Timelessness and the Reality of Fate

Timelessness and the Reality of Fate

Everything related so far demonstrates that "three-dimensional space" does not exist in reality, that it is a prejudice completely founded on perceptions and that one leads one's whole life in "spacelessness." For there is no valid proof of the existence of a three-dimensional, material world. The universe we inhabit is a sum of images made up of plays of light and shade. To assert the contrary would be to hold a superstitious belief far removed from reason and scientific truth.

This refutes the primary assumption of the materialist philosophy, the assumption that matter is absolute and eternal. The second assumption, upon which materialistic philosophy rests, is the supposition that time is absolute and eternal. This is as superstitious as the first.

The Perception of Time

What we perceive as time is, in fact, a method by which one moment is compared to another. We can explain this with an example. For instance, when a person taps an object, he hears a particular sound. When he taps the same object five minutes later, he hears another sound. He perceives that there is an interval between the first sound and the second, and he calls this interval "time." Yet at the time he hears the second sound, the first sound he heard is no more than a mental imagining. It is merely a bit of information in his memory. The person formulates the concept of "time" by comparing the moment in which he lives with what he has in his memory. If this comparison is not made, there can be no concept of time.

Similarly, the occupant of a room 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 the newcomer sits in the armchair, the images related to the moments he opens the door, walks into the room, and makes his way to the armchair are compiled as bits of information in his brain. The perception of time occurs when he compares the man sitting in the armchair with those bits of information.

In brief, time comes to exist as a result of the comparison made between some illusions stored in the brain. If man did not have memory, his brain would not make such interpretations and he would never therefore have formed the concept of time. The only reason why someone determines himself to be thirty years old is because he has accumulated information pertaining to those thirty years in his mind. If his memory did not exist, then he would not think of the existence of such a preceding period, and he would only experience the single "moment" in which he lives-which is a very important point.

The Scientific Explanation of Timelessness

Let us try to clarify the subject by quoting various scientists' and scholars' explanations of the subject. Regarding the subject of time flowing backwards, the famous intellectual and Nobel laureate professor of genetics, François Jacob, states the following in his book Le Jeu des Possibles (The Possible and the Actual):

Films played backwards make it possible for us to imagine a world in which time flows backwards. A world in which milk separates itself from the coffee and jumps out of the cup to reach the milk-pan; a world in which light rays are emitted from the walls to be collected in a trap (gravity center) instead of gushing out from a light source; a world in which a stone slopes to the palm of a man by the astonishing cooperation of innumerable drops of water which enable the stone to jump out of water. Yet, in such a world in which time has such opposite features, the processes of our brain and the way our memory compiles information, would similarly be functioning backwards. The same is true for the past and future and the world will appear to us exactly as it currently appears.418

Since our brain is accustomed to a certain sequence of events, the world does not operate as is related above and we assume that time has always flowed forward. However, this is a decision reached in the brain and is relative. Had the bits of information in our memory been arranged as in films played backwards, for us, the flow of time would be as in these films played backwards. In this situation, we would start to perceive the past as the future, and the future as the past, and live our lives in a totally opposite sequence.

In reality, we can never know how time flows or even whether it flows or not. This is an indication of the fact that time is not an absolute fact, but just a sort of perception.

The relativity of time is a fact also verified by one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein. Lincoln Barnett writes in his book The Universe and Dr. Einstein:

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 colour, 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."419

The words of Einstein indicate that the idea of a forward-running time is nothing more than conditioning.

Einstein himself pointed out, as quoted in Barnett's book: "Space and time are forms of intuition, which can no more be divorced from consciousness than can our concepts of colour, 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."420

Since time is based on 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 there is no natural clock in the human body to indicate precisely how fast time passes. As Lincoln Barnett wrote: "Just as there is no such thing as colour without an eye to discern it, so an instant or an hour or a day is nothing without an event to mark it."421

The relativity of time is plainly experienced in dreams. Although what we see in our dreams seems to last for hours, in fact, it only lasts for a few minutes, and even a few seconds.

Let us think about an example to clarify the subject further. Let us assume that we were put in a room with a single specially designed window and we were kept there for a certain period. A clock in the room would allow us to see the amount of time that had passed. At the same time, we are able to see from the window of the room the sun rising and setting at certain intervals. A few days later, the answer we would give to the question about the length of time we had spent in the room would be based both on the information we had collected by looking at the clock from time to time and on the computation we had made by referring to how many times the sun had risen and set. Suppose, we estimate that we spent three days in the room. However, if the person who put us in that room said that we spent only two days there and that the sun we had seen from the window was produced artificially by a simulation machine and that the clock in the room was regulated specially to work faster, then the calculation we had done would have no meaning.

This example confirms that the information we have about the rate of the passage of time is based on relative references.

In the same manner, the fact that everyone perceives the flowing speed of time differently under different situations is evidence that time is but a psychological perception. For instance, when you have to meet a friend, a 10-minute delay on his part would seem to you like an interminable, or at least a very long time. Or for a sleepless person who has to wake up to go to school or work, an extra ten-minute sleep may seem very long. He may even think that he has had all his sleep in these ten minutes. In some circumstances, just the opposite happens. As you would remember from your school years, after a forty-minute lesson which seems to last for centuries, a ten minutes break may seem to pass very quickly.

The relativity of time 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 position in the gravitational field. As speed increases, time is shortened and compressed: it slows down as if coming to the point of "stopping."

Let us explain this with an example given by Einstein. Imagine twins, one of whom stays on earth while the other goes traveling in space at a speed close to that of light. When he comes back, the traveler will see 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 speeds near the speed of light. The same applies to a father traveling in space in a rocket, the speed of which is close to ninety-nine per cent of the speed of light, and his earth-bound son. If the father were twenty-seven years old when he set out and his son three; when the father came back to earth thirty years later (earth time), the son would be thirty-three years old while his father would be only thirty.422

This relativity of time is not caused by the deceleration or acceleration of clocks, or the deceleration of a mechanical spring. It is rather the result of the differentiated operation periods of the entire system of material existence, which goes as deep as sub-atomic particles. In other words, for the person experiencing it, the shortening of time is not experienced as if acting in a slow-motion picture. In such a setting where time shortens, one's heartbeats, cell replications, and brain functions, etc, all operate more slowly. Nevertheless, the person goes on with his daily life and does not notice the shortening of time at all.

These facts revealed by the Theory of Relativity have been verified quite a few times by various scientists. In his book Frontiers, Isaac Asimov also states that it is 84 years since the publication of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and each time the theory has been tested, Einstein has been proved right once again.423

Relativity in the Qur'an

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 most interesting is that this fact, undiscovered until the twentieth century by science, was revealed to mankind in the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago. There are various references in the Qur'an to the relativity of time.

It is possible to see in many verses of the Qur'an the scientifically proven fact that time is a psychological perception dependent on events, setting, and conditions. For instance, a person's entire life is a very short time, as we are informed in the Qur'an:

On the Day when He will call you, 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! (Qur'an, 17: 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 recognize each other. (Qur'an, 10: 45)

Some verses indicate that people perceive time differently and that sometimes people can perceive a very short period as a very lengthy one:

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: "Brief indeed was your sojourn, if you had only known!" (Qur'an, 23: 112-114)

In some other verses God states that time may flow at different paces in different settings:

…Truly, a day in the sight of your Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning. (Qur'an, 22: 47)

The angels and the spirit ascend to Him in a day the measure of which is like fifty thousand years. (Qur'an, 70: 4)

He rules all affairs from the heavens to the earth: in the end all will ascend to Him in a single day, the measure of which is a thousand years by your reckoning. (Qur'an, 32: 5)

These verses are clear expressions of the relativity of time. That this finding, which was only recently understood by scientists in the twentieth century, was communicated to man 1,400 years ago in the Qur'an is an indication of the revelation of the Qur'an by God, Who encompasses the whole of time and space.

Many other verses of the Qur'an reveal that time is a perception. The situation described in the verse below is also evidence that time is in truth a psychological perception.

Or (take) the instance of one who passed by a hamlet, all desolate and in ruins. He said, "How shall God ever bring it to life now that is dead?" but God caused him to die for a hundred years, then brought him back to life. He said: "How long did you tarry thus?" He said: Perhaps a day or part of a day." He said: "No, 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 so that We may make of you a sign to 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." (Qur'an, 2: 259)

The above verse clearly emphasizes that God, Who created time, is unbound by it. Man, on the other hand, is bound by time, which is ordained by God. As in the verse, man is even incapable of knowing how long he has slept. This being so, to assert that time is absolute (just as materialists do in their distorted thinking) is very unreasonable.

Destiny

This relativity of time clears up a very important matter. Relativity is so variable that a period appearing to us to be billions of years' in duration may last only a second in another perspective. Moreover, an enormous period of time, extending from the world's beginning to its end, may not even last a second but just an instant in another dimension.

This is the very essence of the concept of destiny-a concept 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. A majority of people 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 only so for us. God is not bound by time or space, for He Himself has created them. For this reason, past, future, and present are all the same to God; for Him everything has already taken place and finished.

In The Universe and Dr. Einstein, Lincoln Barnett explains how the Theory of General Relativity leads to this conclusion. According to Barnett, the universe can be "encompassed in its entire majesty only by a cosmic intellect."424 The will that Barnett calls "the cosmic intellect" is the wisdom and knowledge of God, Who prevails over the entire universe. Just as we can easily see a ruler's beginning, middle, and end, and all the units in between as a whole, God knows the time we are subject to as if it were a single moment right from its beginning to its end. People, however, experience incidents only when their time comes and they witness the destiny God has created for them.

It is also important to draw attention to the shallowness of the distorted understanding of destiny prevalent in our society. This distorted belief about fate is a superstition that God has determined a "destiny" for every man, but that people can sometimes change these destinies. For instance, people make superficial statements about a patient who returns from death's door, such as "he defeated his destiny." No one is able to change his destiny. The person, who returned from death's door, didn't die precisely because he was destined not to die at that time. It is, ironically, the destiny of those people who deceive themselves by saying "I defeated my destiny" that they should say so and maintain such a mindset. In the verse, "…no living thing lives long or has its life cut short without that being in a Book. That is easy for God" (Qur'an, 35: 11), it is stated that all things happen as a matter of destiny. Destiny is the eternal knowledge of God and for God, Who knows time like a single moment and Who prevails over the whole of time and space; everything is determined and finished in destiny.

We also understand from what He relates in the Qur'an that time is one for God: some incidents that appear to us to happen in the future are related in the Qur'an as if they had already taken place long before. For instance, the verses that describe the accounts that people must give to God in the hereafter are related as events which occurred long ago:

And the trumpet is blown, and all who are in the heavens and all who are on the earth swoon away, save him whom God wills. Then it is blown a second time, and behold them standing waiting! And the earth shone 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 into hell in troops… And those who feared their Lord are driven into Paradise in troops... (Qur'an, 39: 68-73)

As may be seen, occurrences that are going to take place after our death (from our point of view) are related in the Qur'an as past events already experienced. God is not bound by the relative time frame in which we are confined. God has willed these things in timelessness: people have already performed them and all these events have been lived through and are ended. He states in the verse below that every event, big or small, is within the knowledge of God and recorded in a book:

In whatever business you may be, and whatever portion you may be reciting from the Qur'an, and whatever deed you (mankind) may be doing, We are witnesses of these things when you are deeply engrossed in them. Nor is there hidden from your Lord so much as the weight of an atom on the earth or in heaven. And there is neither the least and nor the greatest of these things but is recorded in a glorious book. (Qur'an, 10: 61)

With this secret out in the open, the world becomes like heaven for a believer. All distressful material worries, anxieties, and fears vanish. He grasps that the entire universe has a single sovereign, that He changes the entire physical world as He pleases and that all one has to do is to turn to Him. He then submits himself entirely to God "to be devoted to His service." (Qur'an, 3: 35)

To comprehend this secret is the greatest gain in the world.

Glory be to You!

We have no knowledge except what

You have taught us. You are

the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.

(Qur'an, 2: 32)

418 François Jacob, Le Jeu Des Possibles, University of Washington Press, 1982, p. 111. (emphasis added)
419 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p. 52-53. (emphasis added)
420 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p. 17. (emphasis added)
421 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p. 58.
422 Paul Strathern, The Big Idea:Einstein and Relativity, Arrow Books, 1997, p. 57.
423 Isaac Asimov, Frontiers.
424 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p. 58. (emphasis added)

WARNING

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 on 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.

 The Secret Beyond Matter

The concept of "the nature of matter" is one liable to change one's outlook on life, and indeed, one's whole life, once its essence is known. This subject is directly related to the meaning of your life, your expectations from the future, your ideals, passions, desires, plans, the concepts you esteem, and the material things you possess.

The subject matter of this chapter, "the nature of matter," is not a subject raised today for the first time. Throughout the history of humanity, many thinkers and scientists have discussed this concept. Right from the start, people have been divided into two groups on this issue; one group, known as materialists, based their philosophies and lives on the substantial existence of matter and lived by deceiving themselves. Another group acted sincerely, and being unafraid of thinking more profoundly, led their lives by grasping the essence of the "things" to which they were exposed and the deep meaning lying beyond them. However, advances in the science and technology of our age have finally ended this controversy by indisputably proving the self-evident fact that matter has no substantial existence.

The Long Discussed Question: What is the Real Nature of Matter?

Someone who conscientiously and wisely contemplates the universe he inhabits, the galaxies, the planets, the balance therein, the willpower in the structure of the atom, the order he comes across in every part of the universe, the countless living species around him, the way they live, their amazing traits, and finally his own body, will instantly realize that there is something extraordinary about all these things. He will readily understand that this perfect order and the subtleties around him could not have originated by themselves, but must certainly have had a Creator. As a matter of fact, Darwinism and the materialist philosophy which deny creation are great errors as we have analysed throughout this book.

By Whom then were all these things created?

It is obvious that "the fact of creation," which is self-evident in every domain of the universe, cannot be an outcome of the universe itself. For example, a peacock, with its coloring and design implying a matchless art, cannot have created itself. The miniscule equilibriums in the universe cannot have created or organized themselves. Neither plants, humans, bacteria, erythrocytes (red-blood corpuscles), nor butterflies can have created themselves. Moreover, the possibility that all these entities could have originated "by chance" is not even imaginable.

It is evident that everything that we see has been created, but none of the things we see can themselves be "creators." The Creator is different from and superior to all that we see with our eyes. He is invisible, but everything He has created reveals His existence and attributes.

This is the point at which those who deny the existence of God demur. Such people have been conditioned not to believe in His existence unless they see Him with their eyes. In their view, there is a heap of matter throughout the whole universe, spreading out until eternity and God is nowhere in this heap of matter. Even if they traveled thousands of light years, they think they would not meet God. This is why they deny His existence. Therefore, these people, who disregard the fact of "creation," are forced to reject the actuality of "creation" manifest throughout the universe and try to prove that the universe and the living things in it have not been created. However, it is impossible for them to do this, because every corner of the universe overflows with the evidence of God's being.

Impulses 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. Whatever we see, hear, know, recognize or, get used to in this world throughout our lives is merely comprised of electrical signals our sense organs transmit to our brain.

The basic mistake of those who deny God is shared by many people who do not really deny the existence of God but have a wrong perception of Him. They do not deny the signs of "creation" which are everywhere manifest but have superstitious beliefs about "where" God is. Most of them think that God is up in the "sky." They tacitly and wrongly imagine that God is behind a very distant planet and interferes with "worldly affairs" once in a while, or perhaps does not intervene at all. They imagine that He created the universe and then left it to itself, leaving people to determine their fates for themselves.

Still others have heard the fact stated in the Qur'an that God is "everywhere," but they cannot conceive of what exactly this means. In accordance with the distorted thought in their subconscious, they think that God surrounds everything-like radio waves or like an invisible, intangible gas.

However, this and other beliefs that are unclear about "where" God is (and maybe because of that deny Him) are all based on a common mistake. They are prejudiced without reason and so are liable to have wrong opinions of God.

What is this prejudice?

This prejudice is about the nature and characteristics of matter. Man is so conditioned in his suppositions about the existence of matter that he never thinks about whether it does or does not exist, or whether it is only a shadow. Modern science demolishes this prejudice and discloses a very important and revealing reality. In the following pages, we will clarify this great reality to which the Qur'an points.

We Live in a Universe Presented to Us by Our Perceptions

According to Albert Camus, you can grasp and count happenings through science, but you cannot grasp the universe. Here is the tree, you feel its hardness; here is the water, you taste it. Here is the wind, it cools you. You have to be satisfied with all that.397

All the information that we have about the realness of the world in which we live is conveyed to us by our five senses. The world we know of consists of what our eyes see, our hands feel, our noses smell, our tongues taste, and our ears hear. We never think that the "external world" could be anything other than that which our senses present to us, as we have been dependent solely on those senses since birth.

Modern research in many different fields of science points to a very different fact and creates serious doubt about our senses and the world that we perceive with them.

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 center of vision at the back of the brain. Since the brain is insulated from light, it is impossible for light to reach the center of vision. This means that we view a vast world of light and depth in a tiny spot that is insulated from light. Even at the moment when we feel the light and heat of a fire, the inside of our brain is pitch dark and its temperature never changes.

According to scientific findings, what we perceive as "the external world," is only the result of the brain being stimulated by the electrical signals sent to it by our sense organs. The multi-hued colors you perceive with your sense of sight, the feeling of hardness or softness conveyed by your sense of touch, the tastes you experience on your tongue, the different notes and sounds you hear with your ear, the variety of scents you smell, your work, your home, all your possessions, the lines of this book, and moreover, your mother, your father, your family, the whole world you have always seen, known, got used to throughout your life, are comprised purely and simply of electrical signals sent by your sense organs to the brain. Though this seems difficult on the first analysis, this is a scientific fact. The views of renowned philosophers like Bertrand Russell and L. Wittgeinstein on this subject are as follows:

For instance, whether a lemon truly exists or not and how it came to exist cannot be questioned or 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.398

Frederick Vester explains the point that science has reached on this subject:

The statements of certain scientists that "man is an image, everything experienced is temporary and deceptive, and this universe is a shadow," seem to be proven by science in our day.399

The thoughts of the famous philosopher, George Berkeley, on the subject can be summarized like this:

We believe in the existence of objects just because we see and touch them, and they are reflected to us by our perceptions. However, our perceptions are only ideas in our mind. Thus, objects we captivate by perceptions are nothing but ideas, and these ideas are essentially in nowhere but our mind… Since all these exist only in the mind, then it means that we are beguiled by deceptions when we imagine the universe and things to have an existence outside the mind. So, none of the surrounding things have an existence out of our mind.400

In order to clarify the subject, let us consider our sense of sight, which provides us with the most extensive information about the external world.

How Do Our Sense Organs Work?

Few people think deeply on how the act of seeing takes place. Everyone answers the question "How do we see?" by saying "with our eyes for sure." However, when we look at the technical explanation of the process of seeing, it seems that that is not the case. The act of seeing is realized progressively. Light clusters (photons) travel from the object to the eye and pass through the lens at the front of the eye where they are refracted and fall upside down on the retina at the back of the eye. Here, impinging light is turned into electrical signals that are transmitted by neurons to a tiny spot called the centre of vision in the back of the brain. The act of seeing actually takes place in this tiny spot in the posterior part of the brain, which is pitch-dark and completely insulated from light.

Now, let us reconsider this seemingly ordinary and unremarkable process. When we say, "we see," we are, in fact, seeing the effects of impulses reaching our eyes and induced in our brain, after they are transformed into electrical signals. That is, when we say, "we see," we are actually observing the aggregate of the electrical signals in our mind. Therefore, seeing is not a process terminating in the eye; our eye is only a sense organ serving as a means in the process of seeing.

All the images we view in our lives are formed in our center of vision, in the size of a nut, which only comprises a few cubic centimeters of the volume of the brain. Both the book you are now reading, and the screen of your computer, and the boundless landscape you see when you gaze at the horizon, and the seamless sea, and a crowd of people who participate in a marathon, fit into this tiny space. Another point that has to be kept in mind is that, as we have noted before, the brain is insulated from light; its inside is absolutely dark. The brain has no contact with light itself. The place called the center of vision is a place which is pitch-dark, where light never reaches, so dark that maybe you have never been somewhere like it before. However, you watch a bright, multi-colored world in this complete darkness. A multi-colored nature, a glowing landscape, all tones of green, the colors of fruits, the patterns on flowers, the brightness of the sun, all the people in a crowded street, vehicles moving fast in the traffic, hundreds of clothes in a shopping mall, and everything else are all images formed in this pitch dark place. Even the formation of colors in this darkness has still not been discovered. Klaus Budzinski comments:

… Chromatists cannot answer the question of how the network in the eye that perceives light as well as colours transmits this information to the brain through sight nerves and what kind of physical-physiological stimulations this creates in the brain.401

We can explain this interesting situation with an example. Let us suppose that in front of us there is a burning candle. We can sit opposite this candle and watch it at length. However, during this period, our brain never has any direct contact with the original light of the candle. Even as we feel the heat and light of the candle, the inside of our brain is completely dark and its temperature never changes. We watch a colorful and bright world inside our dark brain.

The same is true of sunlight. Your eye's being dazzled in sunlight or your feeling the scorching heat on your skin does not change the fact that these are mere perceptions and the center of vision in your brain is completely dark.

R. L. Gregory gives the following explanation about the miraculous aspects of seeing - something that we take so 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.402

The same situation applies to all our other senses. Sound, touch, taste, and smell are all perceived as electrical signals in the brain.

The sense of hearing works in a similar manner to that of sight. The outer ear picks up sounds by the auricle and directs them to the middle ear. The middle ear transmits the sound vibrations to the inner ear and intensifies them. The inner ear translates the vibrations into electrical signals, which it sends into the brain. Just as with the eye, the act of hearing finally takes place in the center of hearing in the brain.

What is true of the eye is also true of the ear, that is, the brain is insulated from sound just as it is from light. Therefore, no matter how noisy it is outside, the inside of the brain is completely silent. Nevertheless, even the subtlest sounds are perceived in the brain. This process is so precise that the ear of a healthy person hears everything without any atmospheric noise or interference. In your brain, which is insulated from sound, and where there is dead silence, you listen to the symphonies of an orchestra, hear all the noises of a crowded place, and perceive all the sounds within a wide frequency range, from the rustling of a leaf to the roar of a jet plane. However, if the sound level in your brain were to be measured by a sensitive device at that moment, it would be seen that complete silence prevailed within it.

Our perception of odor works in a similar way. Volatile molecules emitted by things such as vanilla or a rose reach the receptors in the delicate hairs in the epithelial region of the nose and become involved in an interaction. This interaction is transmitted to the brain as electrical signals and perceived as smell. Everything that we smell, be it pleasant or unpleasant, is nothing but the brain's perception of the interactions of volatile molecules after they have been transformed into electrical signals. You perceive the scent of a perfume, a flower, a food that you like, the sea, or other odors you like or dislike, in your brain. The molecules themselves never reaches the brain. Just as with sound and vision, what reaches your brain as you sense an odor is simply a set of electrical signals. In other words, all the odors that you have assumed-since you were born-to belong to external objects are just electrical signals that you experience through your sense organs. Berkeley also said:

At the beginning, it was believed that colours, odours, etc., "really exist," but subsequently such views were renounced, and it was seen that they only exist in dependence on our sensations.403

Similarly, there are four different types of chemical receptors in the front part of a human being's tongue. These pertain to the four tastes: salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. Our taste receptors transform these perceptions into electrical signals through a chain of chemical processes and transmit them to the brain. These signals are perceived as taste by the brain. The taste you experience when you eat a chocolate bar or a fruit that you like is the interpretation of electrical signals by the brain. You can never reach the object in the external world; you can never see, smell or taste the chocolate itself. For instance, if the taste nerves that travel to the brain were cut, the taste of things you ate would not reach your brain; you would completely lose your sense of taste.

At this point, we come across another fact:

We can never be sure that what we experience when we taste a food and what another person experiences when he tastes the same food, or what we perceive when we hear a voice and what another person perceives when he hears the same voice are the same. Lincoln Barnett says that no one can know whether another person perceives the color red or hears the note C in same way as does he himself.404

We only know as much as our sense organs relate to us. It is impossible for us to reach the physical reality outside us directly. It is again the brain that interprets it. We can never reach the original. Therefore, even when we talk about the same thing, others' brains may be perceiving something different. The reason for this is that what is perceived depends on the perceiver.

The same logic applies to our sense of touch. When we touch an object, all information that will help us recognize the external world and the objects in it is transmitted to the brain by the sense nerves on the skin. The feeling of touch is formed in our brain. Contrary to general belief, the place where we perceive the sense of touch is not at our fingertips, or on our skins, but at the center of touch perception in our brains. Because of the brain's interpretation of the electrical stimuli coming to it from objects, we experience those objects differently, e.g. they may be hard or soft, hot or cold. We derive all the details that help us recognize an object from these stimuli. The renowned philosopher Bertrand Russell comments in relation to this:

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.405

That the outside world can be identified completely through the senses is a scientific fact. In his book, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, George Berkeley comments as follows:

By sight I have the ideas of light and colours, with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance. ...Smelling furnishes me with odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds. ...And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple; other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things. . .406

Therefore, by processing the data in the centers of vision, sound, smell, taste and touch, our brains, throughout our lives, do not confront the "original" of the matter existing outside us but rather the copy formed inside our brain. It is at this point that we are misled by assuming these copies are instances of the real matter outside us. However, as seen throughout the book, there are also thinkers and scientists who have not been misled by such a misconception, and who have realized this fact.

Even Ali Demirsoy, one of the most famous Turkish materialists, also confessed this truth:

In truth, there is neither light as we see it, nor sound as we hear it, nor heat as we sense it in the universe. Our sense organs mislead us between the external world and brain and give rise to interpretations which are irrelevant to reality in the brain.407

Do We Spend Our Entire Life in Our Brains?

From the physical facts described so far, we may conclude the following. Everything we see, touch, hear, and perceive as "matter," "the world" or "the universe" is only electrical signals occurring in our brain. Therefore, someone drinking an orange juice does not confront the actual drink but its perception in the brain. The object considered by the onlooker to be a "drink" actually consists of electrical impressions of the orange color, sweet taste, and liquid feeling of the orange juice in the brain. The situation is no different while eating chocolate; the electrical data pertaining to the shape, taste, odor, and hardness of the chocolate are perceived in the brain. If the sight nerves traveling to the brain were suddenly to be severed, the image of the chocolate would just as suddenly disappear. A disconnection in the nerve traveling from the sensors in the nose to the brain would completely interrupt the sense of smell.

Put simply, the tree that you see, the objects you smell, the chocolate you taste, and the orange juice you drink are nothing but the brain's interpretation of electrical signals.

Another point to be considered, which might be deceptive, is the sense of distance. For example, the distance between you and this book is only a feeling of space formed in your brain. Objects that seem to be distant from the human viewpoint also exist only in the brain. For instance, someone who watches the stars in the sky assumes that they are millions of light-years away from him. Yet, what he "sees" are really the stars inside himself, in his center of vision. During a trip, one looks at the city below from a plane and thinks that it is kilometers away from him. However, the whole length and breadth of the city are inside one's brain along with all the people in it.

Today, all scientific data prove that the image we perceive is formed in our brain.

There is yet another misleading, but very important factor. While you read these lines, you are, in truth, not inside the room you assume yourself to be in; on the contrary, the room is inside you. Your seeing your body makes you think that you are inside it. However, you must remember that your body, too, is an image formed inside your brain. Bertrand Russell states the following on the subject:

What we can say, on the basis of physics itself, is that what we have hitherto called our body is really an elaborate scientific construction not corresponding to any physical reality.408

The truth is very clear. If we can feel the external world only through our sense organs, then there would be no consistent reason for us to consider our body to be separate from the external world, that is, to concede that our body has a separate existence.

Our body is also presented to us by the electrical stimulations (impulses) reaching our brain. These impulses, just like all others, are converted into certain sensations, or feelings in our brain. For instance, the feeling of touch occurring when we touch our body with our hand, the feeling of weight caused by the force of gravity, the feeling of seeing caused by the light rays reflected from our body, etc… all these are assessed as a "collection of feelings" by the brain, and we "feel" our body. As revealed by these scientific facts, throughout our lives, we are exposed not to our original body, but to the impulses reaching our brain pertaining to our body. These impulses are identified as "our body" in our perception.

The same applies to all your other perceptions. For instance, when you think that you hear the sound of the television in the next room, you are actually experiencing the sound inside your brain. You can prove neither that a room exists next to yours, nor that a sound comes from the television in that room. Both the sound you think to be coming from meters away and the conversation of a person right next to you are perceived in a center of hearing in your brain which is only a few square centimeters in size. Apart from within this center of perception, no concept such as right, left, front or behind exists. That is, sound does not come to you from the right, from the left or from the air; there is no direction from which sound comes.

The smells that you perceive are like that too; none of them reaches you from a great distance. You suppose that the end-effects formed in your center of smell are the smell of the objects in the external world. However, just as the image of a rose is in your center of vision, so the smell of the rose is in your center of smell; there is neither a rose nor an odor pertaining to it in the external world.

The same facts hold true also for heat. One of the foremost philosophers of his age, George Berkeley, clarifies with the following example that senses like coldness and hotness cannot be judged to exist outside the mind:

Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and that they are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in an intermediate state; will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm to the other?409

Berkeley is right in his analysis. Had heat or cold been present in the matter itself, both hands would have felt the same thing.

The findings of modern physics show that the universe is a collection of perceptions. Thus the well-known science journal New Scientist asks:"Beyond Reality:Is the Universe Really a Frolic of Primal Information and Matter Just a Mirage?"

The "external world" presented to us by our perceptions is merely a collection of electrical signals reaching our brains. Throughout our lives, our brains process and interpret these signals and we live without recognizing that we are mistaken in assuming that these are the original versions of things existing in the "external world." We are misled because we can never reach these entities themselves by means of our senses. This point is extremely important.

Moreover, again our brains interpret and attribute meaning to signals that we assume to be the "external world." For example, let us consider the sense of hearing. Our brains transform the sound waves in the "external world" into a rhythm. That is to say, music is also a perception created by our brains. In the same manner, when we see colors, what reaches our eyes is merely a set of electrical signals of different wavelengths. Again our brains transform these signals into colors. There are no colors in the "external world." Neither is the lemon yellow, nor is the sky blue, nor are the trees green. They are as they are just because we perceive them to be so. The "external world" depends entirely on the perceiver. Color blindness is important evidence for this. Even the slightest defect in the retina of the eye causes color blindness. Some people perceive blue as green, and some red as blue. At this point, it does not matter whether the object externally is colored or not.

According to the prominent thinker Berkeley:

If the same things can be red and hot for some and the contrary for others, this means that we are under the influence of misconceptions and that "things" only exist in our brains.410

In conclusion, the reason we see objects as colored is not because they are colored or because they have an independent material existence outside ourselves. Had colors existed outside us, a deficiency called color blindness would not have existed. The truth of the matter is rather that all the qualities we ascribe to objects are inside us and not in the "external world."

Is the Existence of the "External World" Indispensable?

So far, we have been speaking repeatedly of the existence of a world of perceptions formed in our brains, and making the assertion that we can never actually reach this world. Then, how can we be sure that such a world really exists?

Actually, we cannot. Since each object is only a collection of perceptions and those perceptions exist only in the mind, it is more accurate to say that the only world that really exists is the world of perceptions. The only world we know of is the world that exists in our mind: the one that is designed, recorded, and made vivid there; the one, in short, that is created within our mind. This is the only world of which we can be sure.

We can never prove that the perceptions we observe in our brain have material correlates. Those perceptions could conceivably be coming from an "artificial" source.

We can visualize this with such an example:

First, let us imagine that we take your brain out of your body and keep it alive artificially in a glass cube. Next to it, let us place a computer with which all kinds of electrical signals can be produced. Then, let us artificially produce and record in this computer the electrical signals of the data related to a setting, such as image, sound, odor, hardness-softness, taste, and body image. This experiment with your brain, which we have taken out of your body, will be carried out on the peak of a deserted mountain. Finally, let us connect the computer to the brain with electrodes that will function as nerves and send the pre-recorded data to your brain which is now high above the clouds. As your brain (which is literally you) perceives these signals, it will see and experience the corresponding setting. For instance, let us suppose that every detail that comes to mind about a football match in a stadium be produced or recorded-in a way to be perceived through the sense organs. In your brain, all by itself at the summit of the mountain, with this recording instrument connected to it, you would feel as if you were living in this artificially created setting. You would think that you were at the match. You would cheer, you would sometimes get angry and sometimes be pleased. Moreover, you would often bump into other people because of the crowd, and therefore feel their existence, too. Most interestingly, everything would be so vivid that you would never doubt the existence of this setting or your body. Or if we sent to your brain the electrical correlates of senses such as seeing, hearing, and touching which you perceive while sitting at a table, your brain would think of itself as a businessman sitting in his office. This imaginary world will continue so long as the stimulations keep coming from the computer. It will never become possible to understand that you consist of nothing but your brain. This is because what is needed to form a world within your brain is not the existence of a real world but rather the stimuli. It is perfectly possible that these stimuli could be coming from an artificial source, such as a recording device or a different kind of perception source. Experiments carried out about this subject demonstrate this fact.

In the U.S.A., Dr. White from Cleveland Hospital, along with his colleagues, all experts in electronics, performed a great feat in making "Cyborg" survive. What Dr. White succeeded in doing was isolating an ape's brain from his skull and feeding it with oxygen and blood. The brain, which was connected to an artificially produced "Heart Lung Machine," was kept alive for five hours. The device, called an Electro Encephalogram, to which the isolated brain was connected, identified in E.E.G. records that the noises made in the surroundings were heard by this brain and that it reacted to them.411

As we have seen, it is quite possible that we perceive an external world through externally given artificial stimuli. The symbols you would perceive with your five senses are sufficient for this. Other than these symbols, there is nothing left of the external world.

It is indeed very easy for us to be misled into believing perceptions, without any material correlates, to be real. We often experience this feeling in our dreams, in which we experience events, see people, objects and settings that seem completely real. However, they are all, without exception, mere perceptions. There is no basic difference between the "dream" and the "real" world; both of them are experienced in the brain.

Who Is the Perceiver?

As we have related so far, there is no doubt that the world we think we inhabit and know as the "external world" is perceived inside our brain. However, here arises the question of primary importance. Is the will that perceives all these perceptions the brain itself?

When we analyze the brain, we see that it is comprised of lipid and protein molecules, which also exist in other living organisms. As is well known, the essence of these proteins is, in fact, atoms. This means that within the piece of meat we call our "brain," there is nothing to observe the images, to constitute consciousness, or to create the being we call "myself."

R. L. Gregory refers to a mistake people make in relation to the perception of images in the brain:

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.412

This is the very point that puts materialists, who do not hold anything but matter to be true, in a quandary: to whom belongs "the eye inside" that sees, that interprets what it sees and reacts?

Karl Pribram also focused on this important question, about who the perceiver is, in the world of science and philosophy:

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."413

Now, think of this: The book in your hand, the room you are in, in brief, all the images in front of you are seen inside your brain. Is it the atoms that see these images? Blind, deaf, unconscious atoms? How would lifeless and unconscious atoms feel, how would they see? Why did some atoms acquire this quality whereas others did not? Do our acts of thinking, comprehending, remembering, being delighted, being unhappy, and everything else consist of the electrochemical reactions between these atoms? No, the brain cannot be the will that performs all of these.

In previous sections, we have pointed out that our body is also included in the collection of perceptions we call the "external world." Therefore, since our brain is also a part of our body, it is also a part of that collection of perceptions. Since the brain itself is a perception, therefore, it cannot be the will that perceives other perceptions.

In his book, The ABC of Relativity, Bertrand Russell focuses attention on this subject by saying:

Of course, if matter in general is to be interpreted as a group of occurrences, this must apply also to the eye, the optic nerve and the brain.414

It is clear that the being that sees, hears, senses, and feels is a supra-material being. For matter cannot think, feel, be happy or unhappy. It is not possible to do all these with the body alone. Therefore, this being is neither matter, nor image, but it is "alive." This being relates to the "screen" in front of it by using the image of our body.

An example about dreams will illuminate the subject further. Let us imagine (in accordance with what has been said so far) that we see the dream within our brain. In the dream, we will have an imaginary body, an imaginary arm, an imaginary eye, and an imaginary brain. If during our dream, we were asked, "Where do you see?" we would answer, "I see in my brain." If we were asked where our brain is and what it looks like, we would hold our imaginary head on our imaginary body with our imaginary hand and say, "My brain is a hunk of meat in my head weighing hardly more than a kilo."

THE WORLD IN DREAMS For you, reality is all that can be touched with the hand and seen with the eye. In your dreams you can also "touch with your hand and see with your eye", but in reality, you have neither hand nor eye, nor is there anything that can be touched or seen. There is no material reality that makes these things happen except your brain. You are simply being deceived. What is it that separates real life and the dreams from one another? Ultimately, both forms of life are brought into being within the brain. If we are able to live easily in an unreal world during our dreams, the same thing can equally be true for the world we live in. When we wake up from a dream, there is no logical reason for not thinking that we have entered a longer dream that we call "real life". The reason we consider our dream to be fancy and the world as real is nothing but a product of our habits and prejudices. This suggests that we may well be awoken from the life on earth which we think we are living right now, just as we are awoken from a dream.

Yet, actually there is not any brain to talk about, but an imaginary head and an imaginary brain. The seer of the images is not the imaginary brain in the dream, but a "being" that is far "superior" to it.

We know that there is no physical distinction between the setting of a dream and the setting we call real life. So when we are asked in the setting we call real life the above question: "Where do you see?" it would be just as meaningless to answer "in my brain" as in the example above. In both conditions, the entity that sees and perceives is not the brain, which is after all only a hunk of meat. Realizing this fact, Bergson said in his book, Matter and Memory, in summary, that "the world is made up of images, these images only exist in our consciousness; and the brain is one of these images."415

Therefore, since the brain is a part of the external world, there has to be a will to perceive all these images. This being is the "soul."

The aggregate of perceptions we call the "material world" is nothing but a dream observed by this soul. Just as the bodies we possess and the material world we see in our dreams have no reality, the universe we occupy and the bodies we possess also have no material reality. The famous British philosopher David Hume expresses his thoughts on this fact:

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.416

The real being is the soul. Matter consists merely of perceptions viewed by the soul. The intelligent beings that write and read these lines are not each a heap of atoms and molecules and the chemical reactions between them, but a "soul."

The Real Absolute Being

All these facts bring us face to face with a very significant question. If the thing we acknowledge to be the material world is merely comprised of perceptions seen by our soul, then what is the source of these perceptions?

In answering this question, we must consider the following: matter does not have a self-governing existence by itself. Since matter is a perception, it is something "artificial." That is, this perception must have been caused by another power, which means that it must have been created. Moreover, this creation must be continuous. If there were not a continuous and consistent creation, then what we call matter would disappear and be lost. This may be likened to a television screen on which a picture is displayed as long as the signal continues to be broadcast. So, who makes our soul see the stars, the earth, plants, people, our bodies, and all else that we see?

It is very evident that there is a Creator, Who has created the entire material universe, that is, the sum of perceptions, and continues His creation ceaselessly. Since this Creator displays such a magnificent creation, He surely has eternal power and might.

This Creator introduces Himself to us. He sent down a book and through this book has described to us Himself, the universe, and the reason for our existence.

This Creator is God and the name of His book is the Qur'an.

The facts that the heavens and the earth, that is, the universe is not stable, that their presence is only made possible by God's creating them and that they will disappear when He ends this creation, are all explained in a verse as follows:

It is God Who sustains the heavens and the earth, lest they cease (to function): and if they should fail, there is none-not one-can sustain them thereafter: Truly, He is Most Forbearing and Oft-Forgiving. (Qur'an, 35: 41)

As we mentioned at the beginning, some people have no genuine understanding of God and so they imagine Him as a being present somewhere in the heavens and not really intervening in worldly affairs. The basis of this logic actually lies in the thought that the universe is an assembly of matter and God is "outside" this material world, in a faraway place.

However, as we have considered so far, matter is composed only of sensations. And the only real absolute being is God. That means that only God exists; all things except Him are shadow beings. Consequently, it is impossible to conceive of God as separate and outside this whole mass of matter. For there is actually nothing such as matter in the sense of being. God is surely "everywhere" and encompasses all. This reality is explained in the Qur'an as follows;

God, there is no deity except 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. (Qur'an, 2: 255)

Since material beings are each a perception, they cannot see God; but God sees the matter He created in all its forms. In the Qur'an, this is stated thus: "No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision." (Qur'an, 6: 103)

That is, we cannot grasp God's being with our eyes, but God has thoroughly encompassed our inside, outside, looks and thoughts. For this reason, God says that "He controls hearing and sight" (Qur'an, 10: 31). We cannot utter a single word without His knowledge, nor can we even take a breath.

While we watch these sensory perceptions in the course of our lives, the closest being to us is not any one of these sensations, but God Himself. The following verse of the Qur'an asserts this reality: "It is 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." (Qur'an, 50: 16) When a person thinks that his body is made up only of "matter," he cannot comprehend this important fact. If he takes his brain to be "himself," then the place that he accepts to be the outside is 20-30 cm away from him. According to this reasoning, nothing can be nearer to him than his jugular vein. However, when he understands that there is nothing such as matter, and that everything is imagination, notions such as outside, inside, far or near, lose their meaning. God has encompassed him and He is "infinitely close" to him.

God informs men that He is "infinitely close" to them in the verse: "When My servants ask you about Me, tell them I am indeed close (to them)." (Qur'an, 2: 186). Another verse relates the same fact: "We have told you that your Lord encompasses all men." (Qur'an, 17: 60). However, man is misled in thinking 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 that when it (the soul) comes up to the throat, and you at that time look on, We are nearer to him than you, but you do not see this." (Qur'an, 56: 83-85).

The only conclusion to be derived from the sum total of the facts presented here is that the only and real and absolute being is God. With His knowledge, God encompasses man, who is a shadow being, as well as everything else.

Quite the reverse is true of man, who is nothing but a shadow being, and who is so wholly dependent on God, that it is impossible for him to have any independent power or will: "You will not will unless God wills." (Qur'an, 76: 39). Another verse showing that everything we experience takes place under God's control runs: "God has created you and what you do!" (Qur'an, 37: 96). In the Qur'an, this reality is stated at many points and with the verse "You did not throw, when you threw, it was God who threw" (Qur'an, 8: 17), it is emphasized that no act is independent of God.

This is the reality. The individual may not want to concede this and may think of himself as a being independent of God; but this does not change a thing. Of course his unwise denial is again subject to God's will and desire. In the Qur'an, this fact is addressed thus:

It is other than the religion of God that you desire, when everything in the heavens and earth, willingly or unwillingly, submits to Him? To Him you will all be returned. (Qur'an, 3: 83)

Conclusion

The subject we have explained so far is one of the greatest truths that you will ever be told in your lifetime.

You can explore beyond this point by dint of personal reflection. For this, you have to concentrate upon, devote your attention to, and ponder on the way you see the objects around you and the way you feel their touch. If you think heedfully, you can feel that the intelligent being that sees, hears, touches, thinks, and reads this book at this moment is only a soul, who watches the perceptions called "matter" on a screen. One who comprehends this is considered to have moved away from the domain of the material world that deceives a major part of humanity, and to have entered the domain of true existence.

This reality has been understood by a number of theists and philosophers throughout history. Islamic intellectuals such as Imam Rabbani, Muhyiddin Ibn al-'Arabi and Mawlana Jami realized this 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 Maktubat (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 mere nothingness… He created all in the sphere of senses and illusions… The existence of the universe is in the sphere of senses and illusions, and it is not material… In reality, there is nothing on the outside except the Glorious Being, (Who is God).417

Mawlana Jami stated the same fact, which he discovered by following the signs of the Qur'an and by using his wit: "All phenomena of the universe are senses and illusions. They are either like reflections in mirrors or shadows."

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 not be wise to tell this fact to the masses, because most people are not able to grasp it.

In the age in which we live, this has been established as an empirical fact by the body of evidence put forward by science. The fact that the universe is a shadow being is described for the first time in history in such a concrete, clear, and explicit way.

For this reason, the twentyfirst century will be a historical turning point, when people will generally comprehend the divine realities and be led in crowds to God, the only Absolute Being. The materialistic creeds of the nineteenth century will be relegated to the trash-heaps of history, God's being and creating will be accepted, spacelessness and timelessness will be understood; humanity, in short, will cast aside the centuries-old veils, deceits and superstitions which have been confusing them.

It is not possible for this unavoidable course to be impeded by any shadow being.

397 Orhan Hançerlioðlu, Düþünce Tarihi (History of Idea), Remzi Kitabevi, Ýstanbul: 1987, p.432.
398 Orhan Hançerlioðlu, Düþünce Tarihi (History of Idea), Remzi Kitabevi, Ýstanbul: 1987, p.447.
399 Frederick Vester, Denken, Lernen, Vergessen, vga, 1978, p. 6.
400 George Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions Sociales, Paris, 1954, pp. 38-39-44.
401 Bilim ve Teknik Magazine (Science and Technology), No. 227, p. 6-7.
402 R.L.Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford University Press Inc. New York, 1990, p.9. (emphasis added)
403 George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710, Works of George Berkeley, vol. I, ed. A. Fraser, Oxford, 1871. (emphasis added)
404 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p. 20. (emphasis added)
405 Bertrand Russell, ABC of Relativity, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1964, pp. 161-162. (emphasis added)
406 George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710, Works of George Berkeley, vol. I, ed. A. Fraser, Oxford, 1871 p. 35-36. (emphasis added)
407 Ali Demirsoy, Kalýtým ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), p.4. (emphasis added)
408 Bertrand Russell, What is the Soul?, Works of George Berkeley, vol. I, ed. A. Fraser, Oxford, 1871. (emphasis added)
409 Bertrand Russell, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, Works of George Berkeley, vol. I, ed. A. Fraser, Oxford, 1871. (emphasis added)
410 George Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions Sociales, Paris, 1954, p. 40.
411 Bilim ve Teknik Magazine (Science and Technology), No:111, p.2. (emphasis added)
412 R.L.Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford University Press Inc. New York, 1990, p.9.
413 Ken Wilber, Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes, p.20. (emphasis added)
414 Bertrand Russell, ABC of Relativity, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1964, pp. 161-162. (emphasis added)
415 Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, Zone Books, New York, 1991. (emphasis added)
416 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Section IV: Of Personal Identity. (emphasis added)
417 Ýmam Rabbani, Hz. Mektuplarý (Letters of Rabbani), Vol II, 357. Letter, p. 163. (emphasis added)

Conclusion

Conclusion

Throughout this site we have examined the scientific evidence for the origin of life, and what emerges clearly demonstrates that life was not the result of chance, as claimed by Darwinism and materialist philosophy in general. Living species could not have evolved from one another through a string of coincidences. On the contrary, all living things were independently and flawlessly created. As the twenty-first century dawns, science offers but one answer to the question of the origin of life: Creation.

The important thing is that science has confirmed the truth which religion has been witness to from the dawn of history to the present day. God created the universe and all the living things in it from nothing. And it was God who created man from nothing and blessed him with countless characteristics. This truth has been sent down to man since the dawn of time by prophets, and revealed in holy books. Every prophet has told the communities he addressed that God created man and all living things. The Bible and the Qur'an all tell of the news of creation in the same way.

In the Qur'an, God announces in a number of verses that it was He who created the universe and all the living things in it from nothing, and flawlessly ordered them. In this verse, it is declared that the universe and everything in it was created:

Your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then settled Himself firmly on the Throne. He covers the day with the night, each pursuing the other urgently;and the sun and moon and stars are subservient to His command. Both creation and command belongs to Him. Blessed be God, the Lord of all the worlds. (Qur'an, 7: 54)

Just as God created everything that exists, so he created the world we live in today, and made it capable of supporting life. This fact is revealed in certain verses:

As for the earth, We stretched it out and cast firmly embedded mountains in it and made everything grow in due proportion on it. And We put livelihoods in it both for you and for those you do not provide for. (Qur'an, 15: 19-20)

And the earth:how We stretched it out and cast firmly embedded mountains onto it and caused luxuriant plants of every kind to grow in it. (Qur'an, 50:7-8)

The above verses announce that all plants were created by God. All plants, known and unknown, all trees, grasses, fruit, flowers, seaweed and vegetables were created by God.

And the same thing applies to animals. All of the millions of different animal species that live, or have ever lived, on earth, were created by God. Fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, horses, giraffes, squirrels, deer, sparrows, eagles, dinosaurs, whales, and peacocks were all created from nothing by God, the Lord of infinite art and knowledge. God's creation of the different species of living things is mentioned in a number of verses:

God created every animal from water. Some of them go on their bellies, some of them on two legs, and some on four. God creates whatever He wills. God has power over all things. (Qur'an, 24:45)

And He created livestock. There is warmth for you in them, and various uses and some you eat. (Qur'an, 16: 5)

And God created man in exactly the same way. It is revealed in the Qur'an that Adam, the first man, was created from mud, and then all subsequent people came into existence from each other by a simple liquid (sperm). Furthermore, man had a soul breathed into him, unlike all the other species in the world. The Qur'an has this to say about the truth of the creation of man:

He who has created all things in the best possible way. He commenced the creation of man from clay;then produced his seed from an extract of base fluid. (Qur'an, 32:7-9)

Man's Duty

As we made clear at the start, science has confirmed the truth of creation, as handed down in the Qur'an, because scientific discoveries show that living things possess extraordinary design, and that they were brought into existence by a superior intelligence and knowledge. Biological observations show that one living species cannot turn into another, and that for that reason, if one could go back in time, one would eventually come across, for each species, the first individuals that ever existed and that were created from nothing. For example, since eagles have always been eagles, if we could go back in time, we would arrive at the first pair, or group, of eagles who were created from nothing. In fact, the fossil record confirms this, and shows that different living species suddenly emerged with all their particular, individual features. These living things may have been created at different points in time and settled in different parts of the world, but this all happened through the will of God.

In short, science confirms the proof we have considered that living things were all created by God.

However, science goes no further than that. It is the Qur'an, the book that has come down to us from God, that introduces us to the essence of God and is the sole source of truth on every subject that tells us why we were created and what the reason for our lives is.

The Qur'an says that the reason for our creation is so that we might know God, our Lord, and serve Him. In one verse, He says, "I only created jinn and man to worship me." (Qur'an, 51:56) The duty falling to everyone who grasps the truth of creation is to live in accordance with that verse, and to say, "Why indeed should I not worship Him who brought me into being, Him to Whom you will be returned?" (Qur'an, 36: 22), like every believer, as described in the Qur'an.

As for those who still deny God and the truth of creation, despite all the evidence before their eyes, their minds have been conquered by their own pride. One of God's holy verses describes how helpless and powerless these individuals really are:

Mankind! an example has been made, so listen to it carefully. Those whom you call upon besides God are not even able to create a single fly, even if they were to join together to do it. And if a fly steals something from them, they cannot get it back. How feeble are both the seeker and the sought! (Qur'an, 22:73)

Distinguishing Between Science and Materialism

Distinguishing Between Science and Materialism

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. Evolution may be maintained by some "scientists," but behind it there is another influence at work.

This other influence is materialist philosophy. The theory of evolution is simply materialist philosophy applied to nature, and those who support that philosophy do so despite the scientific evidence.

This relationship between materialism and the theory of evolution is accepted by "authorities" on these concepts. For example, the discovery of Darwin was described by Leon Trotsky as "the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field of organic matter."388

The evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma writes, "Together with Marx's materialist theory of history and society…. Darwin hewed the final planks of the platform of mechanism and materialism."389 And the evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould says, "Darwin applied a consistent philosophy of materialism to his interpretation of nature."390

Karl Marx

Materialist philosophy is one of the oldest beliefs in the world, and assumes the absolute and exclusive 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 supramaterial Creator who created it.

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 tenth 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 twentyfirst 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 organize 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 the beginning of time has been overthrown by the Big Bang theory which shows that the universe was created from nothingness. The claim that matter organized 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.391

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 to 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 behavior leads evolutionists to a belief that "unconscious matter composed itself," which is contrary not only to science, but also to reason. The concept of "the self-organization of matter," which we examined in an earlier chapter, is an expression of this.

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 Western countries have to have articles published in certain scientific journals in order 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.

The Definition of the "Scientific Cause"

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. ...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.392

Yes, 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 cytochrome-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."393

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 realized 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 cause. We thus have to look into the first hypothesis.394

Demirsoy writes that he prefers the impossible, in order not to have to accept supernatural forces-in other words, the existence of a Creator. However, the aim of science is not to avoid accepting the existence of supernatural forces. Science can get nowhere with such an aim. It should simply observe nature, free of all prejudices, and draw conclusions from these observations. If these results indicate that there is planning by a supernatural intelligence, then science must accept the fact.

Under close examination, what they call the "scientific cause" is actually the materialist dogma that only matter exists and that all of nature can be explained by material processes. This is not a "scientific cause," or anything like it; it is just materialist philosophy. This philosophy hides behind such superficial words as "scientific cause" and obliges scientists to accept quite unscientific conclusions. Not surprisingly, when Demirsoy cites another subject-the origins of the mitochondria in the cell-he openly accepts chance 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.395

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 requires maintaining, at no matter what cost, that living things were not created.

Coming to Terms with the Shocks

As we recently stressed, materialism is the belief that categorically rejects the existence of the nonmaterial (or the "supernatural"). Science, on the other hand, is under no obligation to accept such a dogma. The duty of science is to observe nature and produce results. If these reveal that nature was created, science has to accept the fact.

And science does reveal the fact that living things were created. This is something demonstrated by scientific discoveries, which we may call "design." When we examine the fantastically complex structures in living things, we see that they possess such extraordinary design features that they can never be accounted for by natural processes and coincidences. Every instance of design is evidence for an intelligence; therefore, we must conclude that life, too, was designed by an intelligence. Since this intelligence is not present in matter, it must belong to a nonmaterial wisdom-a superior wisdom, an infinite power, that rules all of nature… In short, life and all living things were created. This is not a dogmatic belief like materialism, but the result of scientific observation and experiment.

We see that this conclusion comes as a terrible shock for scientists who are used to believing in materialism, and that materialism is a science. See how this shock is described by Michael Behe, one of the most important scientists to stand against the theory of evolution in the world today:

The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. But other centuries have had their shocks, and there is no reason to suppose that we should escape them.396

Mankind has been freed from such dogmas as that the world is flat, or that it is the center of the universe. And it is now being freed from the materialist and evolutionist dogma that life came about by itself.

The duty that befalls a true scientist in this respect, is to do away with materialist dogma and evaluate the origin of life and living things with the honesty and objectivity befitting a real scientist. A real scientist must come to terms with the "shock," and not tie himself to outdated nineteenth-century dogmas and defend impossible scenarios.

388 Alan Woods, Ted Grant. "Marxism and Darwinism," Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993
389 Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2. b., MA: Sinauer, Sunderland, 1986, p. 4. (emphasis added)
390 Alan Woods, Ted Grant, "Marxism and Darwinism," Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993. (emphasis added)
391 Richard Lewontin, "The Demon-Haunted World," The New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28. (emphasis added)
392 Hoimar Von Dithfurth, Im Anfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), vol. 2, p. 64. (emphasis added)
393 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 61. (emphasis added)
394 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 61. (emphasis added)
395 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 94-95. (emphasis added)
396 Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, pp. 252-53.

Information Theory and the End of Materialism

Information Theory and the End of Materialism

Materialist philosophy lies at the basis of the theory of evolution. Materialism rests on the supposition that everything that exists is matter. According to this philosophy, matter has existed since eternity, will continue to exist forever, and there is nothing but matter. In order to provide support for their claim, materialists use a logic called "reductionism." This is the idea that things which are not observable can also be explained by material causes.

To make matters clearer, let us take the example of the human mind. It is evident that the mind cannot be touched or seen. Moreover, it has no center in the human brain. This situation unavoidably leads us to the conclusion that mind is a concept beyond matter. Therefore, the being which we refer to as "I," who thinks, loves, fears, worries, and feels pleasure or pain, is not a material being in the same way as a sofa, a table or a stone.

Materialists, however, claim that mind is "reducible to matter." According to the materialist claim, thinking, loving, worrying and all our mental activities are nothing but chemical reactions taking place between the atoms in the brain. Loving someone is a chemical reaction in some cells in our brain, and fear is another. The famous materialist philosopher Karl Vogt is notorious for his assertion that "the brain secretes thought just as the liver secretes bile."384 Bile, however, is matter, whereas there is no evidence that thought is.

Reductionism is a logical deduction. However, a logical deduction can be based on solid grounds or on shaky ones. For this reason, the question we need to ask is: What happens when reductionism is compared to scientific data?

Nineteenth-century materialist scientists and thinkers thought that the answer would be that science verifies reductionism. Twentieth-century science, however, has revealed a very different picture.

One of the most salient feature of this picture is "information," which is present in nature and can never be reduced to matter.

The Difference between Matter and Information

We earlier mentioned that there is incredibly comprehensive information contained in the DNA of living things. Something as small as a hundred thousandth of a millimeter across contains a sort of "data bank" that specifies all the physical details of the body of a living thing. Moreover, the body also contains a system that reads this information, interprets it and carries out "production" in line with it. In all living cells, the information in the DNA is "read" by various enzymes, and proteins are produced. This system makes possible the production of millions of proteins every second, of just the required type for just the places where they are needed in our bodies. In this way, dead eye cells are replaced by living ones, and old blood cells by new ones.

At this point, let us consider the claim of materialism: Is it possible that the information in DNA could be reduced to matter, as materialists suggest? Or, in other words, can it be accepted that DNA is merely a collection of matter, and the information it contains came about as a result of the random interactions of such pieces of matter?

It is impossible for the information inside DNA to have emerged by chance and natural processes.

All the scientific research, experiments and observations carried out in the twentieth century show that the answer to this question is a definite "No." The director of the German Federal Physics and Technology Institute, Prof. Werner Gitt, has this to say on the issue:

A coding system always entails a nonmaterial intellectual process. A physical matter cannot produce an information code. All experiences show that every piece of creative information represents some mental effort and can be traced to a personal idea-giver who exercised his own free will, and who is endowed with an intelligent mind.... 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...385

Werner Gitt's words summarize the conclusions of "information theory," which has been developed in the last 50 years, and which is accepted as a part of thermodynamics. Information theory investigates the origin and nature of the information in the universe. The conclusion reached by information theoreticians as a result of long studies is that "Information is something different from matter. It can never be reduced to matter. The origin of information and physical matter must be investigated separately."

For instance, let us think of the source of a book. A book consists of paper, ink, and the information it contains. Paper and ink are material elements. Their source is again matter: Paper is made of cellulose, and ink of various chemicals. However, the information in the book is nonmaterial, and cannot have a material source. The source of the information in each book is the mind of the person who wrote it.

Moreover, this mind determines how the paper and ink will be used. A book initially forms in the mind of the writer. The writer builds a chain of logic in his mind, and orders his sentences. As a second step, he puts them into material form, which is to say that he translates the information in his mind into letters, using a pen, a typewriter or a computer. Later, these letters are printed in a publishing house, and take the shape of a book made up of paper and ink.

We can therefore state this general conclusion: If physical matter contains information, then that matter must have been designed by a mind that possessed the information in question. First there is the mind. That mind translates the information it possesses into matter, which constitutes the act of design.

The Origin of the Information in Nature

When we apply this scientific definition of information to nature, a very important result ensues. This is because nature overflows with an immense body of information (as, for example, in the case of DNA), and since this information cannot be reduced to matter, it therefore comes from a source beyond matter.

One of the foremost advocates of the theory of evolution, George C. Williams, admits this reality, which most materialists and evolutionists are reluctant to see. Williams has strongly defended materialism for years, but in an article he wrote in 1995, he states the incorrectness of the materialist (reductionist) approach which holds that everything is matter:

Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter… These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term "reductionism." …The gene is a package of information, not an object... In biology, when you're talking about things like genes and genotypes and gene pools, you're talking about information, not physical objective reality... This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.

Therefore, contrary to the supposition of materialists, the source of the information in nature cannot be matter itself. The source of information is not matter but a superior Wisdom beyond matter. This Wisdom existed prior to matter. The possessor of this Wisdom is God, the Lord of all the Worlds. Matter was brought into existence, given form, and organized by Him.

Materialist Admissions

We have already described how one of the fundamental principles that make up life is "knowledge," and it is clear that this knowledge proves the existence of an intelligent Creator. The theory of evolution, which tries to account for life as being the result of coincidences in a purely material world, and the materialist philosophy it is based on, are quite helpless in the face of this reality.

When we look at evolutionists' writings, we sometimes see that this helplessness is openly admitted. One forthright authority on this subject is the well-known French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé. He is a materialist and an evolutionist, although he sometimes openly admits the quandaries Darwinist theory faces. According to Grassé, the most important truth which invalidates the Darwinist account is the knowledge that gives rise to life:

Any living being possesses an enormous amount of "intelligence," very much more than is necessary to build the most magnificent of cathedrals. Today, this "intelligence" is called information, but it is still the same thing. It is not programmed as in a computer, but rather it is condensed on a molecular scale in the chromosomal DNA or in that of every other organelle in each cell. This "intelligence" is the sine qua non of life. Where does it come from?... This is a problem that concerns both biologists and philosophers, and, at present, science seems incapable of solving it.387

The reason why Pierre-Paul Grassé says, "Science seems incapable of solving it," is that he does not want any nonmaterialist explanation to be thought of as "scientific." However, science itself invalidates the hypotheses of materialist philosophy, and proves the existence of a Creator. Grassé and other materialist "scientists" either ignore this reality, or else say, "Science does not explain this." They do this because they are materialists first and scientists second, and they continue to believe in materialism, even if science demonstrates the exact opposite.

For this reason, in order to possess a correct scientific attitude, one has to distinguish between science and materialist philosophy.

384 Encyclopædia Britannica, "Modern Materialism." (emphasis added)
385 Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, CLV, Bielefeld, Germany, pp. 107, 141. (emphasis added)
386 George C. Williams, The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995, pp. 42-43. (emphasis added)
387 Pierre P. Grassé, The Evolution of Living Organisms, 1977, p. 168)

Evolution and Thermodynamics

Evolution and Thermodynamics

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, organized, 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 disorganized 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."364

If you leave a car out in natural conditions, it will rust and decay. In the same way, without an intelligent organization all the systems in the universe would decay. This is an incontrovertible law.

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 organized 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. Where the Second Law expresses an irreversible progression toward increased entropy and disorder, life evolves continually higher levels of order.365

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.366

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.367

As we have seen, the evolution claim is completely at odds with the laws of physics. 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, science writer Jeremy Rifkin notes that evolution is belived to overwhelm 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.368

These words well indicate that evolution is a dogmatic belief rather than a scientific thesis.

The Misconception About Open Systems

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. This claim goes no further than being an attempt by some evolutionists to distort scientific facts that invalidate their theory. In fact, a large number of scientists openly state that this claim is invalid, and violates thermodynamics. One of these is the Harvard scientist John Ross, who also holds evolutionist views. He explains that these unrealistic claims contain an important scientific error in the following remarks in Chemical and Engineering News:

...there are no known violations of the second law of thermodynamics. Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems. ...there is somehow associated with the field of far-from-equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself.369

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 can 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 form the much more complex and organized structures of cell organelles.

Ilya Prigogine and 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.

Ilya Prigogine

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). However, despite all his best efforts, he was unable to reconcile thermodynamics and evolution.

In his studies, he tried to link irreversible physical processes to the evolutionist scenario on the origin of life, but he was unsuccessful. His books, which are completely theoretical and include a large number of mathematical propositions which cannot be implemented in real life and which there is no possibility of observing, have been criticized by scientists, recognized as experts in the fields of physics, chemistry and thermodynamics, as having no practical and concrete value.

For instance, P. Hohenberg, a physicist regarded as an expert in the fields of statistical mechanics and pattern formation, and one of the authors of the book Review of Modern Physics, sets out his comments on Prigogine's studies in the May 1995 edition of Scientific American:

I don't know of a single phenomenon his theory has explained.370

And Cosma Shalizi, a theoretical physicist from Wisconsin University, has this to say about the fact that Prigogine's studies have reached no firm conclusion or explanation:

…in the just under five hundred pages of his Self-Organization in Nonequilibrium Systems, there are just four graphs of real-world data, and no comparison of any of his models with experimental results. Nor are his ideas about irreversibility at all connected to self-organization, except for their both being topics in statistical physics.371

The studies in the physical field by the determinedly materialist Prigogine also had the intention of providing support for the theory of evolution, because, as we have seen in the preceding pages, the theory of evolution is in clear conflict with the entropy principle, i.e., the second law of thermodynamics. The law of entropy, as we know, definitively states that when any organized, and complex structure is left to natural conditions, then loss of organization, complexity and information will result. In opposition to this, the theory of evolution claims that unordered, scattered, and unconscious atoms and molecules came together and gave rise to living things with their organized systems.

Prigogine determined to try to invent formulae that would make processes of this kind feasible.

However, all these efforts resulted in nothing but a series of theoretical experiments.

The two most important theories that emerged as a result of that aim were the theory of "self-organization" and the theory of "dissipative structures." The first of these maintains that simple molecules can organize together to form complex living systems; the second claims that ordered, complex systems can emerge in unordered, high-entropy systems. But these have no other practical and scientific value than creating new, imaginary worlds for evolutionists.

The fact that these theories explain nothing, and have produced no results, is admitted by many scientists. The well-known physicist Joel Keizer writes: "His supposed criteria for predicting the stability of far-from-equilibrium dissipative structures fails-except for states very near equilibrium."372

The theoretical physicist Cosma Shalizi has this to say on the subject: "Second, he tried to push forward a rigorous and well-grounded study of pattern formation and self-organization almost before anyone else. He failed, but the attempt was inspiring."373

F. Eugene Yates, editor of Self-Organizing Systems: The Emergence of Order, sums up the criticisms directed at Prigogine by Daniel L. Stein and the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Phillip W. Anderson, in an essay in that same journal:

The authors [Anderson and Stein] compare symmetry-breaking in thermodynamic equilibrium systems (leading to phase change) and in systems far from equilibrium (leading to dissipative structures). Thus, the authors do not believe that speculation about dissipative structures and their broken symmetries can, at present, be relevant to questions of the origin and persistence of life.374

In short, Prigogine's theoretical studies are of no value in explaining the origin of life. The same authors make this comment about his theories:

Contrary to statements in a number of books and articles in this field, we believe that there is no such theory, and it even may be that there are no such structures as they are implied to exist by Prigogine, Haken, and their collaborators.375

In essence, experts in the subject state that none of the theses Prigogine put forward possess any truth or validity, and that structures of the kind he discusses (dissipative structures) may not even really exist.

Prigogine's claims are considered in great detail in Jean Bricmont's article "Science of Chaos or Chaos in Science?" which makes their invalidity clear.

Despite the fact that Prigogine did not manage to find a way to support evolution, the mere fact that he took initiatives of this sort was enough for the evolutionists to accord him the very greatest respect. A large number of evolutionists have welcomed Prigogine's concept of "self-organization" with great hope and a superficial bias. Prigogine's imaginary theories and concepts have nevertheless convinced many people who do not know much about the subject that evolution has resolved the dilemma of thermodynamics, whereas 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.376

These are the speculations that evolutionists have indulged in, encouraged by Prigogine's theories, which were meant to resolve the conflict between evolution and other physical laws.

The Difference Between Organized and Ordered Systems

If we look carefully at Prigogine and other evolutionists' claims, we can see that they have fallen into a very important trap. In order to make evolution fit in with thermodynamics, evolutionists are constantly trying to prove that a given order can emerge from open systems.

And here it is important to bring out two key concepts to reveal the deceptive methods the evolutionists use. The deception lies in the deliberate confusing of two distinct concepts: "ordered" and "organized."

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 "organized" system. In other words, it possesses a clear design and information. Every part of it has been made by an intelligent entity in a planned manner.

The difference between the sand and the castle is that the former is an organized 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 "aaaaaaaa" 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 sentence, paragraph or book), the presence of intelligence is essential.

The same thing applies when a gust of 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 organized manner.

This means that complex, organized 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 certain 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 of 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.

However, as we made clear at the outset, organized systems are completely different structures from ordered ones. While ordered systems contain structures formed of simple repetitions, organized systems contain highly complex structures and processes, one often embedded inside the other. In order for such structures to come into existence, there is a need for intelligence, knowledge, and planning. Jeffrey Wicken, an evolutionist scientist, describes the important difference between these two concepts in this way:

'Organized' systems are to be carefully distinguished from 'ordered' systems. Neither kind of system is 'random,' but whereas ordered systems are generated according to simple algorithms and therefore lack complexity, organized systems must be assembled element by element according to an external 'wiring diagram' with a high information content ... Organization, then, is functional complexity and carries information.377

Ilya Prigogine-maybe as a result of evolutionist wishful thinking- resorted to a confusion of these two concepts, and advertised examples of molecules which ordered themselves under the influence of energy inflows as "self-organization."

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 each case random movements of molecules in a fluid are spontaneously replaced by a highly ordered behaviour. Prigogine, Eigen, and others have suggested that a similar sort of self-organization may be intrinsic in organic chemistry and can potentially account for the highly complex macromolecules essential for living systems. But such analogies have scant relevance to the origin-of-life question. A major reason is that they fail to distinguish between order and complexity...378

And this is how the same scientists explain the logical shallowness and distortion of claiming that water turning into ice is an example of how biological order can spontaneously emerge:

It has often been argued by analogy to water crystallizing to ice that simple monomers may polymerize into complex molecules such as protein and DNA. The analogy is clearly inappropriate, however… The atomic bonding forces draw water molecules into an orderly crystalline array when the thermal agitation (or entropy driving force) is made sufficiently small by lowering the temperature. Organic monomers such as amino acids resist combining at all at any temperature however, much less some orderly arrangement.379

Prigogine devoted his whole career to reconciling evolution and thermodynamics, but even he admitted that there was no resemblance between the crystallization of water and the emergence of complex biological structures:

The point is that in a non-isolated system there exists a possibility for formation of ordered, low-entropy structures at sufficiently low temperatures. This ordering principle is responsible for the appearance of ordered structures such as crystals as well as for the phenomena of phase transitions. Unfortunately this principle cannot explain the formation of biological structures. 380

In short, no chemical or physical effect can explain the origin of life, and the concept of "the self-organization of matter" will remain a fantasy.

Self-Organization: A Materialist Dogma

The claim that evolutionists maintain with the concept of "self-organization" is the belief that inanimate matter can organize itself and generate a complex living thing. This is an utterly unscientific conviction: Observation and experiment have incontrovertibly proven that matter has no such property. 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.381

Evolutionary 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.382

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 can so clearly be seen in living systems?

The answer to these questions lies hidden in the materialist philosophy that the theory of evolution is fundamentally constructed on. Materialist philosophy believes that only matter exists, for which reason living things need to be accounted for in a manner based on matter. It was this difficulty which gave birth to the theory of evolution, and no matter how much it conflicts with the scientific evidence, it is defended for just that reason. 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.383

The truths that we have been examining in this section clearly demonstrate the impossibility of evolution in the face of the second law of thermodynamics. The concept of "self-organization" is another dogma that evolutionist scientists are trying to keep alive despite all the scientific evidence.

364 Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, Viking Press, New York, 1980, p. 6.
365 J. H. Rush, The Dawn of Life, New York, Signet, 1962, p. 35.
366 Roger Lewin, "A Downward Slope to Greater Diversity," Science, vol. 217, 24 September, 1982, p. 1239.
367 George P. Stravropoulos, "The Frontiers and Limits of Science," American Scientist, vol. 65, November-December 1977, p. 674.
368 Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, Viking Press, New York, 1980, p. 55.
369 John Ross, Chemical and Engineering News, 27 July, 1980, p. 40. (emphasis added)
370 "From Complexity to Perplexity," Scientific American, May 1995.
371 Cosma Shalizi, "Ilya Prigogine," October 10, 2001, www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/notebooks/prigogine.html. (emphasis added)
372 Joel Keizer, "Statistical Thermodynamics of Nonequilibrium Processes," Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1987, p. 360-1. (emphasis added)
373 Cosma Shalizi, "Ilya Prigogine," October 10, 2001, www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/notebooks/prigogine.html. (emphasis added)
374 F. Eugene Yates, Self-Organizing Systems: The Emergence of Order, "Broken Symmetry, Emergent Properties, Dissipative Structures, Life: Are They Related," Plenum Press, New York, 1987, pp. 445-457. (emphasis added)
375 F. Eugene Yates, Self-Organizing Systems: The Emergence of Order, "Broken Symmetry, Emergent Properties, Dissipative Structures, Life: Are They Related" (NY: Plenum Press, 1987), p. 447.
376 Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, Bantam Books, New York, 1984, p. 175.
377 Jeffrey S. Wicken, "The Generation of Complexity in Evolution: A Thermodynamic and Information-Theoretical Discussion," Journal of Theoretical Biology, vol. 77, April 1979, p. 349.
378 Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley & Roger L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, 4th edition, Dallas, 1992, p. 151.
379 C. B. Thaxton, W. L. Bradley, and R. L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, Lewis and Stanley, Texas, 1992, p. 120. (emphasis added)
380 I. Prigogine, G. Nicolis ve A. Babloyants, "Thermodynamics of Evolution," Physics Today, November 1972, vol. 25, p. 23. (emphasis added)
381 Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, Michael Joseph, London, 1983, p. 20-21. (emphasis added)
382 Andrew Scott, "Update on Genesis," New Scientist, vol. 106, May 2nd, 1985, p. 30. (emphasis added)
383 Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Sceptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Summit Books, New York, 1986, p. 207. (emphasis added)

Irreducible Complexity

Irreducible Complexity

One of the most important concepts that one must employ when questioning Darwinist theory in the light of scientific discoveries is without a doubt the criterion that Darwin himself employed. In The Origin of Species, Darwin put forward a number of concrete criteria suggesting how his theory might be tested and, if found wanting, disproved. Many passages in his book begin, "If my theory be true," and in these Darwin describes the discoveries his theory requires. One of the most important of these criteria concerns fossils and "transitional forms." In earlier chapters, we examined how these prophecies of Darwin's did not come true, and how, on the contrary, the fossil record completely contradicts Darwinism.

In addition to these, Darwin gave us another very important criterion by which to test his theory. This criterion is so important, Darwin wrote, that it could cause his theory to be absolutely broken down:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. 348

We must examine Darwin's intention here very carefully. As we know, Darwinism explains the origin of life with two unconscious natural mechanisms: natural selection and random changes (in other words, mutations). According to Darwinist theory, these two mechanisms led to the emergence of the complex structure of living cells, as well as the anatomical systems of complex living things, such as eyes, ears, wings, lungs, bat sonar and millions of other complex system designs.

However, how is it that these systems, which possess incredibly complicated structures, can be considered the products of two unconscious natural effects? At this point, the concept Darwinism applies is that of "reducibility." It is claimed that these systems can be reduced to very basic states, and that they may have then developed by stages. Each stage gives a living thing a little more advantage, and is therefore chosen by natural selection. Then, later, there will be another small, chance development, and that too will be preferred because it affords an advantage, and the process will go on in this way. Thanks to this, according to the Darwinist claim, a species which originally possessed no eyes will come to possess perfect ones, and another species which was formerly unable to fly, will grow wings and be able to do so.

This story is explained in a very convincing and reasonable manner in evolutionist sources. But when one goes into it in a bit more detail, a great error appears. The first aspect of this error is a subject we have already studied in earlier pages of this book: Mutations are destructive, not constructive. In other words, chance mutations that occur in living creatures do not provide them any "advantages," and, furthermore, the idea that they could do this thousands of times, one after the other, is a dream that contradicts all scientific observations.

But there is yet another very important aspect to the error. Darwinist theory requires all the stages from one point to another to be individually "advantageous." In an evolutionary process from A to Z (for instance, from a wingless creature to a winged one), all the "intermediate" stages B, C, D, …V, W, X, and Y along the way have to provide advantages for the living thing in question. Since it is not possible for natural selection and mutation to consciously pick out their targets in advance, the whole theory is based on the hypothesis that living systems can be reduced to discrete traits that can be added on to the organism in small steps, each of which carries some selective advantage. That is why Darwin said, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

Given the primitive level of science in the nineteenth century, Darwin may have thought that living things possess a reducible structure. But twentieth century discoveries have shown that many systems and organs in living things cannot be reduced to simplicity. This fact, known as "irreducible complexity," definitively destroys Darwinism, just as Darwin himself feared.

The Bacterial Flagellum

The most important person to bring the concept of irreducible complexity to the forefront of the scientific agenda is the biochemist Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University in the United States. In his book Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, published in 1996, Behe examines the irreducibly complex structure of the cell and a number of other biochemical structures, and reveals that it is impossible to account for these by evolution. According to Behe, the real explanation of life is intelligent design.

Behe's book was a serious blow to Darwinism. In fact, Peter van Inwagen, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, stresses the importance of the book in this manner:

If Darwinians respond to this important book by ignoring it, misrepresenting it, or ridiculing it, that will be evidence in favor of the widespread suspicion that Darwinism today functions more as an ideology than as a scientific theory. If they can successfully answer Behe's arguments, that will be important evidence in favor of Darwinism.349

One of the interesting examples of irreducible complexity that Behe gives in his book is the bacterial flagellum. This is a whip-like organ that is used by some bacteria to move about in a liquid environment. This organ is embedded in the cell membrane, and enables the bacterium to move in a chosen direction at a particular speed.

Scientists have known about the flagellum for some time. However, its structural details, which have only emerged over the last decade or so, have come as a great surprise to them. It has been discovered that the flagellum moves by means of a very complicated "organic motor," and not by a simple vibratory mechanism as was earlier believed. This propeller-like engine is constructed on the same mechanical principles as an electric motor. There are two main parts to it: a moving part (the "rotor") and a stationary one (the "stator").

An electric motor-but not one in a household appliance or vehicle. This one is in a bacterium. Thanks to this motor, bacteria have been able to move those organs known as "flagella" and thus swim in water.This was discovered in the 1970s, and astounded the world of science, because this "irreducibly complex" organ, made up of some 240 distinct proteins, cannot be explained by chance mechanisms as Darwin had proposed.

The bacterial flagellum is different from all other organic systems that produce mechanical motion. The cell does not utilize available energy stored as ATP molecules. Instead, it has a special energy source: Bacteria use energy from the flow of ions across their outer cell membranes. The inner structure of the motor is extremely complex. Approximately 240 distinct proteins go into constructing the flagellum. Each one of these is carefully positioned. Scientists have determined that these proteins carry the signals to turn the motor on or off, form joints to facilitate movements at the atomic scale, and activate other proteins that connect the flagellum to the cell membrane. The models constructed to summarize the working of the system are enough to depict the complicated nature of the system.

The complicated structure of the bacterial flagellum is sufficient all by itself to demolish the theory of evolution, since the flagellum has an irreducibly complex structure. If one single molecule in this fabulously complex structure were to disappear, or become defective, the flagellum would neither work nor be of any use to the bacterium. The flagellum must have been working perfectly from the first moment of its existence. This fact again reveals the nonsense in the theory of evolution's assertion of "step by step development." In fact, not one evolutionary biologist has so far succeeded in explaining the origin of the bacterial flagellum although a few tried to do so.

The bacterial flagellum is clear evidence that even in supposedly "primitive" creatures there is an extraordinary design. As humanity learns more about the details, it becomes increasingly obvious that the organisms considered to be the simplest by the scientists of nineteenth century, including Darwin, are in fact just as complex as any others.

The Design of the Human Eye

The human eye is a very complicated system consisting of the delicate conjunction of some 40 separate components. Let us consider just one of these components: for example, the lens. We do not usually realize it, but the thing that enables us to see things clearly is the constant automatic focusing of the lens. If you wish, you can carry out a small experiment on this subject: Hold your index finger up in the air. Then look at the tip of your finger, then at the wall behind it. Every time you look from your finger to the wall you will feel an adjustment.

This adjustment is made by small muscles around the lens. Every time we look at something, these muscles go into action and enable us to see what we are looking at clearly by changing the thickness of the lens and turning it at the right angle to the light. The lens carries out this adjustment every second of our lives, and makes no mistakes. Photographers make the same adjustments in their cameras by hand, and sometimes have to struggle for quite some time to get the right focus. Within the last 10 to 15 years, modern technology has produced cameras which focus automatically, but no camera can focus as quickly and as well as the eye.

For an eye to be able to see, the 40 or so basic components which make it up need to be present at the same time and work together perfectly. The lens is only one of these. If all the other components, such as the cornea, iris, pupil, retina, and eye muscles, are all present and functioning properly, but just the eyelid is missing, then the eye will shortly incur serious damage and cease to carry out its function. In the same way, if all the subsystems exist but tear production ceases, then the eye will dry up and go blind within a few hours.

The theory of evolution's claim of "reducibility" loses all meaning in the face of the complicated structure of the eye. The reason is that, in order for the eye to function, all its parts need to be present at the same time. It is impossible, of course, for the mechanisms of natural selection and mutation to give rise to the eye's dozens of different subsystems when they can confer no advantage right up until the last stage. Professor Ali Demirsoy accepts the truth of this in these words:

It is rather hard to reply to a third objection. How was it possible for a complicated organ to come about suddenly even though it brought benefits with it? For instance, how did the lens, retina, optic nerve, and all the other parts in vertebrates that play a role in seeing suddenly come about? Because natural selection cannot choose separately between the visual nerve and the retina. The emergence of the lens has no meaning in the absence of a retina. The simultaneous development of all the structures for sight is unavoidable. Since parts that develop separately cannot be used, they will both be meaningless, and also perhaps disappear with time. At the same time, their development all together requires the coming together of unimaginably small probabilities.350

What Professor Demirsoy really means by "unimaginably small probabilities" is basically an "impossibility." It is clearly an impossibility for the eye to be the product of chance. Darwin also had a great difficulty in the face of this, and in a letter he even admitted, "I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over."351

The human eye works by some 40 different parts functioning together. If just one of these is not present, the eye will serve no purpose. Each of these 40 parts has its own individual complex structure. For instance, the retina, at the back of the eye, is made up of 11 strata (above right), each of which has a different function. The theory of evolution is unable to account for the development of such a complex organ.

In The Origin of Species, Darwin experienced a serious difficulty in the face of the eye's complex design. The only solution he found was in pointing to the simpler eye structure found in some creatures as the origin of the more complex eyes found in others. He hypothesized that more complex eyes evolved from simpler ones. However, this claim does not reflect the truth. Paleontology shows that living things emerged in the world with their exceedingly complex structures already intact. The oldest known system of sight is the trilobite eye. This 530-million-year-old compound eye structure, which we touched on in an earlier chapter, is an "optical marvel" which worked with a double lens system. This fact totally invalidates Darwin's assumption that complex eyes evolved from "primitive" eyes.

The Irreducible Structure of the "Primitive" Eye

It remains to be said that the organs described by Darwin as "primitive" eyes actually possess a complex and irreducible structure that can never be explained by chance. Even in its simplest form, for seeing to happen, some of a creature's cells need to become light-sensitive-that is, they need to possess the ability to transduce this sensitivity to light into electrical signals; a nerve network from these cells to the brain needs to emerge; and a visual center in the brain to evaluate the information has to be formed. It is senseless to propose that all of these things came about by chance, at the same time, and in the same living thing. In his book Evrim Kurami ve Bagnazlik (The Theory of Evolution and Bigotry), which he wrote to defend the theory of evolution, the evolutionist writer Cemal Yildirim admits this fact in this way:

A large number of mechanisms need to work together for sight: As well as the eye and the mechanisms inside it, we can mention the links between special centers in the brain and the eye. How did this complex system-creation come about? According to biologists, the first step in the emergence of the eye during the evolutionary process was taken with the appearance of a small, light-sensitive area on the skin of some primitive living things. But what advantage could such a minute development on its own confer on a living thing in natural selection? As well as this, there needs to be a visual center formed in the brain and a nerve system linked to it. As long as these rather complicated mechanisms are not linked to one another, then we cannot expect what we call "sight" to emerge. Darwin believed that variations emerged by chance. If that were the case, would not the appearance of all the many variations that sight requires in various places in the organism at the same time and their working together turn into a mystical puzzle?… However, a number of complementary changes working together in harmony and cooperation are needed for sight… Some molluscs' eyes have retina, cornea, and a lens of cellulose tissue just like ours. Now, how can we explain the evolutionary processes of these two very different types requiring a string of chance events just by natural selection? It is a matter for debate whether Darwinists have been able to provide a satisfactory answer to this question…352

This problem is so great from the evolutionist point of view that the closer we look at the details, the worse the quandary the theory finds itself in. One important "detail" which needs to be looked at is the claim about "the cell which came to be sensitive to light." Darwinists gloss this over by saying, "Sight may have started by a single cell becoming sensitive to light." But what kind of design is such a structure supposed to have had?

The Chemistry of Sight

In his book Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe stresses that the structure of the living cell and all other biochemical systems were unknown "black boxes" for Darwin and his contemporaries. Darwin assumed that these black boxes possessed very simple structures and could have come about by chance. Now, however, modern biochemistry has opened up these black boxes and revealed the irreducibly complex structure of life. Behe states that Darwin's comments on the emergence of the eye seemed convincing because of the primitive level of nineteenth-century science:

Darwin persuaded much of the world that a modern eye evolved gradually from a simpler structure, but he did not even try to explain where his starting point-the relatively simple light-sensitive spot-came from. On the contrary, Darwin dismissed the question of the eye's ultimate origin… He had an excellent reason for declining the question: it was completely beyond nineteenth-century science. How the eye works-that is, what happens when a photon of light first hits the retina-simply could not be answered at that time.353

So, how does this system, which Darwin glossed over as a simple structure, actually work? How do the cells in the eye's retinal layer perceive the light rays that fall on them?

The answer to that question is rather complicated. When photons hit the cells of the retina they activate a chain action, rather like a domino effect. The first of these domino pieces is a molecule called "11-cis-retinal" that is sensitive to photons. When struck by a photon, this molecule changes shape, which in turn changes the shape of a protein called "rhodopsin" to which it is tightly bound. Rhodopsin then takes a form that enables it to stick to another resident protein in the cell called "transducin."

Prior to reacting with rhodopsin, transducin is bound to another molecule called GDP. When it connects with rhodopsin, transducin releases the GDP molecule and is linked to a new molecule called GTP. That is why the new complex consisting of the two proteins (rhodopsin and transducin) and a smaller molecule (GTP) is called "GTP-transducin-rhodopsin."

But the process has only just begun. The new GTP-transducin-rhodopsin complex can now very quickly bind to another protein resident in the cell called "phosphodiesterase." This enables the phosphodiesterase protein to cut yet another molecule resident in the cell, called cGMP. Since this process takes place in the millions of proteins in the cell, the cGMP concentration is suddenly decreased.

How does all this help with sight? The last element of this chain reaction supplies the answer. The fall in the cGMP amount affects the ion channels in the cell. The so-called ion channel is a structure composed of proteins that regulate the number of sodium ions within the cell. Under normal conditions, the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell while another molecule disposes of the excess ions to maintain a balance. When the number of cGMP molecules falls, so does the number of sodium ions. This leads to an imbalance of charge across the membrane, which stimulates the nerve cells connected to these cells, forming what we refer to as an "electrical impulse." Nerves carry the impulses to the brain and "seeing" happens there.354

In brief, a single photon hits a single cell, and through a series of chain reactions the cell produces an electrical impulse. This stimulus is modulated by the energy of the photon-that is, the brightness of the light. Another fascinating fact is that all of the processes described so far happen in no more than one thousandth of a second. As soon as this chain reaction is completed, other specialized proteins within the cells convert elements such as 11-cis-retinal, rhodopsin and transducin back to their original states. The eye is under a constant shower of photons, and the chain reactions within the eye's sensitive cells enable it to perceive each one of these.

The process of sight is actually a great deal more complicated than the outline presented here would indicate. However, even this brief overview is sufficient to demonstrate the extraordinary nature of the system. There is such a complicated, finely calculated design inside the eye that it is nonsensical to claim that this system could have come about by chance. The system possesses a totally irreducibly complex structure. If even one of the many molecular parts that enter into a chain reaction with each other were missing, or did not possess a suitable structure, then the system would not function at all.

It is clear that this system deals a heavy blow to Darwin's explanation of life by "chance." Michael Behe makes this comment on the chemistry of the eye and the theory of evolution:

Now that the black box of vision has been opened, it is no longer enough for an evolutionary explanation of that power to consider only the anatomical structures of whole eyes, as Darwin did in the nineteenth century (and as popularizers of evolution continue to do today). Each of the anatomical steps and structures that Darwin thought were so simple actually involves staggeringly complicated biochemical processes that cannot be papered over with rhetoric.355

The irreducibly complex structure of the eye not only definitively disproves the Darwinist theory, but also shows that life was created with a superior design.

The Lobster Eye

There are many different types of eye in the living world. We are accustomed to the camera-type eye found in vertebrates. This structure works on the principle of the refraction of light, which falls onto the lens and is focused on a point behind the lens inside the interior of the eye.

However, the eyes possessed by other creatures work by very different methods. One example is the lobster. A lobster's eye works on a principle of reflection, rather than that of refraction.

The most outstanding characteristic of the lobster eye is its surface, which is composed of numerous squares. As shown in the picture, these squares are positioned most precisely. As one astronomer commented in Science: "The lobster is the most unrectangular animal I've ever seen. But under the microscope a lobster's eye looks like perfect graph paper."356

These well-arranged squares are in fact the ends of tiny square tubes forming a structure resembling a honeycomb. At first glance, the honeycomb appears to be made up of hexagons, although these are actually the front faces of hexagonal prisms. In the lobster's eye, there are the squares in place of hexagons.

Even more intriguing is that the sides of each one of these square tubes are like mirrors that reflect the incoming light. This reflected light is focused onto the retina flawlessly. The sides of the tubes inside the eye are lodged at such perfect angles that they all focus onto a single point.

The lobster eye is composed of numerous squares. These well-arranged squares are in fact the ends of tiny square tubes. The sides of each one of these square tubes are like mirrors that reflect the incoming light. This reflected light is focused onto the retina flawlessly. The sides of the tubes inside the eye are lodged at such perfect angles that they all focus onto a single point.

The extraordinary nature of the design of this system is quite indisputable. All of these perfect square tubes have a layer that works just like a mirror. Furthermore, each one of these cells is sited by means of precise geometrical alignments, so that they all focus the light at a single point.

Michael Land, a scientist and researcher at the University of Sussex in England, was the first to examine the lobster eye structure in detail. Land stated that the eye structure had a most surprising design.357

It is obvious that the design in the lobster eye presents a great difficulty for the theory of evolution. Most importantly, it exemplifies the concept of "irreducible complexity." If even one of its features-such as the facets of the eye, which are perfect squares, the mirrored sides of each unit, or the retina layer at the back-were eliminated, the eye could never function. Therefore, it is impossible to maintain that the eye evolved step-by-step. It is scientifically unjustifiable to argue that such a perfect design as this could have come about haphazardly. It is quite clear that the lobster eye was created as a miraculous system.

One can find further traits in the lobster's eye that nullify the assertions of evolutionists. An interesting fact emerges when one looks at creatures with similar eye structures. The reflecting eye, of which the lobster's eye is one example, is found in only one group of crustaceans, the so-called long-bodied decapods. This family includes the lobsters, the prawns and shrimp.

The other members of the Crustacea class display "the refracting type eye structure," which works on completely different principles from those of the reflecting type. Here, the eye is made up of hundreds of cells like a honeycomb. Unlike the square cells in a lobster eye, these cells are either hexagonal or round. Furthermore, instead of reflecting light, small lenses in the cells refract the light onto the focus on the retina.

The majority of crustaceans have the refracting eye structure. According to evolutionist assumptions, all the creatures within the class Crustacea should have evolved from the same ancestor. Therefore, evolutionists claim that refracting eye evolved from a refracting eye, which is far more common among the crustacea and of a fundamentally simpler design.

However, such reasoning is impossible, because both eye structures function perfectly within their own systems and have no room for any "transitional" phase. A crustacean would be left sightless and would be eliminated by natural selection if the refracting lens in its eye were to diminish and be replaced by reflecting mirrored surfaces.

It is, therefore, certain that both of these eye structures were designed and created separately. There is such superb geometric precision in these eyes that entertaining the possibility of "chance" is simply ludicrious.

The Design in the Ear

Another interesting example of the irreducibly complex organs in living things is the human ear.

As is commonly known, the hearing process begins with vibrations in the air. These vibrations are enhanced in the external ear. Research has shown that that part of the external ear known as the concha works as a kind of megaphone, and sound waves are intensified in the external auditory canal. In this way, the volume of sound waves increases considerably.

Sound intensified in this way enters the external auditory canal. This is the area from the external ear to the ear drum. One interesting feature of the auditory canal, which is some three and a half centimeters long, is the wax it constantly secretes. This liquid contains an antiseptic property which keeps bacteria and insects out. Furthermore, the cells on the surface of the auditory canal are aligned in a spiral form directed towards the outside, so that the wax always flows towards the outside of the ear as it is secreted.

Sound vibrations which pass down the auditory canal in this way reach the ear drum. This membrane is so sensitive that it can even perceive vibrations on the molecular level. Thanks to the exquisite sensitivity of the ear drum, you can easily hear somebody whispering from yards away. Or you can hear the vibration set up as you slowly rub two fingers together. Another extraordinary feature of the ear drum is that after receiving a vibration it returns to its normal state. Calculations have revealed that, after perceiving the tiniest vibrations, the ear drum becomes motionless again within up to four thousandths of a second. If it did not become motionless again so quickly, every sound we hear would echo in our ears.

The ear drum amplifies the vibrations which come to it, and sends them on to the middle ear region. Here, there are three bones in an extremely sensitive equilibrium with each other. These three bones are known as the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup; their function is to amplify the vibrations that reach them from the ear drum.

But the middle ear also possesses a kind of "buffer," to reduce exceedingly high levels of sound. This feature is provided by two of the body's smallest muscles, which control the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones. These muscles enable exceptionally loud noises to be reduced before they reach the inner ear. Thanks to this mechanism, we hear sounds that are loud enough to shock the system at a reduced volume. These muscles are involuntary, and come into operation automatically, in such a way that even if we are asleep and there is a loud noise beside us, these muscles immediately contract and reduce the intensity of the vibration reaching the inner ear.

The middle ear, which possesses such a flawless design, needs to maintain an important equilibrium. The air pressure inside the middle ear has to be the same as that beyond the ear drum, in other words, the same as the atmospheric air pressure. But this balance has been thought of, and a canal between the middle ear and the outside world which allows an exchange of air has been built in. This canal is the Eustachean tube, a hollow tube running from the inner ear to the oral cavity.

The Inner Ear

It will be seen that all we have examined so far consists of the vibrations in the outer and middle ear. The vibrations are constantly passed forward, but so far there is still nothing apart from a mechanical motion. In other words, there is as yet no sound.

The process whereby these mechanical motions begin to be turned into sound begins in the area known as the inner ear. In the inner ear is a spiral-shaped organ filled with a liquid. This organ is called the cochlea.

The complex structure of the inner ear. Inside this complicated bone structure is found both the system that maintains our balance, and also a very sensitive hearing system that turns vibrations into sound.

The last part of the middle ear is the stirrup bone, which is linked to the cochlea by a membrane. The mechanical vibrations in the middle ear are sent on to the liquid in the inner ear by this connection.

The vibrations which reach the liquid in the inner ear set up wave effects in the liquid. The inner walls of the cochlea are lined with small hair-like structures, called stereocilia, which are affected by this wave effect. These tiny hairs move strictly in accordance with the motion of the liquid. If a loud noise is emitted, then more hairs bend in a more powerful way. Every different frequency in the outside world sets up different effects in the hairs.

But what is the meaning of this movement of the hairs? What can the movement of the tiny hairs in the cochlea in the inner ear have to do with listening to a concert of classical music, recognizing a friend's voice, hearing the sound of a car, or distinguishing the millions of other kinds of sounds?

The answer is most interesting, and once more reveals the complexity of the design in the ear. Each of the tiny hairs covering the inner walls of the cochlea is actually a mechanism which lies on top of 16,000 hair cells. When these hairs sense a vibration, they move and push each other, just like dominos. This motion opens channels in the membranes of the cells lying beneath the hairs. And this allows the inflow of ions into the cells. When the hairs move in the opposite direction, these channels close again. Thus, this constant motion of the hairs causes constant changes in the chemical balance within the underlying cells, which in turn enables them to produce electrical signals. These electrical signals are forwarded to the brain by nerves, and the brain then processes them, turning them into sound.

The inner walls of the cochlea in the inner ear are lined with tiny hairs. These move in line with the wave motion set up in the liquid in the inner ear by vibrations coming from outside. In this way, the electrical balance of the cells to which the hairs are attached changes, and forms the signals we perceive as "sound."

Science has not been able to explain all the technical details of this system. While producing these electrical signals, the cells in the inner ear also manage to transmit the frequencies, strengths, and rhythms coming from the outside. This is such a complicated process that science has so far been unable to determine whether the frequency-distinguishing system takes place in the inner ear or in the brain.

At this point, there is an interesting fact we have to consider concerning the motion of the tiny hairs on the cells of the inner ear. Earlier, we said that the hairs waved back and forth, pushing each other like dominos. But usually the motion of these tiny hairs is very small. Research has shown that a hair motion of just by the width of an atom can be enough to set off the reaction in the cell. Experts who have studied the matter give a very interesting example to describe this sensitivity of these hairs: If we imagine a hair as being as tall as the Eiffel Tower, the effect on the cell attached to it begins with a motion equivalent to just 3 centimeters of the top of the tower.358

Just as interesting is the question of how often these tiny hairs can move in a second. This changes according to the frequency of the sound. As the frequency gets higher, the number of times these tiny hairs can move reaches unbelievable levels: for instance, a sound of a frequency of 20,000 causes these tiny hairs to move 20,000 times a second.

Everything we have examined so far has shown us that the ear possesses an extraordinary design. On closer examination, it becomes evident that this design is irreducibly complex, since, in order for hearing to happen, it is necessary for all the component parts of the auditory system to be present and in complete working order. Take away any one of these-for instance, the hammer bone in the middle ear-or damage its structure, and you will no longer be able to hear anything. In order for you to hear, such different elements as the ear drum, the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones, the inner ear membrane, the cochlea, the liquid inside the cochlea, the tiny hairs that transmit the vibrations from the liquid to the underlying sensory cells, the latter cells themselves, the nerve network running from them to the brain, and the hearing center in the brain must all exist in complete working order. The system cannot develop "by stages," because the intermediate stages would serve no purpose.

The Origin of the Ear According to Evolutionists

The irreducibly complex system in the ear is something that evolutionists can never satisfactorily explain. When we look at the theories evolutionists occasionally propose, we are met by a facile and superficial logic. For example, the writer Veysel Atayman, who translated the book Im Anfang War der Wasserstoff (In the Beginning was Hydrogen), by the German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth, into Turkish, and who has come to be regarded as an "evolution expert" by the Turkish media, sums up his "scientific" theory on the origin of the ear and the evidence for it in this way:

Our hearing organ, the ear, emerged as a result of the evolution of the endoderm and exoderm layers, which we call the skin. One proof of this is that we feel low sounds in the skin of our stomachs!359

In other words, Atayman thinks that the ear evolved from the ordinary skin in other parts of our bodies, and sees our feeling low sounds in our skin as a proof of this.

Let us first take Atayman's "theory," and then the "proof" he offers. We have just seen that the ear is a complex structure made up of dozens of different parts. To propose that this structure emerged with "the evolution of layers of skin" is, in a word, to build castles in the air. What mutation or natural selection effect could enable such an evolution to happen? Which part of the ear formed first? How could that part, the product of coincidence, have been chosen by natural selection even though it had no function? How did chance bring about all the sensitive mechanical balances in the ear: the ear drum, the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones, the muscles that control them, the inner ear, the cochlea, the liquid in it, the tiny hairs, the movement-sensitive cells, their nerve connections, etc.?

There is no answer to these questions. In fact, to suggest that all this complex structure is just "chance" is actually an attack on human intelligence. However, in Michael Denton's words, to the Darwinist "the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence!"360

Beyond the mechanisms of natural selection and mutation, evolutionists really believe in a "magic wand" that brings about the most complex designs by chance.

The "proof" that Atayman supplies for this imaginary theory is even more interesting. He says, "Our feeling low sounds in our skin is proof." What we call sound actually consists of vibrations in the air. Since vibrations are a physical effect, of course they can be perceived by our sense of touch. For that reason it is quite normal that we should be able to feel high and low sounds physically. Furthermore, these sounds also affect bodies physically. The breaking of glass in a room under high intensities of sound is one example of this. The interesting thing is that the evolutionist writer Atayman should think that these effects are a proof of the evolution of the ear. The logic Atayman employs is the following: "The ear perceives sound waves, our skin is affected by these vibrations, therefore, the ear evolved from the skin." Following Atayman's logic, one could also say, "The ear perceives sound waves, glass is also affected by these, therefore the ear evolved from glass." Once one has left the bounds of reason, there is no "theory" that cannot be proposed.

Other scenarios that evolutionists put forward regarding the origin of the ear are surprisingly inconsistent. Evolutionists claim that all mammals, including human beings, evolved from reptiles. But, as we saw earlier, reptiles' ear structures are very different from those of mammals. All mammals possess the middle ear structure made up of the three bones that have just been described, whereas there is only one bone in the middle ear of all reptiles. In response to this, evolutionists claim that four separate bones in the jaws of reptiles changed place by chance and "migrated" to the middle ear, and that again by chance they took on just the right shape to turn into the anvil and stirrup bones. According to this imaginary scenario, the single bone in reptiles' middle ears changed shape and turned into the hammer bone, and the exceedingly sensitive equilibrium between the three bones in the middle ear was established by chance.361

This fantastical claim, based on no scientific discovery at all (it corresponds to nothing in the fossil record), is exceedingly self-contradictory. The most important point here is that such an imaginary change would leave a creature deaf. Naturally, a living thing cannot continue hearing if its jaw bones slowly start entering its inner ear. Such a species would be at a disadvantage compared to other living things and would be eliminated, according to what evolutionists themselves believe.

On the other hand, a living thing whose jaw bones were moving towards its ear would end up with a defective jaw. Such a creature's ability to chew would greatly decrease, and even disappear totally. This, too, would disadvantage the creature, and result in its elimination.

In short, the results which emerge when one examines the structure of ears and their origins clearly invalidate evolutionist assumptions. The Grolier Encyclopedia, an evolutionist source, makes the admission that "the origin of the ear is shrouded in uncertainty."362 Actually, anyone who studies the system in the ear with common sense can easily see that it is the product of a conscious creation.

The Reproduction of Rheobatrachus Silus

Irreducible complexity is not a feature that we only see at the biochemical level or in complicated organs. Many biological systems possessed by living things are irreducibly complex, and invalidate the theory of evolution for that reason. The extraordinary reproductive method of Rheobatrachus silus, a species of frog living in Australia, is an example of this.

The females of this species use a fascinating method to protect their eggs after fertilization. They swallow them. The tadpoles remain and grow in the stomach for the first six weeks after they hatch. How is it possible that they can remain in their mothers' stomach that long without being digested?

A flawless system has been created to enable them to do so. First, the female gives up eating and drinking for those six weeks, which means the stomach is reserved solely for the tadpoles. However, another danger is the regular release of hydrochloric acid and pepsin in the stomach. These chemicals would normally quickly kill the offspring. However, this is prevented by a very special measure. The fluids in the stomach of the mother are neutralized by the hormonelike substance prostaglandin E2, which is secreted first by the egg capsules and then by the tadpoles. Hence, the offspring grow healthily, even though they are swimming in a pool of acid.

The females of this species hide their young in their stomachs throughout the incubation period, and then give birth to them through their mouths. But in order for this to happen, a number of adjustments have to be made, all at the same time and with no mistakes allowed: The egg-structure has to be set up, the stomach acid must be neutralized, and the mothers have to be able to live for weeks without feeding.

How do the tadpoles feed inside the empty stomach? The solution to this has been thought of, too. The eggs of this species are significantly larger than those of others, as they contain a yolk very rich in proteins, sufficient to feed the tadpoles for six weeks. The time of birth is designed perfectly, as well. The oesophagus of the female frog dilates during birth, just like the vagina of mammals during delivery. Once the young have emerged, the oesophagus and the stomach both return to normal, and the female starts feeding again.363

The miraculous reproduction system of Rheobatrachus silus explicitly invalidates the theory of evolution, since the whole system is irreducibly complex. Every step has to take place fully in order for the frogs to survive. The mother has to swallow the eggs, and has to stop feeding completely for six weeks. The eggs have to release a hormonelike substance to neutralize stomach acids. The addition of the extra protein-rich yolk to the egg is another necessity. The widening of the female's oesophagus cannot be coincidental. If all these things failed to happen in the requisite sequence, the froglets would not survive, and the species would face extinction.

Therefore, this system cannot have developed step-by-step, as asserted by the theory of evolution. The species has existed with this entire system intact since its first member came into existence. Another way of putting it is, they were created.

Conclusion

In this section we have only examined a few examples of the concept of irreducible complexity. In fact, most organs and systems in living things possess the feature. On the biochemical level in particular, systems function by the working together of a number of independent parts, and cannot by any means be reduced to further simplicity. This fact invalidates Darwinism, which tries to account for the design in life by natural influences. Darwin said that "if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Today, modern biology has revealed countless examples of this. One can only conclude, then, that Darwinism has "absolutely" broken down.

348 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189. (emphasis added)
349 Peter van Inwagen, Review about Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box.
350 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publications, Ankara, p. 475. (emphasis added)
351 Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason, Harvard Common Press, 1971, p. 131.
352 Cemal Yildirim, Evrim Kurami ve Bagnazlik (Theory of Evolution and Bigotry), Bilgi Publications, January 1989, pp. 58-59. (emphasis added)
353 Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, p. 18.
354 Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, pp. 18-21.
355 Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, p. 22. (emphasis added)
356 J. R. P. Angel, "Lobster Eyes as X-ray Telescopes," Astrophysical Journal, 1979, No. 233, pp. 364-373. See also B. K. Hartline (1980), "Lobster-Eye X-ray Telescope Envisioned," Science, No. 207, p. 47, cited in Michael Denton, Nature's Destiny, The Free Press, 1998, p. 354.
357 M. F. Land, "Superposition Images are Formed by Reflection in the Eyes of Some Oceanic Decapod Crustacea," Nature, 1976, vol. 263, pp. 764-765.
358 Jeff Goldberg, "The Quivering Bundles That Let Us Hear," Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling the World, A Report from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, p. 38.
359 Veysel Atayman, "Maddeci 'Madde', Evrimci Madde" (Materialist 'Matter', Evolutionist Matter), Evrensel News Paper, 13 June 1999. (emphasis added)
360 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985, p. 351.
361 Duane T. Gish, "The Mammal-like Reptiles," Impact, no. 102, December 1981.
362 "Ear / Evolution of the Ear" Grolier Academic Encyclopedia,1986, p. 6. (emphasis added)
363 William E. Duruelleman & Linda Trueb, "The Gastric Brooding Frog," Megraw-Hill Book com., 1986.)

The Origin of Plants

The Origin of Plants

Life on earth is divided into five (or sometimes six) kingdoms by scientists. We have so far concentrated mainly on the greatest kingdom, that of animals. In the preceding chapters, we considered the origin of life itself, studying proteins, genetic information, cell structure and bacteria, issues that are related with two other kingdoms, Prokaryotae and Protista. But at this point there is another important matter we need to concentrate on-the origin of the plant kingdom (Plantae).

We find the same picture in the origin of plants as we met when examining the origin of animals. Plants possess exceedingly complex structures, and it is not possible for these to come about by chance effects and for them to evolve into one another. The fossil record shows that the different classes of plants emerged all of a sudden in the world, each with its own particular characteristics, and with no period of evolution behind it.

The Origin of the Plant Cell

Like animal cells, plant cells belong to the type known as "eukaryotic." The most distinctive feature of these is that they have a cell nucleus, and the DNA molecule in which their genetic information is encoded lies within this nucleus. On the other hand, some single-celled creatures such as bacteria have no cell nucleus, and the DNA molecule is free inside the cell. This second type of cell is called "prokaryotic." This type of cell structure, with free DNA unconfined within a nucleus, is an ideal design for bacteria, as it makes possible the very important process-from the bacterial point of view-of plasmid transfer (that is, the transfer of DNA from cell to cell).

Because the theory of evolutsion is obliged to arrange living things in a sequence "from primitive to complex," it assumes that prokaryotic cells are primitive, and that eukaryotic cells evolved from them.

Before moving to the invalidity of this claim, it will be useful to demonstrate that prokaryotic cells are not at all "primitive." A bacterium possesses some 2,000 genes; each gene contains about 100 letters (links). This means that the information in a bacterium's DNA is some 2 hundred thousand letters long. According to this calculation, the information in the DNA of one bacterium is equivalent to 20 novels, each of 100,000 words.326 Any change in the information in the DNA code of a bacterium would be so deleterious as to ruin the bacterium's entire working system. As we have seen, a fault in a bacterium's genetic code means that the working system will go wrong-that is, the cell will die.

Alongside this sensitive structure, which defies chance changes, the fact that no "intermediate form" between bacteria and eukaryotic cells has been found makes the evolutionist claim unfounded. For example, the famous Turkish evolutionist Professor Ali Demirsoy confesses the groundlessness of the scenario that bacterial cells evolved into eukaryotic cells, and then into complex organisms made up of these cells:

One of the most difficult stages to be explained in evolution is to scientifically explain how organelles and complex cells developed from these primitive creatures. No transitional form has been found between these two forms. One- and multicelled creatures carry all this complicated structure, and no creature or group has yet been found with organelles of a simpler construction in any way, or which are more primitive. In other words, the organelles carried forward have developed just as they are. They have no simple and primitive forms.327

One wonders, what is it that encourages Professor Ali Demirsoy, a loyal adherent of the theory of evolution, to make such an open admission? The answer to this question can be given quite clearly when the great structural differences between bacteria and plant cells are examined.

These are:

1- While the walls of bacterial cells are formed of polysaccharide and protein, the walls of plant cells are formed of cellulose, a totally different structure.

2- While plant cells possess many organelles, covered in membranes and possessing very complex structures, bacterial cells lack typical organelles. In bacterial cells there are just freely moving tiny ribosomes. But the ribosomes in plant cells are larger and are attached to the cell membrane. Furthermore, protein synthesis takes place by different means in the two types of ribosomes.

Plants form the fundamental basis of life on earth. They are an indispensable condition for life, as they provide food and release oxygen to the air.

3- The DNA structures in plant and bacterial cells are different.

4- The DNA molecule in plant cells is protected by a double-layered membrane, whereas the DNA in bacterial cells stands free within the cell.

5- The DNA molecule in bacterial cells resembles a closed loop; in other words, it is circular. In plants, the DNA molecule is linear.

6- The DNA molecule in bacterial cells carries information belonging to just one cell, but in plant cells the DNA molecule carries information about the whole plant. For example, all the information about a fruit-bearing tree's roots, stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit are all found separately in the DNA in the nucleus of just one cell.

7- Some species of bacteria are photosynthetic, in other words, they carry out photosynthesis. But unlike plants, in photosynthetic bacteria (cyanobacteria, for instance), there is no chloroplast containing chlorophyll and photosynthetic pigments. Rather, these molecules are buried in various membranes all over the cell.

8- The biochemistry of messenger RNA formation in prokaryotic (bacterial) cells and in eukaryotic (including plant and animal) cells are quite different from one another.328

The evolutionist hypothesis that prokaryotic cells (left) turned into eukaryotic cells over time has no scientific basis to it.

Messenger RNA plays a vital role for the cell to live. But although messenger RNA assumes the same vital role in both prokaryotic cells and in eukaryotic cells, their biochemical structures are different. J. Darnell wrote the following in an article published in Science:

The differences in the biochemistry of messenger RNA formation in eukaryotes compared to prokaryotes are so profound as to suggest that sequential prokaryotic to eukaryotic cell evolution seems unlikely.329

The structural differences between bacterial and plant cells, of which we have seen a few examples above, lead evolutionist scientists to another dead-end. Although plant and bacterial cells have some aspects in common, most of their structures are quite different from one another. In fact, since there are no membrane-surrounded organelles or a cytoskeleton (the internal network of protein filaments and microtubules) in bacterial cells, the presence of several very complex organelles and cell organization in plant cells totally invalidates the claim that the plant cell evolved from the bacterial cell.

Biologist Ali Demirsoy openly admits this, saying, "Complex cells never developed from primitive cells by a process of evolution."330

The Endosymbiosis Hypothesis and Its Invalidity

The impossibility of plant cells' having evolved from a bacterial cell has not prevented evolutionary biologists from producing speculative hypotheses. But experiments disprove these.331 The most popular of these is the "endosymbiosis" hypothesis.

This hypothesis was put forward by Lynn Margulis in 1970 in her book The Origin of Eukaryotic Cells. In this book, Margulis claimed that as a result of their communal and parasitic lives, bacterial cells turned into plant and animal cells. According to this theory, plant cells emerged when a photosynthetic bacterium was swallowed by another bacterial cell. The photosynthetic bacterium evolved inside the parent cell into a chloroplast. Lastly, organelles with highly complex structures such as the nucleus, the Golgi apparatus, the endoplasmic reticulum, and ribosomes evolved, in some way or other. Thus, the plant cell was born.

As we have seen, this thesis of the evolutionists is nothing but a work of fantasy. Unsurprisingly, it was criticized by scientists who carried out very important research into the subject on a number of grounds: We can cite D. Lloyd332, M. Gray and W. Doolittle333, and R. Raff and H. Mahler as examples of these.

The endosymbiosis hypothesis is based on the fact that the mitochondria of animal cells and the chloroplasts of plant cells contain their own DNA, separate from the DNA in the nucleus of the parent cell. So, on this basis, it is suggested that mitochondria and chloroplasts were once independent, free-living cells. However, when chloroplasts are studied in detail, it can be seen that this claim is inconsistent.

A number of points invalidate the endosymbiosis hypothesis:

1- If chloroplasts, in particular, were once independent cells, then there could only have been one outcome if one were swallowed by a larger cell: namely, it would have been digested by the parent cell and used as food. This must be so, because even if we assume that the parent cell in question took such a cell into itself from the outside by mistake, instead of intentionally ingesting it as food, nevertheless, the digestive enzymes in the parent cell would have destroyed it. Of course, some evolutionists have gotten around this obstacle by saying, "The digestive enzymes had disappeared." But this is a clear contradiction, because if the cell's digestive enzymes had disappeared, then the cell would have died from lack of nutrition.

2- Again, let us assume that all the impossible happened and that the cell which is claimed to have been the ancestor of the chloroplast was swallowed by the parent cell. In this case we are faced with another problem: The blueprints of all the organelles inside the cell are encoded in the DNA. If the parent cell were going to use other cells it swallowed as organelles, then it would be necessary for all of the information about them to be already present and encoded in its DNA. The DNA of the swallowed cells would have to possess information belonging to the parent cell. Not only is such a situation impossible, the two complements of DNA belonging to the parent cell and the swallowed cell would also have to become compatible with each other afterwards, which is also clearly impossible.

3- There is great harmony within the cell which random mutations cannot account for. There are more than just one chloroplast and one mitochondrion in a cell. Their number rises or falls according to the activity level of the cell, just like with other organelles. The existence of DNA in the bodies of these organelles is also of use in reproduction. As the cell divides, all of the numerous chloroplasts divide too, and the cell division happens in a shorter time and more regularly.

4- Chloroplasts are energy generators of absolutely vital importance to the plant cell. If these organelles did not produce energy, many of the cell's functions would not work, which would mean that the cell could not live. These functions, which are so important to the cell, take place with proteins synthesized in the chloroplasts. But the chloroplasts' own DNA is not enough to synthesize these proteins. The greater part of the proteins are synthesized using the parent DNA in the cell nucleus.334

While the situation envisioned by the endosymbiosis hypothesis is occurring through a process of trial and error, what effects would this have on the DNA of the parent cell? As we have seen, any change in a DNA molecule definitely does not result in a gain for that organism; on the contrary, any such mutation would certainly be harmful. In his book The Roots of Life, Mahlon B. Hoagland explains the situation:

You'll recall we learned that almost always a change in an organism's DNA is detrimental to it; that is, it leads to a reduced capacity to survive. By way of analogy, random additions of sentences to the plays of Shakespeare are not likely to improve them! …The principle that DNA changes are harmful by virtue of reducing survival chances applies whether a change in DNA is caused by a mutation or by some foreign genes we deliberately add to it.335

The claims put forward by evolutionists are not based on scientific experiments, because no such thing as one bacterium swallowing another one has ever been observed. In his review of a later book by Margulis, Symbiosis in Cell Evolution, molecular biologist P. Whitfield describes the situation:

Prokaryotic endocytosis is the cellular mechanism on which the whole of S.E.T. (Serial Endosymbiotic Theory) presumably rests. If one prokaryote could not engulf another it is difficult to imagine how endosymbioses could be set up. Unfortunately for Margulis and S.E.T., no modern examples of prokaryotic endocytosis or endosymbiosis exist…336

The Origin of Photosynthesis

Another matter regarding the origin of plants which puts the theory of evolution into a terrible quandary is the question of how plant cells began to carry out photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is one of the fundamental processes of life on earth. Thanks to the chloroplasts inside them, plant cells produce starch by using water, carbon dioxide and sunlight. Animals are unable to produce their own nutrients and must use the starch from plants for food instead. For this reason, photosynthesis is a basic condition for complex life. An even more interesting side of the matter is the fact that this complex process of photosynthesis has not yet been fully understood. Modern technology has not yet been able to reveal all of its details, let alone reproduce it.

Is it possible for such a complex process as photosynthesis to be the product of natural processes, as the theory of evolution holds?

According to the evolution scenario, in order to carry out photosynthesis, plant cells swallowed bacterial cells which could photosynthesize and turned them into chloroplasts. So, how did bacteria learn to carry out such a complicated process as photosynthesis? And why had they not begun to carry out such a process before then? As with other questions, the scenario has no scientific answer to give. Have a look at how an evolutionist publication answers the question:

The heterotroph hypothesis suggests that the earliest organisms were heterotrophs that fed on a soup of organic molecules in the primitive ocean. As these first heterotrophs consumed the available amino acids, proteins, fats, and sugars, the nutrient soup became depleted and could no longer support a growing population of heterotrophs. …Organisms that could use an alternate source of energy would have had a great advantage. Consider that Earth was (and continues to be) flooded with solar energy that actually consists of different forms of radiation. Ultraviolet radiation is destructive, but visible light is energy-rich and undestructive. Thus, as organic compounds became increasingly rare, an already-present ability to use visible light as an alternate source of energy might have enabled such organisms and their descendents to survive.337

The book Life on Earth, another evolutionist source, tries to explain the emergence of photosynthesis:

The bacteria fed initially on the various carbon compounds that had taken so many millions of years to accumulate in the primordial seas. But as they flourished, so this food must have become scarcer. Any bacterium that could tap a different source of food would obviously be very successful and eventually some did. Instead of taking ready-made food from their surroundings, they began to manufacture their own within their cell walls, drawing the necessary energy from the sun.338

In short, evolutionist sources say that photosynthesis was in some way coincidentally "discovered" by bacteria, even though man, with all his technology and knowledge, has been unable to do so. These accounts, which are no better than fairy tales, have no scientific worth. Those who study the subject in a bit more depth will accept that photosynthesis is a major dilemma for evolution. Professor Ali Demirsoy makes the following admission, for instance:

Photosynthesis is a rather complicated event, and it seems impossible for it to emerge in an organelle inside a cell (because it is impossible for all the stages to have come about at once, and it is meaningless for them to have emerged separately).339

Plant cells carry out a process that no modern laboratory can duplicate-photosynthesis. Thanks to the organelle called the "chloroplast" in the plant cell, plants use water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to create starch. This food product is the first step in the earth's food chain, and the source of food for all its inhabitants. The details of this exceedingly complex process are still not fully understood today.

The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth says that photosynthesis is a process that cannot possibly be learned:

No cell possesses the capacity to 'learn' a process in the true sense of the word. It is impossible for any cell to come by the ability to carry out such functions as respiration or photosynthesis, neither when it first comes into being, nor later in life.340

Since photosynthesis cannot develop as the result of chance, and cannot subsequently be learned by a cell, it appears that the first plant cells that lived on the earth were specially designed to carry out photosynthesis. In other words, plants were created with the ability to photosynthesize.

The Origin of Algae

The theory of evolution hypothesizes that single-celled plant-like creatures, whose origins it is unable to explain, came in time to form algae. The origin of algae goes back to very remote times. So much so, that fossil algae remains from 3.1 to 3.4 million years old have been found. The interesting thing is that there is no structural difference between these extraordinarily ancient living things and specimens living in our own time. An article published in Science News says:

Both blue-green algae and bacteria fossils dating back 3.4 billion years have been found in rocks from S. Africa. Even more intriguing, the pleurocapsalean algae turned out to be almost identical to modern pleurocapsalean algae at the family and possibly even at the generic level.

The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth makes this comment on the complex structure of so-called "primitive" algae:

The oldest fossils so far discovered are objects fossilized in minerals which belong to blue green algae, more than 3 billion years old. No matter how primitive they are, they still represent rather complicated and expertly organized forms of life.342

Evolutionary biologists consider that the algae in question gave rise over time to other marine plants and moved to the land some 450 million years ago. However, just like the scenario of animals moving from water onto the land, the idea that plants moved from water to the land is another fantasy. Both scenarios are invalid and inconsistent. Evolutionist sources usually try to gloss over the subject with such fantastical and unscientific comments as "algae in some way moved onto the land and adapted to it." But there are a large number of obstacles that make this transition quite impossible. Let us have a short look at the most important of them.

1- The danger of drying out: For a plant which lives in water to be able to live on land, its surface has first of all to be protected from water loss. Otherwise the plant will dry out. Land plants are provided with special systems to prevent this from happening. There are very important details in these systems. For example, this protection must happen in such a way that important gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide are able to leave and enter the plant freely. At the same time, it is important that evaporation be prevented. If a plant does not possess such a system, it cannot wait millions of years to develop one. In such a situation, the plant will soon dry up and die.

2- Feeding: Marine plants take the water and minerals they need directly from the water they are in. For this reason, any algae which tried to live on land would have a food problem. They could not live without resolving it.

3- Reproduction: Algae, with their short life span, have no chance of reproducing on land, because, as in all their functions, algae also use water to disperse their reproductive cells. In order to be able to reproduce on land, they would need to possess multicellular reproductive cells like those of land plants, which are covered by a protective layer of cells. Lacking these, any algae which found themselves on land would be unable to protect their reproductive cells from danger.

Free-swimming algae in the ocean.

4- Protection from oxygen: Any algae which arrived on land would have taken in oxygen in a decomposed form up until that point. According to the evolutionists' scenario, now they would have to take in oxygen in a form they had never encountered before, in other words, directly from the atmosphere. As we know, under normal conditions the oxygen in the atmosphere has a poisoning effect on organic substances. Living things which live on land possess systems which stop them being harmed by it. But algae are marine plants, which means they do not possess the enzymes to protect them from the harmful effects of oxygen. So, as soon as they arrived on land, it would be impossible for them to avoid these effects. Neither is there any question of their waiting for such a system to develop, because they could not survive on land long enough for that to happen.

There is yet another reason why the claim that algae moved from the ocean to the land inconsistent-namely, the absence of a natural agent to make such a transition necessary. Let us imagine the natural environment of algae 450 million years ago. The waters of the sea offer them an ideal environment. For instance, the water isolates and protects them from extreme heat, and offers them all kinds of minerals they need. And, at the same time, they can absorb the sunlight by means of photosynthesis and make their own carbohydrates (sugar and starch) by carbon dioxide, which dissolves in the water. For this reason, there is nothing the algae lack in the ocean, and therefore no reason for them to move to the land, where there is no "selective advantage" for them, as the evolutionists put it.

All of this shows that the evolutionist hypothesis that algae emerged onto the land and formed land plants is completely unscientific.

This plant from the Jurassic Age, some 180 million years old, emerged with its own unique structure, and with no ancestor preceding it. (Right) This 300-million-year-old plant from the late Carboniferous is no different from specimens growing today.(Middle)	This 140-million-year-old fossil from the species Archaefructus is the oldest known fossil angiosperm (flowering plant). It possesses the same body, flower and fruit structure as similar plants alive today.

The Origin of Angiosperms

When we examine the fossil history and structural features of plants that live on land, another picture emerges which fails to agree with evolutionist predictions. There is no fossil series to confirm even one branch of the "evolutionary tree" of plants that you will see in almost any biological textbook. Most plants possess abundant remains in the fossil record, but none of these fossils is an intermediate form between one species and another. They are all specially and originally created as completely distinct species, and there are no evolutionary links between them. As the evolutionary paleontologist E. C. Olson accepted, "Many new groups of plants and animals suddenly appear, apparently without any close ancestors."343

The botanist Chester A. Arnold, who studies fossil plants at the University of Michigan, makes the following comment:

It has long been hoped that extinct plants will ultimately reveal some of the stages through which existing groups have passed during the course of their development, but it must be freely admitted that this aspiration has been fulfilled to a very slight extent, even though paleobotanical research has been in progress for more than one hundred years.344

Arnold accepts that paleobotany (the science of plant fossils) has produced no results in support of evolution: "[W]e have not been able to track the phylogenetic history of a single group of modern plants from its beginning to the present."345

This fossil fern from the Carboniferous was found in the Jerada region of Morocco. The interesting thing is that this fossil, which is 320 million years old, is identical to present-day ferns.

The fossil discoveries which most clearly deny the claims of plant evolution are those of flowering plants, or "angiosperms," to give them their scientific name. These plants are divided into 43 separate families, each one of which emerges suddenly, leaving no trace of any primitive "transitional form" behind it in the fossil record. This was realised in the nineteenth century, and for this reason Darwin described the origin of angiosperms as "an abominable mystery." All the research carried out since Darwin's time has simply added to the amount of discomfort this mystery causes. In his book The Paleobiology of Angiosperm Origins, the evolutionary paleobotanist N. F. Hughes makes this admission:

… With few exceptions of detail, however, the failure to find a satisfactory explanation has persisted, and many botanists have concluded that the problem is not capable of solution, by use of fossil evidence.346

In his book The Evolution of Flowering Plants, Daniel Axelrod says this about the origin of flowering plants,

The ancestral group that gave rise to angiosperms has not yet been identified in the fossil record, and no living angiosperm points to such an ancestral alliance.347

All this leads us to just one conclusion: Like all living things, plants were also created. From the moment they first emerged, all their mechanisms have existed in a finished and complete form. Terms such as 'development over time," "changes dependent on coincidences," and "adaptations which emerged as a result of need," which one finds in the evolutionist literature, have no truth in them at all and are scientifically meaningless.

326 Mahlon B. Hoagland, The Roots of Life, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978, p.18
327 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Ankara, Meteksan Yayýnlarý, p. 79.
328 Robart A. Wallace, Gerald P. Sanders, Robert J. Ferl, Biology, The Science of Life, Harper Collins College Publishers, p. 283.
329 Darnell, "Implications of RNA-RNA Splicing in Evolution of Eukaryotic Cells," Science, vol. 202, 1978, p. 1257.
330 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kal?t?m ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publications, Ankara, p.79.
331 "Book Review of Symbiosis in Cell Evolution," Biological Journal of Linnean Society, vol. 18, 1982, pp. 77-79.
332 D. Lloyd, The Mitochondria of Microorganisms, 1974, p. 476.
333 Gray & Doolittle, "Has the Endosymbiant Hypothesis Been Proven?," Microbilological Review, vol. 30, 1982, p. 46.
334 Wallace-Sanders-Ferl, Biology: The Science of Life, 4th edition, Harper Collins College Publishers, p. 94.
335 Mahlon B. Hoagland, The Roots of Life, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978, p. 145.
336 Whitfield, Book Review of Symbiosis in Cell Evolution, Biological Journal of Linnean Society, 1982, pp. 77-79.
337 Milani, Bradshaw, Biological Science, A Molecular Approach, D. C.Heath and Company, Toronto, p. 158 .
338 David Attenborough, Life on Earth, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1981, p. 20.
339 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kal?t?m ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publications, Ankara, p. 80.
340 Hoimar Von Ditfurth, Im Amfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), pp. 60-61.
341 "Ancient Alga Fossil Most Complex Yet," Science News, vol. 108, September 20, 1975, p. 181.
342 Hoimar Von Ditfurth, Im Amfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), p. 199.
343 E. C. Olson, The Evolution of Life, The New American Library, New York, 1965, p. 94.
344 Chester A. Arnold, An Introduction to Paleobotany, McGraw-Hill Publications in the Botanical Sciences, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, 1947, p. 7.
345 Chester A. Arnold, An Introduction to Paleobotany, McGraw-Hill Publications in the Botanical Sciences, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, 1947, p. 334.
346 N. F. Hughes, Paleobiology of Angiosperm Origins: Problems of Mesozoic Seed-Plant Evolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976, pp. 1-2.
347 Daniel Axelrod, The Evolution of Flowering Plants, in The Evolution Life, 1959, pp. 264-274.)

Immunity, "Vestigal Organs" and Embryology

Immunity, "Vestigal Organs" and Embryology

In the preceding sections, we examined the inconsistencies and difficulties the theory of evolution finds itself in in the fields of paleontology and molecular biology in the light of scientific proof and discoveries. In this chapter, we shall be considering some biological facts presented as evidence for the theory in evolutionist sources. In contrast to widespread belief, these facts show that there is actually no scientific discovery that supports the theory of evolution.

Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics

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 mention 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 microorganisms to fight other microorganisms. 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 microorganisms 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... [T]he 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.306

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.307

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.308

Bacteria quickly become immune to antibiotics by transferring their resistance genes to one another. The picture above shows a colony of E. coli bacteria.

In his book Not by Chance, Spetner likens this situation to the disturbance of the key-lock relationship. Streptomycin, just like a key that perfectly fits in a lock, clutches on to the ribosome of a bacterium and inactivates it. Mutation, on the other hand, decomposes the ribosome, thus preventing streptomycin from holding on to the ribosome. Although this is interpreted as "bacteria developing immunity against streptomycin," this is not a benefit for the bacteria but rather a loss for it. Spetner writes:

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.309

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 a 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." Evolutionists, who want to present antibiotic resistance as evidence for evolution, treat the issue in a very superficial way and are thus mistaken.

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 evolutionary 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."310 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!311

The Myth of Vestigial Organs

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.312

A scientific study of the myth of vestigial organs: "Vestigial Organs" Are Fully Functional.

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 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.313

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 realized 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 such as melatonin, which inhibits secretion of luteinizing hormone, that the thyroid gland was effective in providing steady growth in babies and children and in metabolism and body activity, and that the pituitary gland controlled skeletal growth and the proper functioning of the thyroid, adrenals, and reproductive glands. All of these were once considered 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.

The appendix (above), which evolutionists thought to be a vestigial organ, has now been understood to play an important part in the body's immune system. The coccyx at the lower end of the vertebral column is also not a vestigial organ but provides an attachment for our pelvic organs so that they will not collapse.

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?314

Beside all of this, the claim that an organ which is not used atrophies and disappears over time carries a logical inconsistency within it. Darwin was aware of this inconsistency, and made the following confession in The Origin of Species:

There remains, however, this difficulty. After an organ has ceased being used, and has become in consequence much reduced, how can it be still further reduced in size until the merest vestige is left; and how can it be finally quite obliterated? It is scarcely possible that disuse can go on producing any further effect after the organ has once been rendered functionless. Some additional explanation is here requisite which I cannot give.315

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.

Yet Another Blow To "Vestigial Organs": The Leg of the Horse

The latest blow to the myth of vestigial organs comes from a recent study on the leg of the horse. In an article in the 20-27 December 2001 issue of the journal Nature, titled "Biomechanics: Damper for bad vibrations," it is noted that "Some muscle fibres in the legs of horses seem to be evolutionary leftovers with no function. But in fact they may act to damp damaging vibrations generated in the leg as the horse runs." The article reads as follows:

Horses and camels have muscles in their legs with tendons more than 600 millimetres long connected to muscle fibres less than 6 millimetres long. Such short muscles can change length only by a few millimetres as the animal moves, and seem unlikely to be of much use to large mammals. The tendons function as passive springs, and it has been assumed that the short muscle fibres are redundant, the remnants of longer fibres that have lost their function over the course of evolution. But Wilson and colleagues argue… that these fibres might protect bones and tendons from potentially damaging vibrations….

Their experiments show that short muscle fibers can damp the damaging vibrations following the impact of a foot on the ground. When the foot of a running animal hits the ground, the impact sets the leg vibrating; the frequency of the vibrations is relatively high-for example, 30-40 Hz in horses-so many cycles of vibration would occur while the foot was on the ground if there were no damping.

The vibrations might cause damage, because bone and tendon are susceptible to fatigue failure. Fatigue in bones and tendons is the accumulation of damage resulting from repeated application of stresses. Bone fatigue is responsible for the stress fractures suffered by both human athletes and racehorses, and tendon fatigue may explain at least some cases of tendonitis. Wilson et al. suggest that the very short muscle fibres protect both bones and tendons from fatigue damage by damping out vibrations…316

In short, a closer loot at the anatomy of the horse revealed that the structures that have been considered as nonfunctional by evolutionists have very important functions.

In other words, scientific progress demonstrated that what was considered to be evidence for evolution is in fact evidence for design. Evolutionists should take a hint from this fact, if they are willing to do so. The Nature commentator seems to be reasonable:

Wilson et al. have found an important role for a muscle that seemed to be the relic of a structure that had lost its function in the course of evolution. Their work makes us wonder whether other vestiges (such as the human appendix) are as useless as they seem.317

This is not surprising. The more we learn about nature, the more we see the evidence for creation. As Michael Behe notes, "the conclusion of design comes not from what we do not know, but from what we have learned over the past 50 years."318 And Darwinism turns out to be an argument from ignorance, or, in other words, an "atheism of the gaps."

The Recapitulation Misconception

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 evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel at the end of the nineteenth century.

This theory of Haeckel's postulates that living embryos re-experience the evolutionary process that their pseudo-ancestors underwent. He theorized 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. That 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 was 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 are universally acknowledged facts in the scientific world, and are accepted even by evolutionists themselves. Two leading neo-Darwinists, George Gaylord Simpson and W. Beck have admitted:

Haeckel misstated the evolutionary principle involved. It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny.319

With his faked embryo drawings, Ernst Haeckel deceived the world of science for a century.

The following was written in an article in New Scientist dated October 16, 1999:

[Haeckel] called this the biogenetic law, and the idea became popularly known as recapitulation. In fact Haeckel's strict law was soon shown to be incorrect. For instance, the early human embryo never has functioning gills like a fish, and never passes through stages that look like an adult reptile or monkey.320

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…321

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 defense 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 prisoner's 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.322

Haeckel's fake drawings.

In the September 5, 1997, edition of the well-known scientific journal Science, an article was published revealing that Haeckel's embryo drawings were the product of a deception. The article, called "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," had this to say:

The impression they [Haeckel's drawings] give, that the embryos are exactly alike, is wrong, says Michael Richardson, an embryologist at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London… So he and his colleagues did their own comparative study, reexamining and photographing embryos roughly matched by species and age with those Haeckel drew. Lo and behold, the embryos "often looked surprisingly different," Richardson reports in the August issue of Anatomy and Embryology.323

In its September 5, 1997, issue, the famous journal Science published an article revealing that Haeckel's embryo drawings had been falsified. The article described how the embryos were in fact very different from one another. Observations in recent years have revealed that embryos of different species do not resemble each other, as Haeckel had attempted to show. The great differences between the mammal, reptile and bat embryos above are a clear instance of this.

Science explained that, in order to be able to show the embryos as similar, Haeckel deliberately removed some organs from his drawings or else added imaginary ones. Later in this same article, the following information was revealed:

Not only did Haeckel add or omit features, Richardson and his colleagues report, but he also fudged the scale to exaggerate similarities among species, even when there were 10-fold differences in size. Haeckel further blurred differences by neglecting to name the species in most cases, as if one representative was accurate for an entire group of animals. In reality, Richardson and his colleagues note, even closely related embryos such as those of fish vary quite a bit in their appearance and developmental pathway. "It (Haeckel's drawings) looks like it's turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology," Richardson concludes.324

The Science article goes on to discuss how Haeckel's confessions on this subject were covered up from the beginning of the last century, and how the fake drawings began to be presented in textbooks as scientific fact:

Haeckel's confession got lost after his drawings were subsequently used in a 1901 book called Darwin and After Darwin and reproduced widely in English language biology texts.325

In short, the fact that Haeckel's drawings were falsified had already emerged in 1901, but the whole world of science continued to be deceived by them for a century.

306 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp
307 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp
308 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp
309 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp
310 Francisco J. Ayala, "The Mechanisms of Evolution," Scientific American, Vol. 239, September 1978, p. 64.
311 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp
312 S. R. Scadding, "Do 'Vestigial Organs' Provide Evidence for Evolution?," Evolutionary Theory, vol. 5, May 1981, p. 173.
313 The Merck Manual of Medical Information, Home edition, Merck & Co., Inc. The Merck Publishing Group, Rahway, New Jersey, 1997.
314 H. Enoch, Creation and Evolution, New York, 1966, pp. 18-19.
315 Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, http://www.zoo.uib.no/classics/darwin/origin.chap14.html.
,316 R. Mcneill Alexander, "Biomechanics: Damper For Bad Vibrations," Nature, 20-27 December 2001.
317 R. Mcneill Alexander, "Biomechanics: Damper For Bad Vibrations," Nature, 20-27 December 2001.
318 Behe's Seminar in Princeton, 1997
319 G. G. Simpson, W. Beck, An Introduction to Biology, Harcourt Brace and World, New York, 1965, p. 241.
320 Ken McNamara, "Embryos and Evolution," New Scientist, vol. 12416, 16 October 1999. (emphasis added)
321 Keith S. Thomson, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny Recapitulated," American Scientist, vol. 76, May/June 1988, p. 273.
322 Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, Ticknor and Fields, New York, 1982, p. 204.
323 Elizabeth Pennisi, "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," Science, 5 September, 1997. (emphasis added)
324 Elizabeth Pennisi, "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," Science, 5 September, 1997. (emphasis added)
325 Elizabeth Pennisi, "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," Science, 5 September, 1997. (emphasis added)

The Myth of Homology

The Myth of Homology

Anyone who studies the different living species in the world may observe that there are some similar organs and features among these species. The first person to draw materialistic conclusions from this fact, which has attracted scientists' attention since the eighteenth century, was Charles Darwin.

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 tautological 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.

The Invalidity of Morphological Homology

The homology thesis of the evolutionists is based on the logic of building an evolutionary link between all living things with similar morphologies (structures), whereas there are a number of homologous organs shared by different groups that are completely unrelated to each other. 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

In response, evolutionists say that these organs are not "homologous" (in other words, from a common ancestor), but that they are "analogous" (very similar to each other, although there is no evolutionary connection between them). For example, in their view, the human eye and the octopus eye are analogous organs. However, the question of which category they will put an organ into, homologous or analogous, is answered totally in line with the theory of evolution's preconceptions. And this shows that the evolutionist claim based on resemblances is completely unscientific. The only thing evolutionists do is to try to interpret new discoveries in accordance with a dogmatic evolutionary preconception.

According to the "tree of life" proposed by evolutionists, octopuses are some of the remotest creatures from man. But the octopus eye has exactly the same structure as ours. This is an indication that similarity of structure is no evidence for evolution.

However, the interpretation they put forward is completely invalid. Because organs which they have to consider "analogous" sometimes bear such close resemblance to one another, despite being exceedingly complex structures, that it is totally inconsistent to propose that this similarity was brought about thanks to coincidental mutations. If an octopus eye emerged completely by coincidence, as evolutionists claim, then how is it that vertebrates' eyes can emerge by the very same coincidences? The famous evolutionist Frank Salisbury, who got dizzy from thinking about this question, writes:

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.282

The wings of a flying reptile, a bird, and a bat. These wings, between which no evolutionary relationship can be established, possess similar structures.

According to the theory of evolution, wings emerged independently of each other four times: in insects, flying reptiles, birds, and flying mammals (bats). The fact that wing with very similar structures developed four times-which cannot be explained by the mechanisms of natural selection/mutation-is yet another headache for evolutionary biologists.

One of the most concrete examples of such an obstacle in the path of evolutionary theory can be seen in mammals. According to the accepted view of modern biology, all mammals belong to one of three basic categories: placentals, marsupials and monotremes. 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. Placental wolves, cats, squirrels, anteaters, moles and mice all have their marsupial counterparts with closely similar morphologies.283

In other words, according to the theory of evolution, mutations completely independent of each other must have produced these creatures "by chance" twice! This reality is a question that will give evolutionists problems even worse than dizzy spells.

Starting with kangaroos, all mammals in the continent of Australia belong to the "pouched" or marsupial subclass. According to evolutionists, they have no evolutionary relationship with placental mammals in the other regions of the world.

One of the interesting similarities between placental and marsupial mammals is that between the North American wolf and the Tasmanian wolf. The former belongs to the placental class, the latter to the marsupials. Evolutionary biologists believe that these two different species have completely separate evolutionary histories.284 (Since the continent of Australia and the islands around it split off from Gondwanaland (the supercontinent that is supposed to be the originator of Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and South America) the link between placental and marsupial mammals is considered to have been broken, and at that time there were no wolves). But the interesting thing is that the skeletal structure of the Tasmanian wolf is nearly identical to that of the North American wolf. Their skulls in particular, as shown on the next page, bear an extraordinary degree of resemblance to each other.

Extraordinary resemblances and similar organs like these, which evolutionary biologists cannot accept as examples of "homology," show that homology does not constitute any evidence for the thesis of evolution from a common ancestor. What is even more interesting is that the exact opposite situation is to be observed in other living things. In other words, there are living things, some of whose organs have completely different structures, even though they are considered to be close relatives by evolutionists. For example, most crustaceans have eye structures of the "refracting lens" type. In only two species of crustacean-the lobster and the shrimp-is the completely different "reflecting" type of eye seen. (See the chapter on Irreducible Complexity.)

MAMMAL TWINS THAT DEFY HOMOLOGY 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. To the side 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. North American wolf skull. Tasmanian wolf skull. 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 (right) and Thylacosmilus (left), 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 favor of evolution.

The Genetic and Embryological Impasse of Homology

The discovery which really overthrew homology is that organs accepted as "homologous" are almost all controlled by very different genetic codes. As we know, the theory of evolution proposes that living things developed through small, chance changes in their genes, in other words, mutations. For this reason, the genetic structures of living things which are seen as close evolutionary relatives should resemble each other. And, in particular, similar organs should be controlled by similar genetic structures. However, in point of fact, genetic researchers have made discoveries which conflict totally with this evolutionary thesis.

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. The chapter titled "The Failure of Homology" in Michael Denton's book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, gives several examples of this, and sums the subject up in this way:

Homologous structures are often specified by non-homologous genetic systems and the concept of homology can seldom be extended back into embryology.285

This genetic question has also been raised by the well-known evolutionary biologist Gavin de Beer. In his book Homology: An Unsolved Problem, published in 1971, de Beer put forward a very wide-ranging analysis of this subject. He sums up why homology is a problem for the theory of evolution as follows:

What mechanism can it be that results in the production of homologous organs, the same 'patterns', in spite of their not being controlled by the same genes? I asked this question in 1938, and it has not been answered.286

Although some 30 years have passed since de Beer wrote those words, they have still received no answer.

A third proof which undermines the homology claim is the question of embryological development, which we mentioned at the start. 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. Pere Alberch, an eminent developmental biologist, noted, it is "the rule rather than the exception" that "homologous structures form from distinctly dissimilar initial states."287

The emergence of similar structures as the result of totally dissimilar processes is frequently seen in the latter stages of the development phase. As we know, many species of animal go through a stage known as "indirect development" (in other words the larva stage), on their way to adulthood. For instance, most frogs begin life as swimming tadpoles and turn into four-legged animals at the last stage of metamorphosis. But alongside this there are several species of frog which skip the larva stage and develop directly. But the adults of most of these species that develop directly are practically indistinguishable from those species which pass through the tadpole stage. The same phenomenon is to be seen in water chestnuts and some other similar species.288

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. The inconsistency of homology, which looks quite convincing on the surface, is clearly revealed when examined more closely.

The fact that almost all land-dwelling vertebrates have a five-toed or "pentadactyl" bone structure in their hands and feet has for years been presented as "strong evidence for Darwinism" in evolutionist publications. However, recent research has revealed that these bone structures are governed by quite different genes. For this reason, the "homology of pentadactylism" assumption has today collapsed.

The Fall of the Homology in Tetrapod Limbs

We have already examined homology's morphological claim-in other words the invalidity of the evolutionist claim based on similarities of form in living things-but it will be useful to examine one well-known example of this subject a little more closely. This is the "fore- and hindlimbs of quadrupeds," presented as a clear proof of homology in almost all books on evolution.

Quadrupeds, i.e., land-living vertebrates, have five digits on their fore- and hindlimbs. Although these may not always look like fingers or toes, they are all counted as "pentadactyl" (five-digit) due to their bone structure. The hands and feet 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. But they know that this claim actually possesses no scientific validity.

Even today, evolutionists accept the feature of pentadactylism in living things among which they have been able to establish no evolutionary link. For example, in two separate scientific papers published in 1991 and 1996, evolutionary biologist M. Coates reveals that pentadactylism emerged two separate times, each independently of the other. According to Coates, the pentadactyl structure emerged independently in anthracosaurs and amphibians.289

This discovery is a sign that pentadactylism is no evidence for a "common ancestor."

Another matter which creates difficulties for the evolutionist thesis in this respect is that these creatures have five digits on both their fore- and hindlimbs. It is not proposed in evolutionist literature that fore- and hindlimb descended from a "common limb"; rather, it is assumed that they developed separately. For this reason, it should be expected that the structure of the fore- and hindlimbs should be different, the result of different, chance mutations. Michael Denton has this to say on the subject:

[T]he forelimbs of all terrestrial vertebrates are constructed according to the same pentadactyl design, and this is attributed by evolutionary biologists as showing that all have been derived from a common ancestral source. But the hindlimbs of all vertebrates also conform to the pentadactyl pattern and are strikingly similar to the forelimbs in bone structure and in their detailed embryological development. Yet no evolutionist claims that the hindlimb evolved from the forelimb, or that hindlimbs and forelimbs evolved from a common source… Invariably, as biological knowledge has grown, common genealogy as an explanation for similarity has tended to grow ever more tenuous… Like so much of the other circumstantial "evidence" for evolution, that drawn from homology is not convincing because it entails too many anomalies, too many counter-instances, far too many phenomena which simply do not fit easily into the orthodox picture.290

But the real blow dealt to the evolutionist claim of the homology of pentadactylism came from molecular biology. The assumption of "the homology of pentadactylism," which was long maintained in evolutionist publications, was overturned when it was realized that the limb structures were controlled by totally different genes in different creatures possessing this pentadactyl structure. Evolutionary biologist William Fix describes the collapse of the evolutionist thesis regarding pentadactylism in this way:

The older textbooks 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' [five bone] limb pattern is found in the arm of a man, the wing of a bird, and 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.291

On closer examination, William Fix is saying that evolutionist claims regarding "pentadactylism homology" appeared in old textbooks, but that the claim was abandoned after molecular evidence emerged. But, unfortunately, some evolutionist sources still continue to put it forward as major evidence for evolution.

The Invalidity 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. For example, it is regularly stated in the evolutionist literature that "there is a great similarity between the DNA of a human and that of an ape," and this similarity is presented as a proof for the evolutionist claim that there is an evolutionary relationship between man and ape.

We must make it clear from the start that it is no surprise that living creatures on the earth should possess very similar DNA structures. Living things' basic life processes are the same, and since human beings possess a living body, they cannot be expected to have a different DNA structure to other creatures. Like other creatures, human beings develop by consuming carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, oxygen circulates through the blood in their bodies, and energy is produced every second in each of their cells by the use of this oxygen.

For this reason, the fact that living things possess genetic similarities is no proof of the evolutionist claim that they evolved from a common ancestor. If evolutionists want to prove their theory of evolution from a common ancestor, then they have to show that creatures alleged to be each other's common ancestors have a direct line of descent in their molecular structures; in fact, however, as we shall shortly be examining, there have been no concrete discoveries showing any such thing.

Let us first of all take the matter of "the similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA." The latest studies on this issue have revealed that evolutionist propaganda about a "98 %" or "99 %" similarity between man and chimp is totally erroneous.

If a slightly wider study is made of this subject, it can be seen that the DNA of much more surprising creatures resembles that of man. One of these similarities is between man and worms of the nematode phylum. For example, genetic analyses published in New Scientist have revealed that "nearly 75% of human genes have some counterpart in nematodes-millimeter-long soil-dwelling worms."292 This definitely does not mean that there is only a 25% difference between man and these worms! According to the family tree made by evolutionists, the Chordata phylum, in which man is included, and the Nematoda phylum were different to each other even 530 million years ago.

This situation clearly reveals that the similarity between the DNA strands of these two different categories of life is no evidence for the claim that these creatures evolved from a common ancestor.

THE MYTH OF HUMAN-CHIMP SIMILARITY IS DEAD For a very long time, the evolutionist choir had been propagating the unsubstantiated thesis that there is very little genetic difference between humans and chimps. In every piece of evolutionist literature you could read sentences like "we are 99 percent equal to chimps" or "there is only 1 percent of DNA that makes us human." Although no conclusive comparison between human and chimp genomes has been made, Darwinist ideology led them to assume that there is very little difference between the two species. A study in October 2002 revealed that the evolutionist propaganda on this issue, like many others, is completely false. Humans and chimps are not "99% similar" as the evolutionist fairy tale would have it. Genetic similarity turns out to be less than 95%. A news story reported by CNN.com, entitled "Humans, chimps more different than thought," reports the following: There are more differences between a chimpanzee and a human being than once believed, according to a new genetic study. Biologists have long held that the genes of chimps and humans are about 98.5 percent identical. But Roy Britten, a biologist at the California Institute of Technology, said in a study published this week that a new way of comparing the genes shows that the human and chimp genetic similarity is only about 95 percent. Britten based this on a computer program that compared 780,000 of the 3 billion base pairs in the human DNA helix with those of the chimp. He found more mismatches than earlier researchers had, and concluded that at least 3.9 percent of the DNA bases were different. This led him to conclude that there is a fundamental genetic difference between the species of about 5 percent.1 New Scientist, a leading science magazine and a strong supporter of Darwinism, reported the following on the same subject in an article titled "Human-chimp DNA difference trebled": We are more unique than previously thought, according to new comparisons of human and chimpanzee DNA. It has long been held that we share 98.5 per cent of our genetic material with our closest relatives. That now appears to be wrong. In fact, we share less than 95 per cent of our genetic material, a three-fold increase in the variation between us and chimps. 2 Biologist Boy Britten and other evolutionists continue to assess the result in terms of evolutionary theory, but in fact there is no scientific reason to do so. The theory of evolution is supported neither by the fossil record nor by genetic or biochemical data. On the contrary, the evidence shows that different life forms on Earth appeared quite abruptly without any evolutionary ancestors and that their complex systems prove the existence of an "intelligent design." 1. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/09/24/humans.chimps.ap/index.html 2. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992833

In fact, when the results of DNA analyses from different species and classes are compared, it is seen that the sequences clearly do not agree with any evolutionist family tree. According to the evolutionist thesis, living things must have undergone a progressive increase in complexity, and, parallel to this, it is to be expected that the number of genes, which make up their genetic data, should also gradually increase. But the data obtained show that this thesis is the work of fantasy.

The Russian scientist Theodosius Dobzhansky, one of the best-known theoreticians of evolution, once stated that this irregular relationship between living things and their DNA is a great problem that evolution cannot explain:

More complex organisms generally have more DNA per cell than do simpler ones, but this rule has conspicuous exceptions. Man is nowhere near the top of the list, being exceeded by Amphiuma (an amphibian), Protopterus (a lungfish), and even ordinary frogs and toads. Why this should be so has long been a puzzle.293

Comparisons of chromosome numbers and DNA structures show that there is no evolutionary relationship between different living species.

Other comparisons on the molecular level produce other examples of inconsistency which render evolutionist views meaningless. When the protein strands of various living things are analysed in a laboratory, results emerge which are totally unexpected from the evolutionists' point of view, and some of which are utterly astounding. For example, the cytochrome-C protein in man differs by 14 amino acids from that in a horse, but by only eight from that in a kangaroo. When the same strand is examined, turtles appear closer to man than to a reptile such as the rattlesnake. When this situation is viewed from the evolutionist point of view, a meaningless result will emerge, such as that turtles are more closely related to man than they are to snakes.

For instance, chickens and sea snakes differ by 17 amino acids in 100 codons and horses and sharks by 16, which is a greater difference than that between dogs and worm flies, which belong to different phyla even, and which differ by only 15 amino acids.

Similar facts have been discovered with respect to hemoglobin. The hemoglobin protein found in human beings differs from that found in lemurs by 20 amino acids, but from that in pigs by only 14. The situation is more or less the same for other proteins.294

This being the case, evolutionists should arrive at the conclusion that, in evolutionary terms, man is more closely related to the kangaroo than to the horse, or to the pig than to the lemur. But these results conflict with all the "evolutionary family tree" plans that have so far been accepted. Protein similarities continue to produce astounding surprises. For example:

Adrian Friday and Martin Bishop of Cambridge have analyzed the available protein sequence data for tetrapods… To their surprise, in nearly all cases, man (the mammal) and chicken (the bird) were paired off as closest relatives, with the crocodile as next nearest relative…295

Again, when these similarities are approached from the point of view of evolutionist logic, they lead us to the ridiculous conclusion that man's closest evolutionary relative is the chicken. Paul Erbrich stresses the fact that molecular analyses produce results that show very different groups of living thing to be closely related in this way:

Proteins with nearly the same structure and function (homologous proteins) are found in increasing numbers in phylogenetically different, even very distinct taxa (e.g.,hemoglobins in vertebrates, in some invertebrates, and even in certain plants).296

Dr. Christian Schwabe, a biochemical researcher from the University of South Carolina's Faculty of Medicine, is a scientist who spent years trying to find evidence for evolution in the molecular field. He first tried to establish evolutionary relationships between living things by carrying out studies on proteins such as insulin and relaxin. But Schwabe has several times been forced to admit that he has not been able to come by any evidence for evolution in his studies. He says the following in an article in Science:

Molecular evolution is about to be accepted as a method superior to paleontology for the discovery of evolutionary relationships. As a molecular evolutionist I should be elated. Instead it seems disconcerting that many exceptions exist to the orderly progression of species as determined by molecular homologies: so many in fact that I think the exception, the quirks, may carry the more important message.297

Schwabe's studies on relaxins produced rather interesting results:

Against this background of high variability between relaxins from purportedly closely related species, the relaxins of pig and whale are all but identical. The molecules derived from rats, guinea-pigs, man and pigs are as distant from each other (approximately 55%) as all are from the elasmobranch's relaxin. ...Insulin, however, brings man and pig phylogenetically closer together than chimpanzee and man.298

On the molecular level no organism is the "ancestor" of another, or more "primitive" or "advanced" than another.

Schwabe was faced by the same realities when he compared the arrangements of other proteins besides insulin and relaxin. Schwabe has this to say about these other proteins that constitute exceptions to the orderly molecular development proposed by evolutionists:

The relaxin and insulin families do not stand alone as exceptions to the orderly interpretation of molecular evolution in conventional monophyletic terms. It is instructive to look at additional examples of purportedly anomalous protein evolution and note that the explanations permissible under the molecular clock theories cover a range of ad hoc explanations apparently limited only by imagination.299

Schwabe reveals that the comparison of the arrangement of lysosomes, cytochromes, and many hormones and amino acids show "unexpected results and anomalies" from the evolutionary point of view. Based on all this evidence, Schwabe maintains that all proteins had their present forms right from the start, undergoing no evolution, and that no intermediate form has been found between molecules, in the same way as with fossils.

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.300

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 phylogenies contradict each other as well as the rRNA tree."301

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:

…[S]cientists 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.302

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.303

The fact that results of molecular comparisons are not in favor 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...304

Comparisons that have been made of proteins, rRNA and genes reveal that creatures which are allegedly close relatives according to the theory of evolution are actually totally distinct from each other. Various studies grouped rabbits with primates instead of rodents, and cows with whales instead of horses.

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.

As life is investigated on a molecular basis, the homology hypotheses of the evolutionary theory collapse one by one. 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.305

But in that case what kind of scientific explanation can be given for 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. Men of science such as Carl Linnaeus and Richard Owen, who first raised the question of similar organs in living creatures, saw these organs as examples of "common design." In other words, similar organs or similar genes resemble each other not because they have evolved by chance from a common ancestor, but because they have been designed deliberately to perform a particular function.

Modern scientific discoveries show that the claim that similarities in living things are due to descent from a "common ancestor" is not valid, and that the only rational explanation for such similarities is "common design."

282 Frank Salisbury, "Doubts About the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," American Biology Teacher, September 1971, p. 338. (emphasis added)
283 Dean H. Kenyon, Percival Davis, Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, Haughton Publishing, Dallas, 1993, p. 33.
284 Dean H. Kenyon, Percival Davis, Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, Haughton Publishing, Dallas, 1993, p. 117.
285 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985, p. 145.
286 Gavin De Beer, Homology: An Unsolved Problem, Oxford University Press, London, 1971, p. 16.
287 Pere Alberch, "Problems with the Interpretation of Developmental Sequences," Systematic Zoology, 1985, vol. 34 (1), pp. 46-58.
288 Raff, Rudolf A., The Shape of Life: Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996.
289 Coates M., "New paleontological contributions to limb ontogeny and phylogeny," In: J. R. Hinchcliffe (ed.), Developmental Patterning of the Vertebrate Limb, Plenum Press, New York, 1991, 325-337; Coates M. I., The Devonian tetrapod Acanthostega gunnari Jarvik: postcranial anatomy, basal tetrapod interrelationships and patterns of skeletal evolution, transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1996, vol. 87, pp. 363-421.
290 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler, Bethesda, MA, 1985, pp. 151, 154. (emphasis added)
291 William Fix, The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1984, p. 189. (emphasis added)
292 Karen Hopkin, "The Greatest Apes," New Scientist, vol. 62, issue 2186, 15 May 1999, p. 27.
293 Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics of the Evolutionary Process, Columbia University Press, New York & London, 1970, pp. 17-18.
294 Pierre Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 194.
295 Mike Benton, "Is a Dog More Like Lizard or a Chicken?," New Scientist, vol. 103, August 16, 1984, p. 19. (emphasis added)
296 Paul Erbrich, "On the Probability of the Emergence of a Protein with a Particular Function," Acta Biotheoretica, vol. 34, 1985, p. 53.
297 Christian Schwabe, "On the Validity of Molecular Evolution," Trends in Biochemical Sciences, vol. 11, July 1986, p. 280. (emphasis added)
298 Christian Schwabe, "Theoretical Limitations of Molecular Phylogenetics and the Evolution of Relaxins," Comparative Biochemical Physiology, vol. 107B, 1974, pp.171-172. (emphasis added)
299 Christian Schwabe and Gregory W. Warr, "A Polyphyletic View of Evolution," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 27, Spring 1984, p. 473. (emphasis added)
300 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985, pp. 290-291. (emphasis added)
301 Hervé Philippe and Patrick Forterre, "The Rooting of the Universal Tree of Life is Not Reliable," Journal of Molecular Evolution, vol 49, 1999, p. 510.
302 James Lake, Ravi Jain ve Maria Rivera, "Mix and Match in the Tree of Life," Science, vol. 283, 1999, p. 2027.
303 Carl Woese, "The Universel Ancestor," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 95, (1998) p. 6854.
304 Elizabeth Pennisi, "Is It Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?" Science, vol. 284, no. 5418, 21 May 1999, p. 1305.
305 Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, Regnery Publishing, 2000, p. 51..