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Do You Believe in Evolution? Yes & No!

Posted onJanuary 8, 2013by MOHAMED GHLIAN

There is nothing that anyone can say that will get under the skin of the science-worshipping militant new atheistmovement and have them all riled up, like questioning the validity of evolutionary theory. So much anger and

aggression by some, and dismissal and mockery by others. Yet they present themselves as the so-called rational

ones. This type of reaction does nothing but raise more suspicion about the validity of this theory. May be more ofthese guys need to read some Alain de Botton for some spiritual inspiration so they can relax, and by spiritual I meanseizure activity in the temporal lobes within the hippocampal formation and increased neuronal activity resulting form

dopamine and serotonin and possibly oxytocin released in different circuits. Until they experience that from Alain de

Botton or whoever else that caters to religion-like systems for atheists, they might want to temporarily put the advice

of Bishop Desmond Tutus father to him into action: Dontraise your voice. Improve your argument.Why does evolutionary theory draw up so much emotion from science-worshipping militant new atheists? Is it really

about science as they say? Are they upset because religion is backwards and what the Scriptures say is nothing but

false descriptions of the World that were only so due to the technological limitations of the people who wrote them?Is it true that denial of evolution will result in halting our scientific progress?

This subject is quite complex and would require a very lengthy exposition, which is not really the purpose here. The

reason for writing this piece is the recent event held on January 5, 2013 byThe Deen Institutetitled Have Muslims

Misunderstood Evolution?. Surprisingly, although this event was advertised as a conference, it actually turnedout to be a debate between Muslim scholars on the subject of evolution and whether we should accept its validity. I

spoke with a friend who attended it and I saw online the part where Shaykh Yasir Qadhi stood his ground and

defended the Islamic position when it comes to the creation of Adam peace be upon him, who we believe was a

unique creation and not a descendant from a common ancestral ape as other primates.

Unfortunately,in this part of the debate, Shaykh Yasir after giving such an elegant performance refuting thearguments of Dr. Usama Hasan (based on what Shaykh Yasir said about what Dr. Usama claimed and how he backed

it up), he ended his time by giving a blanket approval for anything else that evolutionists will claim about the world.

This was an unwise move and its negative consequence was exemplified in the mass confusion many Muslims wereleft in at the end. In fact, some Muslims were apparently a little embarrassed to admit they still didnt fully accept the

pro-evolution panels positions and they just had faith that the Quran is True. Its not a surprise they were

embarrassed. How can they not when theyre presented with data, figures, graphs, observational accounts, all of which

seemed to fit in perfectly with the evolutionary account thats used to describe how we humans came about. On theopposite end they had the Muslim scholar saying we shouldnt have a problem wi th that account except when it comes

to Adam peace be upon him and we just have to believe because the Quran said so. To us, the creation of Adam peace

be upon him was a miraculous event.

There is a small problem though. How would such an assertion about the miraculous creation of Adam peace be uponhim be perceived by the listeners if the pro-evolution side presented no more than a couple of evolutionary theory-

based predictions that were experimentally verified and fit in exactly with the narrative proposed by evolutionists?

Because that can be done quite easily, and without fail it will put you in a very uncomfortable position as a Muslim

and might shake your faith. In fact, many Muslims have left Islam precisely for this reason. At some point, tellingpeople they just have to have faith doesnt sell anymore. So either an intellectual defence needs to be presented, or

just surrender and given in.

Evolutionary theory is not just about science. If it was, it wouldnt have such implications on belief and religion in

general, let alone specific religions such as Islam or Christianity. Whats troubling about the way its handled by the

various religious groups is the point at which they enter the discussion. Everyone seems to want to talk about theevidence for or against it. No one is interested in the foundation that its built upon, and the subsequent logic and

coherence of the theory itself. For Gods sake, what makes science science is not even addressed. What is evidence?The weakness in how Muslims engage with this subject is in the fact that they enter it based on the terms of

evolutionists. Without realizing it, they accept the foundations the theory is built on, and then proceed to point out

whatever holes the theory has and what it doesnt explain. Well, if history is any guide, those holes will be filled at

some point as the theory goes through the normal scientific course of being re-worked, and some clever scientists will

come eventually to explain those things that havent been explained. Then what? Will you finally disregard the Quran

at that point?

Science, as a field, is being paraded around as the fact-finding activity that only deals with objective reality. As if

people, who are subjective by nature, arent involved. While this is not an article about the philosophy of science and

the various discussions about the scientific method, a little point needs to be made about evidence, because too many

people, including the majority of these science-worshipping militant new atheists dont differentiate between the

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various types of evidence in science. Two important categories of evidence are material evidence and inferredevidence.

Material evidence is the hard data. Its the observed phenomena. Its the findings anyone would get if they followed

the same exact procedure followed by another individual. When I train volunteers and undergraduate students doing

research projects in the lab, I go through what to do and what not to do, and literally within a week theyll generateexactly the same findings that I had. They dont actually need to know what it all means and even what theyre doing

does exactly to generate that same set of data; they just go through the motions. Material evidence presents no

problems for Islam.

Inferred evidence is the explanation imposed upon the data. Several criteria of logic, simplicity, coherence andadequacy are kept in mind to come up with the best and most plausible explanation. This explanation is then used to

generate hypotheses that will test its validity as an explanation. As more support for the inferred evidence is gathered

through different experiments in different settings, it will become more established and accepted by the scientific

community. Some findings might jeopardize the validity of the inferred evidence, but thats where flexibility comes inbecause the inferred evidence, i.e., the explanation can be reformulated to minimize the amount of data that doesnt

completely fit in. Notice the use of the word minimize, which implies the stagnation of a set of data that still doesnt

support the explanation. Scientists call these outliers or random values, which is really code for we dont know

whats going on here. Inferred evidence is where things begin to get vague, because past experience and world viewscan play a big role in shaping it.

This leads us to something we havent dealt with: the foundations of evolutionary theory. There is one important

foundation that stems from an age-old debate on epistemology, i.e., how do we get knowledge. This debate is between

rationalism and empiricism. Wars were started, gladiators fought to the death, and little puppies and kittens criedmany tears. What the Western intellectual crowd determined for itself was that all that exists is what we can touch,

smell, feel, taste, hear, and see. In other words, if I cant measure it in some sort of way, it doesnt exist. Theres no

such thing as pure reason. To be rational means to make empirically-verifiable statements. This position was really

firmly established by Francis Bacon whos earned the title of Father of Empiricism. Ren Descartes was on theother extreme where he supported such an extreme rationalist view that he actually started to reject the existence of

things. You might know him from his famous statement I think therefore I am.

The Muslim approach was never an either/or in this extremist sense. The problem with such radical assertions made

by both camps is their initial unjustifiable assumption that knowledge can only be gained through a singlemethodology. In other words, if we can imagine a world where only two types of stimuli exist (light and sound) for

two perceptive senses (eyes and ears), one side of that debate wants to perceive light and sound using the eyes, while

the other wants to perceive light and sound using the ears. The Muslim would just look at both sides and shake their

head in wonderment at why neither side wants to employ each one of their senses to perceive the appropriate stimulifor it.

Now, if you begin with an assumption that there is nothing beyond this physical realm, and would like to give

acontext to the combination of your material and inferred evidence, you cannot escape having to accept evolutionarytheory as an account for where things came from. In the very first chapter ofThe Blind

Watchmakertitled Explainingthe veryimprobable, Richard Dawkins spills the beans about what evolutionarytheory is meant for:

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: I have no explanation for complex biologicaldesign. All I know is that God isnt a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes

up with a better one. I cant help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left onefeeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin,

Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.So what are we dealing with here? Definitely not science in the strict sense of the definition. After studying more

science textbooks than I can remember to count, and continuing to use numerous ones today, the major function ofevolutionary theory in its current formulation in Western academia is to provide a pacifier for the reader who might

have any inclinations to feeling any reverence towards anything metaphysical. The goal is to keep things terrestrial. If

one were to take all the assertions such as this evolved from that to solve the problem of moving from water to land,

and restrict the material to just describing structure and function and pointing out the similarities without inducingrelatedness, and classify based on similarity rather than relatedness, it wouldnt all of a sudden be any less

scientific.

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To push this point about the ideological commitment to atheism this theory supports, any criticism of it that hasnothing to do with religion must also be qualified:

(Rough Authoritative Voice) Raise your hands and drop your weapon. Turn around slowly anddontmake any sudden

moves. Who are you and why are you here?(Soft Gentle Voice)Im an atheist just like you, butIdlike to point out some logical holes in evolutionary theory as

its currently formulated ifthats alright.(Rough Authoritative Voice) Show me your atheist card. Alright, you can show me those logical holes, but write your

critique in difficult philosophical language using terms that would require having a dictionary for philosophy terms

and also write it in not so exciting style, use big words and complex sentence structures, and sell it at a high price.(Soft Gentle Voice) But why all that?

(Rough Authoritative Voice) Oh no reason. Just making sure its as inaccessible as possible and that even Idont

understand it so I can dismiss it as philosophical mumbo jumbo and continue bullying everyone into fallaciously

accepting evolutionary theory in its current formulation as factual as gravity.Although this fictional conversation might seem ridiculous, its the sad state of literature today. The overwhelming

majority of evolutionary theory critiques that deal with the logic of it, the premises its built on, the incoherences

within it before addressing the evidences for or against it are relegated to philosophy journals. What makes it moreridiculous is how anyone writing about it must declare their atheism to be taken seriously. The very first statements of

Jerry Fodor & Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini in their bookWhat Darwin Got Wrongwere:

This is not a book about God; nor about intelligent design; nor about creationism. Neither of us is intoany of those. We thought wed best make that clear from the outset, because our main contention in whatfollows will be that there is something wrong quite possibly fatally wrong with the theory of natural

selection; and we are aware that even among those who are not quite sure what it is, allegiance toDarwinism has become a litmus for deciding who does, and who does not, hold a properly scientific

world view. You must choose between faith in God and faith in Dar win; and if you want to be a secularhumanist, youd better choose the latter. So were told.

We doubt that those options are exhaustive. But we do want, ever so much, to be secular humanists. Infact, we both claim to be outright, card-carrying, signed-up, dyed-in-the-wool, no-holds-barred atheists.We therefore seek thoroughly naturalistic explanations of the facts of evolution, although we expect that

they will turn out to be quite complex, as scientific explanations often are.

Hold the door.Im sorry guys, I had no idea you both are such staunch atheists. I now must recognize you as worthy

intellectuals and will take you seriously!

As mentioned way above, this is not a simple topic. I didnt even get into the problem with using the broad term

evolution as describing one thing, when in fact, its actually an umbrella term that groups multiple facets of biologyand behaviour under it. Hence, its actually fallacious to group them all together in this manner. The intricate interplay

between material evidence, inferred evidence, and contextual narrative built upon this combination, has given rise to

what is possibly the most interconnected web of research mankind has every come up with. Today, whole fields ofstudy depend upon evolutionary theory as the bedrock for them to establish their departure points. Pick up a first year

undergraduate text book on anthropology and right at the beginning theyll confess that the whole discipline is built on

that assumption. This theory has received so much attention and has been reworked so extensively that it achieved a

scale analogous to the Titanic. Interestingly, the Titanic was so magnificent that apparently Not even God himselfcould sink this ship. Well, we all know how that ended .

In spite of all the problems seeping from evolutionary theory, its still promoted as an elegant and accurate

account for where we came from and for all this complexity and diversity of life. It seems that its convincing powers

have to do more with how its presented rather than the actual merit of it. Of course we cant discount the materialevidence thats interpreted to be in support for it. But that takes us on a whole topic of theory-laden data (see Thomas

Kuhn) and how in reality its the theory that determines what we observe as Einstein put it.

For Muslims, with such a vast tradition, and countless works from our scholars, so many of us having doubts and

being confused is only a symptom of not having really learned whats really important. Our tradition was never a justhave faith regardless of evidence to the contrary tradition. Imam Ibn Al Jauzi says in his workConfusing Methods

of Iblees (Satan)( ):

The greatest bounty for the human being is the intellect, because its the means for knowledge of God thePraised and the way by which we believe in the Messengers. [Since] it couldnt conclude [on its own] all

that is required from the servant, the Messengers were sent and the Scriptures were revealed. So the

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analogy of religion is the sun, and the analogy of the intellect is the eye; if the eye is sound and its openedit will see the sun.

If Muslims spent half the time they spend studying whatever else they focus on for their Western-based education to

study their own theology, the alternative contextual narratives based on commitment to atheism wouldnt phase them.

More importantly, our own scholars need to be careful when it comes to subjects such as this. As Imam Fakhr

AdDeen ArRazi would put it: If the premises are fallacious, there is no need to discuss any further details. Thisintellectual bullying by the science-worshipping militant new atheist crowd shouldnt be paid any attention to once

their foundations are shook. But unfortunately, our modern days seem to combine the prominence of magic during the

times of Moses peace be upon him and the prominence of materialistic naturalism during the times of Jesus Christpeace be upon him. Were too taken in by how amazing everything is and our attention is more towards sensory

stimulation than rational inquiry.

A final point, I barely scratched the surface of this topic. I could go on and on. I can argue FOR evolution if I want to,

but I think! I realize that I skipped over a lot of different points and completely ignored others. I have written a coupleof other articles on this subject that deal with the logic of it. But I generally dont address it much because I havent

exhausted what I feel is a sufficient amount of material on philosophy of science, history of science, evolution, logic,

and other fields relating to these subjects. What has done more damage to Islam and resulted in giving more credence

to this atheism-driven account for nature is the fact that those who address it, although well-intentioned, havent given

it careful study. This has resulted in Muslims either developing crises of faith or even leaving Islam completely, which

mightve never happened if they were presented with a carefully laid out analysis that could put their minds at ease.Yet, had they had a solid grounding in Muslim theology, they may never have had those doubts no matter how poorly

this subject was addressed by Muslims.

So, should we believe in evolution as Muslims? Yes & no! If the answer upsets those looking for straight yes or no

answers, then we can be equally upset for being expected to answer such a complex multilayered question with a

straight yes or no answer

p.s. I realize that this is one of those topics that a lot of people on both sides will want to debate and argue about backand forth. Experience has taught me that whenever I engage with those who want to argue, it just never ends, and it

goes on and on and on. I dont write about these topics in order to start a comment thread war. Im also not interested

in argumentations and debates. I wrote this with a goal to return some sanity to the discourse and expose how its

being unjustifiably simplified. Many Muslims are confused about this topic so I thought I would shed some light on theunderpinnings of it all and why it can be confusing.