Creation Or Evolution

Creation or evolution? M Mubashir Hassan Some people, who regard themselves as intellectual giants, engage in absurd speculations about the origin of life. They consider that life, with all its complexities, originated by chance. Chance seems to be a key that would open up any enigmatic lock; a proposition that is difficult to believe. When subjected to scientific examination, these claims miserably break down, for what science reveals is quite contrary to such beliefs Science is misinterpreted or misrepresented to support these claims. Despite being aware of the inherent weaknesses of their claims, evolutionists hold on to it adherently and console themselves and their followers by saying that with the progress of science, evidences would be laid bare to support the theory of evolution. The truth, however, is contrary to it: all the discoveries that have been made since the publication of Darwin’s origin of species, are contradicting with the assumptions of evolutionists. Every new discovery makes the theory feebler. Some of the scientific facts which disprove evolutionistic claims are described below. Origin of life: Evolutionists fail to account for how the life originated. First evolutionists, like Charles Darwin, simply glossed over the problem and treated it as if it required no explanation. In those days life was thought to be simple and that it could originate under certain favourable conditions. However, the discovery of Louis Pasture, that living beings can’t originate form non living, put evolutionists in quagmire, but they were not ready to give in, to accept the reality. They put forward various foolish propositions to defend their theory. They concede that various components of a cell were formed under suitable conditions through an element of chance and then these components came together, again through an element of chance, giving rise to a living cell. The only experiment, with which the evolutionists try to relate evolution, is Mill’s experiment. Mill did succeed in synthesizing amino acids under laboratory conditions, claiming that the raw materials he used in his experiment were those which were present in the primitive environment. But later it was realized that he had been wrong in his selection Even if it is assumed that the amino acids were formed somehow, evolutionists fail to explain how these amino acids combined to form useful sequence, and it is only a useful sequence of amino acids that constitute proteins; otherwise they are simple polypeptide chains that are of no value to life. (It is to be remembered here that proteins are the basic components of life.) The problem of how did amino acids combine and form meaningful sequence perplexed Mill. He didn’t proceed further. Then Sydney Fox tried to take forward Mill’s effort. He performed an experiment to synthesize proteins from amino acids. He ended up making just a few meaningless polypeptide

chains, and never succeeded in producing a meaningful sequence of proteins. Nor has any scientist, with all the sophisticated instruments at his disposal, succeeded in synthesizing a single protein. Besides a living cell doesn’t consist just of the combination of proteins; there are many more molecules which go into the making of a cell. Here a conscious, intelligent power is seen at work, for no ordered arrangement is possible without intelligent guidance. Evolutionists try to account for it by describing it as a chance happening; however, chance has its limitations. To say that chance can bring about such an ordered thing as life (or for that matter a living cell, or even a small protein, which could be understood only very recently) is just a lame excuse for not accepting the truth. Even if it is assumed that all the components of a cell got formed somehow, what rationale can there be for coming together of all these elements and there getting adjusted in a proper order; an order which is faultless, complete in itself. If all the components, which constitute a cell, are brought together and put together in the same sequence as in a living cell, it would still be a heap of atoms. Nothing can bring it to life. The progress of science (cytology, genetics etc.) has established that life can only originate de novo i.e. it can only be passed on from one living organism to another. Such a revelation was sufficient to convince the evolutionists about the presence of some living entity, that is independent of the limitations of time and space, and who is the fountain head of all life. Allah almighty refers to this reality in the following words: ‘God- there is no deity save Him, the Everliving, the self subsistent, Fount of all being……’ (2:255). Genetic information: For life to continue, the information about various life processes and modes of life must pass on from generation to generation. A special molecule called D.N.A., which may be present in the nucleus of a cell or may float freely in the cytoplasm of a cell, performs this function. D.N.A. performs this action by directing the protein synthesis, which in turn directs various life processes. The basic unit of D.N.A. is a nucleotide molecule. It consists of a sugar molecule, a phosphate and a nitrogenous base. There are four different types of these nitrogenous bases and depending upon the kind of base attached, there are four different kinds of nucleotides. The information contained in the D.N.A. depends upon the sequence of these four kinds of nucleotides. When a cell divides, DNA also replicates and a set of chromosomes is passed on to each daughter cell. In this way each cell of living organism receives complete information for carrying out its life processes. Now let us assume for a while that a living cell somehow came into existence, naturally it would have died after some time and the whole thing would have come to an end. If the life were to continue it would first have required developing a system to transfer the information to its descendent, otherwise life would have got lost with the death of that first formed. The probability for developing such a system is unimaginably remote and it was imperative for that simple creature to remain alive all that time, having access to all the materials required for the process.

This is not an end to the enigma. There are many more questions which baffle the evolutionists! Like how it came to be decided that a particular combination of nucleotides would serve as a code for one particular amino acid (building blocks of proteins) and who decided all this? Certainly a cell couldn’t have decided it. The genetic code is so perfect that it couldn’t have been designed by any one other than the Perfect being, let alone its chance formation. Another impasse faced by the evolutionists is their inability to explain the increase in the genetic material of higher forms of life. A bacterium, for instance, has a single chromosome while as a human being or a whale has a complex set of chromosomes; there is a tremendous increase in the quantity and diversity of the genetic material. Let us for argument’s sake consider that a bacterium or some other simple creature originated by chance, how were many diverse types of genes added to it and how did they diversify and that too millions of times (there have lived millions of species of living beings in the world and each species has got a unique genetic set up)? All this enigma is simplified when we consider the following verse of the Qur’an: ‘Or who, originates creation, then repeats it, and who gives you sustenance from heaven and earth?’ (27:64) Diversity of life: In 1801 Lamarck put forth his theory of transformation in which he stated that living things have the ability to get transformed from simplicity to complexity. He theorized that changes in environment bring about morphological changes in living beings and the changes acquired during the life time of an animal are transmitted on to its off spring. Darwin too propounded his theory almost on the same line; he proposed that within every species of animals there occur variations. The traits which are useful to a species are selected by natural selection and passed on to its descendents which ultimately lead to the emergence of a new species .Darwin put forth the idea that originally there was a common ancestor to all the species living today and due to the process of variation and natural selection new species of animals emerged. Mendel’s experiments proved both Lamarck as well as Darwin wrong. His experiment established that the acquired traits are not transmitted. Today with the vast knowledge of genetics available, there is no scope for the theories of Darwin or of Lamarck to be accepted. Realizing the incompatibility of the Darwin’s theory with the established facts of science, evolutionists took refuge in the mutation theory of Hugo de Vries. According to this theory the genetic material of living cell undergoes variation under the effect of external conditions like the effect of radiation etc. and when fairly sufficient amount of mutations are accumulated the result is the emergence of new organs or a modified organ which eventually lead to the emergence of new species of animals. For a long time evolutionists consoled themselves under the shade of this theory. Various

experiments were conducted to lend credence to the mutation theory of transformation. The results, however, disappointed the evolutionists: it was observed that the mutations did alter the genetic set up of an organism but these alterations were always to the detriment of the organism and never proved beneficial. Even the bacteria, which divide in every twenty minutes, didn’t change when these were subject to intense radiations. It goes to show that there was not a common ancestor of all the living animals rather each living organism was created completely and independently. Paleontology: Evolutionists had pinned their hopes on paleontology (study of fossils) to bear them out. But it has dealt a death blow to their theory. If one were to believe the logic of the evolutionists, then a paleontologists must have come across simple life forms in the lowest strata of the earth, and more complex forms in the upper state but this is not so. Far from bearing any compatibility with the evolutionary scheme, the facts completely contradict it. Evolutionists say that the life developed by stages and accordingly simplest life forms originated first then these developed and diversified, giving rise to various complex life forms. Had they been true there must have been various intermediate forms between the animals which emerged from one another e.g. evolutionists claim that reptiles emerged from fishes, so there must have been some intermediate form between these two life forms. But no intermediate form or any of their traces have so far been unearthed nor is there any such hope. The fact (as revealed by the paleontology) is that all the Major Phyla (groups of animals as per their classification) emerged almost in the same period (Middle of the Cambrian age between 575 and 505 million years ago) and there is no gradual increase in the complexity of life forms, as envisioned by evolutionists. Douglas H. Erwin, a research paleobiologist at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., in his article “Biology's Big Bang” writes about this event: ‘In a relatively brief period, a riotously diverse group of the first complex animals appeared on Earth. It was an explosion of life unlike anything that has occurred since……Why did the evolution of life take such a magnificent leap after being relatively uneventful for billions of years? And why did the change occur so rapidly? The search for the answer to these questions is taking place in fossil beds around the world….What triggered the Cambrian explosion? Why did it begin about 575 million years ago, and not 1 billion years ago, or 350 million years ago? Scientists do not have the answers to these questions.’ What does all this point to? It goes to show that living beings appeared suddenly and completely formed otherwise there would have been intermediate forms and that different groups of animals should have appeared in different periods of time. Complexity in life: There are some organs present in the living beings which can not be accounted for by gradual

development .e.g. human eye is composed of various components which work together. Evolutionists would say that all these components developed slowly over a long period of time but no component of the eye would have been of any help to the animal individually. If any component had developed it would not have worked. And if these components evolved over time, which intelligence was at work to cause the emergence of these components separately and had imagined at the very outset that at the end of the formation of these components, these would form a working whole and would aid each other. And what about the migratory pattern of some birds? These birds migrate to distant lands without any guidance and without any prior knowledge about these distant lands or to the routs leading to them. They are lead to these new places instinctively, and then return after a fixed period to their old habitation. The information about these adventures is contained in the genetic set up of these birds. Evolutionists fail to account for how this information came to be developed. It is impossible to have evolved over time. No amount of mutation/variation can bring about such a drastic and meaningful change. The explanation is simple: it is the handiwork of Allah, who designed their genetic set up in such a way that they are inspired to behave in a manner which is incomprehensible to human beings. Allah has not provided them with the means to pass on information yet has compensated this deficiency. The Sonar system of a bat, which is better than that developed by our scientists, has put the evolutionists in amazement. They are simply attributing it to chance. Any sane person can realise how absurd they are getting. How could such a perfect system, which is beyond our comprehension, come about by it self? Some secrets about life: A living cell made up of atoms, of the particular combination of the very atoms that form our earth, and every thing around us. Earlier it was thought that an atom was the smallest particle of the matter and that it couldn’t be broken down, but now it has been found out that an atom is not the smallest particle of the nature and that it too can be broken down. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon M. Lederman says about the constituents of the matter ‘There are 12 fundamental particles of matter: six quarks, named up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom; and six leptons—the electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tau, and tau neutrino. There is a provisional consensus that these are “the bottom line,” point like particles with nothing inside.’ (Encarta Yearbook article, 1999). And who knows that a few years later some physicist may put the world in bewilderment by discovering that these particles too can be broken down? Physicists are yet divided in their opinion about the reality of these sub atomic particles. These particles are said to have dual nature i.e. they behave both as matter as well as wave; a proposition difficult to grasp. Nobel Prize winner Erwin Schrödinger threw light on this in a lecture in Geneva, in 1952, he says:

‘The wave-particle dualism afflicting modern physics is best resolved in favor of waves, believes the author, but there is no clear picture of matter on which physicists can agree…..We have to admit that our conception of material reality today is more wavering and uncertain than it has been for a long time. We know a great many interesting details, learn new ones every week. But to construct a clear, easily comprehensible picture on which all physicists would agree—that is simply impossible’. (Source encyclopedia Encarta) Then what is the reality of an atom? An atom is a combination of waves or particles (uncertain nature) whose presence has been established only through indirect inferences. Nobody has been able to comprehend their mysterious nature. Or we can say that on the ultimate analysis a living being is made up of insignificant waves. Can a combination of such insignificant waves produce a conscious being, capable of thinking and planning? A cell doesn’t lose any material thing when it dies, yet there is a world of difference between a living cell and a dead cell. It shows that a cell is not just a heap of molecules. Something extra, something which doesn’t have any material existence is there, which gives life to it and ability to plan, to think, to dreams, to love and hate. Something which is afflicted by sorrow, joy and above all has an instinct. A material thing doesn’t have such properties. Can it have? If the evolutionists were true that life has material basis only and that various components of a cell came together and formed a living cell, then in our age it should not have posed any problem to create a living cell in the laboratory. Why should today’s Man, who has invented so many things which didn’t previously exist and about which he knew nothing, fail to make a living cell about which he knows many things and knows about the material of which it is made. Life is something else which doesn’t have only material existence but is dependent on something else for its existence. The most beautiful description of the life is given by Him who has brought it into existence. ‘He [It is Who] brings forth the living from that which is dead, and brings forth the dead out of that which is alive, and gives life to the earth after it had been lifeless: and even thus will you be brought forth (from death to life). ’ {Al-Qur’an. 30:19} Who could have given such a precise description of the life except the one who created it?

Author can be e-mailed at: [email protected] Mubashir Hassan S/o Manzoor Ahmad Dar R/o Zirpora Bijbehara Anantanag J & K India Pin 192124