Evolution as a fact - different species evolving from a common ancestor - is something which you cannot miss unless you close your eyes to nature and your mind to entire scientific domains, with most compelling explanations and scientific evidence galore.
The theory of evolution - which explains how evolution took place - has come up with mechanisms such as mutations and natural selection. But those are not the only mechanisms - those are the simplest - which Charles Darwin was able to figure out some 150 years ago. Other mechanisms have been proposed since then. For instance punctuated equilibriums such as explained by
Stephen Jay Gould.
It is a highly imperfect theory, like all man-devised scientific theories. If you talk to any weathered scientist - he or she will tell you of some incertitudes, some unsolved problems - even some incoherence, that still remains unexplained in his / her field of knowledge.
In evolution theory, the origin of life is a point of incertitude. It is not as thoroughly explained as, say, the
emergence of the modern horse.
But hey, - just give the scientists time - just 200 years ago, birds flying in the sky and ducks floating on water were poorly understood phenomena !! Now we're building the 787 dreamliner and town-sized transatlantic cruise ships.
Creationist theories - on the other hand - are not known to explained any law of nature - or to help inventors produce any useful patent.
QUOTE (synchk)First, that Darwinism is a theory that lacks any scientific foundation, and second, that its real target is religion.
Your 'first' is a big fat lie - animal biology, botanics, anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, nuclear physics - all have come up with hard evidence to support the theory of evolution.
Just explore through
talkorigins.org
Your 'second' is a ridiculous, childish, conspiracy accusation
Check this video :
'Inherit the Wind' scene
Supporting the theory of evolution is entirely compatible with being a religious person. And with believing that man is the creation of God. It is just incompatible with saying that God (or Allah - same person) was stupid enough to create man - provide him with such an inquisitive mind - and expect him not to discover natural facts as basic as the evolution of species.
QUOTE Materialists believe that blind coincidence caused the universe to shape itself and life to come about by gradually evolving from nonliving substances. In other words, all living things in the world emerged as the result of natural influences and chance.
Yes - the diversity of life on Earth comes from random mutations. But proponents of creationism have a hard time fathoming the concept described by the words - randomness, aleatory, heuristics, hazard, chance.
All these words say roughly the same thing : there are mechanisms in the physical world, which are too complex to figure out. Therefore, when doing an experiment - it is difficult to say for sure what the outcome will be. BUT ! For some simple experiments - coin tossing, die rolling, - and an increasing number of scientific fields - meteorology etc. - it is easy to predict SOME information about the outcome from the initial conditions and physical constraints of the experiment !
For instance - for coins or dice - not the outcome of one experiment - but an average of outcomes over a series of identical experiments !
That is the way human beings have managed to cope with the problem of physical world complexity : by doing mathematical averages over space and time.
And here comes the difficult part :
Coincidence and chance are things that do not happen in the world. These words describe just the way humans interpret what really happens in the world.
And this view is not incompatible with the idea that God knows and sees all that happens in the world EXACTLY the way it happens.
Should you meet your friend at the bookshop "by chance" - there is in fact no random occurrence in this event. It has been triggered by natural factors - some of which you can figure out (it can be that you both like books, that you were both off work/school that day, that you live in the same neighbourhood, that the bookseller is a really well supplied one etc.) and some of which you have no knowledge of ( the two separate chains of events that made one of you enter the bookshop before the other got out). By saying "chance" you choose to silence your (obvious) acknowledgement of the 1st type of factors and emphasize your surprise to the 2nd type.
Now back to the origin of life. Since God has created all of the material world - with the laws governing the evolution of fluids, solids, those describing the chemical reactions, the assembling of atoms into molecules and molecules into proteins, Earth and its gravity, the Sun and its light and since he made use of an infinite time to create life
- why would He not allow living beings to proceed from inanimate matter ?
This seems all the more plausible that those living beings are - during all their existence - subjected to the same laws of physics, chemistry, gravitational mechanics as the matter they proceed from !
(at least their corporeal component
)
QUOTE In other words, life on Earth came about without a Creator and by itself from inanimate substances. Such a claim rejects the existence of a Creator right from the start, and thus cannot be accepted by any Muslim.
I am not a Muslim nor a Christian, but if science chose to remain silent on the subject of the Creator, it is from pure humbleness. Scientific method does not allow scientists to acquire knowledge of the spiritual world. It is a question of principle. Being humble and wise about the reach of one's knowledge is a principle in all religions. Science an religion are not incompatible.
QUOTE So far, there’s no researcher or scientist able to “produce†even the smallest building block of life, the protein. Since they’ve failed to bring out a living organism even using technology and science knowledge available, it is illogical to claim that blind chance could have succeeded.
Again a very foolish, inconsistent statement
The domains of the material world that we can understand through our science or master through our technology are a very small fraction of what happens in the world. If that which HAPPENS but we cannot understand is called "chance", it is simply because the word remained in the familiar language since the time of our ancestors, who were a lot more in the dark than we are today. If you wish to call it "Creator's design" you are free to do so. Just know it is the vast majority of things.
QUOTE For example, evolutionist claim that eye made up from 40 different parts, came out by chance. Yet they unable to explain it how. In fact, it is impossible that blind chance can “created†such magnificent and complex structure. There is an extraordinarily complex and flawlessly planned organization between all of these components.
About the "flawlessly planned" part some people may disagree. It depends on what criteria you judge.
Watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4_lVTVa6k&feature=related
(if you are patient enough to sit through the corny title
)
I like the fellow that says : if God has designed the human eye just as it is, He would be considered a poor engineer. Implied : you have to look at the whole process of evolution, which created the eye as a functional instrument of the human body - to see the genius of God.
About natural selection
QUOTE In this case, for example, rabbits who live with thread of predators, only live if they can adapt to the condition and survive; pass their features onto next generation. However, there’s no new feature emerges here. The rabbit does not turn into new species or even acquiring new characteristic. Thus one cant say that natural selection causes evolution.
My, that's the worst explanation I've ever read of natural selection
. You have to be able reason on multiple time scales to understand natural selection. There are several populations of rabbits and several populations of rabbit predators. If one population of rabbit predators becomes more specialised (and thus effective) at catching rabbits - then the populations of rabbits will all diminish. Those rabbits which are the most vulnerable(say a rabbit race that for some reason goes out at night to find its food) to that predator (say a night owl) will decline more than the other populations .
On the contrary, another rabbit population that feeds upon the same plants, but harvests them in daytime might increase in numbers, because of less competition.
That is on a time scale of several hundred years at least. You have to look at more factors and longer periods to understand why some species become naturally extinct and how others naturally survive an become predominant.
Not to mention that nowadays these phenomena may be very difficult to observe, ever since man has become a universal predator and competitor for all wild species on Earth.
About mutations
QUOTE Of course mutations cause by rare random error and may give rise to change, yet such things are always destructive. For example, give a radiation wave to a turtle wont make them into ninja turtle, but the turtle become defect or die instead XD. Or as random earthquake destroys a city instead of developing it, chance mutations lead to sickness, deformity, and handicaps in living things.
Again ! Again, a simplistic description of a very very complex natural fact. Living beings are subject to mutations all of the time. Our cells contain enzymes that repair most of the mutations. However some minor, benign mutations are left unfixed - that's why we have different eye colour, hair colour, complexion, blood groups, predisposition/immunity to diseases etc.
It's these minor mutations that get transmitted genetically and form an increasing pool of diversity - from which natural selection picks the most fitted individuals for survival.
Of course: critical exposure to radioactivity of concentrated X-rays create major mutations - in huge numbers - in a living being, that affect its health and viability. Many other factors trigger malign mutations. Cancers are a badly known family of diseases which express themselves as undesired mutations, that divert the resources of the body and direct them against life.
Bottom line : there are 'good' and 'bad' mutations. And the living body can support a certain quantity of mutations. Past that limit, it's an accident: the body is defected and dies. Accidents are sudden violent events that we have no time to adapt to. Just like a world champion at apnoea may still choke and die if you put his head in a bucket of water while he's still asleep. That is violence.
QUOTE Evolution made by god?
[...]Of course Allah can employ evolution if He had willed. But the quran never contains sign of evolution and the claim of the stage-by-stage emergence of species.
Well, without any disrespect meant for the holy book of Islam, it may be that Allah (through His prophet Mohammed) chose to lay down in the Quran the laws and principles of a moral life for man, thus addressing spiritual matters. And he left the principles of material life on Earth up for discovery by man, through the experience of their earthly minds and bodies.
It would have made little sense for God to write in the holy book :"Toddlers : you will at first run on your fours all day, because your muscles are not strong or disciplined enough to allow you to keep your balance upright." Maybe evolution just is as obvious to God as Earth gravity is to us.
QUOTE This is how Allah reveals the creation of living things:
This verse explain that animals (reptiles, birds and mammals) created from water. They were not created “out of each other†but “from waterâ€. In other words, they were formed separately from a common material Allah shaped.
That is your interpretation of what Allah said in this verse. It may be that He did not bother with a mere informative message here. It seems more plausible that He emphasized water as the common material for all living beings in order for men to notice how important it is to preserve Earth's resources in order to respect His other creations. Therefore the verse contains a command !