Why Religion and Why Evolution?
If you insist on adopting this view, you will be sternly contradicted by science.
My well-educated friend said: You are in a tight corner today, for you have to prove that the creation of man occurred in the magical manner pictured by religion: the Creator molding a piece of clay in His hand and breathing into it and, abracadabra, there is Adam! If you insist on adopting this view, you will be sternly contradicted by the science of evolution, which says your Adam came into being by a series of developments occurring to some animal forms. He is not, in fact, wholly separated from his animal ancestry. He is, to be exact, a cousin of the apes sharing with them his seventh 'grandfather.' The unmistakable similarity in the details of the anatomical structure of all these life forms is evidence that they are all members of one family.
I started to argue with him warming up for a heated scientific controversy:
Let me, first of all, correct your knowledge of the religious (Islamic) view of creation. According to that view, God did not create Adam in a 'hocus-pocus' manner: here is a lump of clay, breathe in it, and, voila, there is the first man.
The Quran presents a radically different account of Adam’s creation. In that account, creation occurs in stages, phases, and over an extended time span measured in God’s scales.
The Quran did not say that man came directly out of clay but that he emerged from a 'race' or 'breed' (solala) that came from clay:
“We created man from a breed (solala) of clay:” The Believers, 12
In the beginning, Man was nothing worthy of mention:
“Didn’t there pass on man a space of time when his life was a blank (insignificant thing)?” Man, 1
Man’s creation, then, came in stages
“Why do you deny the dignity of God who has created you in gradual stages?” Noah, 13
“We created you and gave you form. Then We said to the angels: ‘Fall prostrate before Adam.’ They all fell prostrate except Eblis, who was not among the prostrate.” The Heights, 11
“Your Lord said to the angels: ‘I am creating man from clay. When I have fashioned him and breathed of my Spirit into him, kneel down and prostrate yourselves before him.” Sad, 71
These verses indicate that stages started with the creation out of clay, followed by formation, then fashion, and, finally, the breathing of God's Spirit into the creature: man. The word 'then' used in this context, or the temporal dimension of the entire process, should be understood concerning 'divine time'; it could mean millions of years:
“Each day of His is like a thousand years of your reckoning.” Pilgrimage, 47
God, exalted He be, defines the temporal phases of man's creation in the 'Prostration' sura:
“He first created man from clay, then bred his offspring from a drop of despised fluid. He fashioned him and breathed into him of His Spirit. He gave you eyes and ears and hearts;” The Prostration, 7
In the beginning, it is clear; there was clay. Then came a race -(solala)Arabic word- bred from semen or 'the despised fluid.' These were man's early, humble origins or the 'blank' insignificant thing spoken of by the Quran. The man was then molded and fashioned. After that, the 'spirit' was breathed into him, and he was,' thus, endowed with hearing, sight, and 'heart' becoming Adam. Therefore, the first man emerged at the end of a series of evolutions and was not made instantaneously in the hocus-pocus style you imagine.
We read in the Quran: 'God brought you from the earth like a plant' (Noah, 17). This is a clear indication that creation was like growing a plant with all the evolutionary phases, time, and gradation that this process passes through.
The real puzzle, however, concerns the exact nature of such phases or stages.
Did the tree of life originate in its entirety from one source or 'parent'? This tree is basically of clay by virtue of chemical structure, and it is a fact that all its forms revert after death to their clayey origin. But by 'parent,' we mean something more than the clayey origin.
The question we want to pose is whether a primeval cell emanated from that primitive clay and multiplied to yield all those genera and species of plants and animals, including man; or whether there were various beginnings: one origin evolving into plants, another developing into such animal branch as the sponge, for instance, a third from which fishes evolved, a fourth whose development yielded reptiles, a fifth from which birds emerged, a sixth forming the matrix for the evolution of mammals, and a separate beginning from which man evolved thus having an ancestor of his own like the other genera?
The anatomic similarity among the branches, genera, and species of the tree of life does not exclude the evolution of each genus from a distinct origin.
Such anatomical similarity in all life forms, however, is evidence of the unity of their Maker because they are all fashioned out of one material, in one method, and according to one plan. This is the only necessary consequence of the similarity. But it does not inevitably follow from this fact that all life forms evolved from one origin.
Consider, in this regard, the similarity we observe in the means of transportation. The car, the train, and the diesel are all built around similar mechanical and structural principles, indicating that they are all inventions of the human mind. This, nevertheless, does not exclude the possibility that each one of them derived from an independent origin or a separate engineering concept.
Moreover, it would be erroneous to say, for example, that the hand-cart spontaneously evolved by dint of laws inherent in it to become a horse-drawn carriage, an automobile, a steam locomotive, and a diesel locomotive in succession. The truth is that each of these inventions was realized as a result of a mental mutation in the inventor's mind and a creative leap in the engineer's. No one invention emerged from another though the temporal succession in which they appeared may lend credence to such view. What happened was something else: every invention 'of the above started independently as a creative mutation in the inventor's mind.
This illustration throws light on Darwin’s errors and the pitfalls and lacunae he fell victim to when formulating his theory.
Let us review what Darwin wrote in his Origin of Species.
During his voyage on The Beagle, the first thing he discovered was the identical anatomical plan on which all animal species were molded. The skeleton, for example, is the same in most vertebrates. The arm in the ape corresponds to the bird's wing and that of the bat. Every piece of bone in it is matched by another in those wings with slight modifications to suit the member's function. The bones in birds are thin, tender, light, hollow, and covered with feathers.
The giraffe's long neck contains seven vertebrae: the same as in man's and in the hedgehog's, which is too short to be called a neck. Man's hand has five fingers, and we find the same quinary formation in apes, rabbits, frogs, and lizards. Pregnancy lasts nine months in whales, apes, and human females, while sucking takes two years in the three "species. The tail vertebrae in apes are found merged and telescoped in man's caudal bone or the coccyx.
The tail muscles have changed in man into a solid bottom for the pelvis. The heart with its four chambers and the layout of the body's arteries and veins are identical in horses, donkeys, rabbits, pigeons, and men. The same similarity of structure is observed concerning the digestive apparatus: the pharynx, the stomach, the duodenum, the small and the large intestines, and the anus, in that order. The genital apparatus is similar in all: the testicles, the ovary, and their ducts. The urinary apparatus is also common to all: the kidney, the ureter, and the bladder. The breathing system consists of the same components: the trachea or windpipe and the two lungs. The lung in amphibians is the floating bag in fish.
In the light of all such correspondences, it was natural for Darwin to conclude that all animals are members of one family scattered in and differentiated by various environments. Each species, according to its conception, adapted to its environment.
The whale in arctic zones developed a coat of fat while the bear put on one of fur. The skin of a jungle man living under the equatorial sun became black like a protective umbrella against the scorching rays. The eyes of cave lizards atrophied because they were useless in the dark, and they became blind, while their prairie brethren still retained their sight. Those animals that took to the water developed their limbs into fins, and those that took to the air evolved theirs into wings. Those destined to walk the earth transformed their limbs into legs.
Doesn't the embryo give the process away? At a particular stage of its development, we find it breathing through gills. These, then, wither away, and the lungs appear. At another stage, it develops a tail which, in turn, disappears. At one time, it is covered with hair which later on recedes.
Rock layers tell us, through the fossils they preserve, a concatenated story about the emergence and disappearance of one genus after the other: from simple mono-cell animals to myriad-celled ones, to molluscan, to crustaceans, to fishes, to amphibians, to reptiles, to birds, to mammals, to man.
Darwin was right, in fact, he was a genius when he laid down that invaluable premise of anatomical similarity among animals. He was equally on the right track when he posited the hypothesis of evolution.
He fell into error, however, when he hazarded an explanation of the process of evolution and his conception of the phases and details of such process was mistaken.
For Darwin believed that evolution is solely motivated by latent materialistic factors. Animals fight with tooth and claw in a bloody and terrible struggle for survival. The weak are eliminated, and survival is always for the fittest. Such war raging in nature is the power that picks out the strong and well-adapted creatures fostering them, preserving their offspring, and opening up before them the vistas of life.
This theory may explain the survival of the stronger, but it does not account for that of the beautiful. A pied wing has no more physical advantages or survival value than a plain, white one. It is certainly no more efficient in flight. Suppose we grant that a male seeking for mate prefers one with a pied wing. In that case, a question will immediately arise as to why the variegated colors do not represent any increment inefficiency. If we include a preference for the more beautiful in our estimation, as we are bound to do in the light of the previous question, the materialistic interpretation collapses completely.
In the latter case, the theory remains incapable of explaining why something like the horse should branch out of the donkey family, or why a beautiful, delicate and sensitive animal like the gazelle should evolve out of the ibex, although it is less strong and tough than members of that species. One wonders about the way in which that theory can account for the hoopou’s wing, the peacock’s feathers, and the amazingly spotted and wonderfully colored types of butterflies. In such phenomena, we discern the hand of a master artist inventing and creating. We are no longer in the realm of a crude and rough business like the war of survival and the struggle of tooth and claw.
The second error in the theory of evolution came at the advocates of 'mutation.' Mutations are new characteristics that unexpectedly appear in the offspring because valuable changes occur when the male and female cells join in mating and the chromosomes responsible for determining hereditary characteristics cross with each other.
Sometimes the new characteristics may be detrimental in the case of deformities and disfigurements. At other times, however, the mutations may be helpful and appropriate for the animal's new environment. An animal that takes to the water, for example, may develop flat feet. This unique characteristic is undoubtedly beneficial, for such type of feet is more suitable for swimming.
Nature, then, fosters this characteristic. It transmits it to the new generations and, at the same time, weeds out the older feature because of its inappropriateness.
In this way, evolution from ordinary to membraneous legs takes place.
This theory erred when it established evolution on the basis of haphazard mutations and mistakes. It totally overlooked any element of planning or creativity. Chance mutations can never be valid bases for an explanation of the inventiveness, accuracy, and precision we observe in everything around us.
A mosquito, for instance, lays its eggs in a swamp. Miraculously, it seems, every egg comes into being equipped with two bags to help it to float. From what quarter, one wonders, did the mosquito learn Archimedes' laws so that it supplied its eggs with those floating bags? Consider those desert trees that produce 'winged' seeds that fly for miles with the wind and spread over vast areas. In what school did these trees know enough about aerial lift laws to enable them to make such winged seeds that fly hundreds of miles in search of suitable grounds for growth?
There are, again, those 'carnivorous' plants that equip themselves with snares and remarkable 'booby traps' to catch and swallow up insects. With what mind were they able to devise these tricks?
In such examples, we are, in fact, before a Comprehensive Mind that thinks and invents for His creatures all sorts of ways and means. Evolution is unthinkable without that Creative Mind:
“He that gave all creatures their distinctive form and then rightly guided them.” Ta Ha, 50
The third difficulty facing Darwin’s theory is the recently discovered chromosome or gene chart. It is now known that every animal species has a chromosome chart peculiar to it alone. It is impossible that any species did or could evolve from another because of the difference in chromosome charts.
We conclude from the previous review that Darwin's theory is shaken.
Although anatomical similarity among animals and evolution itself are widely accepted facts, the stages and the nature of the latter process are still a mystery.
Were there separate beginnings for the various genera, or do they all go back to identical origins?
Evolution is clearly mentioned in the Quran just as the stages of creation, formation, fashioning, and breathing of spirit is.
Science, however, has not yet been able to formulate a valid theory that can explain these stages.
If we go back to the 'Prostration' sura, we will find the following account of creation:
“He first created man from clay then bred his offspring from a drop of despised fluid. He fashioned him and breathed into him of His Spirit. He gave you eyes and ears and hearts;” Prostration, 7–9
The meaning is quite clear: those early origins of man from which Adam later evolved and procreated utilizing a 'despised fluid' had no hearing or sight or 'heart' (in the sense of mind or reason). These faculties evolved later on when the spirit was breathed into Adam in the last stage of his 'molding.' Such origins, then, could have been some forms of undeveloped animal life.
We remember again in this context the verse:
“Didn’t there pass on man a space of time when his life was a blank (insignificant thing).’’ Man, 1
The truth, despite all, remains an unsolved riddle.
No one can claim that he has attained it. What really occurred in creation may have been totally different from our views and those of scientists. The entire subject continues to be open for investigation. All that science has ventured so far are guesses.