interesting is that this fact, undiscovered until the 20th century by science, was imparted to mankind in the Qur'an 14 centuries ago. There are various references in the Qur'an to the relativity of time.
It is possible to see the scientifically-proven fact that time is a psychological perception dependent on events, setting, and conditions in many verses of the Qur'an. For instance, the entire life of a person is a very short time as we are informed by the Qur'an:
On the Day when He will call you, and you will answer [His Call] with [words of] His Praise and Obedience, and you will think that you have stayed [in this world] but a little while! (Surat al-Isra': 52)
And on the Day when He shall gather them together, [it will seem to them] as if they had not tarried [on earth] longer than an hour of a day: they will recognise each other. (Surah Yunus: 45)
In some verses, it is indicated that people perceive time differently and that sometimes people can perceive a very short period of time as a very lengthy one. The following conversation of people held during their judgement in the Hereafter is a good example of this:
He will say: "What number of years did you stay on earth?" They will say: "We stayed a day or part of a day: but ask those who keep account." He will say: "You stayed not but a little, if you had only known!" (Surat al-Muminun: 112-114)
In some other verses it is stated that time may flow at different paces in different settings:
Yet they ask you to hasten on the Punishment! But God will not fail in His Promise. Verily a Day in the sight of your Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning. (Surat al-Hajj: 47)
The angels and the spirit ascend unto him in a day the measure whereof is [as] fifty thousand years. (Surat al-Ma'arij: 4)
He directs the whole affair from heaven to Earth. Then it will again ascend to Him on a day whose length is a thousand years by the way you measure. (Surat as-Sajda: 5)
These verses are all manifest expressions of the relativity of time. The fact that this result only recently understood by science in the 20th century was communicated to man 1,400 years ago by the Qur'an is an indication of the revelation of the Qur'an by God, Who encompasses the whole time and space.
The narration in many other verses of the Qur'an reveals that time is a perception. This is particularly evident in the stories. For instance, God has kept the Companions of the Cave, a believing group mentioned in the Qur'an, in a deep sleep for more than three centuries. When they were awoken, these people thought that they had stayed in that state but a little while, and could not figure out how long they slept:
Then We draw [a veil] over their ears, for a number of years, in the Cave, [so that they heard not]. Then We raised them up that We might know which of the two parties would best calculate the time that they had tarried. (Surat al-Kahf: 11-12)
Such [being their state], we raised them up [from sleep], that they might question each other. Said one of them, "How long have you stayed [here]?" They said, "We have stayed [perhaps] a day, or part of a day." [At length] they [all] said, "God [alone] knows best how long you have stayed here... (Surat al-Kahf: 19)
The situation told in the below verse is also evidence that time is in truth a psychological perception.
Or [take] the similitude of one who passed by a hamlet, all in ruins to its roofs. He said: "Oh! how shall God bring it [ever] to life, after [this] its death?" but God caused him to die for a hundred years, then raised him up [again]. He said: "How long did you tarry [thus]?" He said: [Perhaps] a day or part of a day." He said: "Nay, you have tarried thus a hundred years; but look at your food and your drink; they show no signs of age; and look at your donkey: And that We may make of you a sign unto the people, Look further at the bones, how We bring them together and clothe them with flesh." When this was shown clearly to him, he said: "I know that God has power over all things." (Surat al-Baqara: 259)
The above verse clearly emphasizes that God Who created time is unbound by it. Man, on the other hand, is bound by time that God ordains. As in the verse, man is even incapable of knowing how long he stayed in his sleep. In such a state, to assert that time is absolute [just like the materialists do in their distorted mentality], would be very unreasonable.
Destiny
Time's variable relativity reveals a very important reality: A period of time of apparently billions of years' duration to us, may last only a second in another dimension. Moreover, an enormous period of time—from the world's beginning to its end—may not last even a second, but just an instant in another dimension.
This is the very essence of destiny's reality—one that is not well understood by most people, especially materialists, who deny it completely. Destiny is God's perfect knowledge of all events, past or future. Many, if not most, question how God can already know events that have not yet been experienced, and this leads them to fail to understand the authenticity of destiny. However, events not yet experienced are not yet experienced by us only. God is not bound by time or space, for He Himself has created them. For this reason, the past, the future, and the present are all the same to God; for Him, everything has already taken place and is finished.
In The Universe and Dr. Einstein, Lincoln Barnett explains how the Theory of General Relativity leads to this insight. According to him, the universe can be "encompassed in its entire majesty only by a cosmic intellect."210 What Barnett calls "the cosmic intellect" is the wisdom and knowledge of God, Who prevails over the entire universe. Just as we easily see the beginning, middle, and end of a ruler and all the units in between as a whole, so God knows the time to which we're subjected right from its beginning to the end, like a single moment. People experience incidents only when their time comes for them to witness the fate God has created for them.
It is also important to consider society's distorted understanding of destiny. This distorted conviction presents the superstitious belief that God has determined a "destiny" for every man, but sometimes that people can change these destinies. For instance, speaking of a patient who's returned from death's door, people make superficial statements like, "He defeated his destiny." Yet no one is able to change his destiny. The person who turns from death's door is destined not to die then. Again, it's the destiny of those people to deceive themselves by saying, "I defeated my destiny" and maintain such a mindset.
Destiny is the eternal knowledge of God. And for God, Who knows the whole time as a single moment and Who prevails over the whole time and space, everything is determined and finished in its destiny.
We also understand from what is related in the Qur'an that time is one for God: some incidents that appear to happen to us in the future are related in the Qur'an in such a way that they already took place long before. For instance, the verses that describe the account that people are to give to God in the hereafter are related as events which already occurred long ago:
And the trumpet is blown, and all who are in the heavens and all who are in the earth swoon away, save him whom God willeth. Then it is blown a second time, and behold them standing waiting! And the earth shineth with the light of her Lord, and the Book is set up, and the prophets and the witnesses are brought, and it is judged between them with truth, and they are not wronged... And those who disbelieve are driven unto hell in troops... And those who keep their duty to their Lord are driven unto the Garden in troops..." (Surat az-Zumar: 68-73)
Some other verses on this subject are:
And every soul came, along with it a driver and a witness. (Surah Qaf: 21)
And the heaven is cloven asunder, so that on that day it is frail. (Surat al-Haqqa: 16)
And because they were patient and constant, He rewarded them with a Garden and [garments of] silk. Reclining in the [Garden] on raised thrones, they saw there neither the sun's [excessive heat] nor excessive cold. (Surat al-Insan, 12-13)
And Hell is placed in full view for [all] to see. (Surat an-Nazi'at, 36)
But on this Day the Believers laugh at the Unbelievers (Surat al-Mutaffifin, 34)
And the Sinful saw the fire and apprehended that they have to fall therein: no means did they find to turn away therefrom. (Surat al-Kahf, 53)
As may be seen, occurrences that are going to take place after our death (from our point of view) are related as already experienced and past events in the Qur'an. God is not bound by the relative time frame that we are confined in. God has willed these things in timelessness: people have already performed them and all these events have been lived through and ended. It is imparted in the verse below that every event, be it big or small, is within the knowledge of God and recorded in a book:
In whatever business thou may be, and whatever portion you may be reciting from the Qur'an, and whatever deed you [humanity] may be doing, We are witnesses thereof when you are deeply engrossed therein. Nor is hidden from your Lord [so much as] the weight of an atom on the earth or in heaven. And not the least and not the greatest of these things but are recorded in a clear record. (Surah Yunus: 61)
The Worry of the Materialists
The facts discussed in this chapter, namely the truth underlying matter, timelessness, and spacelessness, are extremely clear indeed. As expressed earlier, these are hardly some sort of philosophy or way of thinking, but crystal-clear scientific truths, impossible to deny. On this issue, rational and logical evidence admits no other alternatives: For us, the universe—with all the matter composing it and all the people living on it—is an illusory entirety, a collection of perceptions that we experience in our minds and whose original reality we cannot contact directly.
Materialists have a hard time in understanding this—for example, if we return to the example of Politzer's bus. Although Politzer technically knew that he could not step out of his perceptions, he could admit it only for certain cases. For him, events take place in the brain until the bus crash takes place, then events escape from the brain and assume a physical reality. At this point, the logical defect is very clear: Politzer has made the same mistake as the materialist Samuel Johnson, who said, "I hit the stone, my foot hurts, therefore it exists." Politzer could not understand that in fact, the shock felt after a bus impact was a mere perception too.
One subliminal reason why materialists cannot comprehend this is their fear of the implication they must face if they comprehend it. Lincoln Barnett tells of the fear and anxiety that even "discerning" this subject inspires in materialist scientists:
Along with philosophers' reduction of all objective reality to a shadow-world of perceptions, scientists became aware of the alarming limitations of man's senses.211
Any reference to the fact that we cannot make contact with original matter, and that time is a perception, arouses great fear in a materialist because these are the only notions he relies on as absolutes. In a sense, he takes these as idols to worship; because he thinks that he has been created by matter and time, through evolution.
When he feels that he cannot get to the essence of the universe he lives in, nor the world, his own body, other people, other materialist philosophers whose ideas he is influenced by—in short, to anything—he feels overwhelmed by the horror of it all. Everything he depends on and believes in suddenly vanishes. He feels the despair which he, essentially, will experience on Judgement Day in its real sense as described in the verse "That Day shall they [openly] show [their] submission to God; and all their inventions shall leave them in the lurch." (Surat an-Nahl: 87)
From then on, this materialist tries to convince himself that he's really confronting external, original matter, and makes up "evidence." He hits his fist on the wall, kicks stones, shouts, and yells. But he can never escape from the reality.
Just as materialists want to dismiss this reality from their minds, they also want other people to discard it. They realize that if the true nature of matter becomes known to people in general, the primitiveness of their own philosophy and the ignorance of their worldview will be laid bare for all to see. No ground will be left on which they can rationalize their views. These fears explain why they are so disturbed by the facts related here.
God states that the fears of the unbelievers will be intensified in the hereafter. On Judgement Day, they will be addressed thus:
One day shall We gather them all together: We shall say to those who ascribed partners [to Us]: "Where are the partners whom you (invented and) talked about?" (Surat al-An'am: 22)
In the Hereafter, unbelievers will bear witness to their possessions, children and close friends leaving them and vanishing. They had assumed themselves to be in contact with their originals in the world and flattered themselves as partners with God. God stated this fact in the verse "Behold! how they lie against their own souls! But the [lie] which they invented will leave them in the lurch." (Surat al-An'am: 24)
The Gain of Believers
The facts—that matter is not absolute and that time is a perception—alarm materialists, but for true believers, just the opposite holds true. People with faith in God become very glad to have perceived the secret behind matter, because this reality is the key to every question. With this, all secrets are unlocked, and one can easily understand many issues that previously seemed hard to grasp.
As said before, the issues of death, Paradise, Hell, the Hereafter, and changing dimensions will be comprehended. Important questions such as, "Where is God?," "What existed before God?," "Who created God?," "How long will the life in cemetery last?," "Where are Paradise and Hell?," and "Do Paradise and Hell currently exist?" will be easily answered. Once it's understood that God created the entire universe from nothingness, the questions of "When?," and "Where?" become meaningless, because there will be no time or place left. When spacelessness is comprehended, it can be understood that Hell, Paradise and Earth are all actually in the same location. If timelessness is understood, it will be understood that everything takes place at one single moment: Nothing need be awaited, and time does not go by, because everything has already happened and finished.
When this secret is comprehended, the world becomes like Paradise for any believer. All distressful material worries, anxieties, and fears vanish. The person grasps that the entire universe has one single Sovereign, that He creates the entire physical world as He pleases, and that all one has to do is to turn unto Him. He then submits himself entirely to God "to be devoted to His service". (Surah Al 'Imran: 35)
To comprehend this secret is the greatest gain in the world.
With this secret, another very important reality mentioned in the Qur'an is unveiled: the fact that "God is nearer to man than his jugular vein." (Surah Qaf: 16) As everybody knows, the jugular vein is inside the body. What could be nearer to a person than his inside? This situation can be easily explained by the fact that we cannot get out of our minds. This verse can also be much better comprehended by understanding this secret.
This is the plain truth. It should be well established that there is no other helper and provider for man than God. Nothing is absolute but God; He is the only absolute being in Whom one can seek refuge, appeal for help, and count on for reward.
Wherever we turn, there is the Face of God …
204 Imam Rabbani Hz. Mektuplari (Letters of Rabbani), Vol. II, 357. Letter, p.163.
205 Francois Jacob, Le Jeu des Possibles, University of Washington Press, 1982, p.111
206 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, pp. 52-53
207 Ibid., p. 17
208 Ibid., p. 58
209 Paul Strathern, The Big Idea: Einstein and Relativity, Arrow Books, 1997, p. 57
210 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p. 84
211 Ibid., pp. 17-18
CHAPTER 17 THE SECRET BEYOND MATTER
CHAPTER 17
THE SECRET BEYOND MATTER
WARNING!
The chapter you are now about to read reveals a crucial secret of
your life. You should read it very attentively and thoroughly for it
is concerned with a subject that is liable to make a fundamental change
in your outlook to the external world. The subject of this chapter is
not just a point of view, a different approach, or a traditional
philosophical thought: it is a fact which everyone, believing or
unbelieving, must admit and which is also proven by science today.
Those who contemplate their surroundings conscientiously and wisely realize that everything in the universe—both living and non-living—must have been created. So the question becomes, "Who is the Creator of all these things?"
It is evident that the creation that reveals itself in every aspect of the universe cannot be an outgrowth of the universe itself. For example, no insect could have created itself, nor could the solar system have created or organized itself. Neither could plants, humans, bacteria, red-blood cells, nor butterflies have created themselves. As this book explains throughout, any possibility that all these could have originated "by chance" is unimaginable.
Therefore, we arrive at the following conclusion: Everything that we see has been created, but nothing we see can itself be a "creator." The Creator is different from—and superior to—all that we see, a Superior Power Who is invisible to our eyes, but Whose existence and attributes are revealed in everything that He creates.
This is where those who deny God's existence are led astray. They are conditioned not to believe in God's existence unless they see Him with their own eyes, forced to conceal the actuality of creation manifested all throughout the universe, and to claim that the universe and all the living things it contains have not been created. In order to do so, they resort to falsehoods. As explained earlier, evolutionary theory is one key example of their lies and vain endeavours to this end.
The basic mistake of those who deny God is shared by many others who don't actually deny His existence, but have wrong perceptions of Him. These people, constituting the majority of society, do not deny creation, but have superstitious beliefs about God, most believing that God is only "up in the sky." They tacitly and falsely imagine that God is off behind some very distant planet and only occasionally interferes with worldly affairs. Or perhaps He doesn't intervene at all: He created the universe, and then left it to itself, leaving us humans to determine our fates for ourselves.
Still others have heard the fact that God is "everywhere," as revealed in the Qur'an, but cannot understand exactly what this means. Superstitiously, they think that God surrounds all matter like radio waves or like an invisible, intangible gas. (God is certainly beyond that.)
However, this and other notions that cannot clarify "where" God is (and perhaps deny Him accordingly) are all based on a common mistake: They hold a groundless prejudice that moves them to wrong opinions about God.
What is this prejudice? It concerns the existence and nature of matter. Most people have been conditioned to assume that the material universe we see is itself the true reality. Modern science, however, demolishes this position and discloses a very important and imposing truth. In the following pages, we will explain this great reality to which the Qur'an points.
The World of Electrical Signals
All the information we have about the world is conveyed to us by our five senses. Thus, the world we know consists of what our eyes see, our hands feel, our nose smells, our tongue tastes, and our ears hear. We never believe that the external world can be other than what our senses present to us, since we've depended on those senses since the day we were born.
Yet modern research in many different fields of science points to a very different understanding, creating serious doubt about the "outside" world that we perceive with our senses.
For this new understanding, the starting point is that everything we perceive as external is only a response formed by electrical signals in our brain. The red of an apple, the hardness of wood—moreover, one's mother, father, family, and everything that one owns, one's house, job, and even the pages of this book—all are comprised of electrical signals only.
On this subject, the late German biochemist Frederic Vester explained the viewpoint that science has reached:
Statements of some scientists, positing that man is an image, that everything experienced is temporary and deceptive, and that this universe is only a shadow, all seem to be proven by current science.190
To clarify, let's consider the five senses which provide us with all our information about the external world.
How Do We See, Hear, and Taste?
 Bundles of light coming from an object fall on the retina upside-down. Here, the image is converted into electrical signals and transmitted to the centre of vision at the back of the brain. Since the brain is insulated from light, it is impossible for light to reach the centre of vision. This means that we view a vast world of light and depth in a tiny spot that is insulated from light. |
The act of seeing occurs in a progressive fashion. Light (photons) traveling from the object passes through the lens in front of the eye, where the image is refracted and falls, upside down, onto the retina at the back of the eye. Here, visual stimuli are turned into electrical signals, in turn transmitted by neurons to a tiny spot in the rear of the brain known as the vision centre. After a series of processes, these electrical signals in this brain center are perceived as an image. The act of seeing actually takes place at the posterior of the brain, in this tiny spot which is pitch dark, completely insulated from light.
Even though this process is largely understood, when we claim, "We see," in fact we are perceiving the effects of impulses reaching our eye, transformed into electrical signals, and induced in our brain. And so, when we say, "We see," actually we are observing electrical signals in our mind.
All the images we view in our lives are formed in our centre of vision, which takes up only a few cubic centimetres in the brain's volume. The book you are now reading, as well as the boundless landscape you see when you gaze at the horizon, both occur in this tiny space. And keep in mind that, as noted before, the brain is insulated from light. Inside the skull is absolutely dark; and the brain itself has no contact with light.
An example can illustrate this interesting paradox. Suppose we place a burning candle in front of you. You can sit across from it and watch this candle at length. During this time, however, your brain never has any direct contact with the candle's original light. Even while you perceive the candle's light, the inside of your brain is lightless. We all watch a bright, colourful world inside our pitch-dark brain.
R. L. Gregory explains the miraculous aspect of seeing, which we take so very much for granted:
We are so familiar with seeing, that it takes a leap of imagination to realize that there are problems to be solved. But consider it. We are given tiny distorted upside-down images in the eyes, and we see separate solid objects in surrounding space. From the patterns of simulation on the retinas we perceive the world of objects, and this is nothing short of a miracle.191
The same applies to all our other senses. Sound, touch, taste and smell are all transmitted as electrical signals to the brain, where they are perceived in the relevant centres.
 Stimulations coming from an object are converted into electrical signals and cause an effect in the brain. When we "see", we in fact view the effects of these electrical signals in our mind. |
The sense of hearing proceeds in the same manner. The auricle in the outer ear picks up available sounds and directs them to the middle ear; the middle ear transmits the sound vibrations to the inner ear by intensifying them; the inner ear translates these vibrations into electrical signals and sends them to the brain. Just as with the eye, the act of hearing takes place in the brain's hearing centre. The brain is insulated from sound just as it is from light. Therefore, no matter how noisy it may be outside, it is completely silent inside the brain.
Nevertheless, the brain perceives sounds most precisely, so that a healthy person's ear hears everything without any atmospheric noise or interference. Your brain is insulated from sound, yet you listen to the symphonies of an orchestra, hear all the noises in a crowded auditorium, and perceive all sounds within a wide frequency, from the rustling of leaves to the roar of a jet plane. However, were a sensitive device to measure the sound level in your brain, it would show complete silence prevailing there.
Our perception of odour forms in a similar way. Volatile molecules, emitted by vanilla extract or a rose, reach receptors in the delicate hairs in the olfactory epithelium and become involved in an interaction that is transmitted to the brain as electrical signals and perceived as smell. Everything that you smell, be it pleasant or repugnant, is only your brain's perception of the interactions of volatile molecules transformed into electrical signals. The scent of a perfume, a flower, any delicious food, the sea, or other odours you like or dislike, you perceive entirely in your brain.
The molecules themselves never reach there. Just as with sound and vision, what reaches your sensory centres is simply an assortment of electrical signals. In other words, all the sensations that, since you were born, you've assumed to belong to external objects are just electrical signals interpreted through your sense organs.
Similarly, at the front of your tongue, there are four different types of chemical receptors that create the tastes of salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. After a series of chemical processes, your taste receptors transform these perceptions into electrical signals and transmit them to the brain, which perceives these signals as flavours. The taste you get when you eat chocolate or a fruit that you like is your brain's interpretation of electrical signals. You can never reach the object outside; you can never see, smell or taste the chocolate itself. For instance, if the nerves between your tongue and your brain are cut, no further signals will reach your brain, and you will lose your sense of taste completely.
Here, we come across another fact: You can never be sure that how a food tastes to you is the same as how it tastes to anyone else; or that your perception of a voice is the same as what another's when he hears that same voice. Along the same lines, science writer Lincoln Barnett wrote that "no one can ever know whether his sensation of red or of Middle C is the same as another man's."192
Our sense of touch is no different. When we handle an object, all the information that helps us recognise it is transmitted to the brain by sensitive nerves on the skin. The feeling of touch is formed in our brain. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we perceive sensations of touch not at our fingertips or on our skin, but in our brain's tactile centre. As a result of the brain's assessment of electrical stimulations coming to it from the skin, we feel different sensations pertaining to objects, such as hardness or softness, heat or cold. From these stimulations, we derive all details that help us recognise an object. Concerning this important fact, consider the thoughts of B. Russell and L. J. J. Wittgenstein, two famous philosophers:
For instance, whether a lemon truly exists or not and how it came to exist cannot be questioned and investigated. A lemon consists merely of a taste sensed by the tongue, an odor sensed by the nose, a color and shape sensed by the eye; and only these features of it can be subject to examination and assessment. Science can never know the physical world.193
It is impossible for us to reach the physical world outside our brain. All objects we're in contact with are actually collection of perceptions such as sight, hearing, and touch. Throughout our lives, by processing the data in the sensory centres, our brain confronts not the "originals" of the matter existing outside us, but rather copies formed inside our brain. At this point, we are misled to assume that these copies are instances of real matter outside us.
The "External World" Inside Our Brain
As a result of these physical facts, we come to the following indisputable conclusion: Everything we see, touch, hear, and perceive as "matter," "the world" or "the universe" is in fact electrical signals interpreted in our brain. We can never reach the original of the matter outside our brain. We merely taste, hear and see an image of the external world formed in our brain. In fact, someone eating an apple confronts not the actual fruit, but its perceptions in the brain. What that person considers to be an apple actually consists of his brain's perception of the electrical information concerning the fruit's shape, taste, smell, and texture. If the optic nerve to the brain were suddenly severed, the image of the fruit would instantly disappear. Any disconnection in the olfactory nerve travelling from receptors in the nose to the brain would interrupt the sense of smell completely. Simply put, that apple is nothing but the interpretation of electrical signals by the brain.
 All we see in our lives are formed in a part of our brain called "vision centre" at the back of our brain, which makes up only a few cubic centimetres. Both the book you are now reading and the boundless landscape you see when you gaze at the horizon fit into this tiny space. Therefore, we see objects not in their actual size existing outside, but in the size perceived by our brain. |
Also consider the sense of distance. The empty space between you and this page is only a sense of emptiness formed in your brain. Objects that appear distant in your view also exist in the brain. For instance, someone watching the stars at night assumes that they are millions of light-years away, yet the stars are within himself, in his vision centre. While you read these lines, actually you are not inside the room you assume you're in; on the contrary, the room is inside you. Perceiving your body makes you think that you're inside it. However, your body, too, is a set of images formed inside your brain.
The same applies to all other perceptions. When you believe you're hearing the sound of the television in the next room, for instance, actually you are experiencing those sounds inside your brain. The noises you think are coming from meters away and the conversation of the person right beside you—both are perceived in the auditory centre in your brain, only a few cubic centimetres in size. Apart from this centre of perception, no concepts such as right, left, front or behind exist. That is, sound does not come to you from the right, from the left, or from above; there is no direction from which sound "really" comes.
Similarly, none of the smells you perceive reach you from any distance away. You suppose that the scents perceived in your centre of smell are those of outside objects. However, just as the image of a rose exists in your visual centre, so its scent is located in your olfactory centre. You can never have direct contact with the original sight or smell of that rose that exists outside.
To us, the "external world" is merely a collection of the electrical signals reaching our brains simultaneously. Our brains process these signals, and we live without recognizing our mistaken assumption that these are the actual, original versions of matter existing in the "external world." We are misled, because by means of our senses, we can never reach the matter itself.
 The findings of physics show that the universe is a collection of perceptions. The following question appears on the cover of the well-known American science magazine New Scientist which dealt with this fact in its 30 January 1999 issue: "Beyond Reality: Is the Universe Really a Frolic of Primal Information and Matter Just a Mirage?" An article titled "The Hollow Universe", published in the 27 April, 2002, edition of New Scientist, said: "You're holding a magazine. It feels solid; it seems to have some kind of independent existence in space. Ditto the objects around you -perhaps a cup of coffee, a computer. They all seem real and out there somewhere. But it's all an illusion. Those supposedly solid objects are mere projections, emanating from a shifting kaleidoscopic pattern living on the boundary of our Universe." |
Again, our brain interprets and attributes meanings to the signals that we assume to be "external." Consider the sense of hearing, for example. In fact, our brain interprets and transforms sound waves reaching our ear into symphonies. Music, too, is a perception formed by—and within—our brain. In the same manner, when we see colours, different wavelengths of light are all that reaches our eyes, and our brain transforms these wavelengths into colours. There are no colours in the "external world." Neither is the apple red, nor is the sky blue, nor the trees green. They are as they are only because we perceive them to be so.
Even the slightest defect in the eye's retina can cause colour blindness. Some people perceive blue as green, others red as blue, and still others see all colours as different tones of grey. At this point, it no longer matters whether the outside object is coloured or not.
The prominent Irish thinker George Berkeley also addressed this point:
First, ...it was thought that colour, figure, motion, and the rest of the sensible qualities or accidents, did really exist without the mind;.. But, it having been shewn that none even of these can possibly exist otherwise than in a Spirit or Mind which perceives them it follows that we have no longer any reason to suppose the being of Matter...194
In conclusion, we see colours not because objects
are coloured or because they have a material existence outside
ourselves, but because all the qualities we ascribe to objects are
inside us, not in the "external world."
In that case, how can we claim to have complete knowledge of "the external world?"
Mankind's Limited Knowledge
One implication of the facts described so far is that actually, man's knowledge of the external world is exceedingly limited.
That knowledge is limited to our five senses, and there is no proof that the world we perceive by means of those senses is identical to the "real" world.
It may, therefore, be very different from what we perceive. There may be a great many dimensions and other beings of which we remain unaware. Even if we reach the furthermost extremities of the universe, our knowledge will always remain limited.
Almighty God, the Creator of all, has complete and flawless knowledge of all beings who, having been created by God, can possess only the knowledge that He allows them. This reality is explained in the Qur'an as follows:
God, there is no deity but Him, the Living, the Self-Sustaining. He is not subject to drowsiness or sleep. Everything in the heavens and the earth belongs to Him. Who can intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is before them and what is behind them but they cannot grasp any of His knowledge save what He wills. His Footstool encompasses the heavens and the Earth and their preservation does not tire Him. He is the Most High, the Magnificent. (Surat al-Baqara: 255)
The Artificially Constituted "External World"
The only world we know is the one that is designed, recorded, and made vivid there—in short, the one created and existing within our minds. Perceptions we observe in our brain may sometimes be coming from an artificial source.
We can illustrate this with an example:
First, imagine that by artificial means, your brain can survive apart from your body. And suppose a computer able to produce all kinds of electrical signals. Let us artificially produce electrical signals of the data relating to a given environment—including its sights, sounds and aromas. Finally, let's have electrical cables connect this computer to your brain's sensory centres and transmit the recorded signals. Perceiving these signals, your brain (in other words, "you") will see and experience the environment they represent.
This computer can also send to your brain electrical signals related to your own image. For example, if we send the electrical correlates of all senses such as hearing, sight and touch that you experience while sitting at a desk, you will assume that you're a businessman in his office. This imaginary world will endure as long as the computer keeps sending stimuli. Never will it become possible for you to understand that you consist of nothing but your brain. This is because all that's needed to form a world within your brain is the availability of stimulations to the relevant centres. It is perfectly possible for these stimulations (and hence, perceptions) to originate from some artificial source.
Along these lines, the distinguished philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote:
As to the sense of touch when we press the table with our fingers, that is an electric disturbance on the electrons and protons of our fingertips, produced, according to modern physics, by the proximity of the electrons and protons in the table. If the same disturbance in our finger-tips arose in any other way, we should have the sensations, in spite of there being no table.195
It's very easy indeed to be deceived into deeming perceptions without any material correlates as real. Often we experience this illusion in dreams, wherein we experience events and see people, objects and settings that seem completely genuine. But they're all merely perceptions. There's no basic difference between these dreams and the "real world"; both sets of perceptions are experienced in the brain.
Who Is the Perceiver?
Virtual reality is the presentation of three-dimensional
images brought to life on computers with the aid of various devices.
These "real world" simulations are employed for a number of training
purposes in various fields.
|
The "external world" that we think we inhabit is no doubt created inside our brain. Here, however, arises a question of primary importance: If all the physical objects we know of are intrinsically perceptions, what about our brain itself? Since our brain is a part of the material world just like our arms, our legs, or any other object, it too should be a perception.
An example will help illustrate this point. Assume that we perceive a dream in our brain. In our dream, we have an imaginary body, imaginary arms and eyes, and an imaginary brain. If, during our dream, we were asked "Where do you see?" we'd answer, "I see in my brain." Yet, actually there is no real brain to talk about, only an imaginary body, along with an imaginary head and an imaginary brain. The seer of the dream's various images is not the imaginary dreaming brain, but a being who is far beyond it.
Since there is no physical distinction between the setting of a dream and the setting we call real life, when in "real life" we are asked the same question of "Where do you see?" it would be equally meaningless to answer, "In my brain." Under either condition, the entity that sees and perceives is not the brain, which is after all only a hunk of nerve tissue.
So far, we have kept referring to how we watch a copy of the external world in our brains. An important result is that we can never know the external world as it actually is.
A second, no less important fact is that the "self" in our brains who observes this world cannot be the brain itself, which is like an integrated computer system: It processes data reaching it, translates it into images, and projects them on a screen. Yet a computer cannot watch itself; nor is it aware of its own existence.
When the brain is dissected to search for this awareness, nothing is found in it but lipid and protein molecules, which exist in other organs of the body as well. This means that within the tissue we call "our brain," there is nothing to observe and interpret the images, constitute consciousness, or to create the being we call "ourselves."
In relation to the perception of images in the brain, perceptual scientist R.L. Gregory refers to a mistake people make:
There is a temptation, which must be avoided, to say that the eyes produce pictures in the brain. A picture in the brain suggests the need of some kind of internal eye to see it—but this would need a further eye to see its picture… and so on in an endless regress of eyes and pictures. This is absurd.196
This problem puts materialists, who hold that nothing is real except matter, in a quandary: Who is behind the eye that sees? What perceives what it sees, and then reacts?
Renowned cognitive neuroscientist Karl Pribram focused on this important question, relevant to the worlds of both science and philosophy, about who the perceiver is:
Philosophers since the Greeks have speculated about the "ghost" in the machine, the "little man inside the little man" and so on. Where is the I—the entity that uses the brain? Who does the actual knowing? Or, as Saint Francis of Assisi once put it, "What we are looking for is what is looking."197
This book in your hand, the room you are in—in brief, all the images before you—are perceived inside your brain. Is it the blind, deaf, unconscious component atoms that view these images? Why did some atoms acquire this quality, whereas most did not? Do our acts of thinking, comprehending, remembering, being delighted, being unhappy, and everything else consist of chemical reactions among these atoms' molecules?
There is no sense in looking for will in atoms. Clearly, the being who sees, hears, and feels is a supra-material being, "alive," who is neither matter nor an image. This being interacts with the perceptions before it by using the image of our body.
This being is the soul.
The intelligent being reading these lines is not an assortment of atoms and molecules and the chemical reactions between them, but a soul.
The Real Absolute Being
We are brought face to face with a very significant question: If the world we confront is comprised of our soul's perceptions, then what is the source of these perceptions?
For an answer, consider that we perceive matter only in our imaginations, but can never directly experience of its counterparts outside. Since matter is actually a perception to us, it is something "constructed." That is, it must have been caused by another power—which means that in fact, it must have been created. Moreover, this creation must be continuous. If not, then these perceptions would quickly disappear and be lost. Similarly, a television picture is displayed only as long as the signal continues to be broadcast.
So, who makes our soul that continuously watches the stars, the earth, the plants, the people, our body and everything else that we see?
Very evidently, there exists a supreme Creator Who has created the entire material universe, and Who ceaselessly continues His creation. Since this Creator displays such a magnificent creation, surely He has eternal power and might.
This Creator describes Himself, the universe and the reason of our existence for us through the book He has sent down.
This Creator is God, and His book is the Qur'an.
The fact is, the heavens and the Earth—that is, the universe—are not stable. Their presence is made possible only by God's creation, and that they will disappear when He ends this creation. This is revealed in a verse as follows:
God keeps a firm hold on the heavens and Earth, preventing them from vanishing away. And if they vanished no one could then keep hold of them. Certainly He is Most Forbearing, Ever-Forgiving. (Surah Fatir: 41)
This verse is describing how the material universe is maintained under the might of God. God created the universe, the Earth, mountains, and all living and non-living things, and maintains all these under His power at every moment. God manifests His name al-Khaliq in this material universe. God is al-Khaliq, in other words, the Creator of all things, the Creator from nothing. This shows that there is a material universe, outside our brains, consisting of entities created by God. However, as a miracle and manifestation of the superior nature of His creation and His omniscience, God shows us this material universe in the form of an "illusion," "shadow," or "image." As a consequence of the perfection in His creation, human beings can never reach the world outside their brains. Only God knows this real material universe.
Another interpretation of the above verse is that God constantly maintains the images of the material universe that people see. (God knows best.) If God did not wish to show the image of the world to our minds, the entire universe would cease to exist for us, and we could never reach it.
That we can never directly contact the material universe also answers the question of "Where is God?" that preoccupies a great many people.
As mentioned at the start, many cannot comprehend God's power and so, imagine Him as present somewhere in the heavens and not really intervening in worldly affairs. (God is certainly beyond that.) This logic is based on the assumptions that the universe is an assembly of matter and God is "outside" this material world.
However, just as we can never reach the material universe, neither can we have full knowledge of its true essence. All we know is the existence of the Creator Who brought all these things into being—in other words, God. To express that truth, great Islamic scholars like Imam Rabbani have said that the only absolute being is God; and that all the rest, except Him, are shadow entities.
That is because the world we see is entirely in our minds, and to directly experience its counterpart in the external world is totally impossible.
That being so, it would be wrong to imagine that God is "outside" of a material universe that we can never attain.
God is surely "everywhere" and encompasses all. This reality is explained in the Qur'an as follows:
... His Footstool encompasses the heavens and the earth and their preservation does not tire Him. He is the Most High, the Magnificent. (Surat al-Baqara: 255)
What! Are they in doubt about the meeting with their Lord? What! Does He not encompass all things? (Surah Fussilat: 54)
The fact that God is not bound with space and that He encompasses everything roundabout is stated in another verse as follows:
Both East and West belong to God, so wherever you turn, the Face of God is there. God is All-Encompassing, All-Knowing. (Surat al-Baqara: 115)
Material beings cannot see God; but God sees the matter He created in all its forms. In the Qur'an, this fact is stated thus: "No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision." (Surat al-An'am: 103)That is, we cannot perceive God's existence with our eyes, but God has thoroughly encompassed our inside and outside, our vision and thoughts. We cannot utter any word except with His knowledge, nor can we even draw breath.
 The brain is a heap of cells made up of protein and fat molecules. It is formed of nerve cells called neurons. There is no power in this piece of meat to observe the images, to constitute consciousness, or to create the being we call "myself". The existence of the soul can clearly be seen from this. |
In the course of our lives, while we watch perceptions we assume to be the "external world," the closest being to us is God Himself. The secret of the following verse in the Qur'an is concealed in this reality: "It was We Who created man, and We know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein." (Surah Qaf: 16) When a person thinks that his body is made up of "matter," he cannot comprehend this important fact. If he takes his brain to be himself, then what he accepts as the "outside world" will begin at about 20 to 30 centimetres away. But when he conceives that everything he thinks of as matter is only perceptions in his mind, any notions such as outside or inside, far or near lose all their meaning. God has encompassed him and He is infinitely close to him.
God informs men that He is "infinitely close" to them with the verse "If My servants ask you about Me, I am near…" (Surat al-Baqara: 186). Another verse relates the same fact: "Surely your Lord encompasses the people." (Surat al-Isra: 60)
Man is misled if he thinks that the being closest to him is himself. God, in truth, is even closer to us than ourselves. He has called our attention to this point in the verse "Why is it not then that when it (soul) comes up to the throat, and you at that time look on, We are nearer to him than you, but you see not." (Surat al-Waqi'a: 83-85) People, however, remain unaware of this phenomenal fact because they cannot see it with their eyes, as revealed in the verse.
On the other hand, it is impossible for man—who is nothing but a shadow being, as Imam Rabbani put it,— to have any power independent of God. The verse "But God has created you and your handwork!" (Surat as-Saffat: 96) shows that everything we experience takes place under God's control. In the Qur'an, this reality is stated in the verse "When you threw, it was not your act, but God's." (Surat al-Anfal: 17) whereby it is emphasised that no act is independent of God. Since we humans are shadow beings, we ourselves cannot be the ones who perform any act. However, God gives us shadow beings the feeling that we act by ourselves. In reality, it is God Who performs all acts.
A person may not want to concede this reality and may keep thinking of himself as independent of God; but this changes nothing.
Everything You Possess Is Intrinsically Illusory
It is clear, scientific, and logical that we are not in direct contact with the "external world," only with a copy of it that God perpetually presents to our soul. Nevertheless, people are unwilling to think of this.
 If one ponders deeply on all that is said here, he will soon realise this amazing, extraordinary situation by himself: The world is a sphere created solely in order to test Man. Throughout their brief lives, people are tested with perceptions, which are depicted as particularly decorative and attractive. But they can never experience the true, original sources of those perceptions. |
If you consider this issue sincerely and boldly, you'll soon realize that your house, the furniture in it, your car, your office, jewels, your bank account, wardrobe, spouse, children, your colleagues—in fact, all else that you possess—resides in your mind. Everything around you that you see, hear, or smell—in short, perceive with your five senses— is a part of this "replica world," including the voice of your favourite singer, the hardness of the chair you sit on, a perfume whose smell you like, the sun that warms you, a flower's beautiful colours, a bird flying past your window, a speedboat moving swiftly on the water, your fertile garden, the computer you use at your job, your hi-fi with the most advanced technology in the world...
This is the reality, because the world is created only to test man. All through our limited lives, we are tested with perceptions whose original sources we can never reach, which are intentionally presented as appealing and attractive. This fact is mentioned in the Qur'an:
Fair in the eyes of men is the love of things they covet: women and sons; heaped-up hoards of gold and silver; horses branded [for blood and excellence]; and [wealth of] cattle and well-tilled land. Such are the possessions of this world's life; but in nearness to God is the best of the goals [to return to]. (Surah Al 'Imran: 14)
Most people cast away religion for the lure of property, heaped-up wealth, hoards of gold and silver, jewels, bank accounts, credit cards, designer clothes, late-model cars—in short, all the forms of prosperity they either possess or strive to. They concentrate on this world only, forgetting the Hereafter. They are deceived by the fair and alluring face of the world, and fail to keep up prayer, give charity to the poor, and perform worship that will make them prosper in the Hereafter. They make excuses, saying, "I have things to do," "I have ideals," "I have responsibilities," "I haven't enough time," "I have tasks to complete," "I will do them in the future." They devote their entire lives to trying to prosper in this world only. In the verse, "They know but the outer [things] in the life of this world: but of the End of things they are heedless." (Surat ar-Rum: 7), this misconception is described.
The reality dealt with in this chapter is very important, for it renders meaningless all lusts and boundaries. Verifying this fact makes it clear that everything people toil to possess, their wealth amassed with greed, their children they boast of, their spouses they consider to be closest to them, their dearest friends, their bodies, their superior rank which they hold, the schools they have attended, the holidays they celebrate—all are nothing but mere shadows. Therefore, all the efforts they expended and the time they spent proves unavailing.
Some people unwittingly make fools of themselves when they boast of their wealth and properties, or of their yachts, helicopters, factories, holdings, manors and lands as if they can ever have direct contact with their original possessions. Those well-to-do who cruise ostentatiously up and down in their yachts, show off with their cars, keep hinting at their wealth, suppose that they rank higher than everyone else. In what kind of state would they find themselves, once they realize that they are boasting of nothing but images in their own minds?
In many of their dreams, they in fact find themselves possessed of grand houses, fast cars, precious jewels, rolls of banknotes, and loads of gold and silver. In their dreams, too, they enjoy a high rank, own factories with thousands of workers, possess the power to rule over thousands, and wear clothes that command everyone's admiration. But just as boasting about one's possessions in a dream often subjects one to ridicule, he is sure to be equally ridiculed in this world for boasting of images he relates to. After all, what he sees in his dreams and what he relates to in this world are both merely images in his mind.
Similarly, when people realize the reality, the way they react to the worldly events they experience should make them feel ashamed. Those who fight fiercely with each other, swindle, take bribes, commit forgery, lie, covetously withhold their money; who do wrong to others, who curse and beat them, who are full of passion for office and high rank, who envy and try to show off, who exalt themselves above all others—all will feel disgrace when they realize that they have committed all of these deeds in an illusion.
Since God creates the entire universe and reveals it to every human being individually, the Ultimate Owner of all possessions in the world is God alone. This fact is revealed in the Qur'an:
But to God belong all things in the heavens and on Earth: And He it is that Encompasses all things. (Surat an-Nisa': 126)
It is hugely foolish to cast away religion for the sake of passions whose original objects one can never reach, and thus lose eternal life.
At this point, it's important to grasp that the truth we are considering does not mean that all the possessions, wealth, children, spouses, rank and position one possesses and longs for will vanish in the future, and so are meaningless. Rather, it predicates that in fact, people have no direct contact with any of their possessions. They are merely perceptions they watch from within their brains, composed of images that God shows to test them. As you see, there's a big difference between those two propositions.
Although someone might not want to acknowledge this fact right away and would prefer to deceive himself by assuming that all his possessions really exist, he must finally to die. When he is resurrected in the Hereafter, everything will become clear, and "sight will be sharp." (Surah Qaf: 22) On that day, he is apt to see everything much more clearly. If he has spent his life chasing after imaginary aims, however, he will wish he had never lived, and say "Ah! Would that [Death] had made an end of me! Of no profit to me has been my wealth! My power has perished from me!" (Surat al-Haqqa: 27-29) On the other hand, a wise man should try to understand the great reality of the universe here on this world, while he still has time.
Otherwise, he will spend all his life running after dreams and face a grievous penalty in the end. In the Qur'an, the final state of those people who run after illusions (or mirages) on this world and forget God, our Creator, is stated as follows:
But the unbelievers, their deeds are like a mirage in sandy deserts, which the man parched with thirst mistakes for water; until when he comes up to it, he finds it to be nothing: But he finds God [ever] with him, and God will pay him his account: and God is swift in taking account. (Surat an-Nur: 39)
Logical Deficiencies of the Materialists
From the start, this chapter has clearly stated that matter is not absolute, as materialists claim, but rather a shadow that God creates out of nothing and whose original we can never reach. In an extremely dogmatic manner, materialists resist this evident reality which destroys their philosophy, and bring forward baseless counterclaims to refute it.
George Politzer, for example, an ardent Marxist and one of the twentieth century's biggest advocates of the materialist philosophy, gave the "bus example" as the greatest evidence proving that he could reach the original of matter. According to Politzer, even idealist philosophers run away when they see a bus about to run them over, and this proves that they do confront the actuality of matter.198
Samuel Johnson, another famous materialist, was told that one can never reach essential matter, and tried to "prove" that he could make contact with the essence of stones by giving one of them a kick.199
A similar example is given by Friedrich Engels, the mentor of Politzer and along with Marx, the founder of dialectic materialism. He wrote that "if the cakes we eat were mere perceptions, they would not stop our hunger."200
There are similar examples in the books of famous materialists such as Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others along with impetuous sentences such as, "You understand the existence of matter when you are slapped in the face."
The disordered comprehension that engenders such examples arises from materialists' interpreting the explanation "We cannot reach the original of matter" as involving the sense of sight only. They think that perception is limited to sight, and that touching can get us directly to the essence of matter. A bus knocking a man down makes people say, "Look, it hit him! Therefore, he confronted the original." They don't understand that all the perceptions experienced during a crash—hard metal, the force of collision, pain—are in fact formed in the brain.
The Example of Dreams
The fact is, whichever of the five senses we take as a starting point, we can't ever actually reach the original of the external world that exists outside. A significant evidence of this is the way we imagine the existence of things that in fact do not exist in our dreams. In dreams, we can experience very realistic events. We can fall down the stairs and break a leg, have a serious car accident, get stuck under a bus, or eat a heavy meal and feel satiated. Events similar to those experienced in daily life are experienced in dreams too, with the same persuasiveness and rousing the same emotions.
A person who dreams of being knocked down by a bus can open his eyes in a hospital—again in his dream—and realize that he is disabled. But all this would remain a dream. Also, he can dream of dying in a car crash, that angels of death retrieve his soul, and his life in the Hereafter begins.
The images, sounds, feeling of hardness, pain, light, colours—all the feelings pertaining to the event he experiences in his dream—are perceived very sharply. They seem as natural as the ones in real life. The cake he eats in his dream satiates him, although it is a mere perception, because feeling satisfied is a perception too. At that moment, however, this person is lying in his bed. There are really no stairs, no traffic, no buses, no cake, because the dreamer experiences perceptions and feelings that don't exist in the external world. The fact that our dreams give us events with no physical, external correlates clearly reveals that the "world out there" is one whose true essence we can never know. We can learn the true nature of that world only from the revelation of Almighty God, Who created it.
Those who believe in the materialist philosophy, the Marxists in particular, are enraged when informed of this reality. They quote examples from the superficial, ignorant reasoning of Marx, Engels, or Lenin and else make emotional declarations.
However, they should realize that they can make these declarations in a dream as well. They can dream of reading Das Kapital, participating in meetings, and even feel the pain of getting involved in a fistfight. When asked—in their dream—they will think that what they see is absolute reality, just as they assume that everything they see while awake is absolutely real. But they should know that everything they experience—be it in a dream or in their daily lives—consists of only perceptions whose "real" source they can never reach.
The Example of a Shared Nervous System
Let us consider Politzer's car crash example: If the injured victim's nerves travelling from his five senses to his brain, were connected in parallel to another person's—Politzer's, for instance—then at the instant the bus hit that person, Politzer, sitting at his home at that same time, would feel the impact too. Politzer would experience all the sensations experienced by the person undergoing the accident, just as the same song will issue from two different loudspeakers connected to the same tape recorder. Politzer will hear the braking of the bus, feel its impact on his body, see the sights of a broken arm and spreading blood, suffer the aching fractures, experience entering the operation room, the hardness of the plaster cast, and the feebleness of his healing arm.
Just like Politzer, every other person connected to that man's nerves would experience the accident from beginning to end. If the man in the accident fell into a coma, so would everyone. Moreover, if all the perceptions pertaining to the car accident were recorded in some device, and repeatedly transmitted to someone, the bus would knock this person down again and again.
But which one of these two buses hitting those people is real? To this question, materialist philosophers have no consistent answer. The correct answer is that all of them experience the car accident, in all its details, in their own minds.
The same principle applies to our other examples. If the sensory nerves of Engels, who felt the fullness in his stomach after eating a cake, were connected to a second person's brain, that person would also feel full after Engels finished the cake. If the nerves of materialist Johnson, who felt pain in his foot after delivering a sound kick to a stone, were connected to a second individual, that person too would feel himself kick the same stone and feel the same pain.
So, which cake or stone is the real one? Again, materialist philosophy falls short of giving a consistent answer. The correct, consistent answer is that Engels and the second person have both eaten the cake and are satiated in their minds; both Johnson and the second person have fully experienced kicking the stone—again, in their minds.
In our previous example, let's make an exchange: Connecting the nerves of the man hit by the bus to Politzer's brain, and the nerves of Politzer, sitting in his house, to brain of that accident victim. In this case, Politzer will think that a bus has hit him, but the man actually hit by the bus will never feel the impact and think that he is sitting in Politzer's house. The very same logic can be applied to the examples involving the cake and the stone.
All this reveals how dogmatic materialism actually is. Its philosophy is founded on the assumption that nothing exists except matter. The fact is, however, that no one can ever experience any direct contact with matter and thus be justified in claiming that everything consists of it. The universe we contact is the universe that we perceive in our minds. The famous British philosopher David Hume expressed his thoughts on this point:
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.201
We can never step outside these perceptions and encounter matter as it "really" is, so it is wholly nonsensical to construct any philosophy regarding matter as an absolute entity we can experience directly. As a theory, materialism is totally unfounded, right from the outset.
The Formation of Perceptions in the Brain Is not Philosophy, But Scientific Fact
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Materialists claim that what we have stated here is a philosophical view. But the plain scientific fact is, we cannot interact with the "external" material world, but only with a world in our brain. This is not a matter of philosophy. All medical schools teach in detail how images and feelings form in the brain. Facts proven by twentieth-century science, and by physics in particular, clearly show that we can never reach the originals of physical matter; and that in a sense, everyone is watching the "monitor" in his brain.
Everyone who believes in science, be he an atheist, Buddhist, or of any other belief, must accept this fact. Even the materialist who denies the existence of God cannot deny scientific reality.
That Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, George Politzer and others were never able to comprehend such a simple, evident fact is still startling, even though their level of scientific understanding was primitive and insufficient. Our highly advanced science and technology make it even easier to comprehend this explicit fact. Materialists, on the other hand, are paralyzed with their fears of even partially comprehending this fact and thereby, realizing how completely it demolishes their philosophy.
The Materialists' Great Fear
 Someone who looks out the window at the scenery does not actually view an image which is outside of him, but rather the image that belongs to the scenery in his brain. Light that reaches one's eye is converted into electric signals by the cells in the eye and transmitted to the visual centre at the back of the brain. "A consciousness" within our brain receives the electric signals that enter the brain, and perceives them as scenery. a) LIGHT b) ELECTRIC SIGNAL c) THE SCENERY SIGHT MADE UP OF ELECTRIC SIGNALS |
For a while, Turkish materialist circles mounted no substantial backlash against the subject examined in this book—that matter is perceived in the brain. This gave us the impression that we hadn't made our point clearly enough, that it needed further explanation. Yet before long, it became apparent that materialists did feel quite uneasy about the popularity of this topic and moreover, felt a great fear about it all.
After a while, materialists started loudly publicizing their fear and panic in their publications, conferences and panels. Their agitated, hopeless discourse implied that they were suffering a severe intellectual crisis. The collapse of the theory of evolution—the basis of their so-called scientific philosophy—had already come as a great shock. Now they experienced an even greater one, as they realized that they were losing their belief in the absolute supremacy of matter, which for them was a greater mainstay than even Darwinism. They declared that for them, this issue is a tremendous threat that totally demolishes their cultural fabric.
One who expressed the materialist circles' anxiety and panic in a most outspoken way was Renan Pekunlu, an academician and writer in the periodical Bilim ve Utopya (Science and Utopia) which has assumed the task of defending materialism. Both in his articles in Bilim ve Utopya and in the panels he attended, Pekunlu presented our book The Evolution Deceit as the number-one threat. What disturbed Pekunlu even more than the chapters invalidating Darwinism was the section you are currently reading. Pekunlu admonished his handful of readers not to let themselves be carried away by the indoctrination of idealism and to keep their faith in materialism. He used Vladimir I. Lenin, leader of Russia's bloody communist revolution, as a reference. Advising everyone to read Lenin's century-old book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Pekunlu only repeated Lenin's counsel to "not think over this issue, or you will lose track of materialism and be carried away by religion." In an article for the aforementioned periodical, Pekunlu quoted the following lines from Lenin:
Once you deny the objective reality [that is] given us in sensation, you have already lost every weapon against fideism [reliance on faith alone], for you have slipped into agnosticism or subjectivism—and that is all that fideism requires. A single claw ensnared, and the bird is lost. And our Machists [an adherent of Machism, a modern positivist philosophy], have all become ensnared in idealism, that is, in a diluted, subtle fideism; They became ensnared from the moment they took "sensation" not as an image of the external world, but as a special "element." It is nobody's sensation, nobody's mind, nobody's spirit, nobody's will.202
These words explicitly demonstrate the fact that Lenin found alarming and wanted to expunge, both from his own mind and the minds of his "comrades." It disturbs contemporary materialists too, in a similar way. But Pekunlu and other materialists suffer a yet greater distress because they know that this certain fact is now being advanced in a way that's far more explicit convincing than a hundred years ago. For the first time, this subject is being explained in a truly irrefutable way.
Still, nevertheless, a great number of materialist scientists take a superficial stand against the fact that no one can reach matter in and of itself. The subject covered in this chapter is one of the most important and most exciting that a person can ever run across. It's fairly unlikely that these scientists would have faced such a crucial subject before, but the reactions and the stance they employ in their speeches and articles still hint at how shallow and superficial their comprehension really is.
Some materialists' reactions show that their blind adherence to materialism has somehow impaired their logic, making them far removed from comprehending the subject. For instance, Alaeddin Senel—like Rennan Pekunlu, an academician and a writer for Bilim ve Utopya—said, "Forget the collapse of Darwinism, the real threatening subject is this one," and made demands implying " prove what you tell," sensing that his own philosophy has no basis. More interestingly, this writer has written lines revealing that he can by no means grasp this very fact which he considers such a menace.
For instance, in one article where Senel discussed this subject exclusively, he accepts that the brain perceives the external world as an image. But then he goes on to claim that images are divided into two categories: those having physical correlates and those with none; and that we can indeed reach the physical correlates of images pertaining to the external world. In support of this assertion, he writes, "I do not know whether or not the images in my brain have correlates in the external world, but the same thing applies when I speak on the phone. When I speak on the telephone, I cannot see the person I am speaking to, but I can have this conversation confirmed later, when I see him face to face."203
By this, he actually means that if we doubt our perceptions, we can look at their origin and check its reality. This is an evident misconception, however, since it's impossible for us to reach matter itself. We can never get outside of our minds to reach what is "outside." Does the voice on the phone have an objective correlate or not? We can confirm that by meeting the person we spoke with. However, this confirmation too is experienced in the mind!
In fact, these writers also experience the same events in their dreams. For instance, Senel may dream that he speaks on the phone, then have this conversation confirmed by the person he spoke to. Or Pekunlu may, in his dream, feel he's facing a serious threat and advise others to read century-old books by Lenin. But no matter what they do, these materialists can never deny that the events they've experienced and the people they talked to were nothing but perceptions to them.
Who, then, can confirm the correlates of the images in the brain? The shadow beings whom people watch in their visual centres? It is impossible for materialists to find any "outside" source that can confirm information outside of the brain.
If someone concedes that all perceptions are formed in the brain, but still assumes that one can step "out" of this world of perceptions and have them confirmed by the "real" external world, this reveals this person's limited perceptive capacity and distorted reasoning.
However, the facts related here can easily be grasped by anyone of normal understanding and reasoning. In relation to everything we have said, every unbiased person will understand that it isn't possible for one's senses to reach the external world. Yet blind adherence to materialism apparently distorts people's reasoning capability. Contemporary materialists display severe logical flaws just like their mentors who tried to "prove" that they could reach the original of matter by kicking stones or eating cake.
This is no astonishing situation. The inability to understand—that is, interpret the world and events with decent reasoning—is a trait common to unbelievers. In the Qur'an, God particularly states that they are "a people without understanding." (Surat al-Ma'ida: 58)
Materialists Have Fallen into the Biggest Trap in History
The panicky atmosphere sweeping materialist circles in Turkey, of which we've mentioned only a few examples here, shows that materialists face utter defeat. Modern science has proven that we cannot reach the original of matter, and put this forward in a clear, straightforward, forceful way. Materialists see that the material world, on which they base their entire philosophy, lies beyond a perceptual boundary they can never cross. In the face of this fact, they can do nothing. Throughout human history, materialist thought has always existed. Being assured of themselves and their philosophy, materialists revolted against God Who created them. They maintained that matter is eternal, that none of it could possibly have had a Creator. While denying God out of their arrogance, they took refuge in matter alone, with which they held themselves to be in direct contact. So confident were they of this philosophy that they believed that no arguments could ever disprove it.
That is why this book's facts regarding the real nature of matter so surprised these people. What we've related here destroyed the very basis of their philosophy and left no grounds for further discussion. Matter, on which they based all their thoughts, lives, arrogance, and denial, suddenly vanished. No human being has ever seen matter as it "really" is, so no philosophy can be based upon it.
One of the attributes of God is His plotting against the unbelievers. This is stated in the verse; "They plot and plan, and God too plans; but the best of planners is God." (Surat al-Anfal: 30)
God entrapped materialists by making them assume that matter is an absolute existence and in so doing, humiliated them in a way never seen before. Materialists deemed their possessions, status, rank, the society they belong to, the whole world to be absolute. Moreover, by relying on these, they grew arrogant against God. By being boastful, they revolted against Him and added to their unbelief. While so doing, they relied on a total conviction in the absoluteness of matter. Yet so lacking are they in understanding that they fail to realize that God compasses them round about. God announces the state to which the unbelievers are led as a result of their thick-headedness:
Or do they intend a plot [against you]? But those who defy God are themselves involved in a Plot! (Surat at-Tur: 42)
Theirs is most probably the biggest intellectual
defeat in history. While growing arrogant of their own accord,
materialists have been tricked and suffered a serious defeat in their
war against God by bringing up something monstrous against Him. The
verse "Thus have We placed leaders in every town, its wicked
men, to plot [and burrow] therein: but they only plot against their own
souls, and they perceive it not" (Surat al-An'am: 123)
announces how unconscious these people who revolt against our Creator
are, and how they will end up. In another verse the same fact is
related as:
Fain would they deceive God and those who believe, but they only deceive themselves, and realise (it) not! (Surat al-Baqara: 9)
While trying to plot, unbelievers do not realize the very important fact that everything they experience is really experienced in their brains, and all the plots they devise are simply formed in their brains, just like every other act they perform. Their folly has let them forget that they are all alone with God and, hence, are trapped in their own devious plans.
Just like those unbelievers of bygone days, those living today face a reality that will shatter the basis of their devious plans. With the verse "...feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan" (Surat an-Nisa': 76), God has stated that these plots were doomed to end with failure the day they were hatched, and gave the good tidings to believers with the verse "...not the least harm will their cunning do to you." (Surah Al 'Imran: 120)
In another verse God states: "But the Unbelievers, their deeds are like a mirage in sandy deserts, which the man parched with thirst mistakes for water; until when he comes up to it, he finds it to be nothing." (Surat an-Nur: 39) Materialism, too, offers a mirage for the rebellious; when they have recourse to materialism, they find its philosophy to be nothing but deceptive. God has deceived them with such a mirage, and beguiled them into perceiving matter as an absolute. All those eminent professors, astronomers, biologists, physicists and all others, regardless of their rank and post, are simply deceived and humiliated because they took matter as their god. Assuming matter, whose essence they can never reach, to be absolute, they based their philosophy and ideology on it, grew involved in serious discussions, adopting a so-called "intellectual" discourse. They deemed themselves wise enough to argue about the truth of the universe and, more seriously to interpret God with their limited intelligence. God explains their situation in the following verse:
And [the unbelievers] plotted and planned, and God too planned, and the best of planners is God. (Surah Al 'Imran: 54)
One may possibly escape from some plots in the world; but God's plan against the unbelievers is so firm that there is no avoiding it. No matter what they do or to whom they appeal, never can they find any helper other than God. As God informs in the Qur'an, "they shall not find for them other than God a patron or a help." (Surat an-Nisa': 173)
Materialists never expected to fall into such a trap. Having all the means of the twenty-first century at their disposal, they believed they could grow obstinate in their denial and drag others into disbelief. This ever-lasting mentality of unbelievers and their end are described as follows in the Qur'an:
They plotted and planned, but We too planned, even while they perceived it not. Then see what was the end of their plot! - this, that We destroyed them and their people, all [of them]. (Surat an-Naml: 50-51)
This, in another sense, is what the fact stated in the verses comes to mean: Materialists are now told that everything they own is actually in their brains, and therefore, everything they possess has been rendered valueless. As they witness their possessions, factories, gold, money, children, spouses, friends, rank and status, and even their own bodies—all of which they deem absolute—slipping away from them hands, in a sense, they are destroyed. They come face to face with the fact that God, not matter, is the only absolute.
Realizing this truth is doubtless the worst possible thing for the materialists. That matter in which they place such faith, is separated from them by an impenetrable frontier is, in their own words, tantamount to "death before dying" in this world.
This leaves them all alone with God. With the verse, "Leave Me alone, [to deal] with the [creature] whom I created [bare and] alone!" God has called our attention to the fact that each human being is, in truth, all alone in His presence. (Surat al-Muddaththir: 11) This remarkable fact is repeated in many other verses:
"And behold! You come to Us bare and alone as We created you for the first time: you have left behind you all [the favours] which We bestowed on you..." (Surat al-An'am: 94)
And each one of them will come unto Him on the Day of Resurrection, alone. (Surah Maryam: 95)
This, in another sense, is what the fact stated in the verses comes to mean: Those who take matter as their god have come from God and returned to Him. They have submitted themselves to God, whether they want to or not. Now they wait for the Day of Judgement, when each one of them will be called to account, however unwilling they may be to understand it.
The Importance of the Subject
It is of the utmost importance to understand correctly the secret beyond matter explained in this chapter. Mountains, plains, flowers, people, seas—briefly everything we see and everything that God informs us in the Qur'an that exists and that He created out of nothing is created and does indeed exist. However, people cannot see, feel or hear the real nature of these beings through their sense organs. What they see and feel are only their copies that appear in their brains. This is a scientific fact taught at all schools of medicine. The same applies to the book you are reading now; you can not see nor touch the real nature of it. The light coming from the original book is converted by some cells in your eyes into electrical signals, which are then conveyed to the visual centre in the back of your brain. This is where the view of this book is created. In other words, you are not reading a book which is before your eyes through your eyes; in fact, this book is created in the visual centre in the back of your brain. The book you are reading right now is a "copy of the book" within your brain. The original book is seen by God.
It should be remembered, however, that the fact that the matter is an illusion formed in our brains does not "reject" the matter, but provides us information about the real nature of the matter: that no person can have connection with its original. Moreover, the matter outside is seen not just by us, but by other beings too. The angels God delegated to be watchers witness this world as well:
And the two recording angels are recording, sitting on the right and on the left. He does not utter a single word, without a watcher by him, pen in hand! (Surah Qaf: 17-18)
Most importantly, God sees everything. He created this world with all its details and sees it in all its states. As He informs us in the Qur'an:
… Heed God and know that God sees what you do. (Surat al-Baqara: 233)Say: "God is a sufficient witness between me and you. He is certainly aware of and sees His servants." (Surat al-Isra': 96)
It must not be forgotten that God keeps the records of everything in the book called Lawh Mahfuz (Preserved Tablet). Even if we don't see all things, they are in the Lawh Mahfuz. God reveals that He keeps everything's record in the "Mother of the Book" called Lawh Mahfuz with the following verses:
It is in the Source Book with Us, high-exalted, full of wisdom. (Surat az-Zukhruf: 4)… We possess an all-preserving Book. (Surah Qaf: 4)
Certainly there is no hidden thing in either heaven or Earth which is not in a Clear Book. (Surat an-Naml: 75)
190 Frederick Vester, Denken, Lernen, Vergessen, vga, 1978, p. 6
191 R.L.Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford University Press Inc. New York, 1990, p. 9
192 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein (Einstein et l’univers), William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p. 20.
193 Orhan Hancerlioglu, Dusunce Tarihi (The History of Thought), Istanbul: Remzi Bookstore, 6.ed., September 1995, p. 447
194 V.I.Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1970, p. 14
195 Bertrand Russell, ABC of Relativity, George Allen et Unwin, Londres, 1964, pp. 161-162
196 R.L.Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford University Press Inc. New York, 1990, p. 9
197 Ken Wilber, Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes, p. 20
198 George Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions Sociales, Paris 1954, p. 53
199 Orhan Hancerlioglu, Dusunce Tarihi (The History of Thought), Istanbul : Remzi Bookstore, 6.ed., September 1995, p. 261
200 George Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions Sociales, Paris 1954, p. 65
201 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Section IV: Of Personal Identity
202 Rennan Pekunlu, "Aldatmacanin Evrimsizligi", (Non-Evolution du Mensonge), Bilim ve Utopya, December 1998 (V.I.Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1970, pp. 334-335)
203 Alaettin Senel, "Evrim Aldatmacasi mi?, Devrin Aldatmacasi mi?", (Evolution Deceit or Deceit of the Epoch?), Bilim ve Utopya, December 1998
CHAPTER 16 THE FACT OF CREATION
CHAPTER 16
THE FACT OF CREATION
In the previous sections of the book, we examined why the Theory of Evolution, which proposes that life was not created, is a fallacy completely contrary to scientific facts. We saw that modern science has revealed a very explicit fact through certain branches of science such as paleontology, biochemistry, and anatomy. This fact is that God creates all living beings.
In fact, to notice this fact one does not necessarily need to appeal to the complicated results obtained in biochemistry laboratories or geological excavations. The signs of an extraordinary wisdom are discernible in whatever living being one observes. There is a great technology and design in the body of an insect or a tiny fish in the depths of the sea never attained by human beings. Some living beings which even do not have a brain perfectly perform so complicated tasks as not to be accomplished even by human beings.
This great wisdom, design and plan that prevails overall in nature, provides solid evidence for the existence of a supreme Creator dominating over the whole of nature, and this Creator is God. God has furnished all living beings with extraordinary features and showed men the evident signs of His existence and might.
In the following pages, we will examine only a few of the countless evidences of Creation in nature.
Honey Bees and the Architectural Wonders of Honeycombs
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Bees produce more honey than they actually need and store it in honeycombs. The hexagonal structure of the honeycomb is well-known to everyone. Have you ever wondered why bees construct hexagonal honeycombs rather than octagonal, or pentagonal?
Mathematicians looking for answer to this question reached an interesting conclusion: "A hexagon is the most appropriate geometric form for the maximum use of a given area."
A hexagonal cell requires the minimum amount of wax for construction while it stores the maximum amount of honey. So the bee uses the most appropriate form possible.
The method used in the construction of the honeycomb is also very amazing: bees start the construction of the hive from two-three different places and weave the honeycomb simultaneously in two-three strings. Though they start from different places, the bees, great in number, construct identical hexagons and then weave the honeycomb by combining these together and meeting in the middle. The junction points of the hexagons are assembled so deftly that there is no sign of their being subsequently combined.
In the face of this extraordinary performance, we, for sure, have to admit the existence of a superior will that ordains these creatures. Evolutionists want to explain away this achievement with the concept of "instinct" and try to present it as a simple attribute of the bee. However, if there is an instinct at work, if this rules over all bees and provides that all bees work in harmony though uninformed of one another, then it means that there is an exalted Wisdom that rules over all these tiny creatures.
To put it more explicitly, God, the creator of these tiny creatures, "inspires" them with what they have to do. This fact was declared in the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago:
And your Sustainer has inspired the honey bee: "Prepare for yourself dwellings in mountains and in trees, and in what [men] build; and then eat of all manner of fruit, and find with skill the spacious paths of your Sustainer". There issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men: verily in this is a Sign for those who give thought. (Surat an-Nahl: 68-69)
Amazing Architects: Termites
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No one can help being taken by surprise upon seeing a termite nest erected on the ground by termites. This is because the termite nests are architectural wonders that rise up as high as 5-6 meters. Within this nest are sophisticated systems to meet all the needs of termites that can never appear in sunlight because of their body structure. In the nest, there are ventilation systems, canals, larva rooms, corridors, special fungus production yards, safety exits, rooms for hot and cold weather; in brief, everything. What is more astonishing is that the termites which construct these wondrous nests are blind.178
Despite this fact, we see, when we compare the size of a termite and its nest, that termites successfully overcome an architectural project by far 300 times bigger than themselves.
Termites have yet another amazing characteristic: if we divide a termite nest into two in the first stages of its construction, and then reunite it after a certain while, we will see that all passage-ways, canals and roads intersect with each other. Termites carry on with their task as if they were never separated from each other and ordained from a single place.
The Woodpecker
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Everyone knows that woodpeckers build their nests by pecking tree trunks. The point many people do not consider is how woodpeckers undergo no brain haemorrhage when they so strongly tattoo with their head. What the woodpecker does is in a way similar to a human driving a nail in the wall with his head. If a human ventured to do something like that, he would probably undergo a brain shock followed by a brain haemorrhage. A woodpecker, however, can peck a hard tree trunk 38-43 times between 2.10 and 2.69 seconds and nothing happens to it.
Nothing happens because the head structure of woodpeckers are created as fit for this job. The woodpecker's skull has a "suspension" system that reduces and absorbs the force of the strokes. There are special softening tissues between the bones in its skull.179
The Sonar System of Bats
Bats fly in pitch dark without trouble and they have a very interesting navigation system to do this. It is what we call "sonar" system, a system whereby the shapes of the surrounding objects are determined according to the echo of the sound waves.
A young person can barely detect a sound with a frequency of 20,000 vibrations per second. A bat furnished with a specially designed "sonar system", however, makes use of sounds having a frequency of between 50,000 and 200,000 vibrations per second. It sends these sounds in all directions 20 or 30 times each second. The echo of the sound is so powerful that the bat not only understands the existence of objects in its path, but also detects the location of its swift-flying prey.180
Whales
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Mammals regularly need to breathe and for this reason water is not a very convenient environment for them. In a whale, which is a sea mammal, however, this problem is handled with a breathing system far more efficient than that of many land-dwelling animals. Whales breathe out one at a time discharging 90% of the air they use. Thus, they need to breathe only at very long intervals. At the same time, they have a highly concentrated substance called "myoglobin" that helps them store oxygen in their muscles. With the help of these systems, finback whale, for instance, can dive as deep as 500 meters and swim for 40 minutes without breathing at all.181 The nostrils of the whale, on the other hand, are placed on its back unlike land-dwelling mammals so that it can easily breathe.
The Design in The Gnat
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We always think of the gnat as a flying animal. In fact, the gnat spends its developmental stages under water and gets out from under water through an exceptional "design" being provided with all the organs it needs.
The gnat starts to fly with special sensing systems at its disposal to detect the place of its prey. With these systems, it resembles a war plane loaded with detectors of heat, gas, dampness and odour. It even has an ability to "see in conformity with the temperature" that helps it find its prey even in pitch dark.
The "blood-sucking" technique of the gnat comes with an incredibly complex system. With its six-bladed cutting system, it cuts the skin like a saw. While the cutting process goes on, a secretion secreted on the wound benumbs the tissues and the person does not even realise that his blood is being sucked. This secretion, at the same time, prevents the clotting of the blood and secures the continuance of the sucking process.
With even one of these elements missing, the gnat will not be able to feed on blood and carry on its generation. With its exceptional design, even this tiny creature is an evident sign of Creation on its own. In the Qur'an, the gnat is accentuated as an example displaying the existence of God to the men of understanding:
Surely God disdains not to set forth any parable - [that of] a [female] gnat or any thing above that; then as for those who believe, they know that it is the truth from their Lord, and as for those who disbelieve, they say: What is it that God means by this parable: He causes many to err by it and many He leads aright by it! but He does not cause to err by it [any] except the transgressors, (Surat al-Baqara: 26)
Hunting Birds with Keen Eyesight
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Hunting birds have keen eyes that enable them to make perfect distance adjustments while they attack their prey. In addition their large eyes contain more vision cells, which means better sight. There are more than one million vision cells in the eye of a hunting bird.
Eagles that fly at thousands of meters high have such sharp eyes that they can scan the earth perfectly at that distance. Just as war planes detect their targets from thousands of meters away, so do eagles spot their prey, perceiving the slightest colour shift or the slightest movement on the earth. The eagle's eye has an angle of vision of three hundred degrees and it can magnify a given image around six to eight times. Eagles can scan an area of 30,000 hectares while flying 4,500 meters above it. They can easily distinguish a rabbit hidden among grasses from an altitude of 1,500 meters. It is evident that this extraordinary eye structure of the eagle is specially created for this creature.
Hibernating Animals
Hibernating animals can go on living although their body temperature falls to the same degree as the cold temperature outside. How do they manage this?
Mammals are warm-blooded. This means that under normal conditions, their body temperature always remains constant because the natural thermostat in their body keeps on regulating this temperature. However, during hibernation, the normal body heat of small mammals, like the squirrel rat with a normal body heat of 40 degrees, drops down to a little bit above the freezing point as if adjusted by some kind of a key. The body metabolism slows down to a great extent. The animal starts breathing very slowly and its normal heartbeat, which is 300 times a minute, falls to 7-10 beats a minute. Its normal body reflexes stop and the electrical activities in its brain slow down almost to undetectability.
One of the dangers of motionlessness is the freezing of tissues in very cold weather and their being destroyed by ice crystals. Hibernating animals however are protected against this danger thanks to the special features they are endowed with. The body fluids of hibernating animals are retained by chemical materials having high molecular masses. Thus, their freezing point is decreased and they are protected from harm.182
Electrical Fish
Certain species of some fish types such as electric eel and electric ray utilise the electricity produced in their bodies either to protect themselves from their enemies or to paralyse their prey. In every living being - including man - is a little amount of electricity. Man, however, cannot direct this electricity or take it under control to use it for his own benefit. The above-mentioned creatures, on the other hand, have an electrical current as high as 500-600 volts in their bodies and they are able use this against their enemies. Furthermore, they are not adversely affected by this electricity.
The energy they consume to defend themselves is recovered after a certain time like the charging of a battery and electrical power is once again ready for use. Fish do not use the high-voltage electricity in their small bodies only for defence purposes. Besides providing the means for finding their way in deep dark waters, electricity also helps them sense objects without seeing them. Fish can send signals by using the electricity in their bodies. These electric signals reflect back after hitting solid objects and these reflections give the fish information about the object. This way, fish can determine the distance and size of the object.183
The Thread of the Spider The spider named Dinopis has a great skill for hunting. Rather than weaving a static web and waiting for its prey, it weaves a small yet highly unusual web that it throws on its prey. Afterwards, it tightly wraps up its prey with this web. The entrapped insect can do nothing to extricate itself. The web is so perfectly constructed that the insect gets even more entangled as it gets more alarmed. In order to store its food, the spider wraps the prey with extra strands, almost as if it were packaging it. How does this spider make a web so excellent in its mechanical design and chemical structure? It is impossible for the spider to have acquired such a skill by coincidence as is claimed by evolutionists. The spider is devoid of faculties such as learning and memorising and does not have even a brain to perform these things. Obviously, this skill is bestowed on the spider by its creator, God, Who is Exalted in Power. Very important miracles are hidden in the thread of the spiders. This thread, with a diameter of less than one thousandth of a millimetre, is 5 times stronger than a steel wire having the same thickness. This thread has yet another characteristic of being extremely light. A length of this thread long enough to encircle the world would weigh only 320 grams.* Steel, a substance specially produced in industrial works, is one of the strongest materials manufactured by mankind. However, the spider can produce in its body a far firmer thread than steel. While man produces steel, he makes use of his centuries-old knowledge and technology; which knowledge or technology, then, does the spider use while producing its thread? As we see, all technological and technical means at the disposal mankind lag behind those of a spider. (*) "The Structure and Properties of Spider Silk", Endeavour, January 1986, vol. 10, pp. 37-43
|
An Intelligent Plan on Animals: Camouflage
 A lizard concealed on a branch (top left), a moth concealed on a tree trunk (top right), an owl on a branch (bottom left) and mantises literally lost among leaves (bottom right). |
One of the features that animals possess in order to keep living is the art of hiding themselves-that is, "camouflage".
Animals feel the necessity of hiding themselves for two main reasons: for hunting and for protecting themselves from predators. Camouflage differs from all other methods with its particular involvement of utmost intelligence, skill, aesthetics and harmony.
The camouflage techniques of animals are truly amazing. It is almost impossible to identify an insect that is hidden in a tree trunk or another creature hidden under a leaf.
Leaf louse that suck the juices of plants feed themselves on plant stalks by pretending to be thorns. By this method, they aim to trick birds, their biggest enemies, and ensure that birds will not perch on these plants.
Cuttlefish
Under the skin of the cuttlefish is arrayed a dense layer of elastic pigment sacs called chromatophores. They come mainly in yellow, red, black and brown. At a signal, the cells expand and flood the skin with the appropriate shade. That is how the cuttlefish takes on the colour of the rock it stands on and makes a perfect camouflage.
This system operates so effectively that the cuttlefish can also create a complex zebra-like striping.184
Left: A cuttlefish that makes itself look like the sandy surface. Right: The bright yellow colour the same fish turns in case of danger, such as when it is seen by a diver. |
Different Vision Systems
For many sea-dwelling animals, seeing is extremely important for hunting and defence. Accordingly, most of the sea-dwelling animals are equipped with eyes perfectly created for underwater.
Under water, the ability to see becomes more and more limited with depth, especially after 30 meters. Organisms living at this depth, however, have eyes created according to the given conditions.
Sea-dwelling animals, unlike land-dwelling animals, have spherical lenses in perfect accordance with the needs of the density of the water they inhabit. Compared to the wide elliptical eyes of land-dwelling animals, this spherical structure is more serviceable for sight under water; it is adjusted to see objects in close-up. When an object at a greater distance is focused upon, the whole lens system is pulled backwards by the help of a special muscle mechanism within the eye.
One other reason why the eyes of the fish are spherical is the refraction of light in water. Because the eye is filled with a liquid having almost the same density as water, no refraction occurs while an image formed outside is reflected on the eye. Consequently, the eye lens fully focuses the image of the outside object on the retina. The fish, unlike human beings, sees very sharply in water.
Some animals like octopus have rather big eyes to compensate for the poor light in the depths of water. Below 300 meters, big-eyed fish need to capture the flashes of the surrounding organisms to notice them. They have to be especially sensitive to the feeble blue light penetrating into the water. For this reason, there are plenty of sensitive blue cells in the retina of their eyes.
As is understood from these examples, every living being has distinctive eyes specially designed to meet its particular needs. This fact proves that they are all created just the way they have to be by a Creator Who has eternal wisdom, knowledge and power.
Special Freezing System
A frozen frog embodies an unusual biological structure. It shows no signs of life. Its heartbeat, breathing and blood circulation have come completely to a halt. When the ice melts, however, the same frog returns to life as if it is has woken up from sleep.
Normally, a living being in the state of freezing confronts many fatal risks. The frog, however, does not face any of them. It has the main feature of producing plenty of glucose while it is in that state. Just like a diabetic, the blood sugar level of the frog reaches very high levels. It can sometimes go as high as 550 milimol/liter. (This figure is normally between 1-5 mmol/litre for frogs and 4-5 mmol/litre for human body). This extreme glucose concentration may cause serious problems in normal times.
In a frozen frog, however, this extreme glucose keeps water from leaving cells and prevents shrinkage. The cell membrane of the frog is highly permeable to glucose so that glucose finds easy access to cells. The high level of glucose in the body reduces the freezing temperature causing only a very small amount of the animal's inner body liquid to turn to ice in the cold. Research has showed that glucose can feed frozen cells as well. During this period, besides being the natural fuel of the body, glucose also stops many metabolic reactions like urea synthesis and thus prevents different food sources of the cell from being exhausted.
How does such a high amount of glucose in the frog's body come about all of a sudden? The answer is quite interesting: this living being is equipped with a very special system in charge of this task. As soon as ice appears on the skin, a message travels to the liver making the liver convert some of its stored glycogen into glucose. The nature of this message travelling to the liver is still unknown. Five minutes after the message is received, the sugar level in the blood steadily starts to increase.185
Unquestionably the animal's being equipped with a system that entirely changes its metabolism to meet all of its needs just when it is required can only be possible through the flawless plan of the All-Mighty Creator. No coincidence can generate such a perfect and complex system.
Albatrosses
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Migratory birds minimise energy consumption by using different "flight techniques". Albatrosses are also observed to have such a flight style. These birds, which spend 92% of their lives on the sea, have wing spans of up to 3,5 meters. The most important characteristic of albatrosses is their flight style: they can fly for hours without beating their wings at all. To do so, they glide along in the air keeping their wings constant by making use of the wind.
It requires a great deal of energy to keep wings with a wing span of 3.5 meters constantly open. Albatrosses, however, can stay in this position for hours. This is due to the special anatomical system they are bestowed with from the moment of their birth. During flight, the wings of the albatross are blocked. Therefore, it does not need to use any muscular power. Wings are lifted only by muscle layers. This greatly helps the bird during its flight. This system reduces the energy consumed by the bird during flight. The albatross does not use energy because it does not beat its wings or waste energy to keep its wings outstretched. Flying for hours by making exclusive use of wind provides an unlimited energy source for it. For instance, a 10-kilo-albatross loses only 1% of its body weight while it travels for 1,000 kms. This is indeed a very small rate. Men have manufactured gliders taking albatrosses as a model and by making use of their fascinating flight technique.186
An Arduous Migration
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Pacific salmon have the exceptional characteristic of returning to the rivers in which they hatched to reproduce. Having spent part of their lives in the sea, these animals come back to fresh water to reproduce.
When they start their journey in early summer, the colour of the fish is bright red. At the end of their journey, however, their colour turns black. At the outset of their migration, they first draw near to the shore and try to reach rivers. They perseveringly strive to go back to their birthplace. They reach the place where they hatched by leaping over turbulent rivers, swimming upstream, surmounting waterfalls and dykes. At the end of this 3,500-4,000 km. journey, female salmon readily have eggs just as male salmons have sperm. Having reached the place where they hatched, female salmon lay around 3 to 5 thousand eggs as male salmon fertilise them. The fish suffer much damage as a result of this migration and hatching period. Females that lay eggs become exhausted; their tail fins are worn down and their skin starts to turn black. The same is true also for males. The river soon overflows with dead salmon. Yet another salmon generation is ready to hatch out and make the same journey.
How salmon complete such a journey, how they reach the sea after they hatch, and how they find their way are just some of the questions that remain to be answered. Although many suggestions are made, no definite solution has yet been reached. What is the power that makes salmon undertake a return of thousands of kilometres back to a place unknown to them? It is obvious that there is a superior Will ruling over and controlling all these living beings. It is God, the Sustainer of all the worlds.
Koalas
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The oil found in eucalyptus leaves is poisonous to many mammals. This poison is a chemical defence mechanism used by eucalyptus trees against their enemies. Yet there is a very special living being that gets the better of this mechanism and feeds on poisonous eucalyptus leaves: a marsupial called the koala. Koalas make their homes in eucalyptus trees while they also feed on them and obtain their water from them.
Like other mammals, koalas also cannot digest the cellulose present in the trees. For this, it is dependent on cellulose-digesting micro-organisms. These micro-organisms are heavily populated in the convergence point of small and large intestines, the caecum which is the rear extension of the intestinal system. The caecum is the most interesting part of the digestion system of the koala. This segment functions as a fermentation chamber where microbes are made to digest cellulose while the passage of the leaves is delayed. Thus, the koala can neutralise the poisonous effect of the oils in the eucalyptus leaves.187
Hunting Ability in Constant Position
The South African sundew plant entraps insects with its viscous hairs. The leaves of this plant are full of long, red hairs. The tips of these hairs are covered with a fluid that has a smell that attracts insects. Another feature of the fluid is its being extremely viscous. An insect that makes its way to the source of the smell gets stuck in these viscous hairs. Shortly afterwards the whole leaf is closed down on the insect that is already entangled in the hairs and the plant extracts the protein essential for itself from the insect by digesting it.188
 Left: An open Sundew. Right: A closed one. |
The endowment of a plant with no possibility of moving from its place with such a faculty is no doubt the evident sign of a special design. It is impossible for a plant to have developed such a hunting style out of its own consciousness or will, or by way of coincidence. So, it is all the more impossible to overlook the existence and might of the Creator Who has furnished it with this ability.
On first examination, bird feathers don't appear to
contain that many features. When inspected more carefully, however,
feathers— which are light but strong and impermeable to water—are seen
to have a highly complex structure. |
The Design in Bird Feathers
At first glance, bird feathers seem to have a very simple structure. When we study them closer, however, we come across the very complex structure of feathers that are light yet extremely strong and waterproof.
Birds should be as light as possible in order to fly easily. The feathers are made up of keratin proteins keeping with this need. On both sides of the shaft of a feather are vanes and each vane is made up of around 400 tiny barbs. Each of these 400 barbs has a total of tinier 800 barbs, called barbules. The 800 barbules which are crowded on a small bird feather have another 20 little hooks, or barbicels, on each of them. These barbicels interlock the barbules. The total number of barbicels in all the feathers of a bird is around 700 billion.
There is a very significant reason for the bird feather being firmly interlocked with each other with barbs and clasps. The feathers should hold tightly on the bird so as not to fall out in any movement whatsoever. With the mechanism made up of barbs and clasps, the feathers hold so tightly on the bird that neither strong wind, nor rain, nor snow cause them to fall out.
Furthermore, the feathers in the abdomen of the bird are not the same as the feathers in its wings and tail. The tail is made up of relatively big feathers to function as rudder and brakes; wing feathers are designed so as to expand the area surface during the bird's wing beating and thus increase the lifting force.
Basilisk: The Expert of Walking on Water
 The basilisk lizard is one of those rare animals that can move establishing a balance between water and air. |
Few animals are able to walk on the surface of water. One such rarity is basilisk, which lives in Central America and is seen below. On the sides of the toes of basilisk's hind feet are flaps that enable them to splash water. These are rolled up when the animal walks on land. If the animal faces danger, it starts to run very fast on the surface of a river or a lake. Then the flaps on its hind feet are opened and thus more surface area is provided for it to run on water.189
This unique design of basilisk is one of the evident signs of God's perfect creation.
Photosynthesis
Plants unquestionably play a major role in making the universe a habitable place. They clean the air for us, keep the temperature of the planet at a constant level, and balance the proportions of gases in the atmosphere. The oxygen in the air we breathe is produced by plants. An important part of our food is also provided by plants. The nutritional value of plants comes from the special design in their cells to which they also owe their other features.
The plant cell, unlike human and animal cells, can make direct use of solar energy. It converts the solar energy into chemical energy and stores it in nutrients in very special ways. This process is called "photosynthesis". In fact, this process is carried out not by the cell but by chloroplasts, organelles that give plants their green colour. These tiny green organelles only observable by microscope are the only laboratories on earth that are capable of storing solar energy in organic matter.
 In the microscopic factories of plants, a miraculous transformation takes place. With the energy from the Sun, they perform photosynthesis, which in turn supplies the energy needs of animals and eventually, human beings. |
The amount of matter produced by plants on the earth is around 200 billion tons a year. This production is vital to all living things on the earth. The production made by plants is realised through a very complicated chemical process. Thousands of "chlorophyll" pigments found in the chloroplast react to light in an incredibly short time, something like one thousandth of a second. This is why many activities taking place in the chlorophyll have still not been observed.
Converting solar energy into electrical or chemical energy is a very recent technological breakthrough. In order to do this, high-tech instruments are used. A plant cell so small as to be invisible to the naked human eye has been performing this task for millions of years.
This perfect system displays Creation once more for all to see. The very complex system of photosynthesis is a consciously-designed mechanism that God creates. A matchless factory is squeezed in a minuscule unit area in the leaves. This flawless design is only one of the signs revealing that God, the Sustainer of all worlds, creates all living things.
178 Bilim ve Teknik, Juillet 1989, Vol. 22, No. 260, p. 59
179 Grzimeks Tierleben Vögel 3, Deutscher Taschen Buch Verlag, October 1993, p. 92
180 David Attenborough, Life On Earth: A Natural History, Collins British Broadcasting Corporation, June 1979, p. 236
181 David Attenborough, Life On Earth: A Natural History, Collins British Broadcasting Corporation, June 1979, p. 240
182 Görsel Bilim ve Teknik Ansiklopedisi, pp. 185-186
183 WalterMetzner, http ://cnas.ucr.edu/ ~bio/ faculty/Metzner.html
184
National Geographic, September 1995, p. 98
185 Bilim ve Teknik, January 1990, pp. 10-12
186 David Attenborough, Life of Birds, Princeton University Press, Princeton-New Jersey, 1998, p. 47
187 James L.Gould, Carol Grant Gould, Life at the Edge, W.H.Freeman and Company, 1989, pp. 130-136
188 David Attenborough, The Private Life of Plants, Princeton Universitye Press, Princeton-New Jersey, 1995, pp. 81-83
189 Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians, Published
in the United States by Academic Press, A Division of Harcourt Brace
and Company, p. 35.
CHAPTER 15 CONCLUSION: EVOLUTION IS A DECEIT
CHAPTER 15
CONCLUSION: EVOLUTION IS A DECEIT
There is much other evidence, as
well as scientific laws, invalidating evolution, but in this book we
have only been able to discuss some of them. Even those should be
enough to reveal a most important truth: Although it is cloaked in the
guise of science, the theory of evolution is nothing but a deceit: a
deceit defended only for the benefit of materialistic philosophy; a
deceit based not on science but on brainwashing, propaganda, and fraud.
We can summarise what we have noted so far as follows:
The Theory of Evolution has Collapsed
The theory of evolution is a theory that fails at the very first step. The reason is that evolutionists are unable to explain even the formation of a single protein. Neither the laws of probability nor the laws of physics and chemistry offer any chance for the fortuitous formation of life.
Does it sound logical or reasonable when not even a single chance-formed protein can exist, that millions of such proteins combined in an order to produce the cell of a living thing; and that billions of cells managed to form and then came together by chance to produce living things; and that from them generated fish; and that those that passed to land turned into reptiles, birds, and that this is how all the millions of different species on earth were formed?
Even if it does not seem logical to you, evolutionists do believe this fable.
However, it is merely a belief-or rather a false faith-because they do not have even a single piece of evidence to verify their story. They have never found a single transitional form such as a half-fish/half-reptile or half-reptile/half-bird. Nor have they been able to prove that a protein, or even a single amino acid molecule composing a protein, could have formed under what they call primordial earth conditions; not even in their elaborately-equipped laboratories have they succeeded in doing that. On the contrary, with their every effort, evolutionists themselves have demonstrated that no evolutionary process has ever occurred nor could ever have occurred at any time on earth.
Evolution Can not Be Verified in the Future Either
Seeing this, evolutionists can only console themselves by dreaming that science will somehow resolve all these dilemmas in time. However, that science should ever verify such an entirely groundless and illogical claim is out of the question no matter how many years may pass by. On the contrary, as science progresses it only makes the nonsense of evolutionists' claims clearer and plainer.
That is how it has been so far. As more details on the structure and functions of the living cell were discovered, it became abundantly clear that the cell is not a simple, randomly-formed composition, as was thought to be the case according to the primitive biological understanding of Darwin's time.
With the situation being so self-evident, denying the fact of creation and basing the origins of life on extremely unlikely coincidences, and then defending these claims with insistence, may later become a source of great humiliation. As the real face of the evolution theory comes more and more into view and as public opinion comes to see the truth, it may not be long before the purblind fanatic advocates of evolution will not be able to show their faces.
The Biggest Obstacle to Evolution: Soul
There are many species in the world that resemble one another. For instance, there may be many living beings resembling a horse or a cat and many insects may look like one another. These similarities do not surprise anyone.
The superficial similarities between man and ape somehow attract too much attention. This interest sometimes goes so far as to make some people believe the false thesis of evolution. As a matter of fact, the superficial similarities between men and apes do signify nothing. The rhinoceros beetle and the rhinoceros also share certain superficial resemblances but it would be ludicrous to seek to establish some kind of an evolutionary link between these two creatures, one being an insect and the other a mammal, on the grounds of that resemblance.
Other than superficial similarity, apes cannot be said to be closer to man than to other animals. Actually, if level of intelligence is considered, then the honeybee producing the geometrically miraculous structure of the honeycomb or the spider building up the engineering miracle of the spider web can be said to be closer to man. They are even superior in some aspects.
There is a very big difference between man and ape regardless of a mere outward resemblance. An ape is an animal and is no different from a horse or a dog considering its level of consciousness. Yet man is a conscious, strong-willed being that can think, talk, understand, decide, and judge. All of these features are the functions of the soul that man possesses. The soul is the most important difference that interposes a huge gap between man and other creatures. No physical similarity can close this gap between man and any other living being. In nature, the only living thing that has a soul is man.
God Creates According to His Will
Would it matter if the scenario proposed by evolutionists really had taken place? Not a bit. The reason is that each stage advanced by evolutionary theory and based on coincidence could only have occurred as a result of a miracle. Even if life did come about gradually through such a succession of stages, each progressive stage could only have been brought about by a conscious will. It is not just implausible that those stages could have occurred by chance, it is impossible.
The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution: The Fact of Creation
Evolution propaganda, which has gained acceleration lately, is a serious threat to national beliefs and moral values. The Science Research Foundation, which is quite aware of this fact, has undertaken the duty of informing Turkish public about the scientific truth of the matter. The first of the series of international conferences organised by Science Research Foundation (SRF) took place in 1998. Entitled "The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution: The Fact of Creation", it was held in Istanbul on April 4, 1998. The conference, which was a great success, was attended by recognised experts from around the world and provided a platform on which the theory of evolution was for the first time questioned and refuted scientifically in Turkey. People from all segments of Turkish society attended the conference, which drew a great deal of attention. Those who could not find place in the hall followed the conference live from the closed-circuit television system outside. The conference included famous speakers from Turkey and from abroad. Following the speeches of SRF members, which revealed the ulterior ideological motives underlying the theory of evolution, a video documentary prepared by SRF was presented. Dr Duane Gish and Dr Kenneth Cumming, two world-renowned scientists from the Institute for Creation Research in the USA are authorities on biochemistry and paleontology. They demonstrated with substantial proof that the theory of evolution has no validity whatsoever. During the conference, one of the most esteemed Turkish scientists today, Dr Cevat Babuna illustrated the miracles in each phase of a human being's creation with a slide show that shook the "coincidence hypothesis" of evolution to its roots.
The speakers and their subjects at this conference are summarised below. Professor Michael P. Girouard: In his speech, "Is it Possible for Life to Emerge by Coincidences?", Michael Girouard, a professor of biology at Southern Louisiana University, explained through various examples the complexity of proteins, the basic units of life, and concluded that they could only have come into existence as a result of skilled design. Dr Edward Boudreaux: In his speech, "The Design in Chemistry", Edward Boudreaux, a professor of chemistry at the University of New Orleans, noted that some chemical elements must have been deliberately arranged by creation in order for life to exist. Professor Carl Fliermans: A widely-known scientist in the USA and a microbiology professor at Indiana University conducting a research on "the neutralisation of chemical wastes by bacteria" supported by the US Department of Defence, Carl Fliermans refuted evolutionist claims at the microbiological level.
Professor Edip Keha: A professor of biochemistry, Edip Keha, was the only Turkish speaker of the conference. He presented basic information on the cell and stressed through evidence that the cell could only have come into being as a result of perfect creation. Professor David Menton: A professor of anatomy at Washington University, David Menton, in a speech that was accompanied by a very interesting computer display, examined the differences between the anatomies of the feathers of birds and the scales of reptiles, thus proving the invalidity of the hypothesis that birds evolved from reptiles. Professor Duane Gish: Famous evolutionist expert Professor Gish, in his speech entitled "The Origin of Man", refuted the thesis of man's evolution from apes. ICR President Professor John Morris: Professor Morris, the president of the Institute for Creation Research and a famous geologist, gave a speech on the ideological and philosophical commitments lying behind evolution. He further explained that this theory has been turned into a dogma and that its defenders believe in Darwinism with a religious fervour. Having listened to all these speeches, the audience witnessed that evolution is a dogmatic belief that is invalidated by science in all aspects. In addition, the poster exhibition entitled "The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution: The Fact of Creation" organised by the Science Research Foundation and displayed in the lobby of CRR Conference Hall attracted considerable interest. The exhibition consisted of 35 posters, each highlighting either a basic claim of evolution or a creation evidence.
The third international conference of the series was held on July 12, 1998 at the Sheraton Hotel in Ankara. Participants in the conference-three Americans and one Turk-put forward explicit and substantial evidence that Darwinism has been invalidated by modern science. Although the conference hall at the Ankara Sheraton Hotel was designed to hold an audience of about a thousand, the number of attendees at the conference exceeded 2,500. Screens were set up outside the conference hall for those who could not find place inside. The poster exhibition entitled "The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution: The Fact of Creation" held next to the conference hall also attracted considerable attention. At the end of the conference, the speakers received a standing ovation, which proved how much the public craved enlightenment on the scientific realities regarding the evolution deceit and the fact of creation. Following the success of these international conferences, the Science Research Foundation began organising similar conferences all over Turkey. Between August 98 and end 2005 alone, 2,800 conferences were held in Turkey's 72 cities and 150 districts. SRF continues to conduct its conferences in different parts of the country. SRF has also held conferences in England, Holland, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Azerbaijan, Australia, the United States and Canada. |
If is said that a protein molecule had been formed under the primordial atmospheric conditions, it has to be remembered that it has been already demonstrated by the laws of probability, biology, and chemistry that this could not have been by chance. But if it must be posited that it was produced, then there is no alternative but to admit that it owed its existence to the will of a Creator. The same logic applies to the entire hypothesis put forward by evolutionists. For instance, there is neither paleontological evidence nor a physical, chemical, biological, or logical justification proving that fish passed from water to land and formed the land animals. But if one must have it that fish clambered onto the land and turned into reptiles, the maker of that claim should also accept the existence of a Creator capable of making whatever He wills come into being with the mere word "be". Any other explanation for such a miracle is inherently self-contradictory and a violation of the principles of reason.
The reality is clear and evident. All life is the product of a perfect design and a superior creation. This in turn provides concrete evidence for the existence of a Creator, the Possessor of infinite power, knowledge, and intelligence.
That Creator is God, the Lord of the heavens and of the earth, and of all that is between them.
CHAPTER 14 MEDIA: AN OXYGEN TENT FOR THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
CHAPTER 14
MEDIA: AN OXYGEN TENT FOR THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
      Popular science magazines having taken over the leadership of evolution propaganda, play an important role in encouraging the public to accept the theory of evolution. |
As what we have examined so far has demonstrated, the theory of evolution rests on no scientific basis. However most people around the world are unaware of this and assume that evolution is a scientific fact. The biggest reason for this deception is the systematic indoctrination and propaganda conducted by the media about evolution. For this reason, we also have to mention the particular characteristics of this indoctrination and propaganda.
When we look at the Western media carefully, we frequently come across news dwelling on the theory of evolution. Leading media organisations, and well-known and "respectable" magazines periodically bring this subject up. When their approach is examined, one gets the impression that this theory is an absolutely proven fact leaving no room for discussion.
Ordinary people reading this kind of news naturally start to think that the theory of evolution is a fact as certain as any law of mathematics. News of this sort that appears in the prominent media engines is also picked up by local media. They print headlines in big fonts: "According to Time magazine, a new fossil that completes the gap in the fossil chain has been found"; or "Nature" indicates that scientists have shed light on the final issues of evolutionary theory". The finding of "the last missing link of the evolution chain" means nothing because there is not a single thing proven about evolution. Everything shown as evidence is false as we have described in the previous chapters. In addition to the media, the same holds true for scientific resources, encyclopaedias, and biology books.
In short, both the media and academic circles, which are at the disposal of anti-religionist power-centres, maintain an entirely evolutionist view and they impose this on society. This imposition is so effective that it has in time turned evolution into an idea that is never to be rejected. Denying evolution is seen as being contradictory to science and as disregarding fundamental realities. This is why, notwithstanding so many deficiencies that have so far been revealed (especially since the 1950s) and the fact that these have been confessed by evolutionist scientists themselves, today it is all but impossible to find any criticism of evolution in scientific circles or in the media.
Widely accepted as the most "respected" publishing vehicles on biology and nature in the West, magazines such as Scientific American, Nature, Focus, Discover, Science and National Geographic adopt the theory of evolution as an official ideology and try to present this theory as a proven fact.
Wrapped-up Lies
Evolutionists make great use of the advantage given to them by the "brain-washing" program of the media. Many people believe in evolution so unconditionally that they do not even bother to ask "how" and "why". This means that evolutionists can package their lies so as to be easily persuasive.
The “Whale of A Tale” from Evolutionists
One of the curious evolutionary fables is the one about the "evolution of whale" that was published in National Geographic, widely respected as one of the most scientific and serious publications in the world: The Whale's ascendancy to sovereign size apparently began sixty million years ago when hairy, four-legged mammals, in search of food or sanctuary, ventured into water. As eons passed, changes slowly occurred. Hind legs disappeared, front legs changed into flippers, hair gave way to a thick smooth blanket of blubber, nostrils moved to the top of the head, the tail broadened into flukes, and in the buoyant water world the body became enormous.1 Besides the fact that there is not a single scientific basis for any of this, such an occurrence is also contrary to the principles of nature. This fable published in National Geographic is noteworthy for being indicative of the extent of the fallacies of seemingly serious evolutionist publications. 1. Victor B. Scheffer, "Exploring the Lives of Whales", National Geographic, vol. 50, December 1976, p. 752 |
For instance, even in the most "scientific" evolutionist books the "transition from water to land", which is one of the greatest unaccounted-for phenomena of evolution, is "explained" with ridiculous simplicity. According to evolution, life started in water and the first developed animals were fish. The theory has it that one day these fish started to fling themselves on to the land for some reason or other, (most of the time, drought is said to be the reason), and the fish that chose to live on land, happened to have feet instead of fins, and lungs instead of gills.
Most evolutionist books do not tell the "how" of the subject. Even in the most "scientific" sources, the absurdity of this assertion is concealed behind sentences such as "the transfer from water to land was achieved".
How was this "transfer" achieved? We know that a fish cannot live for more than a few minutes out of water. If we suppose that the alleged drought occurred and the fish had to move towards the land, what would have happened to the fish? The response is evident. All of the fish coming out of the water would die one by one in a few minutes. Even if this process had had lasted for a period of ten million years, the answer would still be the same: fish would die one by one. The reason is that such a complex organ as a complete lung cannot come into being by a sudden "accident", that is, by mutation; but half a lung, on the other hand, is of no use at all.
But this is exactly what the evolutionists propose. "Transfer from water to land", "transfer from land to air" and many more alleged leaps are "explained" in these illogical terms. As for the formation of really complex organs such as the eye and ear, evolutionists prefer not to say anything at all.
It is easy to influence the man on the street with the package of "science". You draw an imaginary picture representing transfer from water to land, you invent Latin words for the animal in the water, its "descendant" on land, and the "transitional intermediary form" (which is an imaginary animal), and then fabricate an elaborate lie: "Eusthenopteron transformed first into Rhipitistian Crossoptergian, then Ichthyostega in a long evolutionary process". If you put these words in the mouth of a scientist with thick glasses and a white coat, you would succeed in convincing many people, because the media, which dedicates itself to promoting evolution, would announce the good news to the world with great enthusiasm.
CHAPTER 13 THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION: A MATERIALISTIC LIABILITY
CHAPTER 13
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION: A MATERIALISTIC LIABILITY
The information we have considered throughout this book has shown us that the theory of evolution has no scientific basis, and that, on the contrary, evolutionist claims conflict with scientific facts. In other words, the force that keeps evolution alive is not science. The theory of evolution is maintained by some "scientists", but behind it there is another influence at work.
This other influence is materialist philosophy.
Materialist philosophy is one of the oldest beliefs in the world, and assumes the existence of matter as its basic principle. According to this view, matter has always existed, and everything that exists consists of matter. This makes belief in a Creator impossible, of course, because if matter has always existed, and if everything consists of matter, then there can be no suprematerial Creator who created it. Materialism has therefore long been hostile to religious beliefs of every kind that have faith in God.
So the question becomes one of whether the materialist point of view is correct. One method of testing whether a philosophy is true or false is to investigate the claims it makes about science by using scientific methods. For instance, a philosopher in the 10th century could have claimed that there was a divine tree on the surface of the moon and that all living things actually grew on the branches of this huge tree like fruit, and then fell off onto the earth. Some people might have found this philosophy attractive and believed in it. But in the 20th century, at a time when man has managed to walk on the moon, it is no longer possible to seriously hold such a belief. Whether such a tree exists there or not can be determined by scientific methods, that is, by observation and experiment.
We can therefore investigate by means of scientific methods the materialist claim: that matter has existed for all eternity and that this matter can organise itself without a supramaterial Creator and cause life to begin. When we do this, we see that materialism has already collapsed, because the idea that matter has existed since beginning of time has been overthrown by the Big Bang theory which shows that the universe was created from nothingness. The claim that matter organised itself and created life is the claim that we call "the theory of evolution" -which this book has been examining-and which has been shown to have collapsed.
However, if someone is determined to believe in materialism and puts his devotion to materialist philosophy before everything else, then he will act differently. If he is a materialist first and a scientist second, he will not abandon materialism when he sees that evolution is disproved by science. On the contrary, he will attempt to uphold and defend materialism by trying to support evolution, no matter what. This is exactly the predicament that evolutionists defending the theory of evolution find themselves in today.
Interestingly enough, they also confess this fact from time to time. A well-known geneticist and outspoken evolutionist, Richard C. Lewontin from Harvard University, confesses that he is "a materialist first and a scientist second" in these words:
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us 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, so we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.172
The term "a priori" that Lewontin uses here is quite important. This philosophical term refers to a presupposition not based on any experimental knowledge. A thought is "a priori" when you consider it to be correct and accept it as so even if there is no information available to confirm it. As the evolutionist Lewontin frankly states, materialism is an "a priori" commitment for evolutionists, who then try to adapt science to this preconception. Since materialism definitely necessitates denying the existence of a Creator, they embrace the only alternative they have in hand, which is the theory of evolution. It does not matter to such scientists that evolution has been belied by scientific facts, because they have accepted it "a priori" as true.
This prejudiced behaviour leads evolutionists to a belief that "unconscious matter composed itself", which is contrary not only to science, but also to reason. Professor of chemistry from New York University and a DNA expert Robert Shapiro, as we have quoted before, explains this belief of evolutionists and the materialist dogma lying at its base as follows:
Another evolutionary principle is therefore needed to take us across the gap from mixtures of simple natural chemicals to the first effective replicator. This principle has not yet been described in detail or demonstrated, but it is anticipated, and given names such as chemical evolution and self-organization of matter. The existence of the principle is taken for granted in the philosophy of dialectical materialism, as applied to the origin of life by Alexander Oparin.173
Evolutionist propaganda, which we constantly come across in the Western media and in well-known and "esteemed" science magazines, is the outcome of this ideological necessity. Since evolution is considered to be indispensable, it has been turned into a sacred cow by the circles that set the standards of science.
Some scientists find themselves in a position where they are forced to defend this far-fetched theory, or at least avoid uttering any word against it, in order to maintain their reputations. Academics in the Western countries have to have articles published in certain scientific journals to attain and hold onto their professorships. All of the journals dealing with biology are under the control of evolutionists, and they do not allow any anti-evolutionist article to appear in them. Biologists, therefore, have to conduct their research under the domination of this theory. They, too, are part of the established order, which regards evolution as an ideological necessity, which is why they blindly defend all the "impossible coincidences" we have been examining in this book.
Materialist Confessions
The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth, a prominent evolutionist, is a good example of this bigoted materialist understanding. After Ditfurth cites an example of the extremely complex composition of life, this is what he says concerning the question of whether it could have emerged by chance or not:
Is such a harmony that emerged only out of coincidences possible in reality? This is the basic question of the whole of biological evolution. Answering this question as "Yes, it is possible" is something like verifying faith in the modern science of nature. Critically speaking, we can say that somebody who accepts the modern science of nature has no other alternative than to say "yes", because he aims to explain natural phenomena by means that are understandable and tries to derive them from the laws of nature without reverting to supernatural interference. However, at this point, explaining everything by means of the laws of nature, that is, by coincidences, is a sign that he has nowhere else to turn. Because what else could he do other than believe in coincidences?174
Darwinism and Materialism The only reason that Darwin's theory is still defended despite its obvious refutation by science is the close link between that theory and materialism. Darwin applied materialist philosophy to the natural sciences and the advocates of this philosophy, Marxists being foremost among them, go on defending Darwinism no matter what. One of the most famous contemporary champions of the theory of evolution, the biologist Douglas Futuyma, wrote: "Together with Marx's materialistic theory of history… Darwin's theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism." This is a very clear admission of why the theory of evolution is really so important to its defenders.1 Another famous evolutionist, the paleontologist Stephen J. Gould said: "Darwin applied a consistent philosophy of materialism to his interpretation of nature".2 Leon Trotsky, one of the masterminds of the Russian Communist Revolution along with Lenin, commented: "The discovery by Darwin was the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field of organic matter."3 However, science has shown that Darwinism was not a victory for materialism but rather a sign of that philosophy's overthrow. 1- Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd ed., Sunderland, MA: Sinauer, 1986, p. 3
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As Ditfurth states, the materialist scientific approach adopts as its basic principle explaining life by denying "supernatural interference", i.e. creation. Once this principle is adopted, even the most impossible scenarios are easily accepted. It is possible to find examples of this dogmatic mentality in almost all evolutionist literature. Professor Ali Demirsoy, the well-known advocate of evolutionary theory in Turkey, is just one of many. As we have already pointed out, according to Demirsoy: the probability of the coincidental formation of cythochrome-C, an essential protein for life, is "as unlikely as the possibility of a monkey writing the history of humanity on a typewriter without making any mistakes".175
There is no doubt that to accept such a possibility is actually to reject the basic principles of reason and common sense. Even one single correctly formed letter written on a page makes it certain that it was written by a person. When one sees a book of world history, it becomes even more certain that the book has been written by an author. No logical person would agree that the letters in such a huge book could have been put together "by chance".
However, it is very interesting to see that the "evolutionist scientist" Professor Ali Demirsoy accepts this sort of irrational proposition:
In essence, the probability of the formation of a cytochrome-C sequence is as likely as zero. That is, if life requires a certain sequence, it can be said that this has a probability likely to be realised once in the whole universe. Otherwise some metaphysical powers beyond our definition must have acted in its formation. To accept the latter is not appropriate for the scientific goal. We thus have to look into the first hypothesis.176
Demirsoy writes that he prefers the impossible, in order "not to have to accept supernatural forces"-in other words, the existence of a Creator. It is clear that this approach has no relation whatsoever with science. Not surprisingly, when Demirsoy cites another subject-the origins of the mitochondria in the cell-he openly accepts coincidence as an explanation, even though it is "quite contrary to scientific thought".
The heart of the problem is how the mitochondria have acquired this feature, because attaining this feature by chance even by one individual, requires extreme probabilities that are incomprehensible... The enzymes providing respiration and functioning as a catalyst in each step in a different form make up the core of the mechanism. A cell has to contain this enzyme sequence completely, otherwise it is meaningless. Here, despite being contrary to biological thought, in order to avoid a more dogmatic explanation or speculation, we have to accept, though reluctantly, that all the respiration enzymes completely existed in the cell before the cell first came in contact with oxygen.177
The conclusion to be drawn from such pronouncements is that evolution is not a theory arrived at through scientific investigation. On the contrary, the form and substance of this theory were dictated by the requirements of materialistic philosophy. It then turned into a belief or dogma in spite of concrete scientific facts. Again, we can clearly see from evolutionist literature that all of this effort has a "purpose"-and that purpose precludes any belief that all living things were not created no matter what the price.
Evolutionists define this purpose as "scientific". However, what they refer to is not science but materialist philosophy. Materialism absolutely rejects the existence of anything "beyond" matter (or of anything supernatural). Science itself is not obliged to accept such a dogma. Science means exploring nature and deriving conclusions from one's findings. If these findings lead to the conclusion that nature is created, science has to accept it. That is the duty of a true scientist; not defending impossible scenarios by clinging to the outdated materialist dogmas of the 19th century.
The Scientific Death of Materialism Constituting as it does the philosophical underpinnings of the theory of evolution, 19th-century materialism suggested that the universe existed since eternity, that it was not created, and that the organic world could be explained in terms of the interactions of matter. The discoveries of 20th-century science however have completely invalidated these hypotheses. The supposition that the universe has existed since eternity was blown away by the discovery that the universe originated from a great explosion (the so-called "Big Bang") that took place nearly 15 billion years ago. The Big Bang shows that all physical substances in the universe came into being out of nothing: in other words, they were created. One of the foremost advocates of materialism, the atheist philosopher Anthony Flew concedes: Notoriously, confession is good for the soul. I will therefore begin by confessing that the Stratonician atheist has to be embarressed by the contemporary cosmological consensus (Big Bang). For it seems that the cosmologists are providing a scientific proof ... that the universe had a beginning.1 The Big Bang also shows that at each stage, the universe was shaped by a controlled creation. This is made clear by the order that came about after the Big Bang, which was too perfect to have been formed from an uncontrolled explosion. The famous physician Paul Davies explains this situation: It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in the numbers, has been rather carefully thought out... The seeming miraculous concurrence of numerical values that nature has assigned to her fundamental constants must remain the most compelling evidence for an element of cosmic design.2 The same reality makes an American professor of astronomy, George Greenstein, say: Thus, the materialistic hypothesis that life can be explained solely in terms of the interactions of matter also collapsed in the face of the the discoveries of science. In particular, the origin of the genetic information that determines all living things can by no means be explained by any purely material agent. One of the leading defenders of the theory of evolution, George C. Williams, admits this fact in an article he wrote in 1995: Evolutionist biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter... the gene is a package of information, not an object... This dearth descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.4 This situation is evidence for the existence of a supra-material Wisdom that makes genetic information exist. It is impossible for matter to produce information within itself. The director of the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, Proffessor Werner Gitt, remarks: All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required. There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.5 All these scientific facts illustrate that God, Who has external power and knowledge, creates the universe and all living things. As for materialism, Arthur Koestler, one of the most renowned philosophers of our century says: "It can no longer claim to be a scientific philosophy"6 1- Henry Margeneau, Roy A. Vargesse, Cosmos, Bios, Theos, La Salle IL: Open Court Publishing, 1992, p. 241 |
172 Richard Lewontin, "The Demon-Haunted World", The New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28
173 Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Sceptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Summit Books, New York : 1986, p. 207
174 Hoimar Von Dithfurt, Im Anfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), Vol. 2, p. 64
175 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Ankara: Meteksan Publishing Co., 1984, p. 61
176 Ibid, p. 61.
177 Ibid, p. 94..
CHAPTER 12 WHY EVOLUTIONIST CLAIMS ARE INVALID
CHAPTER 12
WHY EVOLUTIONIST CLAIMS ARE INVALID
In previous chapters, we examined the invalidity of the theory of evolution in terms of the bodies of evidence found in fossils and from the standpoint of molecular biology. In this chapter, we will address a number of biological phenomena and concepts presented as theoretical evidence by evolutionists. These topics are particularly important for they show that there is no scientific finding that supports evolution and instead reveal the extent of the distortion and hoodwink employed by evolutionists.
Variations and Species
Variation, a term used in genetics, refers to a genetic event that causes the individuals or groups of a certain type or species to possess different characteristics from one another. For example, all the people on earth carry basically the same genetic information, yet some have slanted eyes, some have red hair, some have long noses, and others are short of stature, all depending on the extent of the variation potential of this genetic information.
Evolutionists predicate the variations within a species as evidence to the theory. However, variation does not constitute evidence for evolution because variations are but the outcomes of different combinations of already existing genetic information and they do not add any new characteristic to the genetic information. The important thing for the theory of evolution, however, is the question of how brand-new information to make a brand-new species could come about.
In The Origin of Species, Darwin confused two separate
concepts: variations within a species and the emergence of an entirely
new one. Darwin observed the variety within the various breeds of dogs,
for example, and imagined that some of these variations would one day
turn into a different species. Even today evolutionists persist in
seeking to portray variations within species as "evolution".
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Variation always takes place within the limits of genetic information. In the science of genetics, this limit is called the "gene pool". All of the characteristics present in the gene pool of a species may come to light in various ways due to variation. For example, as a result of variation, varieties that have relatively longer tails or shorter legs may appear in a certain species of reptile, since information for both long-legged and short-legged forms may exist in the gene pool that species. However, variations do not transform reptiles into birds by adding wings or feathers to them, or by changing their metabolism. Such a change requires an increase in the genetic information of the living thing, which is certainly not possible through variations.
Darwin was not aware of this fact when he formulated his theory. He thought that there was no limit to variations. In an article he wrote in 1844 he stated: "That a limit to variation does exist in nature is assumed by most authors, though I am unable to discover a single fact on which this belief is grounded".143 In The Origin of Species he cited different examples of variations as the most important evidence for his theory.
For instance, according to Darwin, animal breeders who mated different varieties of cattle in order to bring about new varieties that produced more milk, were ultimately going to transform them into a different species. Darwin's notion of "unlimited variation" is best seen in the following sentence from The Origin of Species:
I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.144
The reason Darwin cited such a far-fetched example was the primitive understanding of science in his day. Since then, in the 20th century, science has posited the principle of "genetic stability" (genetic homeostasis), based on the results of experiments conducted on living things. This principle holds that, since all mating attempts carried out to produce new variations have been inconclusive, there are strict barriers among different species of living things. This meant that it was absolutely impossible for animal breeders to convert cattle into a different species by mating different variations of them, as Darwin had postulated.
Norman Macbeth, who disproved Darwinism in his book Darwin Retried, states:
The heart of the problem is whether living things do indeed vary to an unlimited extent... The species look stable. We have all heard of disappointed breeders who carried their work to a certain point only to see the animals or plants revert to where they had started. Despite strenuous efforts for two or three centuries, it has never been possible to produce a blue rose or a black tulip.145
Luther Burbank, considered the most competent breeder of all time, expressed this fact when he said, "there are limits to the development possible, and these limits follow a law." 146 The Danish scientist W. L. Johannsen sums the matter up this way:
The variations upon which Darwin and Wallace had placed their emphasis cannot be selectively pushed beyond a certain point, that such a variability does not contain the secret of 'indefinite departure.147
In The Origin of Species, Darwin asserted that whales had evolved from bears that tried to swim! Darwin mistakenly supposed that the possibilities of variation within a species were unlimited. 20th century science has shown this evolutionary scenario to be imaginary. |
In the same way, the different finches that Darwin saw on the Galapagos Islands are another example of variation that is no evidence for "evolution". Recent observations have revealed that the finches did not undergo an unlimited variation as Darwin's theory presupposed. Moreover, most of the different types of finches which Darwin thought represented 14 distinct species actually mated with one another, which means that they were variations that belonged to the same species. Scientific observation shows that the finch beaks, which have been mythicized in almost all evolutionist sources, are in fact an example of "variation"; therefore, they do not constitute evidence for the theory of evolution. For example, Peter and Rosemary Grant, who spent years observing the finch varieties in the Galapagos Islands looking for evidence for Darwinistic evolution, were forced to conclude that no "evolution" that leads to the emergence of new traits ever takes place there.148
Antibiotic Resistance and DDTImmunity are not Evidence for Evolution
One of the biological concepts that evolutionists try to present as evidence for their theory is the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. Many evolutionist sources show antibiotic resistance as "an example of the development of living things by advantageous mutations". A similar claim is also made for the insects which build immunity to insecticides such as DDT.
However, evolutionists are mistaken on this subject too.
Antibiotics are "killer molecules" that are produced by micro-organisms to fight other micro-organisms. The first antibiotic was penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Fleming realized that mould produced a molecule that killed the Staphylococcus bacterium, and this discovery marked a turning point in the world of medicine. Antibiotics derived from micro-organisms were used against bacteria and the results were successful.
Soon, something new was discovered. Bacteria build immunity to antibiotics over time. The mechanism works like this: A large proportion of the bacteria that are subjected to antibiotics die, but some others, which are not affected by that antibiotic, replicate rapidly and soon make up the whole population. Thus, the entire population becomes immune to antibiotics.
Evolutionists try to present this as "the evolution of bacteria by adapting to conditions".
The truth, however, is very different from this
superficial interpretation. One of the scientists who has done the most
detailed research into this subject is the Israeli biophysicist Lee
Spetner, who is also known for his book Not by Chance published
in 1997. Spetner maintains that the immunity of bacteria comes about
by two different mechanisms, but neither of them constitutes evidence
for the theory of evolution. These two mechanisms are:
1) The transfer of resistance genes already extant in bacteria.
2) The building of resistance as a result of losing genetic data because of mutation.
Professor Spetner explains the first mechanism in an article published in 2001:
Some microorganisms are endowed with genes that grant resistance to these antibiotics. This resistance can take the form of degrading the antibiotic molecule or of ejecting it from the cell... The organisms having these genes can transfer them to other bacteria making them resistant as well. Although the resistance mechanisms are specific to a particular antibiotic, most pathogenic bacteria have... succeeded in accumulating several sets of genes granting them resistance to a variety of antibiotics.149
Spetner then goes on to say that this is not "evidence for evolution":
The acquisition of antibiotic resistance in this manner... is not the kind that can serve as a prototype for the mutations needed to account for Evolution. The genetic changes that could illustrate the theory must not only add information to the bacterium's genome, they must add new information to the biocosm. The horizontal transfer of genes only spreads around genes that are already in some species.150
 Evolutionists portray bacteria's resistance to antibiotics as evidence of evolution—but in a deceptive way. |
So, we cannot talk of any evolution here, because no new genetic information is produced: genetic information that already exists is simply transferred between bacteria.
The second type of immunity, which comes about as a result of mutation, is not an example of evolution either. Spetner writes:
...A microorganism can sometimes acquire resistance to an antibiotic through a random substitution of a single nucleotide... Streptomycin, which was discovered by Selman Waksman and Albert Schatz and first reported in 1944, is an antibiotic against which bacteria can acquire resistance in this way. But although the mutation they undergo in the process is beneficial to the microorganism in the presence of streptomycin, it cannot serve as a prototype for the kind of mutations needed by NDT[Neo Darwinian Theory]. The type of mutation that grants resistance to streptomycin is manifest in the ribosome and degrades its molecular match with the antibiotic molecule. This change in the surface of the microorganism's ribosome prevents the streptomycin molecule from attaching and carrying out its antibiotic function. It turns out that this degradation is a loss of specificity and therefore a loss of information. The main point is that (Evolution) cannot be achieved by mutations of this sort, no matter how many of them there are. Evolution cannot be built by accumulating mutations that only degrade specificity.151
To sum up, a mutation impinging on a bacterium's ribosome makes that bacterium resistant to streptomycin. The reason for this is the "decomposition" of the ribosome by mutation. That is, no new genetic information is added to the bacterium. On the contrary, the structure of the ribosome is decomposed, that is to say, the bacterium becomes "disabled". (Also, it has been discovered that the ribosome of the mutated bacterium is less functional than that of normal bacterium). Since this "disability" prevents the antibiotic from attaching onto the ribosome, "antibiotic resistance" develops.
Finally, there is no example of mutation that "develops the genetic information".
The same situation holds true for the immunity that insects develop to DDT and similar insecticides. In most of these instances, immunity genes that already exist are used. The evolutionist biologist Francisco Ayala admits this fact, saying, "The genetic variants required for resistance to the most diverse kinds of pesticides were apparently present in every one of the populations exposed to these man-made compounds."152
Some other examples explained by mutation, just as with the ribosome mutation mentioned above, are phenomena that cause "genetic information deficit" in insects.
In this case, it cannot be claimed that the immunity mechanisms in bacteria and insects constitute evidence for the theory of evolution. That is because the theory of evolution is based on the assertion that living things develop through mutations. However, Spetner explains that neither antibiotic immunity nor any other biological phenomena indicate such an example of mutation:
The mutations needed for macroevolution have never been observed. No random mutations that could represent the mutations required by Neo-Darwinian Theory that have been examined on the molecular level have added any information. The question I address is: Are the mutations that have been observed the kind the theory needs for support? The answer turns out to be NO!153
The Fallacy of Vestigial Organs
 All instances of vestigial organs have been disproved in time. For example the semicircular fold in the eye, which was mentioned in the Origins as a vestigial structure, has been shown to be fully functional in our time, though its function was unknown in Darwin's time. This organ lubricates the eyeball. |
For a long time, the concept of "vestigial organs" appeared frequently in evolutionist literature as "evidence" of evolution. Eventually, it was silently put to rest when this was proved to be invalid. But some evolutionists still believe in it, and from time to time someone will try to advance "vestigial organs" as important evidence of evolution.
The notion of "vestigial organs" was first put forward a century ago. As evolutionists would have it, there existed in the bodies of some creatures a number of non-functional organs. These had been inherited from progenitors and had gradually become vestigial from lack of use.
The whole assumption is quite unscientific, and is based entirely on insufficient knowledge. These "non-functional organs" were in fact organs whose "functions had not yet been discovered". The best indication of this was the gradual yet substantial decrease in evolutionists' long list of vestigial organs. S.R. Scadding, an evolutionist himself, concurred with this fact in his article "Can vestigial organs constitute evidence for evolution?" published in the journal Evolutionary Theory:
Since it is not possible to unambiguously identify useless structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not scientifically valid, I conclude that "vestigial organs" provide no special evidence for the theory of evolution.154
The list of vestigial organs that was made by the German Anatomist R. Wiedersheim in 1895 included approximately 100 organs, including the appendix and coccyx. As science progressed, it was discovered that all of the organs in Wiedersheim's list in fact had very important functions. For instance, it was discovered that the appendix, which was supposed to be a "vestigial organ", was in fact a lymphoid organ that fought against infections in the body. This fact was made clear in 1997: "Other bodily organs and tissues-the thymus, liver, spleen, appendix, bone marrow, and small collections of lymphatic tissue such as the tonsils in the throat and Peyer's patch in the small intestine-are also part of the lymphatic system. They too help the body fight infection."155
 Eagles, bats and insects all have wings. Yet just because they possess similar organs does not prove that they evolved from any common ancestor. |
It was also discovered that the tonsils, which were included in the same list of vestigial organs, had a significant role in protecting the throat against infections, particularly until adolescence. It was found that the coccyx at the lower end of the vertebral column supports the bones around the pelvis and is the convergence point of some small muscles and for this reason, it would not be possible to sit comfortably without a coccyx. In the years that followed, it was realised that the thymus triggered the immune system in the human body by activating the T cells, that the pineal gland was in charge of the secretion of some important hormones, that the thyroid gland was effective in providing steady growth in babies and children, and that the pituitary gland controlled the correct functioning of many hormone glands. All of these were once conside-red to be "vestigial organs". Finally, the semi-lunar fold in the eye, which was referred to as a vestigial organ by Darwin, has been found in fact to be in charge of cleansing and lubricating the eyeball.
There was a very important logical error in the evolutionist claim regarding vestigial organs. As we have just seen, this claim was that the vestigial organs in living things were inherited from their ancestors. However, some of the alleged "vestigial" organs are not found in the species alleged to be the ancestors of human beings! For example, the appendix does not exist in some ape species that are said to be ancestors of man. The famous biologist H. Enoch, who challenged the theory of vestigial organs, expressed this logical error as follows:
Apes possess an appendix, whereas their less immediate relatives, the lower apes, do not; but it appears again among the still lower mammals such as the opossum. How can the evolutionists account for this?156
Simply put, the scenario of vestigial organs put forward by evolutionists contains a number of serious logical flaws, and has in any case been proven to be scientifically untrue. There exists not one inherited vestigial organ in the human body, since human beings did not evolve from other creatures as a result of chance, but were created in their current, complete, and perfect form.
The Myth of Homology
Structural similarities between different species are called "homology" in biology. Evolutionists try to present those similarities as evidence for evolution.
Darwin thought that creatures with similar (homologous) organs had an evolutionary relationship with each other, and that these organs must have been inherited from a common ancestor. According to his assumption, both pigeons and eagles had wings; therefore, pigeons, eagles, and indeed all other birds with wings were supposed to have evolved from a common ancestor.
Homology is a deceptive argument, advanced on the basis of no other evidence than an apparent physical resemblance. This argument has never once been verified by a single concrete discovery in all the years since Darwin's day. Nowhere in the world has anyone come up with a fossil remain of the imaginary common ancestor of creatures with homologous structures. Furthermore, the following issues make it clear that homology provides no evidence that evolution ever occurred.
1. One finds homologous organs in creatures belonging to completely different phyla, among which evolutionists have not been able to establish any sort of evolutionary relationship;
2. The genetic codes of some creatures that have homologous organs are completely different from one another.
3. The embryological development of homologous organs in different creatures is completely different.
Let us now examine each of these points one by one.
Similar Organs in Entirely Different Living Species
There are a number of homologous organs shared by different groups among which evolutionists cannot establish any kind of evolutionary relationship. Wings are one example. In addition to birds, we find wings on bats, which are mammals, and on insects and even on some dinosaurs, which are extinct reptiles. Not even evolutionists posit an evolutionary relationship or kinship among those four different groups of animals.
Another striking example is the amazing resemblance and the structural similarity observed in the eyes of different creatures. For example, the octopus and man are two extremely different species, between which no evolutionary relationship is likely even to be proposed, yet the eyes of both are very much alike in terms of their structure and function. Not even evolutionists try to account for the similarity of the eyes of the octopus and man by positing a common ancestor. These and numerous other examples show that the evolutionist claim based on resemblances is completely unscientific.
Mammal Twins That Defy Homology TWO UNRELATED EXTINCT MAMMALS WITH GIANT TEETH Another example of extraordinary resemblance
between placental and marsupial mammal "twins," is that between the
extinct mammals Smilodon (below) and Thylacosmilus (above), both
predators with enormous front teeth. The great degree of resemblance
between the skull and teeth structures of these two mammals, between
which no evolutionary relationship can be established, overturns the
homological view that similar structures are evidence in favour of
evolution. TASMANIAN WOLF AND ITS NORTH AMERICAN COUNTERPART The presence of "twin" species between marsupial and placental mammals deals a serious blow to the claim of homology. For example, the marsupial Tasmanian wolf (above) and the placental wolf found in North America resemble each other to an extraordinary degree. Above can be seen the skulls of these two highly similar animals. Such a close resemblance between the two, which cannot be suggested to have any "evolutionary relationship", completely invalidates the claim of homology. a) North American wolf skull |
In fact, homologous organs should be a great embarrassment for evolutionists. The famous evolutionist Frank Salisbury's confessions revealed in his statements on how extremely different creatures came to have very similar eyes underscores the impasse of homology:
Even something as complex as the eye has appeared several times; for example, in the squid, the vertebrates, and the arthropods. It's bad enough accounting for the origin of such things once, but the thought of producing them several times according to the modern synthetic theory makes my head swim.157
 In terms of structure, the eyes of humans and octopuses are very much alike. However, the fact that the two species have similar organs doesn't imply that they evolved from a common ancestor. Not even evolutionists try to account for the similarity of the eyes of the octopus and man by positing a common ancestor. |
There are many creatures which, despite their very similar physical make-up, do not permit any claims of evolutionary relationship. Two large mammal categories, placentals and marsupials, are an example. Evolutionists consider this distinction to have come about when mammals first appeared, and that each group lived its own evolutionary history totally independent of the other. But it is interesting that there are "pairs" in placentals and marsupials which are nearly the same. The American biologists Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis make the following comment:
According to Darwinian theory, the pattern for wolves, cats, squirrels, ground hogs, anteaters, moles, and mice each evolved twice: once in placental mammals and again, totally independently, in marsupials. This amounts to the astonishing claim that a random, undirected process of mutation and natural selection somehow hit upon identical features several times in widely separated organisms.158
Extraordinary resemblances and similar organs like these, which evolutionist biologists cannot accept as examples of "homology," show that there is no evidence for the thesis of evolution from a common ancestor. What, in that case, could be the scientific explanation of the similar structures in living things? The answer to that question was given before Darwin's theory of evolution came to dominate the world of science. Scientists like Carl Linnaeus, who first systematized living things according to their similar structures, and Richard Owen regarded these structures as examples of "common" creation. In other words, similar organs (or, nowadays, similar genes) are held to be so because they were created to serve a particular purpose, not because they evolved by chance from a common ancestor.
Modern scientific findings show that the claim of a "common ancestor" made with regard to similar organs is incorrect, and that the only possible explanation is common creation, confirming once again that living things were created by God.
The Genetic and Embryological Impasse of Homology
 Professor Michael Denton: "Evolution is a theory in crisis" |
In order for the evolutionist claim concerning "homology" to be taken seriously, similar (homologous) organs in different creatures should also be coded with similar (homologous) DNA codes. However, they are not. Similar organs are usually governed by very different genetic (DNA) codes. Furthermore, similar genetic codes in the DNA of different creatures are often associated with completely different organs.
Michael Denton, an Australian professor of biochemistry, describes in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis the genetic impasse of the evolutionist interpretation of homology: "Homologous structures are often specified by non-homologous genetic systems and the concept of homology can seldom be extended back into embryology."159
A famous example on this subject is the "five digit skeletal structure" of quadrupeds which is quoted in almost all evolutionist textbooks. Quadrupeds, i.e., land-living vertebrates, have five digits on their fore- and hindlimbs. Although these do not always have the appearance of five digits as we know them, they are all counted as pentadactyl due to their bone structure. The fore- and hindlimbs of a frog, a lizard, a squirrel or a monkey all have this same structure. Even the bone structures of birds and bats conform to this basic design.
Evolutionists claim that all living things descended from a common ancestor, and they have long cited pentadactyl limb as evidence of this. This claim was mentioned in almost all basic sources on biology throughout the 20th century as very strong evidence for evolution. Genetic findings in the 1980s refuted this evolutionist claim. It was realised that the pentadactyl limb patterns of different creatures are controlled by totally different genes. Evolutionist biologist William Fix describes the collapse of the evolutionist thesis regarding pentadactylism in this way:
The older text-books on evolution make much of the idea of homology, pointing out the obvious resemblances between the skeletons of the limbs of different animals. Thus the "pentadactyl" limb pattern is found in the arm of a man, the wing of a bird, and the flipper of a whale, and this is held to indicate their common origin. Now if these various structures were transmitted by the same gene couples, varied from time to time by mutations and acted upon by environmental selection, the theory would make good sense. Unfortunately this is not the case. Homologous organs are now known to be produced by totally different gene complexes in the different species. The concept of homology in terms of similar genes handed on from a common ancestor has broken down...160
Another point is that in order for the evolutionary thesis regarding homology to be taken seriously, the periods of similar structures' embryological development-in other words, the stages of development in the egg or the mother's womb-would need to be parallel, whereas, in reality, these embryological periods for similar structures are quite different from each other in every living creature.
To conclude, we can say that genetic and embryological research has proven that the concept of homology defined by Darwin as "evidence of the evolution of living things from a common ancestor" can by no means be regarded as any evidence at all. In this respect, science can be said to have proven the Darwinist thesis false time and time again.
Invalidity of the Claim of Molecular Homology
Evolutionists' advancement of homology as evidence for evolution is invalid not only at the morphological level, but also at the molecular level. Evolutionists say that the DNA codes, or the corresponding protein structures, of different living species are similar, and that this similarity is evidence that these living species have evolved from common ancestors, or else from each other.
In truth, however, the results of molecular comparisons do not work in favour of the theory of evolution at all. There are huge molecular differences between creatures that appear to be very similar and related. For instance, the cytochrome-C protein, one of the proteins vital to respiration, is incredibly different in living beings of the same class. According to research carried out on this matter, the difference between two different reptile species is greater than the difference between a bird and a fish or a fish and a mammal. Another study has shown that molecular differences between some birds are greater than the differences between those same birds and mammals. It has also been discovered that the molecular difference between bacteria that appear to be very similar is greater than the difference between mammals and amphibians or insects.161 Similar comparisons have been made in the cases of haemoglobin, myoglobin, hormones, and genes and similar conclusions are drawn.162
Concerning these findings in the field of molecular biology, Dr. Michael Denton comments:
Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus, molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology… At a molecular level, no organism is "ancestral" or "primitive" or "advanced" compared with its relatives… There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available a century ago… the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted.163
The "Tree of Life" Is Collapsing
In the 1990s, research into the genetic codes of living things worsened the quandary faced by the theory of evolution in this regard. In these experiments, instead of the earlier comparisons that were limited to protein sequences, "ribosomal RNA" (rRNA) sequences were compared. From these findings, evolutionist scientists sought to establish an "evolutionary tree". However, they were disappointed by the results. According to a 1999 article by French biologists Hervé Philippe and Patrick Forterre, "with more and more sequences available, it turned out that most protein pyhlogenies contradict each other as well as the rRNA tree."164
Besides rRNA comparisons, the DNA codes in the genes of living things were also compared, but the results have been the opposite of the "tree of life" presupposed by evolution. Molecular biologists James A. Lake, Ravi Jain and Maria C. Rivera elaborated on this in an article in 1999:
"Scientists started analyzing a variety of genes from different organisms and found that their relationship to each other contradicted the evolutionary tree of life derived from rRNA analysis alone."165
Neither the comparisons that have been made of proteins, nor those of rRNAs or of genes, confirm the premises of the theory of evolution. Carl Woese, a highly reputed biologist from the University of Illinois admits that the concept of "phylogeny" has lost its meaning in the face of molecular findings in this way:
No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various (groups) to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves."166
The fact that results of molecular comparisons are not in favour of, but rather opposed to, the theory of evolution is also admitted in an article called "Is it Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?" published in Science in 1999. This article by Elizabeth Pennisi states that the genetic analyses and comparisons carried out by Darwinist biologists in order to shed light on the "tree of life" actually yielded directly opposite results, and goes on to say that "new data are muddying the evolutionary picture":
A year ago, biologists looking over newly sequenced genomes from more than a dozen microorganisms thought these data might support the accepted plot lines of life's early history. But what they saw confounded them. Comparisons of the genomes then available not only didn't clarify the picture of how life's major groupings evolved, they confused it. And now, with an additional eight microbial sequences in hand, the situation has gotten even more confusing.... Many evolutionary biologists had thought they could roughly see the beginnings of life's three kingdoms... When full DNA sequences opened the way to comparing other kinds of genes, researchers expected that they would simply add detail to this tree. But "nothing could be further from the truth," says Claire Fraser, head of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland. Instead, the comparisons have yielded many versions of the tree of life that differ from the rRNA tree and conflict with each other as well...167
In short, as molecular biology advances, the homology concept loses more ground. Comparisons that have been made of proteins, rRNAs and genes reveal that creatures which are allegedly close relatives according to the theory of evolution are actually totally distinct from each other. A 1996 study using 88 protein sequences grouped rabbits with primates instead of rodents; a 1998 analysis of 13 genes in 19 animal species placed sea urchins among the chordates; and another 1998 study based on 12 proteins put cows closer to whales than to horses. Molecular biologist Jonathan Wells sums up the situation in 2000 in this way:
Inconsistencies among trees based on different molecules, and the bizarre trees that result from some molecular analyses, have now plunged molecular phylogeny into a crisis.168
"Molecular phylogeny" is facing a crisis—which means that the theory of evolution also faces a crisis. (Phylogeny refers to the so-called "family relationships" among various living things and is the hypothetical basis of the theory of evolution.) Once again, science undermines the thesis that living things evolved from one another, demonstrating that all living groups were created separately.
The Myth of Embryological Recapitulation
 Haeckel was an evolutionist even more ardent than Darwin in many respects. For this reason, he did not hesitate to distort the scientific data and devise various forgeries. |
What used to be called the "recapitulation theory" has long been eliminated from scientific literature, but it is still being presented as a scientific reality by some evolutionist publications. The term "recapitulation" is a condensation of the dictum "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", put forward by the evolutionist biologist Ernst Haeckel at the end of the 19th century.
This theory of Haeckel's postulates that living embryos re-experience the evolutionary process that their pseudo-ancestors underwent. He theorised that during its development in its mother's womb, the human embryo first displayed the characteristics of a fish, and then those of a reptile, and finally those of a human.
It has since been proven that this theory is completely bogus. It is now known that the "gills" that supposedly appear in the early stages of the human embryo are in fact the initial phases of the middle-ear canal, parathyroid, and thymus. The part of the embryo that was likened to the "egg yolk pouch" turns out to be a pouch that produces blood for the infant. The part that had been identified as a "tail" by Haeckel and his followers is in fact the backbone, which resembles a tail only because it takes shape before the legs do.
These drawings were fabricated by Haeckel to demonstrate the "similarities" between human and fish embryos. Comparing his sketch with a genuine human embryo, you can see that he has deliberately omitted a large portion of the actual organs. (Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, p. 205) |
These are universally acknowledged facts in the scientific world, and are accepted even by evolutionists themselves. George Gaylord Simpson, one of the founders of neo-Darwinism, writes:
Haeckel misstated the evolutionary principle involved. It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny.169
In an article published in American Scientist, we read:
Surely the biogenetic law is as dead as a doornail. It was finally exorcised from biology textbooks in the fifties. As a topic of serious theoretical inquiry it was extinct in the twenties…170
Another interesting aspect of "recapitulation" was Ernst Haeckel himself, a faker who falsified his drawings in order to support the theory he advanced. Haeckel's forgeries purported to show that fish and human embryos resembled one another. When he was caught out, the only defence he offered was that other evolutionists had committed similar offences:
After this compromising confession of "forgery" I should be obliged to consider myself condemned and annihilated if I had not the consolation of seeing side by side with me in the prisoners' dock hundreds of fellow culprits, among them many of the most trusted observers and most esteemed biologists. The great majority of all the diagrams in the best biological textbooks, treatises and journals would incur in the same degree the charge of "forgery", for all of them are inexact, and are more or less doctored, schematised and constructed.171
There are indeed "hundreds of fellow culprits, among them many of the most trusted observers and most esteemed biologists" whose studies are full of prejudiced conclusions, distortions, and even forgeries. This is because they have all conditioned themselves to champion evolutionary theory although there is not a shred of scientific evidence supporting it.
143. Loren C. Eiseley, The Immense Journey, Vintage Books, 1958, p. 186
144. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 184
145. Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason, Harvard Common Press, New York : 1971, p. 33
146. Ibid, p. 36
147
Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey, Vintage Books, 1958. p. 227
148 H. Lisle
Gibbs and Peter R. Grant, "Oscillating selection on Darwin's finches",
Nature, 327, 1987, pp. 513; For more detailed information, please see
Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, 2000, pp. 159-175.
149 Dr. Lee Spetner,
"Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue : Continuing an exchange with Dr.
Edward E. Max", 2001, http ://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.ap
150 Ibid.
151 Ibid.
152 Francisco J. Ayala, "The Mechanisms of Evolution", Scientific American, Vol. 239, September 1978, p. 64
153 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max
Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max", 2001, http
://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.ap
154 S. R. Scadding, "Do ‘Vestigial Organs’ Provide Evidence for Evolution?", Evolutionary Theory, Vol. 5, May 1981, p. 173
155 The Merck Manual of Medical Information, Home
edition, New Jersey : Merck & Co., Inc. The Merck Publishing Group,
Rahway, 1997
156 H. Enoch, Creation and Evolution, New York : 1966, pp. 18-19
157 Frank Salisbury, "Doubts About the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution", American Biology Teacher, September 1971, p. 338
158 Dean Kenyon & Percival Davis, Of Pandas
and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, Dallas :
Haughton Publishing, 1993, p. 33
159 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Londres, Burnett Books, 1985, p. 145
160 William Fix, The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution, New York : Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984, p. 189
161 W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited,
Thomas Nelson Co., Nashville : 1991, pp. 98-99 ; Percival Davis, Dean
Kenyon, Of Pandas and People, Haughton Publishing Co., 1990, pp. 35-38
162 W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, pp. 98-99, 199-202
163 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Londres : Burnett Books, 1985, pp. 290-91
164 Hervé Philippe et Patrick Forterre, "The
Rooting of the Universal Tree of Life is Not Reliable", Journal of
Molecular Evolution, Vol. 49, 1999, p. 510
165 James Lake, Ravi Jain et Maria Rivera, "Mix and Match in the Tree of Life", Science, Vol. 283, 1999, p. 2027
166 Carl Woese, "The Universel Ancestor", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 95, (1998) p. 6854
167 Ibid.
168 Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, Regnery Publishing, 2000, p. 51
169 G. G. Simpson, W. Beck, An Introduction to Biology, New York, Harcourt Brace and World, 1965, p. 241
170 Keith S. Thompson, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny Recapitulated", American Scientist, Vol. 76, May/June 1988, p. 273
171 Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, New York : Ticknor and Fields 1982, p. 204
CHAPTER 11 DESIGN CANNOT BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY COINCIDENCE
CHAPTER 11
DESIGN CANNOT BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY COINCIDENCE
In the previous chapter, we have examined how impossible the accidental formation of life is. Let us again ignore these impossibilities for just a moment. Let us suppose that millions of years ago a cell was formed which had acquired everything necessary for life, and that it duly "came to life". The theory of evolution again collapses at this point. For even if this cell had existed for a while, it would eventually have died and after its death, nothing would have remained, and everything would have reverted to where it had started. This is because this first living cell, lacking any genetic information, would not have been able to reproduce and start a new generation. Life would have ended with its death.
The genetic system does not only consist of DNA. The following things must also exist in the same environment: enzymes to read the code on the DNA, messenger RNA to be produced after reading these codes, a ribosome to which messenger RNA will attach according to this code, transfer RNA to transfer the amino acids to the ribosome for use in production, and extremely complex enzymes to carry out numerous intermediary processes. Such an environment cannot exist anywhere apart from aa totally isolated and completely controlled environment such as the cell, where all the essential raw materials and energy resources exist.
As a result, organic matter can self-reproduce only if it exists as a fully developed cell with all its organelles and in an appropriate environment where it can survive, exchange materials, and get energy from its surroundings. This means that the first cell on earth was formed "all of a sudden" together with its amazingly complex structure.
So, if a complex structure came into existence all of a sudden, what does this mean?
Let us ask this question with an example. Let us liken the cell to a high-tech car in terms of its complexity. (In fact, the cell is a much more complex and developed system than a car with its engine and all its technical equipment.) Now let us ask the following question: What would you think if you went out hiking in the depths of a thick forest and ran across a brand-new car among the trees? Would you imagine that various elements in the forest had come together by chance over millions of years and produced such a vehicle? All the parts in the car are made of products such as iron, copper, and rubber-the raw ingredients for which are all found on the earth-but would this fact lead you to think that these materials had synthesised "by chance" and then come together and manufactured such a car?
There is no doubt that anyone with a sound mind would realise that the car was the product of an intelligent design-in other words, a factory-and wonder what it was doing there in the middle of the forest. The sudden emergence of a complex structure in a complete form, quite out of the blue, shows that this is the work of an intelligent agent. A complex system like the cell is no doubt created by a superior will and wisdom. In other words, it came into existence as a creation of God.
Believing that pure chance can produce perfect designs goes well beyond the bounds of reason. Yet, every "explanation put forward by the theory of evolution regarding the origin of life is like that. One outspoken authority on this issue is the famous French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé, the former president of the French Academy of Sciences. Grassé is a materialist, yet he acknowledges that Darwinist theory is unable to explain life and makes a point about the logic of "coincidence", which is the backbone of Darwinism:
The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur… There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it.139
Grasse summarises what the concept of "coincidence" means for evolutionists: "...Chance becomes a sort of providence, which, under the cover of atheism, is not named but which is secretly worshipped."140
The logical failure of evolutionists is an outcome of their enshrining the concept of coincidence. In the Qur'an, it is written that those who worship beings other than God are devoid of understanding;
They have hearts wherewith they understand not, eyes wherewith they see not, and ears wherewith they hear not. They are like cattle - nay more misguided: for they are heedless (of warning). (Surat al-Araf : 179)
Darwinian Formula!
Besides all the technical evidence we have dealt with so far, let us now for once, examine what kind of a superstition the evolutionists have with an example so simple as to be understood even by children:
Evolutionary theory asserts that life is formed by chance. According to this claim, lifeless and unconscious atoms came together to form the cell and then they somehow formed other living things, including man. Let us think about that. When we bring together the elements that are the building-blocks of life such as carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium, only a heap is formed. No matter what treatments it undergoes, this atomic heap cannot form even a single living being. If you like, let us formulate an "experiment" on this subject and let us examine on the behalf of evolutionists what they really claim without pronouncing loudly under the name "Darwinian formula":
Let evolutionists put plenty of materials present in the composition of living beings such as phosphorus, nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, iron, and magnesium into big barrels. Moreover, let them add in these barrels any material that does not exist under normal conditions, but they think as necessary. Let them add in this mixture as many amino acids-which have no possibility of forming under natural conditions-and as many proteins-a single one of which has a formation probability of 10-950-as they like. Let them expose these mixtures to as much heat and moisture as they like. Let them stir these with whatever technologically developed device they like. Let them put the foremost scientists beside these barrels. Let these experts wait in turn beside these barrels for billions, and even trillions of years. Let them be free to use all kinds of conditions they believe to be necessary for a living thing's formation. No matter what they do, they cannot produce from these barrels a living being, say a professor that examines his cell structure under the electron microscope. They cannot produce giraffes, lions, bees, canaries, horses, dolphins, roses, orchids, lilies, carnations, bananas, oranges, apples, dates, tomatoes, melons, watermelons, figs, olives, grapes, peaches, peafowls, pheasants, multicoloured butterflies, or millions of other living beings such as these. Indeed, they could not obtain even a single cell of any one of them.
They will be unable to produce even a single cell from this barrel. They will be unable to produce a horse, butterfly, flower, duck, , cherry or lemon tree, owl or ant. No matter what they do, they will be unable to produce scientists who examine their own cells under the microscope, and human beings who think, reason, judge, rejoice and feel excitement and longing. |
Briefly, unconscious atoms cannot form the cell by coming together. They cannot take a new decision and divide this cell into two, then take other decisions and form the professors who first invent the electron microscope and then examine their own cell structure under that microscope. Matter comes to life only with God's superior creation.
Evolutionary theory, which claims the opposite, is a total fallacy completely contrary to reason. Thinking even a little bit on the claims of tevolutionists discloses this reality, just as in the above example.
Technology In The Eye and The Ear
When we compare the eye and the ear with cameras and sound recorders, we see that the eye and the ear are far more complex, functional, and perfect than those technological products. |
Another subject that remains unanswered by evolutionary theory is the excellent quality of perception in the eye and the ear.
Before passing on to the subject of the eye, let us briefly answer the question of "how we see". Light rays coming from an object fall oppositely on the retina of the eye. Here, these light rays are transmitted into electric signals by cells and they reach a tiny spot at the back of the brain called the centre of vision. These electric signals are perceived in this centre of the brain as an image after a series of processes. With this technical background, let us do some thinking.
The brain is insulated from light. That means that the inside of the brain is solid dark, and light does not reach the location where the brain is situated. The place called the centre of vision is a solid dark place where no light ever reaches; it may even be the darkest place you have ever known. However, you observe a luminous, bright world in this pitch darkness.
The image formed in the eye is so sharp and distinct that even the technology of the 20th century has not been able to attain it. For instance, look at the book you read, your hands with which you hold it, then lift your head and look around you. Have you ever seen such a sharp and distinct image as this one at any other place? Even the most developed television screen produced by the greatest television producer in the world cannot provide such a sharp image for you. This is a three-dimensional, coloured, and extremely sharp image. For more than 100 years, thousands of engineers have been trying to achieve this sharpness. Factories, huge premises were established, much research has been done, plans and designs have been made for this purpose. Again, look at a TV screen and the book you hold in your hands. You will see that there is a big difference in sharpness and distinction. Moreover, the TV screen shows you a two-dimensional image, whereas with your eyes, you watch a three-dimensional perspective having depth. When you look carefully, you will see that there is a blurring in the television, is there any blurring in your vision? Surely there is not.
For many years, ten of thousands of engineers have tried to make a three-dimensional TV, and reach the vision quality of the eye. Although they have made a three-dimensional television system, it is not possible to watch it without putting on glasses; moreover, it is only an artificial three-dimension. The background is more blurred, the foreground appears like a paper setting. Never has it been possible to produce a sharp and distinct vision like that of the eye. In both the camera and the television, there is a loss of image quality.
Evolutionists claim that the mechanism producing this sharp and distinct image has been formed by chance. Now, if somebody told you that the television in your room was formed as a result of chance, that all its atoms just happened to come together and make up this device that produces an image, what would you think? How can atoms do what thousands of people cannot?
For nearly a century, tens of thousands of engineers have been researching and striving in high-tech laboratories and great industrial complexes using the most advanced technological devices, and they have been able to do no more than this.
If a device producing a more primitive image than the eye could not have been formed by chance, then it is very evident that the eye and the image seen by the eye could not have been formed by chance. It requires a much more detailed and miraculous plan and creation than the one in the TV. The plan and creation of the image as distinct and sharp as this one belongs to God, Who has power over all things.
The same situation applies to the ear. The outer ear picks up the available sounds by the auricle and directs them to the middle ear; the middle ear transmits the sound vibrations by intensifying them; the inner ear sends these vibrations to the brain by translating them into electric signals. Just as with the eye, the act of hearing finalises in the centre of hearing in the brain.
The situation in the eye is also true for the ear. That is, the brain is insulated from sound just like it is from light: it does not let any sound in. Therefore, no matter how noisy is the outside, the inside of the brain is completely silent. Nevertheless, the sharpest sounds are perceived in the brain. In your brain, which is insulated from sound, you listen to the symphonies of an orchestra, and hear all the noises in a crowded place. However, if the sound level in your brain was measured by a precise device at that moment, it would be seen that a complete silence is prevailing there.
Let us again compare the high quality and superior technology present in the ear and the brain with the technology produced by human beings. As is the case with imagery, decades of effort have been spent in trying to generate and reproduce sound that is faithful to the original. The results of these efforts are sound recorders, high-fidelity systems, and systems for sensing sound. Despite all this technology and the thousands of engineers and experts who have been working in this endeavour, no sound has yet been obtained that has the same sharpness and clarity as the sound perceived by the ear. Think of the highest-quality HI-FI systems produced by the biggest company in the music industry. Even in these devices, when sound is recorded some of it is lost; or when you turn on the HI-FI you always hear a hissing sound before the music starts. However, the sounds that are the products of the technology of the human body are extremely sharp and clear. A human ear never perceives a sound accompanied by a hissing sound or with atmospherics as a HI-FI does; it perceives the sound exactly as it is, sharp and clear. This is the way it has been since the creation of man.
Briefly, the technology in our body is far superior to the technology mankind has produced using its accumulated information, experience, and opportunities. No one would say that a HI-FI or a camera came into being as a result of chance. So how can it be claimed that the technologies that exist in the human body, which are superior even to these, could have come into being as a result of a chain of coincidences called evolution?
It is evident that the eye, the ear, and indeed all the other parts of the human body are products of a very superior creation. These are crystal-clear indications of God's unique and unmatched creation, of His eternal knowledge and might.
The reason we specifically mention the senses of seeing and hearing here is the inability of evolutionists to understand evidence of creation so clear as this. If, one day, you ask an evolutionist to explain to you how this excellent structure and technology became possible in the eye and the ear as a result of chance, you will see that he will not be able to give you any reasonable or logical reply. Even Darwin, in his letter to Asa Gray on April 3rd 1860, wrote that "the thought of the eye made him cold all over" and he confessed the desperation of the evolutionists in the face of the excellent creation of living things.141
The Theory of Evolution is the Most Potent Spell in the World
 In the same way that the beliefs of people who worshipped crocodiles now seem odd and unbelievable, so the beliefs of Darwinists are just as incredible. Darwinists regard chance and lifeless, unconscious atoms as a creative force, and are as devoted to that belief as if to a religion. |
Throughout this book it has been explained that the theory of evolution lacks any scientific evidence and that on the contrary, scientific proofs from such branches of science such as paleontology, microbiology and anatomy reveal it to be a bankrupt theory. It has been stressed that evolution is incompatible with scientific discoveries, reason and logic.
It needs to be made clear that anyone free of prejudice and the influence of any particular ideology, who uses only his reason and logic, will clearly understand that belief in the theory of evolution, which brings to mind the superstitions of societies with no knowledge of science or civilization, is quite impossible.
As has been explained above, those who believe in the theory of evolution think that a few atoms and molecules thrown into a huge vat could produce thinking, reasoning professors, university students, scientists such as Einstein and Galileo, artists such as Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra and Pavarotti, as well as antelopes, lemon trees and carnations. Moreover, the scientists and professors who believe in this nonsense are educated people. That is why it is quite justifiable to speak of the theory of evolution as "the most potent spell in history." Never before has any other belief or idea so taken away peoples' powers of reason, refused to allow them to think intelligently and logically and hidden the truth from them as if they had been blindfolded. This is an even worse and unbelievable blindness than the Egyptians worshipping the Sun God Ra, totem worship in some parts of Africa, the people of Saba worshipping the Sun, the tribe of the Prophet Abraham worshipping idols they had made with their own hands or the people of the Prophet Moses worshipping the Golden Calf.
In fact, this situation is a lack of reason God points out in the Qur'an. He reveals in many verses that some peoples' minds will be closed and that they will be powerless to see the truth. Some of these verses are as follows:
As for those who disbelieve, it makes no difference to them whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe. God has sealed up their hearts and hearing and over their eyes is a blindfold. They will have a terrible punishment. (Surat al-Baqara: 6-7)
…They have hearts they do not understand with. They have eyes they do not see with. They have ears they do not hear with. Such people are like cattle. No, they are even further astray! They are the unaware. (Surat al-A'raf: 179)
Even if We opened up to them a door into heaven, and they spent the day ascending through it, they would only say, "Our eyesight is befuddled! Or rather we have been put under a spell!" (Surat al-Hijr: 14-15)
Words cannot express just how astonishing it is that this spell should hold such a wide community in thrall, keep people from the truth, and not be broken for 150 years. It is understandable that one or a few people might believe in impossible scenarios and claims full of stupidity and illogicality. However, "magic" is the only possible explanation for people from all over the world believing that unconscious and lifeless atoms suddenly decided to come together and form a universe that functions with a flawless system of organization, discipline, reason and consciousness, the planet Earth with all its features so perfectly suited to life, and living things full of countless complex systems.
In fact, God reveals in the Qur'an in the incident of the Prophet Moses and Pharaoh that some people who support atheistic philosophies actually influence others by magic. When Pharaoh was told about the true religion, he told the Prophet Moses to meet with his own magicians. When the Prophet Moses did so, he told them to demonstrate their abilities first. The verses continue:
He said, "You throw." And when they threw, they cast a spell on the people's eyes and caused them to feel great fear of them. They produced an extremely powerful magic. (Surat al-A'raf: 116)
As we have seen, Pharaoh's magicians were able to deceive everyone, apart from the Prophet Moses and those who believed in him. However, the evidence put forward by the Prophet Moses broke that spell, or "swallowed up what they had forged" as the verses put it.
We revealed to Moses, "Throw down your staff." And it immediately swallowed up what they had forged. So the Truth took place and what they did was shown to be false. (Surat al-A'raf: 117-119)
As we can see from that verse, when it was realised that what these people who had first cast a spell over others had done was just an illusion, they lost all credibility. In the present day too, unless those who under the influence of a similar spell believe in these ridiculous claims under their scientific disguise and spend their lives defending them abandon them, they too will be humiliated when the full truth emerges and the spell is broken. In fact, Malcolm Muggeridge, who was an atheist philosopher and supporter of evolution for some 60 years, but who subsequently realized the truth, admitted he was worried by just that prospect:
I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.142
That future is not far off: On the contrary, people will soon see that "chance" is not a god, and will look back on the theory of evolution as the worst deceit and the most terrible spell in the world. That spell is already rapidly beginning to be lifted from the shoulders of people all over the world. Many people who see the true face of the theory of evolution are wondering with amazement how it was that they were ever taken in by it.
139. Pierre-P Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, New York : Academic Press, 1977, p. 103
140. Ibid, p. 107
141. Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason, Boston : Gambit, 1971, p. 101
142. Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, Grand Rapids : Eerdmans, 1980, p. 43
CHAPTER 10 THE MOLECULAR IMPASSE OF EVOLUTION
CHAPTER 10
THE MOLECULAR IMPASSE OF EVOLUTION
In previous sections of this book, we have shown how the fossil record invalidates the theory of evolution. In point of fact, there was no need for us to relate any of that, because the theory of evolution collapses long before one gets to any claims about the evidence of fossils. The subject that renders the theory meaningless from the very outset is the question of how life first appeared on earth.
 One day, a lump of clay, pressed between the rocks in a barren land, becomes wet after it rains. The wet clay dries and hardens when the sun rises, and takes on a stiff, resistant form. Afterwards, these rocks, which also served as a mould, are somehow smashed into pieces, and then a neat, well shaped, and strong brick appears. This brick waits under the same natural conditions for years for a similar brick to be formed. However, by chance, none of the bricks that were previously formed are damaged. When the number of bricks is adequate, they erect a building by being arranged sideways and on top of each other, having been randomly dragged along by the effects of natural conditions such as winds, storms, or tornadoes. Meanwhile, materials such as cement or soil mixtures form under "natural conditions", with perfect timing, and creep between the bricks to clamp them to each other. At the end of this process, a complete building rises with all its materials, carpentry, and installations intact. The theory of evolution, which claims that life came into existence by chance, is no less absurd than our story, for, with all its operational systems, and systems of communication, transportation and management, a cell is much more complex than a building. |
When it addresses this question, evolutionary theory claims that life started with a cell that formed by chance. According to this scenario, four billion years ago various lifeless chemical compounds underwent a reaction in the primordial atmosphere on the earth in which the effects of thunderbolts and atmospheric pressure led to the formation of the first living cell.
The first thing that must be said is that the claim that inanimate materials can come together to form life is an unscientific one that has not been verified by any experiment or observation. Life is only generated from life. Each living cell is formed by the replication of another cell. No one in the world has ever succeeded in forming a living cell by bringing inanimate materials together, not even in the most advanced laboratories.
The theory of evolution claims that a living cell-which cannot be produced even when all the power of the human intellect, knowledge and technology are brought to bear-nevertheless managed to form by chance under primordial conditions of the earth. In the following pages, we will examine why this claim is contrary to the most basic principles of science and reason.
The Tale of the "Cell Produced by Chance"
If one believes that a living cell can come into existence by coincidence, then there is nothing to prevent one from believing a similar story that we will relate below. It is the story of a town:
One day, a lump of clay, pressed between the rocks in a barren land, becomes wet after it rains. The wet clay dries and hardens when the sun rises, and takes on a stiff, resistant form. Afterwards, these rocks, which also served as a mould, are somehow smashed into pieces, and then a neat, well shaped, and strong brick appears. This brick waits under the same natural conditions for years for a similar brick to be formed. This goes on until hundreds and thousands of the same bricks have been formed in the same place. However, by chance, none of the bricks that were previously formed are damaged. Although exposed to storm, rain, wind, scorching sun, and freezing cold for thousands of years, the bricks do not crack, break up, or get dragged away, but wait there in the same place with the same determination for other bricks to form.
When the number of bricks is adequate, they erect a building by being arranged sideways and on top of each other, having been randomly dragged along by the effects of natural conditions such as winds, storms, or tornadoes. Meanwhile, materials such as cement or soil mixtures form under "natural conditions", with perfect timing, and creep between the bricks to clamp them to each other. While all this is happening, iron ore under the ground is shaped under "natural conditions" and lays the foundations of a building that is to be formed with these bricks. At the end of this process, a complete building rises with all its materials, carpentry, and installations intact.
Of course, a building does not only consist of foundations, bricks, and cement. How, then, are the other missing materials to be obtained? The answer is simple: all kinds of materials that are needed for the construction of the building exist in the earth on which it is erected. Silicon for the glass, copper for the electric cables, iron for the columns, beams, water pipes, etc. all exist under the ground in abundant quantities. It takes only the skill of "natural conditions" to shape and place these materials inside the building. All the installations, carpentry, and accessories are placed among the bricks with the help of the blowing wind, rain, and earthquakes. Everything has gone so well that the bricks are arranged so as to leave the necessary window spaces as if they knew that something called glass would be formed later on by natural conditions. Moreover, they have not forgotten to leave some space to allow the installation of water, electricity and heating systems, which are also later to be formed by coincidence. Everything has gone so well that "coincidences" and "natural conditions" produce a perfect design.
If you have managed to sustain your belief in this story so far, then you should have no trouble surmising how the town's other buildings, plants, highways, sidewalks, substructures, communications, and transportation systems came about. If you possess technical knowledge and are fairly conversant with the subject, you can even write an extremely "scientific" book of a few volumes stating your theories about "the evolutionary process of a sewage system and its uniformity with the present structures". You may well be honoured with academic awards for your clever studies, and may consider yourself a genius, shedding light on the nature of humanity.
The theory of evolution, which claims that life came into existence by chance, is no less absurd than our story, for, with all its operational systems, and systems of communication, transportation and management, a cell is no less complex than a city.
The Complexity of the Cell
The cell is the most complex and most elegantly designed system man has ever witnessed. Professor of biology Michael Denton, in his book entitled Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, explains this complexity with an example: "To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalelled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity... (a complexity) beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man..." |
Confessions from Evolutionists
The theory of evolution faces no greater crisis than on the point of explaining the emergence of life. The reason is that organic molecules are so complex that their formation cannot possibly be explained as being coincidental and it is manifestly impossible for an organic cell to have been formed by chance. Evolutionists confronted the question of the origin of life in the second quarter of the 20th century. One of the leading authorities of the theory of molecular evolution, the Russian evolutionist Alexander I. Oparin, said this in his book The Origin of Life, which was published in 1936:
Unfortunately, the origin of the cell remains a question which is actually the darkest point of the complete evolution theory.1 Since Oparin, evolutionists have performed countless experiments, conducted research, and made observations to prove that a cell could have been formed by chance. However, every such attempt only made clearer the complex design of the cell and thus refuted the evolutionists' hypotheses even more. Professor Klaus Dose, the president of the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Johannes Gutenberg, states: More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.2 The following statement by the geochemist Jeffrey Bada from San Diego Scripps Institute makes clear the helplessness of evolutionists concerning this impasse: Today as we leave the twentieth century, we still face the biggest unsolved problem that we had when we entered the twentieth century: How did life originate on Earth?3 1- Alexander I. Oparin, Origin of Life, (1936) NewYork: Dover Publications, 1953 (Reprint), p.196
2- Klaus Dose, "The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers", Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Vol 13, No. 4, 1988, p. 348 3- Jeffrey Bada, Earth, February 1998, p. 40 |
The Miracle in the Cell and the End of Evolution
The complex structure of the living cell was unknown in Darwin's day and at the time, ascribing life to "coincidences and natural conditions" was thought by evolutionists to be convincing enough.
The technology of the 20th century has delved into the tiniest particles of life and has revealed that the cell is the most complex system mankind has ever confronted. Today we know that the cell contains power stations producing the energy to be used by the cell, factories manufacturing the enzymes and hormones essential for life, a databank where all the necessary information about all products to be produced is recorded, complex transportation systems and pipelines for carrying raw materials and products from one place to another, advanced laboratories and refineries for breaking down external raw materials into their useable parts, and specialised cell membrane proteins to control the incoming and outgoing materials. And these constitute only a small part of this incredibly complex system.
W. H. Thorpe, an evolutionist scientist, acknowledges that "The most elementary type of cell constitutes a 'mechanism' unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed, by man."105
A cell is so complex that even the high level of technology attained today cannot produce one. No effort to create an artificial cell has ever met with success. Indeed, all attempts to do so have been abandoned.
The theory of evolution claims that this system-which mankind, with all the intelligence, knowledge and technology at its disposal, cannot succeed in reproducing-came into existence "by chance" under the conditions of the primordial earth. To give another example, the probability of forming of a cell by chance is about the same as that of producing a perfect copy of a book following an explosion in a printing-house.
The English mathematician and astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle made a similar comparison in an interview published in Nature magazine on November 12, 1981. Although an evolutionist himself, Hoyle stated that the chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.106 This means that it is not possible for the cell to have come into being by coincidence, and therefore it must definitely have been "created".
One of the basic reasons why the theory of evolution cannot explain how the cell came into existence is the "irreducible complexity" in it. A living cell maintains itself with the harmonious co-operation of many organelles. If only one of these organelles fails to function, the cell cannot remain alive. The cell does not have the chance to wait for unconscious mechanisms like natural selection or mutation to permit it to develop. Thus, the first cell on earth was necessarily a complete cell possessing all the required organelles and functions, and this definitely means that this cell had to have been created.
Proteins Challenge Chance
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So much for the cell, but the theory of evolution fails even to account for the building-blocks of a cell. The formation, under natural conditions, of just one single protein out of the thousands of complex protein molecules making up the cell is impossible.
Proteins are giant molecules consisting of smaller units called "amino acids" that are arranged in a particular sequence in certain quantities and structures. These units constitute the building blocks of a living protein. The simplest protein is composed of 50 amino acids, but there are some that contain thousands.
The crucial point is this. The absence, addition, or replacement of a single amino acid in the structure of a protein causes the protein to become a useless molecular heap. Every amino acid has to be in the right place and in the right order. The theory of evolution, which claims that life emerged as a result of chance, is quite helpless in the face of this order, since it is too wondrous to be explained by coincidence. (Furthermore the theory cannot even substantiate the claim of the accidental formation of proteins, as will be discussed later.)
The fact that it is quite impossible for the functional structure of proteins to come about by chance can easily be observed even by simple probability calculations that anybody can understand.
For instance, an average-sized protein molecule composed of 288 amino acids, and contains twelve different types of amino acids can be arranged in 10300 different ways. (This is an astronomically huge number, consisting of 1 followed by 300 zeros.) Of all these possible sequences, only one forms the desired protein molecule. The rest of them are amino-acid chains that are either totally useless or else potentially harmful to living things.
In other words, the probability of the formation of only one protein molecule is "1 in 10300". The probability of this "1" to occur is practically nil. (In practice, probabilities smaller than 1 over 1050 are thought of as "zero probability").
Furthermore, a protein molecule of 288 amino acids is a rather modest one compared with some giant protein molecules consisting of thousands of amino acids. When we apply similar probability calculations to these giant protein molecules, we see that even the word "impossible" is insufficient to describe the true situation.
When we proceed one step further in the evolutionary scheme of life, we observe that one single protein means nothing by itself. One of the smallest bacteria ever discovered, Mycoplasma hominis H39, contains 600 "types" of proteins. In this case, we would have to repeat the probability calculations we have made above for one protein for each of these 600 different types of proteins. The result beggars even the concept of impossibility.
Some people reading these lines who have so far accepted the theory of evolution as a scientific explanation may suspect that these numbers are exaggerated and do not reflect the true facts. That is not the case: these are definite and concrete facts. No evolutionist can object to these numbers. They accept that the probability of the coincidental formation of a single protein is "as unlikely as the possibility of a monkey writing the history of humanity on a typewriter without making any mistakes".107 However, instead of accepting the other explanation, which is creation, they go on defending this impossibility.
This situation is in fact acknowledged by many evolutionists. For example, Harold F. Blum, a prominent evolutionist scientist, states that "The spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability." 108
Evolutionists claim that molecular evolution took place over a very long period of time and that this made the impossible possible. Nevertheless, no matter how long the given period may be, it is not possible for amino acids to form proteins by chance. William Stokes, an American geologist, admits this fact in his book Essentials of Earth History, writing that the probability is so small "that it would not occur during billions of years on billions of planets, each covered by a blanket of concentrated watery solution of the necessary amino acids."109
So what does all this mean? Perry Reeves, a professor of chemistry, answers the question:
When one examines the vast number of possible structures that could result from a simple random combination of amino acids in an evaporating primordial pond, it is mind-boggling to believe that life could have originated in this way. It is more plausible that a Great Builder with a master plan would be required for such a task.110
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If the coincidental formation of even one of these proteins is impossible, it is billions of times "more impossible" for some one million of those proteins to come together properly by chance and make up a complete cell. What is more, by no means does a cell consist of a mere heap of proteins. In addition to the proteins, a cell also includes nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, and many other chemicals such as electrolytes arranged in a specific proportion, equilibrium, and design in terms of both structure and function. Each of these elements functions as a building block or co-molecule in various organelles.
Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York University and a DNA expert, calculated the probability of the coincidental formation of the 2000 types of proteins found in a single bacterium (There are 200,000 different types of proteins in a human cell). The number that was found was 1 over 1040.000.111 (This is an incredible number obtained by putting 40,000 zeros after the 1)
A professor of applied mathematics and astronomy from University College Cardiff, Wales, Chandra Wickramasinghe, comments:
The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.112
Sir Fred Hoyle comments on these implausible numbers:
Indeed, such a theory (that life was assembled by an intelligence) is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.113
The reason Hoyle used the term "psychological" is the self-conditioning of evolutionists not to accept that life could have been created. The rejection of God's existence is their main goal. For this reason alone, they go on defending irrational theories which they at the same time acknowledge to be impossible.
Left-handed Proteins
 In nature, there are two different types of amino acids, called "left-handed" and "right-handed". The difference between them is the mirror-symmetry between their three dimensional structures, which is similar to that of a person's right and left hands. |
Let us now examine in detail why the evolutionist scenario regarding the formation of proteins is impossible.
Even the correct sequence of the right amino acids is still not enough for the formation of a functional protein molecule. In addition to these requirements, each of the 20 different types of amino acids present in the composition of proteins must be left-handed. There are two different types of amino acids-as of all organic molecules-called "left-handed" and "right-handed". The difference between them is the mirror-symmetry between their three dimensional structures, which is similar to that of a person's right and left hands.
Amino acids of either of these two types can easily bond with one another. But one astonishing fact that has been revealed by research is that all the proteins in plants and animals on this planet, from the simplest organism to the most complex, are made up of left-handed amino acids. If even a single right-handed amino acid gets attached to the structure of a protein, the protein is rendered useless. In a series of experiments, surprisingly, bacteria that were exposed to right-handed amino acids immediately destroyed them. In some cases, they produced usable left-handed amino acids from the fractured components.
Let us for an instant suppose that life came about by chance as evolutionists claim it did. In this case, the right- and left-handed amino acids that were generated by chance should be present in roughly equal proportions in nature. Therefore, all living things should have both right- and left-handed amino acids in their constitution, because chemically it is possible for amino acids of both types to combine with each other. However, as we know, in the real world the proteins existing in all living organisms are made up only of left-handed amino acids.
The question of how proteins can pick out only the left-handed ones from among all amino acids, and how not even a single right-handed amino acid gets involved in the life process, is a problem that still baffles evolutionists. Such a specific and conscious selection constitutes one of the greatest impasses facing the theory of evolution.
Moreover, this characteristic of proteins makes the problem facing evolutionists with respect to "coincidence" even worse. In order for a "meaningful" protein to be generated, it is not enough for the amino acids to be present in a particular number and sequence, and to be combined together in the right three-dimensional design. Additionally, all these amino acids have to be left-handed: not even one of them can be right-handed. Yet there is no natural selection mechanism which can identify that a right-handed amino acid has been added to the sequence and recognise that it must therefore be removed from the chain. This situation once more eliminates for good the possibility of coincidence and chance.
The Brittanica Science Encyclopaedia, which is an outspoken defender of evolution, states that the amino acids of all the living organisms on earth, and the building blocks of complex polymers such as proteins, have the same left-handed asymmetry. It adds that this is tantamount to tossing a coin a million times and always getting heads. The same encyclopaedia states that it is impossible to understand why molecules become left-handed or right-handed, and that this choice is fascinatingly related to the origin of life on earth.114
If a coin always turns up heads when tossed a million times, is it more logical to attribute that to chance, or else to accept that there is conscious intervention going on? The answer should be obvious. However, obvious though it may be, evolutionists still take refuge in coincidence, simply because they do not want to accept the existence of "conscious intervention".
A situation similar to the left-handedness of amino acids also exists with respect to nucleotides, the smallest units of the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA. In contrast to proteins, in which only left-handed amino acids are chosen, in the case of the nucleic acids, the preferred forms of their nucleotide components are always right-handed. This is another fact that can never be explained by coincidence.
In conclusion, it is proven beyond a shadow of doubt by the probabilities we have examined that the origin of life cannot be explained by chance. If we attempt to calculate the probability of an average-sized protein consisting of 400 amino acids being selected only from left-handed amino acids, we come up with a probability of 1 in 2400, or 10120. Just for a comparison, let us remember that the number of electrons in the universe is estimated at 1079, which although vast, is a much smaller number. The probability of these amino acids forming the required sequence and functional form would generate much larger numbers. If we add these probabilities to each other, and if we go on to work out the probabilities of even higher numbers and types of proteins, the calculations become inconceivable.
Correct Bond is Vital
 The amino acid molecules that make up proteins must be linked to each other in a so-called "peptide bond", which is only one of the many possible types of bonds found in nature. Otherwise, the resulting amino acid chains would be useless, and no proteins would be formed. |
The difficulties the theory of evolution is unable to overcome with regard to the development of a single protein are not limited to those we have recounted so far. It is not enough for amino acids to be arranged in the correct numbers, sequences, and required three-dimensional structures. The formation of a protein also requires that amino acid molecules with more than one arm be linked to each other only in certain ways. Such a bond is called a "peptide bond". Amino acids can make different bonds with each other; but proteins are made up of those-and only those-amino acids which are joined by "peptide" bonds.
A comparison will clarify this point. Suppose that all the parts of a car were complete and correctly assembled, with the sole exception that one of the wheels was fastened in place not with the usual nuts and bolts, but with a piece of wire, in such a way that its hub faced the ground. It would be impossible for such a car to move even the shortest distance, no matter how complex its technology or how powerful its engine. At first glance, everything would seem to be in the right place, but the faulty attachment of even one wheel would make the entire car useless. In the same way, in a protein molecule the joining of even one amino acid to another with a bond other than a peptide bond would make the entire molecule useless.
Research has shown that amino acids combining at random combine with a peptide bond only 50% of the time, and that the rest of the time different bonds that are not present in proteins emerge. To function properly, each amino acid making up a protein must be joined to others only with a peptide bond, in the same way that it likewise must be chosen only from among left-handed forms.
This probability of this happening is the same as the probability of each protein's being left-handed. That is, when we consider a protein made up of 400 amino acids, the probability of all amino acids combining among themselves with only peptide bonds is 1 in 2399.
Zero Probability
As can be seen below, the probability of formation of a protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids is "1" over a number formed by placing 950 zeros next to 1, which is a number incomprehensible for the human mind. This is a probability only on paper. Practically speaking, there is zero chance of its actually happening. As we saw earlier, in mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 in 1050 is statistically considered to have a "0" probability of occurring.
A probability of "1 over 10950" is far beyond the limits of this definition.
While the improbability of the formation of a protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids reaches such an extent, we can further proceed to push the limits of the mind with higher levels of improbability. In the "haemoglobin" molecule, which is a vital protein, there are 574 amino acids, which is more than the amino acids making up the protein mentioned above. Now consider this: in only one out of the billions of red blood cells in your body, there are "280,000,000" (280 million) haemoglobin molecules.
The supposed age of the earth is not sufficient to allow the formation of even a single protein by a "trial and error" method, let alone that of a red blood cell. Even if we suppose that amino acids have combined and decomposed by a "trial and error" method without losing any time since the formation of the earth, in order to form a single protein molecule, the time that would be required for something with a probability of 10950 to happen would still hugely exceed the estimated age of the earth.
The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that evolution falls into a terrible abyss of improbability even when it comes to the formation of a single protein.
Is There a Trial and Error Mechanism in Nature?
Finally, we may conclude with a very important point in relation to the basic logic of probability calculations, of which we have already seen some examples. We indicated that the probability calculations made above reach astronomical levels, and that these astronomical odds have no chance of actually happening. However, there is a much more important and damaging fact facing evolutionists here. This is that under natural conditions, no period of trial and error can even start, despite the astronomical odds, because there is no trial-and-error mechanism in nature from which proteins could emerge.
10950 = 100.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000. |
There are 3 basic conditions for the formation of a useful protein: First condition: that all the amino acids in the protein chain are of the right type and in the right sequence Second condition: that all the amino acids in the chain are left-handed Third condition: that all of these amino acids are united between them by forming a chemical bond called "peptide bond". In order for a protein to be formed by chance, all three basic conditions must exist simultaneously. The probability of the formation of a protein by chance is equal to the multiplication of the probabilities of the realisation of each of these conditions. For instance, for an average molecule comprising of 500 amino acids: 1- The probability of the amino acids being in the right sequence: There are 20 types of amino acids used in the composition of proteins. According to this:
2- The probability of the amino acids being left-handed:
Amino acids can combine with each other with different kinds of chemical bonds. In order for a useful protein to be formed, all the amino acids in the chain must have been combined with a special chemical bond called a "peptide bond". It is calculated that the probability of the amino acids being combined not with another chemical bond but by a peptide bond is 50%. In relation to this:
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The calculations we give on page across to demonstrate the probability of the formation of a protein molecule with 500 amino acids are valid only for an ideal trial-and-error environment, which does not actually exist in real life. That is, the probability of obtaining a useful protein is "1" in 10950 only if we suppose that there exists an imaginary mechanism in which an invisible hand joins 500 amino acids at random and then, seeing that this is not the right combination, disentangles them one by one, and arranges them again in a different order, and so on. In each trial, the amino acids would have to be separated one by one, and be arranged in a new order. The synthesis should be stopped after the 500th amino acid has been added, and it must be ensured that not even one extra amino acid is involved. The trial should then be stopped to see whether or not a functional protein has yet been formed, and, in the event of failure, everything should be split up again and then tested for another sequence. Additionally, in each trial, not even one extraneous substance should be allowed to become involved. It is also imperative that the chain formed during the trial should not be separated and destroyed before reaching the 499th link. These conditions mean that the probabilities we have mentioned above can only operate in a controlled environment where there is a conscious mechanism directing the beginning, the end, and each intermediate stage of the process, and where only "the correct selection of the amino acids" is left uncontrolled. It is clearly impossible for such an environment to exist under natural conditions. Therefore the formation of a protein in the natural environment is logically and technically impossible. In fact, to talk of the probabilities of such an event is quite unscientific.
Since some people are unable to take a broad view of these matters, but approach them from a superficial viewpoint and assume protein formation to be a simple chemical reaction, they may make unrealistic deductions such as "amino acids combine by way of reaction and then form proteins". However, accidental chemical reactions taking place in an inanimate structure can only lead to simple and primitive changes. The number of these is predetermined and limited. For a somewhat more complex chemical material, huge factories, chemical plants, and laboratories have to be involved. Medicines and many other chemical materials that we use in our daily life are made in just this way. Proteins have much more complex structures than these chemicals produced by industry. Therefore, it is impossible for proteins, each of which is a wonder of creation, in which every part takes its place in a fixed order, to originate as a result of haphazard chemical reactions.
Let us for a minute put aside all the impossibilities we have described so far, and suppose that a useful protein molecule still evolved spontaneously "by accident". Even so, evolution again has no answers, because in order for this protein to survive, it would need to be isolated from its natural habitat and be protected under very special conditions. Otherwise, it would either disintegrate from exposure to natural conditions on earth, or else join with other acids, amino acids, or chemical compounds, thereby losing its particular properties and turning into a totally different and useless substance.
The Evolutionary Fuss About the Origin of Life
The question of "how living things first appeared" is such a critical impasse for evolutionists that they usually try not even to touch upon this subject. They try to pass over this question by saying "the first creatures came into existence as a result of some random events in water". They are at a road-block that they can by no means get around. In spite of the paleontological evolution arguments, in this subject they have no fossils available to distort and misinterpret as they wish to support their assertions. Therefore, the theory of evolution is definitely refuted from the very beginning.
Above all, there is one important point to take into consideration: If any one step in the evolutionary process is proven to be impossible, this is sufficient to prove that the whole theory is totally false and invalid. For instance, by proving that the haphazard formation of proteins is impossible, all other claims regarding the subsequent steps of evolution are also refuted. After this, it becomes meaningless to take some human and ape skulls and engage in speculation about them.
How living organisms came into existence out of nonliving matter was an issue that evolutionists did not even want to mention for a long time. However, this question, which had constantly been avoided, eventually had to be addressed, and attempts were made to settle it with a series of experiments in the second quarter of the 20th century.
The main question was: How could the first living cell have appeared in the primordial atmosphere on the earth? In other words, what kind of explanation could evolutionists offer?
The answers to the questions were sought through experiments. Evolutionist scientists and researchers carried out laboratory experiments directed at answering these questions but these did not create much interest. The most generally respected study on the origin of life is the Miller experiment conducted by the American researcher Stanley Miller in 1953. (The experiment is also known as "Urey-Miller experiment" because of the contribution of Miller's instructor at the University of Chicago, Harold Urey.)
This experiment is the only "evidence" evolutionists have with which to allegedly prove the "molecular evolution thesis"; they advance it as the first stage of the supposed evolutionary process leading to life. Although nearly half a century has passed, and great technological advances have been made, nobody has made any further progress. In spite of this, Miller's experiment is still taught in textbooks as the evolutionary explanation of the earliest generation of living things. Aware of the fact that such studies do not support, but rather actually refute, their thesis, evolutionist researchers deliberately avoid embarking on such experiments.
Miller's Experiment
Stanley Miller's aim was to demonstrate by means of an experiment that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could have come into existence "by chance" on the lifeless earth billions of years ago.
In his experiment, Miller used a gas mixture that he assumed to have existed on the primordial earth (but which later proved unrealistic) composed of ammonia, methane, hydrogen, and water vapour. Since these gasses would not react with each other under natural conditions, he added energy to the mixture to start a reaction among them. Supposing that this energy could have come from lightning in the primordial atmosphere, he used an electric current for this purpose.
Miller heated this gas mixture at 1000C for a week and added the electrical current. At the end of the week, Miller analysed the chemicals which had formed at the bottom of the jar, and observed that three out of the 20 amino acids, which constitute the basic elements of proteins had been synthesised.
This experiment aroused great excitement among evolutionists, and was promoted as an outstanding success. Moreover, in a state of intoxicated euphoria, various publications carried headlines such as "Miller creates life". However, what Miller had managed to synthesise was only a few "inanimate" molecules.
Encouraged by this experiment, evolutionists immediately produced new scenarios. Stages following the development of amino acids were hurriedly hypothesised. Supposedly, amino acids had later united in the correct sequences by accident to form proteins. Some of these proteins which emerged by chance formed themselves into cell membrane-like structures which "somehow" came into existence and formed a primitive cell. The cells then supposedly came together over time to form multicellular living organisms. However, Miller's experiment was nothing but make-believe and has since proven to be false in many aspects.
Miller's Experiment was Nothing but Make-believe
Miller's experiment sought to prove that amino acids could form on their own in primordial earth-like conditions, but it contains inconsistencies in a number of areas:
1. By using a mechanism called a "cold trap", Miller isolated the amino acids from the environment as soon as they were formed. Had he not done so, the conditions in the environment in which the amino acids were formed would immediately have destroyed these molecules.
Doubtless, this kind of a conscious mechanism of isolation did not exist on the primordial earth. Without such a mechanism, even if one amino acid were obtained, it would immediately have been destroyed. The chemist Richard Bliss expresses this contradiction by observing that "Actually, without this trap, the chemical products would have been destroyed by the energy source."115
And, sure enough, in his previous experiments, Miller had been unable to make even one single amino acid using the same materials without the cold trap mechanism.
2. The primordial atmospheric environment that Miller attempted to simulate in his experiment was not realistic. In the 1980s, scientists agreed that nitrogen and carbon dioxide should have been used in this artificial environment instead of methane and ammonia. After a long period of silence, Miller himself also confessed that the atmospheric environment he used in his experiment was not realistic.116
Latest Evolutionist Sources Dispute Miller's Experiment
Today, Miller's experiment is totally disregarded even by evolutionist scientists. In the February 1998 issue of the famous evolutionist science journal Earth, the following statements appear in an article titled "Life's Crucible": Geologist now think that the primordial atmosphere consisted mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, gases that are less reactive than those used in the 1953 experiment. And even if Miller's atmosphere could have existed, how do you get simple molecules such as amino acids to go through the necessary chemical changes that will convert them into more complicated compounds, or polymers, such as proteins? Miller himself throws up his hands at that part of the puzzle. "It's a problem," he sighs with exasperation. "How do you make polymers? That's not so easy."1 As seen, today even Miller himself has accepted that his experiment does not lead to an explanation of the origin of life. The fact that evolutionist scientists embraced this experiment so fervently only indicates the difficulties facing evolution, and the desperation of its advocates. In the March 1998 issue of National Geographic, in an article titled "The Emergence of Life on Earth", the following comments appear: Many scientists now suspect that the early atmosphere was different from what Miller first supposed. They think it consisted of carbon dioxide and nitrogen rather than hydrogen, methane, and ammonia. That's bad news for chemists. When they try sparking carbon dioxide and nitrogen, they get a paltry amount of organic molecules - the equivalent of dissolving a drop of food colouring in a swimming pool of water. Scientists find it hard to imagine life emerging from such a diluted soup.2 In brief, neither Miller's experiment, nor any other similar one that has been attempted, can answer the question of how life emerged on earth. All of the research that has been done shows that it is impossible for life to emerge by chance, and thus confirms that life is created. 1- Earth, "Life's Crucible", February 1998, p.34 |
So why did Miller insist on these gasses? The answer is simple: without ammonia, it was impossible to synthesise any amino acid. Kevin Mc Kean talks about this in an article published in Discover magazine:
Miller and Urey imitated the ancient atmosphere on the Earth with a mixture of methane and ammonia. According to them, the Earth was a true homogeneous mixture of metal, rock and ice. However in the latest studies, it has been understood that the Earth was very hot at those times, and that it was composed of melted nickel and iron. Therefore, the chemical atmosphere of that time should have been formed mostly of nitrogen (N2), carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapour (H2O). However these are not as appropriate as methane and ammonia for the production of organic molecules.117
The American scientists J.P. Ferris and C.T. Chen repeated Miller's experiment with an atmospheric environment that contained carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, and water vapour, and were unable to obtain even a single amino acid molecule.118
3. Another important point that invalidates Miller's experiment is that there was enough oxygen to destroy all the amino acids in the atmosphere at the time when they were thought to have been formed. This fact, overlooked by Miller, is revealed by the traces of oxidised iron and uranium found in rocks that are estimated to be 3.5 billion years old.119
There are other findings showing that the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere at that time was much higher than originally claimed by evolutionists. Studies also show that at that time, the amount of ultraviolet radiation to which the earth was then exposed was 10,000 times more than evolutionists' estimates. This intense radiation would unavoidably have freed oxygen by decomposing the water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
This situation completely negates Miller's experiment, in which oxygen was completely neglected. If oxygen had been used in the experiment, methane would have decomposed into carbon dioxide and water, and ammonia into nitrogen and water. On the other hand, in an environment where there was no oxygen, there would be no ozone layer either; therefore, the amino acids would have immediately been destroyed, since they would have been exposed to the most intense ultraviolet rays without the protection of the ozone layer. In other words, with or without oxygen in the primordial world, the result would have been a deadly environment for the amino acids.
4. At the end of Miller's experiment, many organic acids had been formed with characteristics detrimental to the structure and function of living things. If the amino acids had not been isolated, and had been left in the same environment with these chemicals, their destruction or transformation into different compounds through chemical reactions would have been unavoidable.
Moreover, a large number of right-handed amino acids were formed at the end of the experiment.120 The existence of these amino acids refuted the theory even within its own terms because right-handed amino acids cannot function in the composition of living organisms. To conclude, the circumstances in which amino acids were formed in Miller's experiment were not suitable for life. In truth, this medium took the form of an acidic mixture destroying and oxidising the useful molecules obtained.
All these facts point to one firm truth: Miller's experiment cannot claim to have proved that living things formed by chance under primordial earth-like conditions. The whole experiment is nothing more than a deliberate and controlled laboratory experiment to synthesise amino acids. The amount and types of the gases used in the experiment were ideally determined to allow amino acids to originate. The amount of energy supplied to the system was neither too much nor too little, but arranged precisely to enable the necessary reactions to occur. The experimental apparatus was isolated, so that it would not allow the leaking of any harmful, destructive, or any other kind of elements to hinder the formation of amino acids. No elements, minerals or compounds that were likely to have been present on the primordial earth, but which would have changed the course of the reactions, were included in the experiment. Oxygen, which would have prevented the formation of amino acids because of oxidation, is only one of these destructive elements. Even under such ideal laboratory conditions, it was impossible for the amino acids produced to survive and avoid destruction without the "cold trap" mechanism.
In fact, by his experiment, Miller destroyed evolution's claim that "life emerged as the result of unconscious coincidences". That is because, if the experiment proves anything, it is that amino acids can only be produced in a controlled laboratory environment where all the conditions are specifically designed by conscious intervention. That is, the power that brings about life cannot be by unconscious chance but rather by conscious creation.
The reason evolutionists do not accept this evident reality is their blind adherence to prejudices that are totally unscientific. Interestingly enough, Harold Urey, who organised the Miller experiment with his student Stanley Miller, made the following confession on the subject:
All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did.121
Primordial World Atmosphere and Proteins
 One of the evolutionists' gravest deceptions is the way they imagine that life could have emerged spontaneously on what they refer to as the primitive Earth, represented in the picture above. They tried to prove these claims with such studies as the Miller experiment. Yet they again suffered defeat in the face of the scientific facts: The results obtained in the 1970s proved that the atmosphere on what they describe as the primitive Earth was totally unsuited to life. |
Evolutionist sources use the Miller experiment,
despite all of its inconsistencies, to try to gloss over the question
of the origin of amino acids. By giving the impression that the issue
has long since been resolved by that invalid experiment, they try to
paper over the cracks in the theory of evolution.
However, to explain the second stage of the origin of life,
evolutionists faced an even greater problem than that of the formation
of amino acids-namel, the origin of proteins, the
building blocks of life, which are composed of hundreds of different
amino acids bonding with each other in a particular order.
Claiming that proteins were formed by chance under natural conditions is even more unrealistic and unreasonable than claiming that amino acids were formed by chance. In the preceding pages we have seen the mathematical impossibility of the haphazard uniting of amino acids in proper sequences to form proteins with probability calculations. Now, we will examine the impossibility of proteins being produced chemically under primordial earth conditions.
Protein Synthesis Is not Possible in Water
As we saw before, when combining to form proteins, amino acids form a special bond with one another called the "peptide bond". A water molecule is released during the formation of this peptide bond.
This fact definitely refutes the evolutionist explanation that primordial life originated in water, because according to the "Le Châtelier principle" in chemistry, it is not possible for a reaction that releases water (a condensation reaction) to take place in a hydrous environment. The chances of this kind of a reaction happening in a hydrate environment is said to "have the least probability of occurring" of all chemical reactions.
Hence the ocean, which is claimed to be where life began and amino acids originated, is definitely not an appropriate setting for amino acids to form proteins. On the other hand, it would be irrational for evolutionists to change their minds and claim that life originated on land, because the only environment where amino acids could have been protected from ultraviolet radiation is in the oceans and seas. On land, they would be destroyed by ultraviolet rays. The Le Châtelier Principle disproves the claim of the formation of life in the sea. This is another dilemma confronting evolution.
Another Desperate Effort: Fox's Experiment
Challenged by the above dilemma, evolutionists began to invent unrealistic scenarios based on this "water problem" that so definitively refuted their theories. Sydney Fox was one of the best known of these researchers. Fox advanced the following theory to solve this problem. According to him, the first amino acids must have been transported to some cliffs near a volcano right after their formation in the primordial ocean. The water contained in this mixture that included the amino acids present on the cliffs, must have evaporated when the temperature increased above boiling point. The amino acids which were "dried out" in this way, could then have combined to form proteins.
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However this "complicated" way out was not accepted by many people in the field, because the amino acids could not have endured such high temperatures. Research confirmed that amino acids are immediately destroyed at very high temperatures.
But Fox did not give up. He combined purified amino acids in the laboratory, "under very special conditions" by heating them in a dry environment. The amino acids combined, but still no proteins were obtained. What he actually ended up with was simple and disordered loops of amino acids, arbitrarily combined with each other, and these loops were far from resembling any living protein. Furthermore, if Fox had kept the amino acids at a steady temperature, then these useless loops would also have disintegrated.122
Another point that nullified the experiment was that Fox did not usethe useless end products obtained in Miller's experiment;rather, he used pure amino acids from living organisms. This experiment, however, which was intended to be a continuation of Miller's experiment, should have started out from the results obtained by Miller. Yet neither Fox, nor any other researcher, used the useless amino acids Miller produced.123
Fox's experiment was not even welcomed in evolutionist circles, because it was clear that the meaningless amino acid chains that he obtained (which he termed "proteinoids") could not have formed under natural conditions. Moreover, proteins, the basic units of life, still could not be produced. The problem of the origin of proteins remained unsolved. In an article in the popular science magazine, Chemical Engineering News, which appeared in the 1970s, Fox's experiment was mentioned as follows:
Sydney Fox and the other researchers managed to unite the amino acids in the shape of "proteinoids" by using very special heating techniques under conditions which in fact did not exist at all in the primordial stages of Earth. Also, they are not at all similar to the very regular proteins present in living things. They are nothing but useless, irregular chemical stains. It was explained that even if such molecules had formed in the early ages, they would definitely be destroyed.124
Inanimate Matter Cannot Generate Life A number of evolutionist experiments such as the Miller Experiment and the Fox Experiment have been devised to prove the claim that inanimate matter can organise itself and generate a complex living being. This is an utterly unscientific conviction: every observation and experiment has incontrovertibly proven that matter has no such ability. The famous English astronomer and mathematician Sir Fred Hoyle notes that matter cannot generate life by itself, without deliberate interference: If there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems toward 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 those 2,000 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.1 Evolutionist biologist Andrew Scott admits the same fact: Take some matter, heat while stirring and wait. That is the modern version of Genesis. The 'fundamental' forces of gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces are presumed to have done the rest... But how much of this neat tale is firmly established, and how much remains hopeful speculation? In truth, the mechanism of almost every major step, from chemical precursors up to the first recognizable cells, is the subject of either controversy or complete bewilderment.2 1- Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, New York, Holt, Rinehard & Winston, 1983, p. 256
2- Andrew Scott, "Update on Genesis", New Scientist, vol. 106, May 2nd, 1985, p. 30 |
Indeed, the proteinoids Fox obtained were totally different from real proteins both in structure and function. The difference between proteins and these proteinoids was as huge as the difference between a piece of high-tech equipment and a heap of unprocessed iron.
Furthermore, there was no chance that even these irregular amino acid chains could have survived in the primordial atmosphere. Harmful and destructive physical and chemical effects caused by heavy exposure to ultraviolet light and other unstable natural conditions would have caused these proteinoids to disintegrate. Because of the Le Châtelier principle, it was also impossible for the amino acids to combine underwater, where ultraviolet rays would not reach them. In view of this, the idea that the proteinoids were the basis of life eventually lost support among scientists.
The Miraculous Molecule: DNA
 The molecule known as DNA, which is found in the nucleus of each of the 100 trillion cells in our bodies, contains the complete blueprint for the construction of the human body. The information regarding all the characteristics of a person, from physical appearance to the structure of the inner organs, is recorded in DNA. |
Our examinations so far have shown that the theory of evolution is in a serious quandary at the molecular level. Evolutionists have shed no light on the formation of amino acids at all. The formation of proteins, on the other hand, is another mystery all its own.
Yet the problems are not even limited just to amino acids and proteins: These are only the beginning. Beyond them, the extremely complex structure of the cell leads evolutionists to yet another impasse. The reason for this is that the cell is not just a heap of amino-acid-structured proteins, but rather the most complex system man has ever encountered.
While the theory of evolution was having such trouble providing a coherent explanation for the existence of the molecules that are the basis of the cell structure, developments in the science of genetics and the discovery of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) produced brand-new problems for the theory. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick launched a new age in biology with their work revealing the amazingly complex structure of DNA.
The molecule known as DNA, which is found in the nucleus of each of the 100 trillion cells in our bodies, contains the complete blueprint for the construction of the human body. The information regarding all the characteristics of a person, from physical appearance to the structure of the inner organs, is recorded in DNA within the sequence of four special bases that make up the giant molecule. These bases are known as A, T, G, and C, according to the initial letters of their names. All the structural differences among people depend on variations in the sequences of these letters. This is a sort of a data-bank composed of four letters.
The sequential order of the letters in DNA determines the structure of a human being down to its slightest details. In addition to features such as height, and eye, hair and skin colours, the DNA in a single cell also contains the design of the 206 bones, the 600 muscles, the 100 billion nerve cells (neurons), 1.000 trillion connections between the neurons of the brain, 97,000 kilometres of veins, and the 100 trillion cells of the human body. If we were to write down the information coded in DNA, then we would have to compile a giant library consisting of 900 volumes of 500 pages each. But the information this enormous library would hold is encoded inside the DNA molecules in the cell nucleus, which is far smaller than the 1/100th-of-a-millimetre-long cell itself.
Why Cannot DNA Come into Being by Chance?
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At this point, there is an important detail that deserves attention. An error in the sequence of the nucleotides making up a gene would render that gene completely useless. When it is considered that there are about 30,000 genes in the human body, it becomes clearer how impossible it is for the millions of nucleotides making up these genes to have been formed, in the right sequence, by chance. The evolutionist biologist Frank Salisbury has comments on this impossibility:
A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNAgene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNAchain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 41.000 forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 41.000=10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension.125
The number 41.000 is the equivalent of 10600. This means 1 followed by 600 zeros. As 1 with 12 zeros after it indicates a trillion, 600 zeros represents an inconceivable number. The impossibility of the formation of RNA and DNA by a coincidental accumulation of nucleotides is expressed by the French scientist Paul Auger in this way:
We have to sharply distinguish the two stages in the chance formation of complex molecules such as nucleotides by chemical events. The production of nucleotides one by one - which is possible- and the combination of these with in very special sequences. The second is absolutely impossible.126
For many years, Francis Crick believed in the theory of molecular evolution, but eventually even he had to admit to himself that such a complex molecule could not have emerged spontaneously by coincidence, as the result of an evolutionary process:
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.127
The Turkish evolutionist Professor Ali Demirsoy was forced to make the following confession on the issue:
In fact, the probability of the formation of a protein and a nucleic acid (DNA-RNA) is a probability way beyond estimating. Furthermore, the chance of the emergence of a certain protein chain is so slight as to be called astronomic.128
A very interesting paradox emerges at this point: While DNA can only replicate with the help of special proteins (enzymes), the synthesis of these proteins can only be realised by the information encoded in DNA. As they both depend on each other, either they have to exist at the same time for replication, or one of them has to be "created" before the other. The American microbiologist Homer Jacobson comments:
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Directions for the reproduction of plans, for energy and the extraction of parts from the current environment, for the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanism translating instructions into growth-all had to be simultaneously present at that moment [when life began]. This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely happenstance, and has often been ascribed to divine intervention.129
The quotation above was written two years after the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. But despite all the developments in science, this problem for evolutionists remains unsolved. Two German scientists Junker and Scherer explained that the synthesis of each of the molecules required for chemical evolution, necessitates distinct conditions, and that the probability of the compounding of these materials having theoretically very different acquirement methods is zero:
Until now, no experiment is known in which we can obtain all the molecules necessary for chemical evolution. Therefore, it is essential to produce various molecules in different places under very suitable conditions and then to carry them to another place for reaction by protecting them from harmful elements like hydrolysis and photolysis.130
In short, the theory of evolution is unable to prove any of the evolutionary stages that allegedly occur at the molecular level. Rather than providing answers to such questions, the progress of science renders them even more complex and inextricable.
Interestingly enough, most evolutionists believe in this and similar totally unscientific fairy tales as if they were true. Because they have conditioned themselves not to accept creation, they have no other choice than to believe in the impossible. One famous biologist from Australia, Michael Denton, discusses the subject in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:
To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes 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 1,000 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!131
Another Evolutionist Vain Attempt: "The RNA World"
The discovery in the 1970s that the gasses originally existing in the primitive atmosphere of the earth would have rendered amino acid synthesis impossible was a serious blow to the theory of molecular evolution. Evolutionists then had to face the fact that the "primitive atmosphere experiments" by Stanley Miller, Sydney Fox, Cyril Ponnamperuma and others were invalid. For this reason, in the 1980s the evolutionists tried again. As a result, the "RNA World" hypothesis was advanced. This scenario proposed that, not proteins, but rather the RNA molecules that contained the information for proteins, were formed first.
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According to this scenario, advanced by Harvard chemist Walter Gilbert in 1986, based on a discovery about "ribozymes" by Thomas Cech , billions of years ago an RNA molecule capable of replicating itself formed somehow by accident. Then this RNA molecule started to produce proteins, having been activated by external influences. Thereafter, it became necessary to store this information in a second molecule, and somehow the DNA molecule emerged to do that.
Made up as it is of a chain of impossibilities in each and every stage, this scarcely credible scenario, far from providing any explanation of the origin of life, only magnified the problem, and raised many unanswerable questions:
1. Since it is impossible to accept the coincidental formation of even one of the nucleotides making up RNA, how can it be possible for these imaginary nucleotides to form RNA by coming together in a particular sequence? Evolutionist John Horgan admits the impossibility of the chance formation of RNA;
As researchers continue to examine the RNA-world concept closely, more problems emerge. How did RNA initially arise? RNA and its components are difficult to synthesize in a laboratory under the best of conditions, much less under really plausible ones.132
Confessions from Evolutionists
Probabilistic calculations make it clear that complex molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) could not ever have been formed by chance independently of each other. Yet evolutionists have to face the even greater problem that all these complex molecules have to coexist simultaneously in order for life to exist at all. Evolutionary theory is utterly confounded by this requirement. This is a point on which some leading evolutionists have been forced to confession. For instance, Stanley Miller's and Francis Crick's close associate from the University of San Diego California, reputable evolutionist Dr. Leslie Orgel says: It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.1 The same fact is also admitted by other scientists: DNA cannot do its work, including forming more DNA, without the help of catalytic proteins, or enzymes. In short, proteins cannot form without DNA, but neither can DNA form without proteins.2 How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms for its translation (ribosomes and RNA molecules), originate? For the moment, we will have to content ourselves with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer.3 The New York Times science correspondent, Nicholas Wade made this comment in an article dated 2000: Everything about the origin of life on Earth is a mystery, and it seems the more that is known, the more acute the puzzle get. 4 1- Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on Earth", Scientific American, vol. 271, October 1994, p. 78
2- John Horgan, "In the Beginning", Scientific American, vol. 264, February 1991, p. 119 3- Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach : An Eternal Golden Braid, New York, Vintage Books, 1980, p. 548 4- Nicholas Wade, "Life's Origins Get Murkier and Messier", The New York Times, June 13, 2000, pp. D1-D2 |
2. Even if we suppose that it formed by chance, how could this RNA, consisting of just a nucleotide chain, have "decided" to self-replicate, and with what kind of mechanism could it have carried out this self-replicating process? Where did it find the nucleotides it used while self-replicating? Even evolutionist microbiologists Gerald Joyce and Leslie Orgel express the desperate nature of the situation in their book In the RNA World:
This discussion… has, in a sense, focused on a straw man: the myth of a self-replicating RNA molecule that arose de novo from a soup of random polynucleotides. Not only is such a notion unrealistic in light of our current understanding of prebiotic chemistry, but it would strain the credulity of even an optimist's view of RNA's catalytic potential.133
3. Even if we suppose that there was self-replicating RNA in the primordial world, that numerous amino acids of every type ready to be used by RNA were available, and that all of these impossibilities somehow took place, the situation still does not lead to the formation of even one single protein. For RNA only includes information concerning the structure of proteins. Amino acids, on the other hand, are raw materials. Nevertheless, there is no mechanism for the production of proteins. To consider the existence of RNA sufficient for protein production is as nonsensical as expecting a car to assemble itself simplyh throwing the blueprint onto a heap of parts piled up on top of each other. A blueprint cannot produce a car all by itself without a factory and workers to assemble the parts according to the instructions contained in the blueprint;in the same way, the blueprint contained in RNA cannot produce proteins by itself without the cooperation of other cellular components which follow the instructions contained in the RNA.
Proteins are produced in the ribosome factory with the help of many enzymes and as a result of extremely complex processes within the cell. The ribosome is a complex cell organelle made up of proteins. This leads, therefore, to another unreasonable supposition-that ribosomes, too, should have come into existence by chance at the same time. Even Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod, who was one of the most fanatical defenders of evolution-and atheism-explained that protein synthesis can by no means be considered to depend merely on the information in the nucleic acids:
The code is meaningless unless translated. The modern cell's translating machinery consists of at least 50 macromolecular components, which are themselves coded in DNA: the code cannot be translated otherwise than by products of translation themselves. It is the modern expression of omne vivum ex ovo. When and how did this circle become closed?It is exceedingly difficult to imagine.134
How could an RNA chain in the primordial world have taken such a decision, and what methods could it have employed to make protein production happen by doing the work of 50 specialized particles on its own? Evolutionists have no answer to these questions.
Dr. Leslie Orgel, one of the associates of Stanley Miller and Francis Crick from the University of California at San Diego, uses the term "scenario" for the possibility of "the origination of life through the RNA World". Orgel described what kind of features this RNA have had to have and how impossible this would have been in his article "The Origin of Life" published in American Scientist in October 1994:
This scenario could have occured, we noted, if prebiotic RNA had two properties not evident today: A capacity to replicate without the help of proteins and an ability to catalyze every step of protein synthesis.135
As should by now be clear, to expect these two complex and extremely essential processes from a molecule such as RNA is only possible from the evolutionist's viewpoint and with the help of his power of imagination. Concrete scientific facts, on the other hand, makes it explicit that the RNA World hypothesis, which is a new model proposed for the chance formation of life, is an equally implausible fable.
Biochemist Gordon C. Mills from the University of Texas and Molecular biologist Dean Kenyon from San Francisco State University assess the flaws of the RNA World scenario, and reach to a brief conclusion in their article titled " The RNA World: A Critique": "RNA is a remarkable molecule. The RNA World hypothesis is another matter. We see no grounds for considering it established, or even promising." 136
Science writer Brig Klyce's 2001 article explains that evolutionist scientists are very persistent on this issue, but the results obtained so far have already shown that these efforts are all in vain:
Research in the RNA world is a medium-sized industry. This research has demonstrated how exceedingly difficult it would be for living cells to originate by chance from nonliving matter in the time available on Earth. That demonstration is a valuable contribution to science. Additional research will be valuable as well. But to keep insisting that life can spontaneously emerge from nonliving chemicals in the face of the newly comprehended difficulties is puzzling. It is reminiscent of the work of medieval alchemists who persistently tried to turn lead into gold.137
Life is a Concept Beyond Mere Heaps of Molecules
So far, we have examined how impossible the accidental formation of life is. Let us again ignore these impossibilities for just a moment. Let us suppose that a protein molecule was formed in the most inappropriate, most uncontrolled environment such as the primordial earth conditions. The formation of only one protein would not be sufficient; this protein would have to wait patiently for thousands, maybe millions of years in this uncontrolled environment without sustaining any damage, until another molecule was formed beside it by chance under the same conditions. It would have to wait until millions of correct and essential proteins were formed side by side in the same setting all "by chance". Those that formed earlier had to be patient enough to wait, without being destroyed despite ultraviolet rays and harsh mechanical effects, for the others to be formed right next to them. Then these proteins in adequate number, which all originated at the very same spot, would have to come together by making meaningful combinations and form the organelles of the cell. No extraneous material, harmful molecule, or useless protein chain may interfere with them. Then, even if these organelles were to come together in an extremely harmonious and co-operative way within a plan and order, they must take all the necessary enzymes beside themselves and become covered with a membrane, the inside of which must be filled with a special liquid to prepare the ideal environment for them. Now even if all these "highly unlikely" events actually occurred by chance, would this molecular heap come to life?
The answer is No, because research has revealed that the mere combination of all the materials essential for life is not enough for life to get started. Even if all the essential proteins for life were collected and put in a test tube, these efforts would not result with producing a living cell. All the experiments conducted on this subject have proved to be unsuccessful. All observations and experiments indicate that life can only originate from life. The assertion that life evolved from non-living things, in other words, "abiogenesis", is a tale only existing in the dreams of the evolutionists and completely at variance with the results of every experiment and observation.
In this respect, the first life on earth must also have originated from other life. This is a reflection of God's epithet of "Hayy" (The Owner of Life). Life can only start, continue, and end by His will. As for evolution, not only is it unable to explain how life began, it is also unable to explain how the materials essential for life have formed and come together.
Thermodynamics Falsifies Evolution The second law of thermodynamics, which is accepted as one of the basic laws of physics, holds that under normal conditions all systems left on their own tend to become disordered, dispersed, and corrupted in direct relation to the amount of time that passes. Everything, whether living or not wears out, deteriorates, decays, disintegrates, and is destroyed. This is the absolute end that all beings will face one way or another, and according to the law, the process cannot be avoided. This is something that all of us have observed. For example if you take a car to a desert and leave it there, you would hardly expect to find it in a better condition when you came back years later. On the contrary, you would see that its tires had gone flat, its windows had been broken, its chassis had rusted, and its engine had stopped working. The same inevitable process holds true for living things. The second law of thermodynamics is the means by which this natural process is defined with physical equations and calculations. This famous law of physics is also known as "the law of entropy". In physics, entropy is the measure of the disorder of a system. A system's entropy increases as it moves from an ordered, organised, and planned state towards a more disordered, dispersed, and unplanned one. The more disorder there is in a system, the higher its entropy is. The law of entropy holds that the entire universe is unavoidably proceeding towards a more disordered, unplanned, and disorganised state. The truth of the second law of thermodynamics, or the law of entropy, has been experimentally and theoretically established. All foremost scientists agree that the law of entropy will remain the principle paradigm for the foreseeable future. Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of our age, described it as the "premier law of all of science". Sir Arthur Eddington also referred to it as the "supreme metaphysical law of the entire universe".1 Evolutionary theory ignores this fundamental law of physics. The mechanism offered by evolution totally contradicts the second law. The theory of evolution says that disordered, dispersed, and lifeless atoms and molecules spontaneously came together over time, in a particular order, to form extremely complex molecules such as proteins, DNA, and RNA, whereupon millions of different living species with even more complex structures gradually emerged. According to the theory of evolution, this supposed process-which yields a more planned, more ordered, more complex and more organised structure at each stage-was formed all by itself under natural conditions. The law of entropy makes it clear that this so-called natural process utterly contradicts the laws of physics. Evolutionist scientists are also aware of this fact. J.H. Rush states: In the complex course of its evolution, life exhibits a remarkable contrast to the tendency expressed in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. 2 The evolutionist author Roger Lewin expresses the thermodynamic impasse of evolution in an article in Science: One problem biologists have faced is the apparent contradiction by evolution of the second law of thermodynamics. Systems should decay through time, giving less, not more, order.3 Another defender of the theory of evolution, George Stravropoulos states the thermodynamic impossibility of the spontaneous formation of life and the impossibility of explaining the existence of complex living mechanisms by natural laws in the well-known evolutionist journal American Scientist: Yet, under ordinary conditions, no complex organic molecule can ever form spontaneously but will rather disintegrate, in agreement with the second law. Indeed, the more complex it is, the more unstable it will be, and the more assured, sooner or later, its disintegration. Photosynthesis and all life processes, and even life itself, cannot yet be understood in terms of thermodynamics or any other exact science, despite the use of confused or deliberately confusing language.4 As we have seen, the second law of thermodynamics constitutes an insurmountable obstacle for the scenario of evolution, in terms of both science and logic. Unable to offer any scientific and consistent explanation to overcome this obstacle, evolutionists can only do so in their imagination. For instance, the well-known evolutionist Jeremy Rifkin notes his belief that evolution overwhelms this law of physics with a "magical power": The Entropy Law says that evolution dissipates the overall available energy for life on this planet. Our concept of evolution is the exact opposite. We believe that evolution somehow magically creates greater overall value and order on earth.5 These words well indicate that evolution is a dogmatic belief rather than a scientific thesis. The Myth of the "Open System" Some proponents of evolution have recourse to an argument that the second law of thermodynamics holds true only for "closed systems", and that "open systems" are beyond the scope of this law. An "open system" is a thermodynamic system in which energy and matter flow in and out. Evolutionists hold that the world is an open system: that it is constantly exposed to an energy flow from the sun, that the law of entropy does not apply to the world as a whole, and that ordered, complex living beings can be generated from disordered, simple, and inanimate structures. However, there is an obvious distortion here. The fact that a system has an energy inflow is not enough to make that system ordered. Specific mechanisms are needed to make the energy functional. For instance, a car needs an engine, a transmission system, and related control mechanisms to convert the energy in petrol to work. Without such an energy conversion system, the car will not be able to use the energy stored in petrol. The same thing applies in the case of life as well. It is true that life derives its energy from the sun. However, solar energy can only be converted into chemical energy by the incredibly complex energy conversion systems in living things (such as photosynthesis in plants and the digestive systems of humans and animals). No living thing can live without such energy conversion systems. Without an energy conversion system, the sun is nothing but a source of destructive energy that burns, parches, or melts. As may be seen, a thermodynamic system without an energy conversion mechanism of some sort is not advantageous for evolution, be it open or closed. No one asserts that such complex and conscious mechanisms could have existed in nature under the conditions of the primeval earth. Indeed, the real problem confronting evolutionists is the question of how complex energy-converting mechanisms such as photosynthesis in plants, which cannot be duplicated even with modern technology, could have come into being on their own. The influx of solar energy into the world would be unable to bring about order on its own. Moreover, no matter how high the temperature may become, amino acids resist forming bonds in ordered sequences. Energy by itself is incapable of making amino acids form the much more complex molecules of proteins, or of making proteins from the much complex and organised structures of cell organelles. The real and essential source of this organisation at all levels is flawless creation. The Myth of the "Self Organization of Matter" Quite aware that the second law of thermodynamics renders evolution impossible, some evolutionist scientists have made speculative attempts to square the circle between the two, in order to be able to claim that evolution is possible. As usual, even those endeavours show that the theory of evolution faces an inescapable impasse. One person distinguished by his efforts to marry thermodynamics and evolution is the Belgian scientist Ilya Prigogine. Starting out from chaos theory, Prigogine proposed a number of hypotheses in which order develops from chaos (disorder). He argued that some open systems can portray a decrease in entropy due to an influx of outer energy and the outcoming "ordering" is a proof that "matter can organise itself." Since then, the concept of the "self-organization of matter" has been quite popular among evolutionists and materialists. They act like they have found a materialistic origin for the complexity of life and a materialistic solution for the problem of life's origin. But a closer look reveals that this argument is totally abstract and in fact just wishful thinking. Moreover, it includes a very naive deception. The deception lies in the deliberate confusing of two distinct concepts, "ordered" and "organised." 6 We can make this clear with an example. Imagine a completely flat beach on the seashore. When a strong wave hits the beach, mounds of sand, large and small, form bumps on the surface of the sand. This is a process of "ordering": The seashore is an open system and the energy flow (the wave) that enters it can form simple patterns in the sand, which look completely regular. From the thermodynamic point of view, it can set up order here where before there was none. But we must make it clear that those same waves cannot build a castle on the beach. If we see a castle there, we are in no doubt that someone has constructed it, because the castle is an "organised" system. In other words, it possesses a clear design and information. Every part of it has been made by a conscious entity in a planned manner. The difference between the sand and the castle is that the former is an organised complexity, whereas the latter possesses only order, brought about by simple repetitions. The order formed from repetitions is as if an object (in other words the flow of energy entering the system) had fallen on the letter "a" on a typewriter keyboard, writing "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" hundreds of times. But the string of "a"s in an order repeated in this manner contains no information, and no complexity. In order to write a complex chain of letters actually containing information (in other words a meaningful sequence, paragraph or book), the presence of intelligence is essential. The same thing applies when wind blows into a dusty room. When the wind blows in, the dust which had been lying in an even layer may gather in one corner of the room. This is also a more ordered situation than that which existed before, in the thermodynamic sense, but the individual specks of dust cannot form a portrait of someone on the floor in an organised manner. This means that complex, organised systems can never come about as the result of natural processes. Although simple examples of order can happen from time to time, these cannot go beyond limits. But evolutionists point to this self-ordering which emerges through natural processes as a most important proof of evolution, portray such cases as examples of "self-organization". As a result of this confusion of concepts, they propose that living systems could develop their own accord from occurrences in nature and chemical reactions. The methods and studies employed by Prigogine and his followers, which we considered above, are based on this deceptive logic. The American scientists Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen, in their book titled The Mystery of Life's Origin, explain this fact as follows:
In fact even Prigogine himself has accepted that the theories he has produced for the molecular level do not apply to living systems-for instance, a living cell: The problem of biological order involves the transition from the molecular activity to the supermolecular order of the cell. This problem is far from being solved.8 So why do evolutionists continue to believe in scenarios such as the "self organization of matter", which have no scientific foundation? Why are they so determined to reject the intelligence and planning that so clearly can be seen in living systems? The answer is that they have a dogmatic faith in materialism and they believe that matter has some mysterious power to create life. A professor of chemistry from New York University and DNA expert, Robert Shapiro, explains this belief of evolutionists about the "self-organization of matter" and the materialist dogma lying at its heart as follows: Another evolutionary principle is therefore needed to take us across the gap from mixtures of simple natural chemicals to the first effective replicator. This principle has not yet been described in detail or demonstrated, but it is anticipated, and given names such as chemical evolution and self-organization of matter. The existence of the principle is taken for granted in the philosophy of dialectical materialism, as applied to the origin of life by Alexander Oparin.9 All this situation clearly demonstrates that evolution is a dogma that is against emprical science and the origin of living beings can only be explained by the intervention of a supernatural power. That supernatural power is the creation of God, who created the entire universe from nothing. Science has proven that evolution is still impossible as far as thermodynamics is concerned and the existence of life has no explanation but Creation. 1. Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy : A New World View, New York, Viking Press, 1980, p. 6 |
Chandra Wickramasinghe describes the reality he faced as a scientist who had been told throughout his life that life had emerged as a result of chance coincidences:
From my earliest training as a scientist, I was very strongly brainwashed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be painfully shed. At the moment, I can't find any rational argument to knock down the view which argues for conversion to God. We used to have an open mind; now we realize that the only logical answer to life is creation-and not accidental random shuffling.138
105 W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Nashville : Thomas Nelson Co., 1991, pp. 298-99
106 "Hoyle on Evolution", Nature, Vol. 294, November 12, 1981, p. 105
107 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Héritage et évolution), Ankara : Publications Meteksan, 1984, p. 64
108 W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Nashville : Thomas Nelson Co., 1991, p. 304
109 Ibid, p. 305
110 J. D. Thomas, Evolution and Faith, Abilene, TX, ACU Press, 1988. pp. 81-82
111 Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Sceptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, New York, Summit Books, 1986. p. 127
112 Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1984, p. 148
113 Ibid, p. 130
114 Fabbri Britannica Bilim Ansiklopedisi, Vol. 2, No. 22, p. 519
115 Richard B. Bliss & Gary E. Parker, Origin of Life, California : 1979, p. 14
116 Stanley Miller, Molecular Evolution of Life: Current Status of the Prebiotic Synthesis of Small Molecules, 1986, p. 7
117 Kevin Mc Kean, Bilim ve Teknik, No. 189, p. 7
118 J. P. Ferris, C. T. Chen, "Photochemistry of
Methane, Nitrogen, and Water Mixture As a Model for the Atmosphere of
the Primitive Earth", Journal of American Chemical Society, Vol. 97 :11,
1975, p. 2964
119 "New Evidence on Evolution of Early Atmosphere and Life", Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 63, November 1982, pp. 1328-1330
120 Richard B. Bliss & Gary E. Parker, Origin of Life, California, 1979, p. 25
121 W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Nashville : Thomas Nelson Co., 1991, p. 325
122 Richard B. Bliss & Gary E. Parker, Origin of Life, California : 1979, p. 25
123 Ibid.
124 S. W. Fox, K. Harada, G. Kramptiz, G. Mueller, "Chemical Origin of Cells", Chemical Engineering News, June 22, 1970, p. 80
125 Frank B. Salisbury, "Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution", American Biology Teacher, September 1971, p. 336
126 Paul Auger, De la physique théorique à la biologie, 1970, p. 118
127 Francis Crick, Life Itself: It’s Origin and Nature, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1981, p. 88
128 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Héritage et évolution), Ankara : Publications Meteksan, 1984, p. 39
129 Homer Jacobson, "Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life", American Scientist, January 1955, p. 121
130 Reinhard Junker & Siegfried Scherer, "Entstehung und Geschichte der Lebewesen", Weyel, 1986, p. 89
131 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Londres : Burnett Books, 1985, p. 351
132 John Horgan, "In the Beginning", Scientific American, Vol. 264, February 1991, p. 119
133 G.F. Joyce, L. E. Orgel, "Prospects for
Understanding the Origin of the RNA World", In the RNA World, New York :
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1993, p. 13
134 Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity, New York : 1971, p. 143
135 Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on the Earth", Scientific American, October 1994, Vol. 271, p. 78
136 Gordon C. Mills, Dean Kenyon, "The RNA World : A Critique", Origins & Design, 17 :1, 1996 .
137 Brig Klyce, The RNA World, http ://www. panspermia.org/rnaworld.htm
138
Chandra Wickramasinghe, Interview dans London Daily Express, 14 August 1981
CHAPTER 9 THE SCENARIO OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
CHAPTER 9
THE SCENARIO OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
 A Single Jawbone as a Spark of Inspiration The first Ramapithecus fossil found: a missing jaw
composed of two parts (on the right). The evolutionists daringly
pictured Ramapithecus, his family and the environment they lived in, by
relying only on these jawbones. When it was realised that this
creature, every detail of which, from its family to the environment it
lived in, they had illustrated on the basis of a jaw bone was actually
an ordinary ape, Ramapithecus was quietly removed from the imaginary
human family tree. |
In previous chapters, we saw that there are no mechanisms in nature to lead the living beings to evolve and that living species came into existence not as the result of an evolutionary process, but rather emerged all of a sudden in their present perfect structure. That is, they were created individually. Therefore, it is obvious that "human evolution", too, is a story that has never taken place.
What, then, do the evolutionists propose as the basis for this story?
This basis is the existence of plenty of fossils on which the evolutionists are able to build up imaginary interpretations. Throughout history, more than 6,000 ape species have lived and most of them have become extinct. Today, only 120 ape species live on the earth. These approximately 6,000 ape species, most of which are extinct, constitute a rich resource for the evolutionists.
The evolutionists wrote the scenario of human evolution by arranging some of the skulls that suited their purpose in an order from the smallest to the biggest and scattering the skulls of some extinct human races among them. According to this scenario, men and today's apes have common ancestors. These creatures evolved in time and some of them became the apes of today while another group that followed another branch of evolution became the men of today.
However, all the paleontological, anatomical and biological findings have demonstrated that this claim of evolution is as fictitious and invalid as all the others. No sound or real evidence has been put forward to prove that there is a relationship between man and ape, except forgeries, distortions, and misleading drawings and comments.
The fossil record indicates to us that throughout history, men have been men and apes have been apes. Some of the fossils the evolutionists claim to be the ancestors of man, belong to human races that lived until very recently-about 10,000 years ago-and then disappeared. Moreover, many human communities currently living have the same physical appearance and characteristics as these extinct human races, which the evolutionists claim to be the ancestors of men. All these are clear proof that man has never gone through an evolutionary process at any period in history.
The most important of all is that there are numerous anatomical differences between apes and men and none of them are of the kind to come into existence through an evolutionary process. "Bipedality" is one of them. As we will describe later on in detail, bipedality is peculiar to man and it is one of the most important traits that distinguishes man from other animals.
The Imaginary Family Tree of Man
The Darwinist claim holds that today’s man evolved from some kind of ape-like creature. During this alleged evolutionary process, which is supposed to have started from 4 to 5 million years ago, it is claimed that there existed some "transitional forms" between today’s man and his ancestors. According to this completely imaginary scenario, the following four basic "categories" are listed:
1. Australopithecines (any of the various forms belonging to the genus Australopithecus)
2. Homo habilis
3. Homo erectus
4. Homo sapiens
Evolutionists call the genus to which the alleged ape-like ancestors of man belonged "Australopithecus", which means "southern ape". Australopithecus, which is nothing but an old type of ape that has become extinct, is found in various different forms. Some of them are larger and strongly built (robust), while others are smaller and delicate (gracile).
Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution as the genus Homo, that is "man". According to the evolutionist claim, the living things in the Homo series are more developed than Australopithecus, and not very much different from today’s man. The man of our day, that is, the species Homo sapiens, is said to have formed at the latest stage of the evolution of this genus Homo.
Fossils like "Java Man", "Pekin Man", and "Lucy", which appear in the media from time to time and are to be found in evolutionist publications and textbooks, are included in one of the four groups listed above. Each of these groupings is also assumed to branch into species and sub-species, as the case may be.
Some suggested transitional forms of the past, such as Ramapithecus, had to be excluded from the imaginary human family tree after it was realised that they were ordinary apes.70
By outlining the links in the chain as "australopithecines > Homo habilis > Homo erectus > Homo sapiens", the evolutionists imply that each of these types is the ancestor of the next. However, recent findings by paleoanthropologists have revealed that australopithecines, Homo habilis and Homo erectus existed in different parts of the world at the same time. Moreover, some of those humans classified as Homo erectus probably lived up until very recent times. In an article titled "Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential Contemporaneity with Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia", it was reported in the journal Science that Homo erectus fossils found in Java had "mean ages of 27 ± 2 to 53.3 ± 4 thousand years ago" and this "raise[s] the possibility that H. erectus overlapped in time with anatomically modern humans (H. sapiens) in Southeast Asia"71
 A. afarensis can be seen in the two illustrations to the left. The picture below depicts A. boisei. These conjectures are entirely imaginary. Australopithecines are in fact an extinct species of ape. |
Furthermore, Homo sapiens neandarthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens (today’s man) also clearly co-existed. This situation apparently indicates the invalidity of the claim that one is the ancestor of the other.
Intrinsically, all findings and scientific research have revealed that the fossil record does not suggest an evolutionary process as evolutionists propose. The fossils, which evolutionists claim to be the ancestors of humans, in fact belong either to different human races, or else to species of ape.
Then which fossils are human and which ones are apes? Is it ever possible for any one of them to be considered a transitional form? In order to find the answers, let us have a closer look at each category.
Australopithecus: An Ape Species
The first category, the genus Australopithecus, means "southern ape", as we have said. It is assumed that these creatures first appeared in Africa about 4 million years ago, and lived until 1 million years ago. There are a number of different species among the astralopithecines. Evolutionists assume that the oldest Australopithecus species is A. Afarensis. After that comes A. Africanus, and then A. Robustus, which has relatively bigger bones. As for A. Boisei, some researchers accept it as a different species, and others as a sub-species of A. Robustus.
All of the Australopithecus species are extinct apes that resemble the apes of today. Their cranial capacities are the same or smaller than the chimpanzees of our day. There are projecting parts in their hands and feet which they used to climb trees, just like today's chimpanzees, and their feet are built for grasping to hold onto branches. They are short (maximum 130 cm. (51 in.)) and just like today's chimpanzees, male Australopithecus is larger than the female. Many other characteristics-such as the details in their skulls, the closeness of their eyes, their sharp molar teeth, their mandibular structure, their long arms, and their short legs-constitute evidence that these creatures were no different from today's ape.
However, evolutionists claim that, although australopithecines have the anatomy of apes, unlike apes, they walked upright like humans.
This claim that australopithecines walked upright is a view that has been held by paleoanthropologists such as Richard Leakey and Donald C. Johanson for decades. Yet many scientists who have carried out a great deal of research on the skeletal structures of australopithecines have proved the invalidity of that argument. Extensive research done on various Australopithecus specimens by two world-renowned anatomists from England and the USA, Lord Solly Zuckerman and Prof. Charles Oxnard, showed that these creatures did not walk upright in human manner. Having studied the bones of these fossils for a period of 15 years thanks to grants from the British government, Lord Zuckerman and his team of five specialists reached the conclusion that australopithecines were only an ordinary ape genus and were definitely not bipedal, although Zuckerman is an evolutionist himself.72 Correspondingly, Charles E. Oxnard, who is another evolutionist famous for his research on the subject, also likened the skeletal structure of australopithecines to that of today’s orang-utans.73
Briefly, Australopithecines have no link with humans and they are merely an extinct ape species.
Homo Habilis: The Ape that was Presented as Human
The great similarity between the skeletal and cranial structures of australopithecines and chimpanzees, and the refutation of the claim that these creatures walked upright, have caused great difficulty for evolutionist paleoanthropologists. The reason is that, according to the imaginary evolution scheme, Homo erectus comes after Australopithecus. As the genus name Homo (meaning "man") implies, Homo erectus is a human species and its skeleton is straight. Its cranial capacity is twice as large as that of Australopithecus. A direct transition from Australopithecus, which is a chimpanzee-like ape, to Homo erectus, which has a skeleton no different from today’s man's, is out of the question even according to evolutionist theory. Therefore, "links"-that is, "transitional forms"-are needed. The concept of Homo habilis arose from this necessity.
The classification of Homo habilis was put forward in the 1960s by the Leakeys, a family of "fossil hunters". According to the Leakeys, this new species, which they classified as Homo habilis, had a relatively large cranial capacity, the ability to walk upright and to use stone and wooden tools. Therefore, it could have been the ancestor of man.
Australopithecus Aferensis: An Extinct Ape
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New fossils of the same species unearthed in the late 1980s, were to completely change this view. Some researchers, such as Bernard Wood and C. Loring Brace, who relied on those newly-found fossils, stated that Homo habilis (which means "skillful man", that is, man capable of using tools) should be classified as Australopithecus habilis, or "skillful southern ape", because Homo habilis had a lot of characteristics in common with the australopithecine apes. It had long arms, short legs and an ape-like skeletal structure just like Australopithecus. Its fingers and toes were suitable for climbing. Their jaw was very similar to that of today's apes. Their 600 cc average cranial capacity is also an indication of the fact that they were apes. In short, Homo habilis, which was presented as a different species by some evolutionists, was in reality an ape species just like all the other australopithecines.
For a long time, evolutionists argued that the creatures they called Homo habilis could walk upright. They thought that they had found a link stretching from ape to man. Yet, the new Homo habilis fossils Tim White unearthed in 1986 and named as OH 62 disproved this assertion. These fossil fragments showed that Homo habilis had long arms and short legs just like contemporary apes. This fossil put an end to the assertion proposing that Homo habilis was a bipedal being able to walk upright. In truth, Homo habilis was nothing but another ape species.
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"OH
7 Homo habilis" seen to the right has been the fossil which best
defined the mandibular features of the Homo habilis species. This
mandible fossil has big incisory teeth. Its molar teeth are small. The
shape of the mandible is square. All these qualities make this mandible
look very similar to that of today's apes. In other words, Homo habilis'
mandible once more confirms that this being is actually an ape.Research carried out in the years since Wood and Brace's work has demonstrated that Homo habilis was indeed no different from Australopithecus. The skull and skeletal fossil OH62 found by Tim White showed that this species had a small cranial capacity, as well as long arms and short legs which enabled them to climb trees just like apes of our day do.
The detailed analyses conducted by American anthropologist Holly Smith in 1994 indicated that Homo habilis was not Homo, in other words, "human", at all, but rather unequivocally an "ape". Speaking of the analyses she made on the teeth of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, Smith stated the following;
Restricting analysis of fossils to specimens satisfying these criteria, patterns of dental development of gracile australopithecines and Homo Habilis remain classified with African apes. Those of Homo erectus and Neanderthals are classified with humans.74
Within the same year, Fred Spoor, Bernard Wood and Frans Zonneveld, all specialists on anatomy, reached a similar conclusion through a totally different method. This method was based on the comparative analysis of the semi-circular canals in the inner ear of humans and apes which provided for sustaining balance. Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld concluded that:
Among the fossil hominids the earliest species to demonstrate the modern human morphology is Homo erectus. In contrast, the semi-circular canal dimensions in crania from southern Africa attributed to Australopithecus and Paranthropus resemble those of the extant great apes. 75
Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld also studied a Homo habilis specimen, namely Stw 53, and found out that "Stw 53 relied less on bipedal behavior than the australopithecines." This meant that the H. habilis specimen was even more ape-like than the Australopithecus species. Thus they concluded that "Stw 53 represents an unlikely intermediate between the morphologies seen in the australopithecines and H. erectus."
This finding yielded two important results:
1. Fossils referred to as Homo habilis did not actually belong to the genus Homo, i.e. humans, but to that of Australopithecus, i.e. apes.
2. Both Homo habilis and Australopithecus were creatures that walked stooped forward-that is to say, they had the skeleton of an ape. They have no relation whatsoever to man.
Homo Rudolfensis: The Face Wrongly Joined
A comparative analysis of the semi-circular canals in the inner ear in both humans and apes shows that the fossils long portrayed as the forerunners of human beings were all in fact ordinary apes. The species Australopithecus and Homo habilis had the inner ear canals of an ape, while Homo erectus had human ones. |
The term Homo rudolfensis is the name given to a few fossil fragments unearthed in 1972. The species supposedly represented by this fossil was designated Homo rudolfensis because these fossil fragments were found in the vicinity of Lake Rudolf in Kenya. Most of the paleoanthropologists accept that these fossils do not belong to a distinct species, but that the creature called Homo rudolfensis is in fact indistinguishable from Homo habilis.
Richard Leakey, who unearthed the fossils, presented the skull designated "KNM-ER 1470", which he said was 2.8 million years old, as the greatest discovery in the history of anthropology. According to Leakey, this creature, which had a small cranial capacity like that of Australopithecus together with a face similar to that of present-day humans, was the missing link between Australopithecus and humans. Yet, after a short while, it was realised that the human-like face of the KNM-ER 1470 skull, which frequently appeared on the covers of scientific journals and popular science magazines was the result of the incorrect assembly of the skull fragments, which may have been deliberate. Professor Tim Bromage, who conducts studies on human facial anatomy, brought this to light by the help of computer simulations in 1992:
When it [KNM-ER 1470] was first reconstructed, the face was fitted to the cranium in an almost vertical position, much like the flat faces of modern humans. But recent studies of anatomical relationships show that in life the face must have jutted out considerably, creating an ape-like aspect, rather like the faces of Australopithecus.76
The evolutionist paleoanthropologist J. E. Cronin states the following on the matter:
... its relatively robustly constructed face, flattish naso-alveolar clivus, (recalling australopithecine dished faces), low maximum cranial width (on the temporals), strong canine juga and large molars (as indicated by remaining roots) are all relatively primitive traits which ally the specimen with members of the taxon A. africanus.77
C. Loring Brace from Michigan University came to the same conclusion. As a result of the analyses he conducted on the jaw and tooth structure of skull 1470, he reported that "from the size of the palate and the expansion of the area allotted to molar roots, it would appear that ER 1470 retained a fully Australopithecus-sized face and dentition".78
Professor Alan Walker, a paleoanthropologist from Johns Hopkins University who has done as much research on KNM-ER 1470 as Leakey, maintains that this creature should not be classified as a member of Homo-i.e., as a human species-but rather should be placed in the Australopithecus genus.79
In summary, classifications like Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis which are presented as transitional links between the australopithecines and Homo erectus are entirely imaginary. It has been confirmed by many researchers today that these creatures are members of the Australopithecus series. All of their anatomical features reveal that they are species of ape.
This fact has been further established by two evolutionist anthropologists, Bernard Wood and Mark Collard, whose research was published in 1999 in Science magazine. Wood and Collard explained that the Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis (Skull 1470) taxa are imaginary, and that the fossils assigned to these categories should be attributed to the genus Australopithecus:
More recently, fossil species have been assigned to Homo on the basis of absolute brain size, inferences about language ability and hand function, and retrodictions about their ability to fashion stone tools. With only a few exceptions , the definition and use of the genus within human evolution, and the demarcation of Homo, have been treated as if they are unproblematic. But ... recent data, fresh interpretations of the existing evidence, and the limitations of the paleoanthropological record invalidate existing criteria for attributing taxa to Homo.
...in practice fossil hominin species are assigned to Homo on the basis of one or more out of four criteria. ... It is now evident, however, that none of these criteria is satisfactory. The Cerebral Rubicon is problematic because absolute cranial capacity is of questionable biological significance. Likewise, there is compelling evidence that language function cannot be reliably inferred from the gross appearance of the brain, and that the language-related parts of the brain are not as well localized as earlier studies had implied...
...In other words, with the hypodigms of H. habilis and H. rudolfensis assigned to it, the genus Homo is not a good genus. Thus, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis (or Homo habilis sensu lato for those who do not subscribe to the taxonomic subdivision of "early Homo") should be removed from Homo. The obvious taxonomic alternative, which is to transfer one or both of the taxa to one of the existing early hominin genera, is not without problems, but we recommend that, for the time being, both H. Habilis and H. Rudolfensis should be transferred to the genus Australopithecus.80
The conclusion of Wood and Collard corroborates the conclusion we have maintained here:"Primitive human ancestors" do not exist in history. Creatures that are alleged to be so are actually apes that ought to be assigned to the genus Australopithecus. The fossil record shows that there is no evolutionary link between these extinct apes and Homo, i.e., human species that suddenly appears in the fossil record.
Homo Erectus and Thereafter: Human Beings
According to the fanciful scheme suggested by evolutionists, the internal evolution of the Homo genus is as follows: First Homo erectus, then so-called "archaic" Homo sapiens and Neanderthal man (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), and finally, Cro-Magnon man (Homo sapiens sapiens). However all these classifications are really only variations and unique races in the human family. The difference between them is no greater than the difference between an Inuit and an African or a pygmy and a European.
Let us first examine Homo erectus, which is referred to as the most primitive human species. As the name implies, "Homo erectus" means "man who walks upright". Evolutionists have had to separate these fossils from earlier ones by adding the qualification of "erectness", because all the available Homo erectus fossils are straight to an extent not observed in any of the australopithecines or so-called Homo habilis specimens. There is no difference between the postcranial skeleton of today’s man and that of Homo erectus.
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The primary reason for evolutionists' defining Homo erectus as "primitive", is the cranial capacity of its skull (900-1,100 cc), which is smaller than the average today’s man, and its thick eyebrow projections. However, there are many people living today in the world who have the same cranial capacity as Homo erectus (pygmies, for instance) and other races have protruding eyebrows (Native Australians, for instance).
Homo Erectus: A Real Human Race
The cranial capacities of all these diverse Homo erectus fossils surge between 900-1100 cc. These figures are within the limits of the contemporary human cranial capacity. KNM-WT 15000 or Turkana Child skeleton on the right, is probably the oldest and the most complete human fossil ever found. Research made on this fossil which is said to be 1.6 million year old shows that this belongs to a 12 year old child who would become around 1.80 m. tall if he reached adolescence. This fossil which very much resembled to the Neanderthal race, is one of the most remarkable evidence invalidating the story of human's evolution. The evolutionist
Donald Johnson describes this fossil as follows: "He was tall and
skinny. His body shape and the proportion of his limbs were the same as
the current Equator Africans. The sizes of his limbs totally matched
with that of the current white North American adults." |
It is a commonly agreed-upon fact that differences in cranial capacity do not necessarily denote differences in intelligence or abilities. Intelligence depends on the internal organisation of the brain, rather than on its volume.81
 FALSE MASKS: Although no different from today’s man, Neanderthals are still depicted as ape-like by evolutionists. |
The fossils that have made Homo erectus known to the entire world are those of Peking man and Java man in Asia. However, in time it was realised that these two fossils are not reliable. Peking Man consists of some elements made of plaster whose originals have been lost, and Java Man is "composed" of a skull fragment plus a pelvic bone that was found metres away from it with no indication that these belonged to the same creature. This is why the Homo erectus fossils found in Africa have gained such increasing importance. (It should also be noted that some of the fossils said to be Homo erectus were included under a second species named "Homo ergaster" by some evolutionists. There is disagreement among the experts on this issue. We will treat all these fossils under the classification of Homo erectus)
The most famous of the Homo erectus specimens found in Africa is the fossil of "Narikotome Homo erectus" or the "Turkana Boy" which was found near Lake Turkana in Kenya. It is confirmed that the fossil was that of a 12-year-old boy, who would have been 1.83 meters tall in adolescence. The upright skeletal structure of the fossil is no different from that of contemporary man. The American paleoanthropologist Alan Walker said that he doubted that "the average pathologist could tell the difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a modern human."82 Concerning the skull, Walker wrote that he laughed when he saw it because "it looked so much like a Neanderthal."83 As we will see in the next chapter, Neanderthals are a human race. Therefore, Homo erectus is also a human race.
Even the evolutionist Richard Leakey states that the differences between Homo erectus and contemporary man are no more than racial variance:
One would also see differences: in the shape of the skull, in the degree of protrusion of the face, the robustness of the brows and so on. These differences are probably no more pronounced than we see today between the separate geographical races of modern humans. Such biological variation arises when populations are geographically separated from each other for significant lengths of time.84
Professor William Laughlin from the University of Connecticut made extensive anatomical examinations of Inuits and the people living on the Aleut islands, and noticed that these people were extraordinarily similar to Homo erectus. The conclusion Laughlin arrived at was that all these distinct races were in fact different races of Homo sapiens (today’s man).
When we consider the vast differences that exist between remote groups such as Eskimos and Bushmen, who are known to belong to the single species of Homo sapiens, it seems justifiable to conclude that Sinanthropus [an erectus specimen] belongs within this same diverse species.85
It is now a more pronounced fact in the scientific community that Homo erectus is a superfluous taxon, and that fossils assigned to the Homo erectus class are actually not so different from Homo sapiens as to be considered a different species. In American Scientist, the discussions over this issue and the result of a conference held on the subject in 2000 were summarised in this way:
Most of the participants at the Senckenberg conference got drawn into a flaming debate over the taxonomic status of Homo erectus started by Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, Alan Thorne of the University of Canberra and their colleagues. They argued forcefully that Homo erectus had no validity as a species and should be eliminated altogether. All members of the genus Homo, from about 2 million years ago to the present, were one highly variable, widely spread species, Homo sapiens, with no natural breaks or subdivisions. The subject of the conference, Homo erectus didn't exist.86
Neanderthals: A Robust People
To the left is seen Homo sapiens Neanderthalensis, Amud 1 skull found in Israel. Neanderthal man is generally known to be robust yet short. However it is estimated that the owner of this fossil had been 1.80 m. high. His cranial capacity is the largest ever seen: 1740cc. Because of all these, this fossil is among the important pieces of evidence definitely destroying the claims that Neanderthals were a primitive species. |
The conclusion reached by the scientists defending the abovementioned thesis can be summarised as "Homo erectus is not a different species from Homo sapiens, but rather a race within Homo sapiens".
On the other hand, there is a huge gap between Homo erectus, a human race, and the apes that preceded Homo erectus in the "human evolution" scenario, (Australopithecus, Homo Habilis, and Homo rudolfensis). This means that the first men appeared in the fossil record suddenly and without any prior evolutionary history. This is a most clear indication of their being created.
Yet, admitting this fact is totally against the dogmatic philosophy and ideology of evolutionists. As a result, they try to portray Homo erectus, a truly human race, as a half-ape creature. In their Homo erectus reconstructions, they tenaciously draw simian features. On the other hand, with similar drawing methods, they humanise apes like Australopithecus or Homo Habilis. With this method, they seek to "approximate" apes and human beings and close the gap between these two distinct living classes.
Neanderthals
Neanderthals were human beings who suddenly appeared 100,000 years ago in Europe, and who disappeared, or were assimilated by mixing with other races, quietly but quickly 35,000 years ago. Their only difference from man of our day is that their skeletons are more robust and their cranial capacity slightly bigger.
Neanderthals were a human race, a fact which is admitted by almost everybody today. Evolutionists have tried very hard to present them as a "primitive species", yet all the findings indicate that they were no different from a "robust" man walking on the street today. A prominent authority on the subject, Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist from New Mexico University writes:
Detailed comparisons of Neanderthal skeletal remains with those of modern humans have shown that there is nothing in Neanderthal anatomy that conclusively indicates locomotor, manipulative, intellectual, or linguistic abilities inferior to those of modern humans.87
Many contemporary researchers define Neanderthal man as a sub-species of contemporary man and call him "Homo sapiens neandertalensis". The findings testify that Neanderthals buried their dead, fashioned musical instruments, and had cultural affinities with the Homo sapiens sapiens living during the same period. To put it precisely, Neanderthals are a "robust" human race that simply disappeared in time.
Homo Sapiens Archaic, Homo Heilderbergensis and Cro-Magnon Man
Archaic Homo sapiens is the last step before contemporary man in the imaginary evolutionary scheme. In fact, evolutionists do not have much to say about these fossils, as there are only very minor differences between them and today’s human beings. Some researchers even state that representatives of this race are still living today, and point to native Australians as an example. Like Homo sapiens (archaic), native Australians also have thick protruding eyebrows, an inward-inclined mandibular structure, and a slightly smaller cranial capacity.
The group characterised as Homo heilderbergensis in evolutionist literature is in fact the same as archaic Homo sapiens. The reason why two different terms are used to define the same human racial type is the disagreements among evolutionists. All the fossils included under the Homo heidelbergensis classification suggest that people who were anatomically very similar to today’s Europeans lived 500,000 and even 740,000 years ago, first in England and then in Spain.
It is estimated that Cro-Magnon man lived 30,000 years ago. He has a dome-shaped cranium and a broad forehead. His cranium of 1,600 cc is above the average for contemporary man. His skull has thick eyebrow projections and a bony protrusion at the back that is characteristic of both Neanderthal man and Homo erectus.
Although the Cro-Magnon is considered to be a
European race, the structure and volume of Cro-Magnon's cranium look
very much like those of some races living in Africa and the tropics
today. Relying on this similarity, it is estimated that Cro-Magnon was
an archaic African race. Some other paleoanthropological finds have
shown that the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthal races intermixed and laid
the foundations for the races of our day.
As a result, none of these human beings were "primitive
species". They were different human beings who lived in earlier times
and either assimilated and mixed with other races, or became extinct
and disappeared from history.
Species Living in the Same Age as Their Ancestors
 26,000 YEAR OLD NEEDLE: An interesting fossil showing that the Neanderthals had knowledge of clothing: A needle 26,000 years old. (D. Johanson, B. Edgar, From Lucy to Language, p. 99) |
What we have investigated so far forms a clear picture: The scenario of "human evolution" is a complete fiction. In order for such a family tree to represent the truth, a gradual evolution from ape to man must have taken place and a fossil record of this process should be able to be found. In fact, however, there is a huge gap between apes and humans. Skeletal structures, cranial capacities, and such criteria as walking upright or bent sharply forward distinguish humans from apes. (We already mentioned that on the basis of research done in 1994 on the inner ear, Australopithecus and Homo habilis were reclassified as apes, while Homo erectus was reclassified as a human being.)
Another significant finding proving that there can be no family-tree relationship among these different species is that species that are presented as ancestors of others in fact lived concurrently. If, as evolutionists claim, Australopithecus changed into Homo habilis, which, in turn, turned into Homo erectus, the periods they lived in should necessarily have followed each other. However, there is no such chronological order to be seen in the fossil record.
According to evolutionist estimates, Australopithecus lived from 4 million up until 1 million years ago. The creatures classified as Homo habilis, on the other hand, are thought to have lived until 1.7 to 1.9 million years ago. Homo rudolfensis, which is said to have been more "advanced" than Homo habilis, is known to be as old as from 2.5 to 2.8 million years! That is to say, Homo rudolfensis is nearly 1 million years older than Homo habilis, of which it is alleged to have been the "ancestor". On the other hand, the age of Homo erectus goes as far back as 1.6-1.8 million years ago, which means that Homo erectus appeared on the earth in the same time frame as its so-called ancestor, Homo habilis.
Alan Walker confirms this fact by stating that "there is evidence from East Africa for late-surviving small Australopithecus individuals that were contemporaneous first with H. Habilis, then with H. erectus."88 Louis Leakey has found fossils of Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus almost next to each other in the Olduvai Gorge region of Tanzania, in the Bed II layer.89
There is definitely no such family tree. Stephen Jay Gould, who was a paleontologist from Harvard University, explained this deadlock faced by evolution, although he was an evolutionist himself:
What has become of our ladder if there are three coexisting lineages of hominids (A. africanus, the robust australopithecines, and H. habilis), none clearly derived from another? Moreover, none of the three display any evolutionary trends during their tenure on earth.90
When we move on from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, we again see that there is no family tree to talk about. There is evidence showing that Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens continued living up to 27,000 years and even as recently as 10,000 years before our time. In the Kow Swamp in Australia, some 13,000-year-old Homo erectus skulls have been found. On the island of Java, Homo erectus remains were found that are 27,000 years old.91
The Secret History of Homo Sapiens
 One of the most popular periodicals of the evolutionist literature, Discover, put the 800 thousand-year-old human face on its cover with the evolutionists' question "Is this the face of our past?" |
The most interesting and significant fact that nullifies the very basis of the imaginary family tree of evolutionary theory is the unexpectedly ancient history of contemporary man. Paleoanthropological findings reveal that Homo sapiens people who looked exactly like us were living as long as 1 million years ago.
It was Louis Leakey, the famous evolutionist paleoanthropologist, who discovered the first findings on this subject. In 1932, in the Kanjera region around Lake Victoria in Kenya, Leakey found several fossils that belonged to the Middle Pleistocene and that were no different from today’s man. However, the Middle Pleistocene was a million years ago.92 Since these discoveries turned the evolutionary family tree upside down, they were dismissed by some evolutionist paleoanthropologists. Yet Leakey always contended that his estimates were correct.
Just when this controversy was about to be forgotten, a fossil unearthed in Spain in 1995 revealed in a very remarkable way that the history of Homo sapiens was much older than had been assumed. The fossil in question was uncovered in a cave called Gran Dolina in the Atapuerca region of Spain by three Spanish paleoanthropologists from the University of Madrid. The fossil revealed the face of an 11-year-old boy who looked entirely like contemporary man. Yet, it had been 800,000 years since the child died. Discover magazine covered the story in great detail in its December 1997 issue.
This fossil even shook the convictions of Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras, who lead the Gran Dolina excavation. Ferreras said:
We expected something big, something large, something inflated-you know, something primitive. Our expectation of an 800,000-year-old boy was something like Turkana Boy. And what we found was a totally modern face.... To me this is most spectacular-these are the kinds of things that shake you. Finding something totally unexpected like that. Not finding fossils; finding fossils is unexpected too, and it's okay. But the most spectacular thing is finding something you thought belonged to the present, in the past. It's like finding something like-like a tape recorder in Gran Dolina. That would be very surprising. We don't expect cassettes and tape recorders in the Lower Pleistocene. Finding a modern face 800,000 years ago-it's the same thing. We were very surprised when we saw it.93
The fossil highlighted the fact that the history of Homo sapiens had to be extended back to 800,000 years ago. After recovering from the initial shock, the evolutionists who discovered the fossil decided that it belonged to a different species, because according to the evolutionary family tree, Homo sapiens did not live 800,000 years ago. Therefore, they made up an imaginary species called "Homo antecessor" and included the Atapuerca skull under this classification.
A Hut 1.7 Million Years Old
 Findings of a 1.7 million-year-old hut shocked the scientific community. It looked like the huts used by some Africans today. |
There have been many findings demonstrating that Homo sapiens dates back even earlier than 800,000 years. One of them is a discovery by Louis Leakey in the early 1970s in Olduvai Gorge. Here, in the Bed II layer, Leakey discovered that Australopithecus, Homo Habilis and Homo erectus species had co-existed at the same time. What is even more interesting was a structure Leakey found in the same layer (Bed II). Here, he found the remains of a stone hut. The unusual aspect of the event was that this construction, which is still used in some parts of Africa, could only have been built by Homo sapiens! So, according to Leakey's findings, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and today’s man must have co-existed approximately 1.7 million years ago.94 This discovery must surely invalidate the evolutionary theory that claims that contemporary men evolved from ape-like species such as Australopithecus.
Footprints of Today’s Man, 3.6 Million Years Old!
Indeed, some other discoveries trace the origins of man living today back to 1.7 million years ago. One of these important finds is the footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, by Mary Leakey in 1977. These footprints were found in a layer that was calculated to be 3.6 million years old, and more importantly, they were no different from the footprints that a contemporary man would leave.
The footprints found by Mary Leakey were later examined by a number of famous paleoanthropologists, such as Donald Johanson and Tim White. The results were the same. White wrote:
Make no mistake about it, ...They are like modern human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a California beach today, and a four-year old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that somebody had walked there. He wouldn't be able to tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor would you.95
 The Laetoli footprints belonged to today's humans, however they were millions of years old. |
After examining the footprints, Louis Robbins from the University of North California made the following comments:
The arch is raised-the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do-and the big toe is large and aligned with the second toe… The toes grip the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms.96
Examinations of the morphological form of the footprints showed time and again that they had to be accepted as the prints of a human, and moreover, a human living today (Homo sapiens). Russell Tuttle, who also examined the footprints wrote:
A small barefoot Homo sapiens could have made them... In all discernible morphological features, the feet of the individuals that made the trails are indistinguishable from those of modern humans.97
Impartial examinations of the footprints revealed their real owners. In reality, these footprints consisted of 20 fossilised footprints of a 10-year-old human of our day and 27 footprints of an even younger one. They were certainly people just like us.
 A Human Mandible Aged 2.3 Million Years Another example showing the invalidity of the imaginary family tree devised by evolutionists: a human (Homo sapiens) mandible aged 2.3 million years. This mandible coded A.L. 666-1 was unearthed in Hadar, Ethiopia. Evolutionist publications seek to gloss it over by referring to it as "a very startling discovery"... (D. Johanson, Blake Edgar, From Lucy to Language, p.169) |
This situation put the Laetoli footprints at the centre of discussions for years. Evolutionist paleoanthropologists desperately tried to come up with an explanation, as it was hard for them to accept the fact that a contemporary man had been walking on the earth 3.6 million years ago. During the 1990s, the following "explanation" started to take shape: The evolutionists decided that these footprints must have been left by an Australopithecus, because according to their theory, it was impossible for a Homo species to have existed 3.6 years ago. However, Russell H. Tuttle wrote the following in an article in 1990:
In sum, the 3.5-million-year-old footprint traits at Laetoli site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern humans. None of their features suggest that the Laetoli hominids were less capable bipeds than we are. If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that there had been made by a member of our genus, Homo... In any case, we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind, Australopithecus afarensis.98
To put it briefly, these footprints that were supposed to be 3.6 million years old could not have belonged to Australopithecus. The only reason why the footprints were thought to have been left by members of Australopithecus was the 3.6-million-year-old volcanic layer in which the footprints were found. The prints were ascribed to Australopithecus purely on the assumption that humans could not have lived so long ago.
These interpretations of the Laetoli footprints demonstrate one important fact. Evolutionists support their theory not based on scientific findings, but in spite of them. Here we have a theory that is blindly defended no matter what, with all new findings that cast the theory into doubt being either ignored or distorted to support the theory.
Briefly, the theory of evolution is not science, but a dogma kept alive despite science.
The Bipedalism Impasse of Evolution
 Recent researches reveal that it is impossible for the bent ape skeleton fit for quadrupedal stride to evolve into upright human skeleton fit for bipedal stride. |
Apart from the fossil record that we have dealt with so far, unbridgeable anatomical gaps between men and apes also invalidate the fiction of human evolution. One of these has to do with the manner of walking.
Human beings walk upright on two feet. This is a very special form of locomotion not seen in any other mammalian species. Some other animals do have a limited ability to move when they stand on their two hind feet. Animals like bears and monkeys can move in this way only rarely, such as when they want to reach a source of food, and even then only for a short time. Normally, their skeletons lean forward and they walk on all fours.
Well, then, has bipedalism evolved from the quadrupedal gait of apes, as evolutionists claim?
Of course not. Research has shown that the evolution of bipedalism never occurred, nor is it possible for it to have done so. First of all, bipedalism is not an evolutionary advantage. The way in which monkeys move is much easier, faster, and more efficient than man's bipedal stride. Man can neither move by jumping from tree to tree without descending to the ground, like a chimpanzee, nor run at a speed of 125 km per hour, like a cheetah. On the contrary, since man walks on two feet, he moves much more slowly on the ground. For the same reason, he is one of the most unprotected of all species in nature in terms of movement and defence. According to the logic of the theory of evolution, monkeys should not have evolved to adopt a bipedal stride; humans should instead have evolved to become quadrupedal.
Another impasse of the evolutionary claim is that bipedalism does not serve the "gradual development" model of Darwinism. This model, which constitutes the basis of evolution, requires that there should be a "compound" stride between bipedalism and quadrupedalism. However, with the computerised research he conducted in 1996, the English paleoanthropologist Robin Crompton, showed that such a "compound" stride was not possible. Crompton reached the following conclusion: A living being can either walk upright, or on all fours.99 A type of stride between the two is impossible because it would involve excessive energy consumption. This is why a half-bipedal being cannot exist.
The immense gap between man and ape is not limited solely to bipedalism. Many other issues still remain unexplained, such as brain capacity, the ability to talk, and so on. Elaine Morgan, an evolutionist paleoanthropologist, makes the following confession in relation to this matter:
Four of the most outstanding mysteries about humans are: 1) why do they walk on two legs? 2) why have they lost their fur? 3) why have they developed such large brains? 4) why did they learn to speak?
The orthodox answers to these questions are: 1) 'We do not yet know'; 2) 'We do not yet know'; 3) 'We do not yet know'; 4) 'We do not yet know'. The list of questions could be considerably lengthened without affecting the monotony of the answers.100
Evolution: An Unscientific Faith
 The myth of human evolution is based on no scientific findings whatsoever. Representations such as this have no other significance than reflecting evolutionists' imaginative wishful thinking. |
Lord Solly Zuckerman is one of the most famous and respected scientists in the United Kingdom. For years, he studied the fossil record and conducted many detailed investigations. He was elevated to the peerage for his contributions to science. Zuckerman is an evolutionist. Therefore, his comments on evolution can not be regarded as ignorant or prejudiced. After years of research on the fossils included in the human evolution scenario however, he reached the conclusion that there is no truth to the family tree in that is put forward.
Zuckerman also advanced an interesting concept of the "spectrum of the sciences", ranging from those he considered scientific to those he considered unscientific. According to Zuckerman's spectrum, the most "scientific"-that is, depending on concrete data-fields are chemistry and physics. After them come the biological sciences and then the social sciences. At the far end of the spectrum, which is the part considered to be most "unscientific", are "extra-sensory perception"-concepts such as telepathy and the "sixth sense"-and finally "human evolution". Zuckerman explains his reasoning as follows:
We then move right off the register of objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful anything is possible - and where the ardent believer is sometimes able to believe several contradictory things at the same time.101
Robert Locke, the editor of Discovering Archeology, an important publication on the origins of man, writes in that journal, "The search for human ancestors gives more heat than light", quoting the confession of the famous evolutionist paleoantropologist Tim White:
We're all frustrated by "all the questions we haven't been able to answer."102
Locke's article reviews the impasse of the theory
of evolution on the origins of man and the groundlessness of the
propaganda spread about this subject:
Perhaps no area of science is more contentious than the search
for human origins. Elite paleontologists disagree over even the most
basic outlines of the human family tree. New branches grow amid great
fanfare, only to wither and die in the face of new fossil finds.103
The same fact was also recently accepted by Henry Gee, the editor of the well-known journal Nature. In his book In Search of Deep Time, published in 1999, Gee points out that all the evidence for human evolution "between about 10 and 5 million years ago-several thousand generations of living creatures-can be fitted into a small box." He concludes that conventional theories of the origin and development of human beings are "a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices" and adds:
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 bedtime story-amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.104
What, then, is the reason that makes so many scientists so tenacious about this dogma? Why have they been trying so hard to keep their theory alive, at the cost of having to admit countless conflicts and discarding the evidence they have found?
The only answer is their being afraid of the fact they will have to face in case of abandoning the theory of evolution. The fact they will have to face when they abandon evolution is that God has created man. However, considering the presuppositions they have and the materialistic philosophy they believe in, creation is an unacceptable concept for evolutionists.
For this reason, they deceive themselves, as well as the world, by using the media with which they co-operate. If they cannot find the necessary fossils, they "fabricate" them either in the form of imaginary pictures or fictitious models and try to give the impression that there indeed exist fossils verifying evolution. A part of mass media who share their materialistic point of view also try to deceive the public and instil the story of evolution in people's subconscious.
No matter how hard they try, the truth is evident: Man has come into existence not through an evolutionary process but by God's creation. Therefore, he is responsible to Him.
70 David Pilbeam, "Humans Lose an Early Ancestor", Science, April 1982, pp. 6-7.
71 C.
C. Swisher III, W. J. Rink, S. C. Antón, H. P. Schwarcz, G. H. Curtis,
A. Suprijo, Widiasmoro, "Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential
Contemporaneity with Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia", Science, Volume
274, Number 5294, Issue of 13 Dec 1996, pp. 1870-1874; also see,
Jeffrey Kluger, "Not So Extinct After All: The Primitive Homo Erectus
May Have Survived Long Enough To Coexist With Modern Humans, Time,
December 23, 1996.
72 Solly Zuckerman, Beyond The Ivory Tower, New York: Toplinger
Publications, 1970, pp. 75-94.
73 Charles E. Oxnard, "The Place of Australopithecines in
Human Evolution: Grounds for Doubt", Nature, Vol 258, p. 389.
74 Holly Smith, American Journal of Physical Antropology, Vol 94, 1994, pp. 307-325.
75 Fred Spoor, Bernard Wood, Frans Zonneveld, "Implication of Early Hominid Labryntine
Morphology for Evolution of Human Bipedal Locomotion", Nature, vol 369, June 23,
1994, p. 645-648.
76 Tim Bromage, New Scientist, vol 133, 1992, p. 38-41.
77 J. E. Cronin, N. T. Boaz, C. B. Stringer, Y. Rak, "Tempo and Mode in Hominid Evolution",
Nature, Vol 292, 1981, p. 113-122.
78C. L. Brace, H. Nelson, N. Korn, M. L. Brace, Atlas of Human Evolution, 2.b. New York: Rinehart and Wilson, 1979.
79 Alan Walker, Scientific American, vol 239 (2), 1978, p. 54.
80 Bernard Wood, Mark Collard, "The Human Genus", Science, vol 284, No
5411, 2 April 1999, pp. 65-71.
81 Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention, Grand Rapids, Baker, 1992, p. 83.
82 Boyce Rensberger, The Washington Post, 19 November 1984.
83 Ibid.
84 Richard Leakey, The Making of Mankind, London: Sphere Books, 1981, p. 62.
85 Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention, Grand Rapids, Baker, 1992. p. 136.
86 Pat Shipman, "Doubting Dmanisi", American Scientist, November- December 2000, p. 491
87 Erik Trinkaus, "Hard Times Among the Neanderthals", Natural History, vol 87, December
1978, p. 10; R. L. Holloway, "The Neanderthal Brain: What Was Primitive", American
Journal of Physical Anthropology Supplement, Vol 12, 1991, p. 94.
88 Alan Walker, Science, vol 207, 1980, p. 1103.
89 A. J. Kelso, Physical Antropology, 1st ed., New York: J. B. Lipincott Co., 1970,
p. 221; M. D. Leakey, Olduvai Gorge, Vol 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1971, p. 272.
90 S. J. Gould, Natural History, Vol 85, 1976, p. 30.
91 Time, November 1996.
92 L. S. B. Leakey, The Origin of Homo Sapiens, éd. F. Borde, Paris: UNESCO, 1972,
p. 25-29; L. S. B. Leakey, By the Evidence, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1974.
93 "Is This The Face of Our Past", Discover, December 1997, pp. 97-100.
94
A. J. Kelso, Physical Anthropology, 1.b., 1970, pp. 221; M. D. Leakey, Olduvai
Gorge, Vol 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 272.
95 Donald C. Johanson & M. A. Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1981, p. 250.
96 Science News, Vol 115, 1979, pp. 196-197.
97 Ian Anderson, New Scientist, Vol 98, 1983, p. 373.
98 Russell H. Tuttle, Natural History, March 1990, pp. 61-64.
99 Ruth Henke, "Aufrecht aus den Baumen", Focus, Vol 39, 1996, p. 178.
100 Elaine Morgan, The Scars of Evolution, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994,
p. 5.
101 Solly Zuckerman, Beyond The Ivory Tower, New York: Toplinger Publications, 1970,
p. 19.
102 Robert Locke, "Family Fights" Discovering Archaeology, July/August 1999, pp. 36-39.
103 Ibid.
104 Henry Gee, In Search of Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life,
New York, The Free Press, 1999, pp. 126-127.