Intelligent Design on Trial

PBS just recently aired a very good documentary called "Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" profiling the Evolution vs Intelligent Design/Creationism trial in Dover, Pennsylvania in 2004. I recommend watching it to any of you interested in the ongoing battle between the scientific establishment and the religious creationists.

The Dover trial was and is important because it put to test and scrutinized the two mutually incompatible "explanations" for the diversity of life seen on the Earth. It saw some of the arguments against and for evolution be evaluated and had the same done for ID. More importantly, it saw science itself be somewhat questioned and definitions of what constitutes as science be elicited. The outcome of the trial was of no surprise - honest science and truth prevailed as the judge upheld evolution as a valid scientific theory and ruled ID/Creationism as bad science.

Whenever you hear a argument against evolution, do make an effort and read the scientific explanation. After all, the truth stands superior isn't it?

EDIT (19/Nov/2007): The BBC Horizon series had a program in 2006 on the same topic and is an interesting watch too.

This entry was posted by Jaa on Sunday, November 18. 2007 at 16:27. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own blog.

Defined tags for this entry: creationism, evolution, intelligent design, religion, science

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1. Hilath Rasheed says:
   
   #1 2007-11-19 04:16 (Reply)

   I am not sure Maldivians will benefit from science. Like most humans, rather than finding out answers and the truth for themselves, rather than reading about it, we like information to be spoonfed to us by our teachers, family, friends or neighbours.
   It is then no wonder that many Maldivians do not understand what is meant by the words Nature, Evolution, Natural Selection, etc.
   They stupidly believe that when we try to explain "creation" by "evolution" we are trying to claim that this universe exists by chance, probability, or getting created on its own!
   Maldivians do not really understand things like the anthropic principle, etc. They apply simple human logic like, "If my computer was made by a human, then we humans must be made by some other intelligent being" i.e. God.
   I don't think there is any chance of explaining to the average Maldivian how the Big Bang occurred, and that there is no God in the sense taught by religions, ie, a super being sitting on a throne waiting to judge our sexual urges etc. heh heh.

2. idrees says:
   
   #1.1 2007-11-19 05:56 (Reply)

   oh really? so this whole big nation which produced hillath rasheed has no one who understands science except hillath rasheed?? is hillath rasheed another name for einstein?

3. Mohamed Hilmy says:
   
   #2 2007-11-20 09:27 (Reply)

   This case was one of the biggest courtroom clashes between faith and evolution and a US federal judge gave a verdict in Dec 2005 that barred a Pennsylvania public school from teaching “intelligent design” in biology class, saying the concept is creationism in disguise. ID is strongly supported by the conservative christians who maintain that living organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher force.
   
   But the debate in US is not going to go away for proponents of the ID theory argue that there are unexplained gaps in Darwin's evolution theory and students must be taught of the existence of unidentified intelligent causes that have contributed to the process of life.
   
   PBS documentary must be fascinating to watch.

4. jaa says:
   
   #2.1 2007-11-20 19:10 (Reply)

   ID/Creationism is strongly supported (conservative) Muslims too. It now runs rampant in the Maldives and evolution is denounced in classrooms by Islam teachers, written against in Dhivehi magazines and websites. Unlike the US, the phenomenon is likely to stick around in Maldives and go mostly unchallenged (or more precisely said, prevented from being challenged!). What do you think?
   
   I posted about it earlier and the responses speak for themselves
   
   http://www.jawish.org/blog/archives/236-Evolution-Theory-Atheists-Excuse!.html

5. idrees says:
   
   #2.1.1 2007-11-22 06:26 (Reply)

   the creationist views of christians are not in accordance with islam. ppl associate creationism with islam chrisitanity and judaism with the same brush. but what the cristians believe in creationism is very different from what we muslims believe. remember its the christian and jewish scripture that fixed the age of humans somewhere in 6000 back. but islam does not sanction this bad mathematics.
   
   also one of the attributes of god (Allah swt)is the Evolver. so god evolves his creation. we muslims have no fight over this. but we cant be choosy and pick whatever that agrees with our beliefs from the holy quruan and still say we are muslims and yet reject what we belive is beyond belief from the holy quruan. so when god says in holy quruan that he created Adam (alaihi salaathu wa salaam) in the heaven and made him to descend to earth then we have to believe it. because so says quruan and quruan cannot be subjected to our little litmus tests. this is assuming we (may i consider including your name Jaa?) are muslims. however if someone has left the fold of islam then i have nothing to say to such a person.
   
   another point we may have to think seriously is about that there are somethings which just aren't or cant be or things which are not possible... we just cannot make believe that everything is possible. surely there are somethings which are not possible. or which cannot be possible! however advanced we become of science or whateever there will always be limits to our understanding of various phenomenae etc... hence one such area we shall not waste our efforts is to apply what little of instruments we have of science and apply it to take the 'measurement of god'. because the god we understand in islam is not the same god they are talking about in christianity. the god they are talking in christianity is like a big grand father in the sky who has blue eyes and white overgrown beard... with a little innnocent kid and no mother... etc etc.. a very complicated picture they created themselves. in islam we are talking about Allah. the most high. that which has no beyond. the highest of the descriptions! ...
   
   another point is that when we are using the works of great scientists to support our claim or to belittle anothers argument, we attribute a certainity and authority to that work which is like a truth which cannot be challenged.. like gospel truth. remember there is no perfect circle that can be drawn. same goes to the many great scientific works by the humanity and they
   .... ETC....

6. jaa says:
   
   #2.1.1.1 2007-11-24 16:26 (Reply)

   The Christian Creationists and the Islamic Creationists all claim the same thing and probably are the only topic on which the two religious camps can peacefully agree. The Muslim author and Creationist Harun Yahya, a Maldivian favourite, plagiarizes and copies ALL of his arguments from his Christian counterparts. Harun Yahya's arguments include the irreducible complexity arguments, information argument, positive mutation argument etc all of which have been proposed by the Christians and then subsequently refuted by the scientific establishment. What you refer to the Christians believing about the age of the earth is a variant of the Creationists, known as Young Earth Creationists, in which they assert that the literal Biblic translation of earth being no older than 6000 years. Similarly, Harun Yahya offers an additional spin on his attack on evolution by his attacks on materialism.
   
   What you say about God being the Evolver has no relation to the scientific definition of evolution and simply amounts to linguistic play. It may convince some people but all it is an intellectual dry and meaningless assertion.
   
   You are also presenting a false dichotomy when you say that Muslims have to either believe that Allah directly made humans or accept that humans were created through evolution and not by God. There exist a third option, and one taken by most of educated Muslims and Muslim scientists, that take a less literal interpretation of the Quran which says that Allah made humans via evolution. Things aren't as black and white as extremists make it out to be
   
   I disagree with your assertion that God is an area which can be subjected to tests. The existence of a God and the truth of what God "reveals" in Holy scriptures can and has to be subjected to rational and scientific inquiry if we are to evaluate the claims. Otherwise people can pass of anything and justify anything in the name of Gods. Things like the age of the earth, how humans evolved and general "truths" about the world as revealed in scriptures can indeed be independently evaluated and is well within the domain of science. This is precisely how we know the Young Earth Creationists are wrong.
   
   I totally agree that there maybe and probably are things we can't know, ever - Godel's Incompleteness theorem has made that pretty definite. However, that doesn't draw a boundary on what we can know and what we can't know. To say that there are things we can't know and so lets stop looking for answers is intellectual suicide. If we did that, say regarding probes into the facts of the universe, matter, medicine or even tricky issues such as subjective conciousness then we would have stagnated in the human intellectual growth we have seen in the last millenia and forever doomed us to the 5th century horses and camels. Humans have continued to push further into what we can know and so far hasn't come to any sort of wall.
   
   Belittling the Christian notion of God in the way you did and chalking it down to pure make-believe fantastical stories is precisely what they would do for your notion of God. While you may find the Hindu beliefs nonsensical, you have to acknowledge that they regard yours as nonsensical and hold onto the notions of their Gods with as much conviction and respect. This is precisely why blind belief and faith is not a good measure of what is truth and not. Faith involves accepting certain things as truth and once you do that, you are locked into a perspective that will and shall not contravene those beliefs, irrespective of whatever the objective evidence available.
   
   Science has been the only mode of probing reality and finding truth that we humans have. Science certainly does not work on by giving authority to a particular scientist or group of scientists. Science is pitifully indifferent to the people involved and focuses on intellectual honesty by evaluating current evidence and drawing rational conclusions from it. These deductions and the evidence are continually re-evaluated and scrutinized. What science or scientists have to say aren't and don't have to accepted purely on faith or by attributing authority to them. Rather, evidence and sound logical, rational arguments serve on their own which any person can evaluate for themselves. Accepting things on the basis of faith and attribution to a certain authority are what happens within religions.
   
   ETC...

7. Mohamed Hilmy says:
   
   #3 2007-11-20 18:28 (Reply)

   Thanks for the link of horizon on Google.

8. Mohamed Hilmy says:
   
   #4 2007-11-21 01:34 (Reply)

   Haven't read Daruma article before as I normally don't read Maldives magazines. Reading through your previous piece and the comments, I see a disturbing trend. The radicals seemes to have hijacked the process of open and critical dialogue which opens up our minds to understanding the use of reason, science and religion. The theory of evolution is not a demonic argument as it made out to be. The Christians went down that road and imprisoned Galileo, widely regarded as the father of science. Galileo published an account of his telescopic observations of the moons of Jupiter, using this observation to argue in favor of the sun-centered, Copernican theory of the universe against the dominant earth-centered which the Catholic Church favoured.
   
   Whether one is for against the theory of the different stages of evolution, Darwin's work has given a vast array of useful information. The contradiction arises with the theistic religions that support God is the Creator of all and that Adam, the first human being was shaped and placed on earth by God.
   
   Even today after scientists have mapped the human genome and continue to discover some remarkable things relative to the intricacies of the human body, they are no nearer, scientifically speaking, to unlocking the mysteries of life—than before they started.
   
   If for nothing else, even for intellectual curiosity it worth addressing the issues on both side of the evolution debate. If Maldives wants to avoid going down the Taleban road, we have to start critical discussions in our schools. There is nothing unislamic about it. We have already seen the perils of blind faith in Hinmadhoo and Male'.

9. jaa says:
   
   #4.1 2007-11-24 15:19 (Reply)

   I totally agree. We need open, intellectual debate to happen and soon...

10. idrees says:
    
    #5 2007-11-24 21:11 (Reply)

    Jaa. You are wrong on many points again. Let me try to point out a few.
    (1) Christianity and islam has a lot in common and nobody is complaining about that. in some aspects of the creation theme both religions share some common ground but there are major differences. Now if a muslim quote a verse from the bible to prove a point and similarly if a christian were to quote a verse from the holy quruan to prove a point which he agrees then it’s fine. Certainly muslims have been doing that for quite some time. Just because one is a muslim he does not have to be against Christianity and reject their teachings completely. Remember a muslim is not a muslim if he disbelieve in the truth of the messiah and the book he brought. Although this formula works for muslims the Christians do not believe they have to belive in the truth of the message of our beloved prophet Muhammad pbuh. Yet we muslims are not complaining.
    (2) Now a popular and an easy way of refuting harun yahya (or for that matter lots of others) has been to categorize his sayings and give it a name and disregard the category completely. I think this is a lame and easy way to debate ppl. I am not saying we have to reinvent the wheel every time but disregarding a whole discipline a big giant work an entire philosophy or a complete religion categorically does not prove one’s brilliance.
    (3) God being the evolver is not a word I coined. If you were a muslim you would have come across the 99 attributes of Allah swt. Among them one is the Evolver. It is not an intellectually dry and meaningless assertion I coined.
    (4) About taking literal interpretations of the quruan… again this is also the easy way out of the solution. Now in the holy quruan the muslims are commanded to pray five times daily. To establish five daily prayers. and yes some ppl take the easy way and attribute this commandment to a literal thing and refrain from establishing prayer . What they did in essence is to have found a lame excuse not to perform the action. This is a good excuse for the lame who want to pay lip service to islam.
    (5) About subjecting god to our little tests. i think this has been done and done many times and its ours to believe whatever we want to believe. God is not a white grandfather figure in the sky holding a baby. All I am saying is to distinguish between the god the Christians are alluding to and what we the muslims belive. We belive in god who did not father a projeny. We belive in the god of infinity. Of infinite strength and to whom there is no beyond. Who is not similar to any who is not begotten and who beget not. Such a god we cannot put to test because if we were to do some computation of some sort then we would need an infinite number of operators and operands to do that math. We would also need an infinite number constants and variables to try to achieve this and then we shall have infinite number of cray2 comps to do this. Now I am also doing some word play hope you would forgive. But the point shall be registered. I hope I sound coherent… hehehehe
    (6) I have not asked to commit intellectual suicide by probing the improbable. I just was alluding for the seeker of answers not to be stubborn but be intelligent. Now suppose a man is imprisoned in a little room with no doors or windows. But there is no roof of this little room. Now if he is a stubborn person he would try to smash the walls however difficult the task is. It would have been far easier for him to try scale the wall than to try to dismantle the wall atom by atom.
    (7) Belittling others faith is not permissible in islam. If you got that meaning from what I wrote than my heart felt apologies for you. My English is not as good as it aught to be… now as I understand it its not Islamic way to belittle others faith be it Hinduism Christianity or Judaism or whatever. Remember that occasion when the holy prophet Abraham carried a fire worshipper to his tent to feed him? Now that is the version of Islam I know of. Muslims are commanded by our holy prophet Muhammad pbuh not to harass the clergy and religious institutions even in the heat of war. Also muslim are commanded in the holy quruan to believe in the messages of moses, jesus, Abraham, Jacob, david, peace be upon them all without distinction. That they are true messengers and their message is from god. So we muslims do not make any distinction between their message as if some are valid and some are incorrect. They are all holy messengers from the same god Allah swt.
    (8) Yes “Science has been the only mode of probing reality and finding truth that we humans have”. But this shall not mean we have to abandon our religion and believe in things which are against our religion. Because our religion is not in conflict with science. But there are some popular scientific themes which are not permissible to believe for muslims. Such as the popular theory that the universe came to be of its own without divine intervention when the holy quruan clearly says this is not so. I shall mention 2 reasons for this.
    (1st.) we have not yet reached the edge of science or reached the final frontier of science beyond of which is no beyond. Now if we were to have reached this frontier and found no trace of god then so be it we shall discard divine intervention in the greater scheme of things.
    (2nd ) vaccum fluctuations created a singularity which was prescusor to big bang and hence all the matter we see… says the atheist scientist. Now this the atheist scientists attempt to answer the often answered question how did big bang came about. This is like saying that the is a car running down the road. The person who said it does not elaborate more. That there is a driver and that there is an engine in the car and the car has seats, wheels etc. we assume he is correct and yes we know for a functioning car to travel it shall have an engine among other things. Now we can apply the same logic to vaccum fluctuation theory. (I hope you would not disregard logic because logic is also a category name for a discipline.) now we can ask for the processes involved in this theory. The theory is incomplete. It is a an excuse to answer a big question. Or lots and lots of difficult questions. Such as where is the engine or seats etc..? on the other hand when a muslim says god created the heaven and earth and what lies beyond imagine he is talking about the creator of a game software. We are just characters on the game. (like age of emperors game). However life like the characters seem to be or are they cannot ‘know’ the creator who might be black or a blonde or nerd or tie clad gentleman. The characters go on their business in their virtual map and live and wage war die etc etc. I hope I make sense here… hehhehe. Bye for now.

11. jaa says:
    
    #5.1 2007-11-25 09:20 (Reply)

    I guess I'll respond to your points one by one:
    
    (1) In your earlier comment you said that Christian creationist views are not in accordance with Islam. Now you concede some of it actually is but not all? Please do elaborate on what you mean by that Christians and Muslims "share some common ground but there are major differences". Far as I know, both claim God made men directly, out of dust/clay, and then made women out of the man. This is what Creationism basically entails, so what more is there and how do the Christians and Muslims differ?
    
    (2) Maybe you misunderstood me but I wasn't categorizing and disregarding Harun Yahya's material without serious evaluation. I was merely pointing out that all of his arguments have previously been put forward and that all of it has been scientifically challenged and refuted. I just didn't see a need to go over each of his arguments and then refute in within that comment. If you would like to engage in a more serious analysis of Harun Yahyas assertions, I'd more than happy to.
    
    (3) I am very well aware that it is one of the names of Allah but the names and context and meaning of the word has absolutely no relation to evolution, which I thought we were talking about in the first place! It can't be used as evidence for or against evolution.
    
    (4) So basically you are saying all of those intelligent Muslim people who happen to accept evolution as a theory acceptable within Islam are not really Muslims? And what more, you call them lame? Nice
    
    (5) I'm not all suggesting that God himself be subjected to tests and scrunity. Rather, I suggested that Gods actions, and his words about his actions, such as the creation of man, creation of earth, and other "facts" mentioned in holy books can be analysed well within the domain of acceptable evidence based science. And yes you are merely playing with words when you went on about the computation mumbo-jumbo and it has absolutely no meaning. Obviously you have little understanding or experience with Christians or people of any other faith. If you did, then you'd be better aware that they ALL claim the same things as you do - infinite power, strength, ultimate justice, compassion etc. I doubt any modern human views God as a grandfather in the sky anymore. Anyway, the problem is that neither can you nor they prove or disprove each others assertions - its mere word battles on who can imagine up a more fantastical story. Also, since you like playing with words that have little actual meaning, how about this: Can God create a rock that he can't lift?
    
    (5) Somehow I think you should that advice for yourself. You are so sure that there are some things we can't know that you are utterly unwilling to even consider or evaluate evidence of things already available. You see I like to probe, I like to question and I choose to evaluate evidence and use logic before I decide about things in nature and life. You on the otherhand, believe that there are things you can't know and choose to not even bother checking what things are actually knowable and what are not. Again, I see you really like poetry, albeit meaningless ones, because you've just go off tangent with that story on atom and scaling walls without actually saying anything of intellectual worth.
    
    (7) You do not belittle only the God(s) that Quran speaks of - ie those of Abraham, Moses etc. Do you not belittle the Hindu religion and their Gods and speak of them as silly? Do you not consider the Zoroastrian fire worship as make believe? Do you consider Jainism, Bahaism or Scientology as valid religions and treat their doctrines with respect??
    
    (8) So what you basically are saying is that you contend that Science is the only mode of probing reality and eliciting truth but would rather continue to believe your scripture based particular interpretation of things (which can be faulty) in the face of overwhelming evidence because you think that is what religion commands you to? Where's intellectual honesty in that??
    
    You seem to have a very crude understanding of science, how it works and what sound logic is. You say that your reason for not believing that the universe didn't or couldn't have come about on its own is because you think that's what is commanded in your literalist interpretation of scripture. Do you realize that's circular reasoning? Also, people of other faiths claim the same with as much conviction as you do. And this is all without a evidence or sound argument to refute the science! There is unlikely to be any such thing as a "final frontier" of science. Heck, if anything we are always riding that final frontier. You say that we could discard God if we reach this so called final frontier and find no God - but I'm pretty sure when/if we were to reach that stage there'd be claims that God is still there but entirely inaccessible - which, in all fairness, is very much possible. This is precisely why God is a hard thing to disprove. People always chalk up things we don't know yet to the supernatural, filling mystical explanations for things where there is dispute or little information at that time - something typically known as God of the gaps argument.
    
    Your story about the scientist and big bang highlights a very important principle in science and something that differs greatly from literalist religious views. The scientists are well aware of what they know and can know reliably so they don't jump to conclusions or making shit up to explain the unknown. They wait to do more research, more tests, and more evidence. Right now, we maybe stuck at going no earlier than a fraction of a second before the big bang, but it will likely be shattered as knowledge advances and technology advances. In fact, some scientists have laid the theoretical foundations for going beyond the critical point of big bang to postulate what may have happened prior to it. If you haven't read about it, you should - it is definitely interesting. Anyway, unlike this scientific mode of operation, the religious mode of operation takes delight in not knowing, basking arrogantly in ignorance and then making claims about things without a shred of an evidence or sound theoretical framework to back it up.
    
    Btw, how does this relate to Evolution/Creationism?

12. idrees says:
    
    #6 2007-11-26 12:51 (Reply)

    1)I am assuming you would know that Christian believe that god made humans in his image. In genesis 1:27 we find “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Now in islam we do not belive thus. Ar-Rum 30:20 “And of His signs is this: He created you of dust, and behold you human beings, ranging widely!” this is how quruan relates the creation of Adam pbuh. So this is a big difference between the two religions. Now weather the Christians take a literal view of that verse in NT or weather muslims take a non literal meaning is something else. Atleast we know there are differences both major and minor between the two religions. Now I have copied and pasted from net these two verses not to impress you with my intellectual worth. I am not sure if you would attach any meaning or importance to either verses I quoted because it appears you have made your mind up not to believe in scriptures, be it muslim or Christian. And I have no problem with that.
    2)You claim harun yahya’s material being scientifically challenged and refuted. Which means that the task of refuting and challenging has already happened and it’s a closed debate. But who did this big refuting and challenging and who won the debate? Where was the debate and was there a mediator or a forum for this? No. there was not. The debate is still on and each party has its own inclination of belief supported by their own version of truth. But what is interesting is that the atheist camp is consistently claiming victory in the middle of the debate.
    3)God’s attributes mean something to Muslims. I am not sure you are aware of this but Muslims pray to Allah in different circumstances with different attributes of Allah. Now if a muslim is seeking rizq he asks “O razzaq! Give me rizq. You are the best of the Bestowers” etc like this. Khaliq means the Creator which means He create the creation. Al Hayyu means the Ever Living which means God cannot die. That God will always live. Like this these 99 arabic words has meanings and we muslims believe that words are meant to mean something. But if somebody want to belive that words are meaningless then so be it.
    4)What I say does not matter and shall not matter. I am not the authority on this. But if there be intelligent Muslims who disbelieve in Quruan they are certainly Kaafir. You cannot be a intelligent muslim and disbelieve in the oneness of god, or disbelieve quruan or chapters or verses of quruan and call yourself an intelligent muslim. I know there are such ppl who call themselves intelligent muslims and yet they are not intelligent muslims. I would call such muslims not rather dumb kuffars and I hope I am entitled to my view. If you are not sure of this then ask any reputable or unreputable scholar of Islam. I am sure you will get the same ans as this. In the theory of evolution or for that matter any theory which contradicts Islamic teachings then such a theory cannot be accepted by muslims. Because as long as he is calling himself a muslim he has to abide by Islamic teachings or atleast believe in Islamic principles. Now when we join the police they give us the police badge and uniform and expect us to wear the uniform while on duty. The intelligent policeman will abide by the laws. The foolish one would not. And yes I would call such foolish ppl lame.
    5)First I would like to apologize for overloading your blog with lots of meaningless mumbo jumbo with my little understanding of other faiths etc etc… and play of words. And I am sure I am not the first person to have written meaningless mumbo jumbo on your blog. I assure you that you would come across many worthless ppl like me. Because ppl of your caliber are few and far between. And ppl like me are many and we are the majority of the human race. And I admire you for this. I am thinking of a fulhi batthi in a dark room. Having said that I also agree with you that god’s actions and His words and other “facts” (you have used that punctuation which means you do not believe that god’s word contain facts?) shall be analyzed well within and even without the domain of acceptable evidence based science. There is no prohibition to research like this in islam. Let there be as much research to the researchers heart’s content. But I would like to remind you like the relativity theory of Einstein so are the results of scientific endeavor over the years. One day one scientist might date a pre historic bone to 3.83 million years the next day another researcher might correct that date to 3.82 million years. Now the difference is but only a million years… and to my uneducated mind one million years is a lot of time. A lot of time for lots of changes to happen etc. and the funniest thing is that each researcher is 100% sure of the veracity of his work which will only be corrected by another … and so the story goes. From this scenario I conclude that science is an on going process and we have to believe there is and will always be limits to what can be reasearched and known. There will always be the known and the unknown. But if somebody were to state that he has come across the ultimate proof that such limits there exists not then he shall not be considered the intelligent person he claims to be..
    
    6)Solly for all the meaning less poetry, albeit meaningless ones. My profound apologies for the atomic wall scaling and not saying anything of intellectual worth.
    
    7)I think you missed the point here jaa. In islam we believe the all the messengers mentioned in the holy quruan brought their message from the same source. From Allah swt. The message is of wahdhaniyyath. Of oneness of god. And we believe in the truth of all those messages of all those messengers. We are commanded to do thus in quruan. I can quote this one verse but I do not believe you would profit from it. Now these are about the samaawee dheens. Or the religions from heaven. Then there are other religions ppl invented and true religions ppl corrupted by themselves. (I believe Hinduism is one such religion… though I am not sure. I will research this.) what we are commanded to believe are the dheens god sent through the prophets god mentioned in the the quruan like the christianity Judaism etc. we muslims believe in the truth of that message in its pristine form which there is not any more. Atleast this is the theoretical part. Now weather you or I insult a Christian or a jew is something else. Its up to ourselves to watch our behaviour. Certainly islam does not condone harassing other religions and religious institutions or books.
    
    8)a)…. I would rather continue to believe my religion in the face of overwhelming evidence….? About what is this overwhelming evidence? That there is no god? That our ancestors came from the apes? The overwhelming evidence? Where is this overwhelming evidence. What do you call overwhelming evidence jaa! Pls be specific. You can afford to be specific. Because you have claimed intellectual superiority many times now.
    b) thanks for analyzing me personally from the mumbo jumbo I have written ere and I assure you I would do more to be a little un crude on these subjects of science and logic… I am grateful for you expert opinion. Now in the holy quruan there are certain limits mentioned which cannot be achieved by mankind or known before hand. Such as about death. God said “….Avert from yourself death if you are truthful..” that was half the meaning of one verse in which god addresses the banu israils because they say they the “ahibbau” the beloved of god. Now god challenges them to avert from them death if they be truthful. Now suppose science and technology advanced to a point one day when this limit is reached. That they found the cure to death. If such a thing were to happen then the atheist camp can come to muslim camp and tell us that God has erred in His book. If such a thing were to happen then religion would loose all the significance and ppl would abandon it. But the problem is that god promised that this shall never happen. So this supposition is whishful thinking. But I am not advising anybody to stop dreaming.
    
    
    9)… The scientists are well aware of what they know and can know reliably so they don't jump to conclusions or making shit up to explain the unknown….
    Now nobody is saying scientists are not knowledgeable in what they know. I am only pointing out not to attribute what is not theirs to them. They do not possess total knowledge hence they cannot know everything which they say they do. Sure scientists can do some calculations and understand some extents of their research. Look at this apod pic. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060524.html now lets not yet go beyond the split second before the big bang. Lets try to ans this one little question from a lay man like me. Looking at the pic I have given the link above can the scientists or the great Athiest Scientist can come up with the number of planets like earth in one of galaxies? Or can somebody say that this pic shows what there is and beyond the abyss of space there are no further galaxies?

13. jaa says:
    
    #6.1 2007-11-27 03:35 (Reply)

    Hi Idrees,
    
    I hope you bring back focus to evolution vs intelligent design/creationism. I don't intend to discuss religious issues which this conversation is slowly turning towards. Maybe you can start by telling me a little bit of how you think humans and life has developed. Please include details of time frames, methods and evidences for what you propose. Or alternatively, we can begin with discussing evolution and your specific understanding of evolution and what problems you find with it - other than the fact that it conflicts your particular interpretation of the Quran.
    
    I will respond to your points briefly though:
    1) a. Yes, I do know that Christians believe that man was made in the image of God as per in the bible. But what you don't know, or missed out, is that Bible also says that "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." and "And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man." (King James version). This is essentially the SAME as what is mentioned in the Quran and so makes what Muslims and Christians believe about Creation the same, except for minor extra addendum.
    b. I have no problem with you quoting from scripture but as I said before it has no bearing on evaluating the truth value of what we are analysing, ie. evolution. Each religion has their own creation story and if each were to present quotes from their scriptures then it descends to an unresolvable mess because people are already decided on the final result. For a rational discussion, we instead have to debate on a neutral position and evaluate evidence and use logic to arrive at a objective conclusion.
    
    2) Here, it is very important to understand how science works. Science evaluates evidence - going through a whole process of running tests, simulations, statistical analyses etc in order to evaluate a hypothesis and arrive at a conclusion which are then compiled into a scientific paper presenting details on the methodology used, the analyses used and the proofs/logic behind their conclusions. Some of the papers then get evaluated by other scientists and scrutinized for errors and if they are sound enough they get published in what is called peer-reviewed journals. Now, first, Harun Yahya hasn't presented ANY scientific evidence to backup his claims or even presented a theory of how life came about and how the diversity of life came about - rather, he just makes certain declarations. Therefore science has nothing to operate on. Second, he while does present some reasons for his objections (supposed refutations) to evolution (which like I said earlier are plagiarized from the christian creationists). So, unlike the previous case, this fulfils one of the key requirements in science called falsifiability and so scientists have something that is can be investigated. Scientists have done that and published papers with their findings for everyone to see and judge for themselves. I encourage you to go through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution and read the scientific responses and look up the papers referenced in it for detailed analysis and results. Sadly, the scientific enterprise differs greatly from the religious paradiagm in that there are is no central authorities that make decrees and engage in public debates or bring out fatwas. Now, I offered you to go through Harun Yahya's claims myself and if you are aware of them and would like to discuss them, I can go through them and show you scientific refutation. And yes, you are right when you say that each party hold onto their own notion of truth: religion holds onto revelations as truth based on pure faith while science holds onto theories backed up by sound objective evidence and observations.
    
    3) I have no debate on the importance and meaning of names, as I said before. I simply said that it has no meaning, no place in a rational objective analysis. If I missed out on a important point here that has a rational bearing towards our discussion of evolution, then by all means please enlighten me.
    
    4) Ok.
    
    5) Please skip the sarcasm. I apologize if this was somehow warranted by something that I said that offended you or me sounding arrogant. I already agreed that there maybe limits to science and I take no issue with that. What I do take issue with however is that you seem to be sure there are things science can't find out and in addition you claim to know those limits as well! All I am saying that unless we look, we won't know and that we should be eager and not prejudiced in looking. It is also important to remember that science has not come up to limits of knowledge and discovery so far. Have we?
    
    7) Umm.. You missed the point or maybe I failed to make it clear. Let me take a shot again especially since your reply makes it easier! See, you accept Christianity and some others because you believe they are God sent as mentioned in scripture and you afford them respect and tolerance. But then you go onto call some other religions, or rather MANY other religions as false, corrupt and made-made. That itself is an insult and precisely the sort of disrespect that I was talking about!
    
    a. You seem to be mixing God too much in here. I wasn't and DIDNT say there was no God. What I was saying is that people believe in creationism because they take a particular interpretation of scripture and believe that is true and so never afford an evidence based view of reality. Please be kind enough to refer to http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_evolution for a general rundown of evidences for common descent.
    b. You seem to be very offended by what I said and my humble apologies for that.
    Now I agree humans haven't been able to escape death so far and might not ever be able to do that. There is interesting research being done is interesting to know even if immortality is found to be impossible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence
    
    9) Again I agree that there are limits to what can be known. In this APOD case, astrophysicists indeed can tell the likelihood of a earth like planet being amongst the galaxies to a certain extent but that ability depends on the data available. The ability to tell, in probabilistic terms, if there is a life bearing planet like earth depends on the precision of spectroscopic data (amongst others) available and current radiotelescopes can go only so far, partly due to limits on the speed of light and partly due to current mechanical and technological limits. Scientists do not declare something as unknowable without evidence to support that claim and then revel in the resulting ignorance from not looking. That was my point...

14. idrees says:
    
    #7 2007-11-28 06:44 (Reply)

    Hi jaa. I am trying to focus to evolution vs creationism but all though I should have stated earlier I have no real fight against evolution or creationism. But with this important qualification. By evolution I do not wish to take the absolute sense of the word hence I do not buy the monkey business argument against human race. And by creationism I would mean the creation of a creator or rather The Creator. Then there is intelligent design. This I believe is a feeble effort by somebody who is too intimidated to introduce the word god to the equation and yet is sufficiently motivated to introduce another explanation in to the age old puzzle of creation.
    How life evolved on earth or how life was lived by the first living organism on earth on the first day of earthly life will never be known although we shall use our god given faculties and knowledge to probe, to question and to conjecture such to satisfy the inquiring soul. It is knowledge like the first person who made the match and kindled a fire with it. Is it possible to know such kind of knowledge? Nop I think. Nop in the absolute sense of the word but we may have our theories and our conjectures. What is difficult would be to refrain from calling the theory evidence, what is probable being presented as certainty etc. etc.
    
    Now my understanding of evolution is that god created the creation and then evolved some creatures and transfigured some creation etc. god has absolute authority over his creation and His decree shall and will always be fulfilled. Now there are many verses in the holy Quruan ending with this theme. “is there any one more truthful than i?” now being a Muslim I believe god never lied hence when god clearly says in Quruan that he created mankind from such and such (AND NOT EVOLVED MANKIND FROM MONKEYS) then like a good Muslim I believe in it. Then weather one has to be a disbeliever to be a scientist or an apostate to be able to be truthful is some thing else.
    Those briefly are some of my views you requested and if they contradict your interpretation of Quruan or the contemporary interpretation or the authorative interpretation of Quruan then pls let me know
    
    1) a. the difference between a version of a book authorized by a king named James and another book authorized only by God Himself shall be apparent. Now that’s besides the point but I would like to pose a question. Could a novice car buyer be expected to know about major and minor differences in a car the astute car salesman can so lucidly elaborate on? Nop dho?
    
    b. you seem to have a certain fondness for the term “truth value” as if truth value is only something achievable in science and no more. But I believe truth is a very common place thing and it means truth. Which is opposite of false. Now if you are stating that truth is and can only be attributed to science then it’s a very narrow scope for something quite common place. Truth is truth weather it comes from the lip of the shepherd or from the fisherman or from the judge. Very simple.
    Next I did not say we have to take everyone’s version of creation as sound and try to figure out creation according to every scripture the human race follows as divinely inspired. Every scripture is like every one in this country. For eg. in our country we have paateys we have scholars we have beautiful girls etc etc. now if we state all our countrymen are upright honest ppl then it will be found out not to be the case. Because nobody expects paateys to be honest. Right?
    
    2) thanks for the how science works lesson. A much overdue lesson received with thanks. And here is my question. Suppose the Muslim world dominated science. That almost all scientists of renown are Muslims and creation is taken to be granted. Everyone agrees except the die hard Darwinian minority. Also lets suppose Harun yahya as advocating de facto evolution. Now if this were the case then how could the poor Harun yahya write his paper? Where can he submit his paper? And who will give it a fair hearing? To some extent the same is happening now in the scientific world. The atheist scientists has hijacked the house of science (to some reasonable extent) and no further discussion is allowed. Everything which he does not approve is taboo. Evolution is taken for granted although we hear about forgeries like Piltdown man. God cannot be discussed but black holes can be because a black holes influence can be inferred from the behavior of nearby stars. But nobody saw a black hole yet. Etc etc. stars, clusters of stars, galaxies nebulae all are taken for granted by not the possibility that the immense power these objects have could have come from a creator and a grand design? Remember the days when our dheenveri ppl forbid the meat of turtles in Maldives in times of old and yore? Genetically modified crops their use and abuse going on without proper study because of commercial demand? America refusing to acknowledge global warming despite reams and reams of scientific papers saying that human are to blame for this phenomenon. But still bush vetoing it? Now in a messed up house of science like this how can somebody be adamant that truth shall triumph? It cannot. Remember that writer who wrote 2+2=5. Orwell? Now that’s a small approximation for the plight of call of reason against the idiocy or evolution. Sorry if I got carried away.
    
    
    3) I was not alluding to the importance of names and its meanings. But rather I was saying words are expected to mean something. What you missed out here is that just as strongly as you are convinced that god’s attribute does not mean anything to you there are other human beings like you and me who are equally or more strongly convinced about the opposite of your supposition. Now could we be at least courteous and allow others some respect for their views? Or is it that we have to be so sure of our views and that no further dissent on our views shall be tolerated?
    
    4) Ok.
    
    5) I would like to start saying some thing which has been already said. That which can be invented has already been invented…. But I shall refrain from doing so. Because its not the correct assertion. Being a muslim I believe knowledge is a god given thing and god gives and withholds knowledge to whom god wills at leisure. There is no compulsion on god and great many discoveries of science were discovered by accidents not by pin pointed searches by the all-so-knowledgeable-scientist. Scientists are also ppl like us and their work is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration according to their own calculations. Now islam is not against science which is the popular thinking the atheist camp is portraying in their ever so cruel smear campaign against islam. even the first verse revealed to our beloved prophet Muhammad pbuh exhorted him to read, learn and study… I expect you to know the theme or may be to have a faint recollection of the verse in some edhuruge in your distant childhood memory. Sorry if I am doing theatrics with words but… this last assertion. We muslims believe in the limits Quruan gave and what Quruan is silent about which would not be against the teachings of islam we allow. For eg. Quruan challenges mankind to avert from death. Now that is a limit that cannot be surpassed by science. The mortal immortal will never be born. This is not my private knowledge either.
    
    7) If I insulted many other religions as false, corrupt and man-made then its my own failing jaa. I do not have Islamic sanction to do that.
    
    a. thanks for all the links you have given and I would read them all. Promise. But not now. Now I am in karate mode. Hehehehe.
    Evidence based view of reality is a much overused term mostly used by some ppl to discredit other’s views and achieve this feat cheaply. when Evidence is sometimes based on thin air and a lot of noise is generated and all the right things are said ppl are duped. But not everybody. To understand this lets go back to the big bang explosion. Which they (the venerable atheist scientist) said created the creation. Assuming this was the case that the big bang happened and not the big crunch or not the multi universe idea (which is much funnier) then lets go to the 0th second or as you mentioned 0 minus 1 second. Back then things would be very different. Because time would not have started yet. Space would have been 0 matter and energy a lot. Interesting times eh? But is this all? Are we sure we have included all the variables and constants? Not missing anything? Do we have evidence that we are correct? Cosmic micro wave background? But is that all? I think we have more questions than answers. What do you think? Would a PhD person have less questions marks than we? Nop dho?
    
    9) you may be wrong here because I have read somewhere that the astrophysicists are probing the nearby cosmic neighborhood (2 to 30 light years) rather than galaxies thousands or millions or billions of light years away. Because at such great distance even individual stars would be too faint to be seen much less a tiny earth like object. The brightest supernova is said to be 100 billion times as luminous as the sun which is pictured as a faint dot while its own galaxy is too faint even to be seen. Which could contain billions of earths. Who knows?
    So weather the great atheist scientist declares everything as knowable and that every galaxy evolved from a tadpole or that the galaxies are also doing the survival of the fittest game let him revel is in his ignorance. Islam encourages knowledge, rather commands Muslim to seek knowledge even as far as from china…. And this sadly is my point.
    
    salaams

15. jaa says:
    
    #7.1 2007-11-30 14:31 (Reply)

    Hi Idrees,
    
    Fair enough. So you accept evolution theory as long as it excludes the precious humans? Rather, you'd believe God made humans directly with his own hands? Anyway, if you are to take this position, you have to back up your position with evidence to hold any ground in the objective/scientific arena. Now, there are innumerable evidence in biology - in terms of structures, morphology and genetic - that show that we are not much different from other animals. Chimps and humans share 97% of DNA while bonobos share even more. All animals share the same biological building blocks, RNA, DNA, ribosomes, the proteins, cells etc are all extremely similar if not the same across all animals. The positions, the structures and the biological make up of apes and humans are the same. These are pretty simple but important set of evidences that suggest we humans share a lot with other animals and esp the ape family. If a creator made humans specially, and out of the special clay/dust... why are we all, amazingly, the same? Also, when do you suppose humans came to earth then? Were they here along with the dinosaurs?! Were they here in the triassic period?
    
    I agree we can't know the specific details of events in the past. But we can infer from evidence and run tests and simulations to see if the expected outcomes and criteria satisfy what we can observe today. The important thing here is that we are making the judgement ourselves based on objective evidence. We can run fossils through radiodating, through different independent measures, to arrive at a pretty good estimation of when that fossil came from. We can look at the sediment layers and observe that it formed through a process and that each layer has a certain time frame in the past. We can collect fossils and compare them, be it morphologically or genetically, to animals we have on earth today and note the differences and similarities. We can also observe that fossils of different types of animals exist at different layers and their dating differs. For example, we can be pretty confident that humans and dinasaurs didn't live together.
    
    You say it is impossible to find out what happened in the past. How can we be sure that what is said to have happened in the past as said in the scripture ever happened? The tales and events cannot and have not been verified independently. It is accepted on pure faith - as a consequence of accepting the axiom that the scripture(s) is infallible divine truth. Take, for example, scientologists who pretty much believe that an alien race dropped off "souls" into primitive earth to give ape-like being intelligence and guidance. To them it is something accepted as part of their belief, which pretty much makes it final for them that its how life came about.
    
    1) Now that was a false representation. "King James version" refers to a translation of the bible into English that was authorized by King James. With the Quran, we have similar attributions based on who translated it, who oversaw it or who authorized the final product. To Christians, the bible is the true word of God just as to Muslims it is the true word of God. Here is a question: Would a car salesman who utterly believes that the cars he sell are the absolute best no matter what, contend that his competition has the same stuff he has (or better)?
    
    b) Truth value has a particular meaning in logic. It refers to an independent, objective measure that indicates the extent to which a proposition is true (i.e in factual agreement with reality). It has formal meanings precisely meant to cut through meaningless statements. No offense to you, but look at what you said: "But I believe truth is a very common place thing and it means truth. Which is opposite of false." That is a very circular definition that says nothing much. You are essentially saying you believe "truth" ... "means truth". And yes I agree that the truth value of a claim stands whether it comes from a shepherd, sheep or rock.
    
    2) So you are saying Harun Yahya can't publish because the scientific enterprise wouldn't let him? Now, there are many people who do proper research and challenge fundamental notions in evolution. Their papers do get published and it causes reason for investigation and more research. Harun Yahya could, to start with, come up with an original theory or scientific challenge to evolution and attempt publish them - which I doubt he has tried or would do. Alternatively, since he seems to be spending so much money on colorful books and videos etc, he could write a treatise on his scientific challenge to evolution and publish it himself. Reality of the matter ,however, is he he's a fellow constantly ripping off Christian creationists and using it to promote his anti-materialism agenda - which is pretty much an attack on science itself. You say science has been hijacked by atheists which I think you are referring to the secular nature of the scientific enterprise. Science keeps religious dogma out because then we'd have different religions vying for integration of their principles. Because if that did happen, then science would no longer would be objective, no longer would be evidence based, would no longer have much relation to reality...
    
    5) "That which can be invented has already been invented" I really dont know what to say to that. I guess all the research, all the discoveries, all the inventions that are made daily are of no value to you? Discoveries often do come as accidents but they also come through hard meticulous research. It is perfectly fine if you continue to believe in whatever limits you would like to impose. Others (scientific enterprise) will keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible and what is not.
    
    8 ) Sigh. Evidence based view is important because otherwise people can claim and justify anything. The Flying Spaghetti Monster of the Invisible Pink Unicorn were created specifically to high this. Or heard of Russell's Teapot?
    "Assuming this was the case that the big bang happened and not the big crunch or not the multi universe idea" ?? The big bang, the big crunch and multiverse are pretty much separate and independent theories that do not really relate to explaining the same thing. None of it is a replacement alternative to any of the others. You've asked many questions there, or rather wondered aloud, but none of them made any sense to me. I'm not too good at understanding sometimes so please I'd appreciate if you would rephrase and ask the questions in a manner I could respond... if you want me to that is...
    
    9)The observable universe stretches to ~45 billion light years from earth. But yes, unsurprisingly, there are limits to what we can observe and there exist boundaries to the precision that we can resolve deep space objects - I never said anything to the contrary.
    
    You said "Which could contain billions of earths. Who knows?". Exactly! Which is why we have to keep looking! Scientists don't just declare - basing it on their private intuitions or what they think is right. They probe and present best explanations for what is around....
    
    So where are these knowledge seeking fellows today? Have they declared that everything that can be invented has been invented and that there's not much that can be known so gave up the search and retired to sleep?

16. Boohoo says:
    
    #8 2007-11-29 12:25 (Reply)

    Poh!!!..and thus it was
    
    I'm all for intellectual debate...
    
    http://www.anointed-one.net/atheism.html
    
    http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/58024/1182518893/godsys.jpg

17. jaa says:
    
    #8.1 2007-11-30 12:00 (Reply)

    Umm.. what would you like me (or others) to do with the article? read and comment on the article? Talk about how bad logic, science and philosophy it contains?
    
    If you would like a discussion going, please feel free to seed a discussion with particular issues... maybe even from the article

18. Boohoo says:
    
    #9 2007-12-01 18:30 (Reply)

    That was as they say 'food for thought'..with a pinch of dry humor:)..doesn't necessarily mean I make anything of it myself.
    
    We're all free to make whatever we want of it.
    
    But since you mentioned it, I am interested in knowing about the "bad logic, science and philosophy it contains"
    
    cheerio

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