When we hear about evolution the biggest misapprehension is the apes to human ‘transformation’. The main idea behind evolution is very simple. It is the rule of natural selection. The ape to human is a possibility that Darwin himself did not much elaborate on. But what he elaborated on was the idea of natural selection. At the time of Darwin DNA was a ‘tool’ that was unknown to humans. Today with DNA been revealed, the idea of natural selection has become a scientific fact. It happens and it is real according to scientific evidences.
The idea behind natural selection is simple and easy to understand. Based on the surrounding factors, the most ‘preferable’ creatures tend to adapt to the situations. For instance, ‘in a forest where there are deep flowers, hummingbirds with lengthier beaks are more likely to survive, because hummingbirds with shorter beaks are unable to suck the nectar from the deeper flowers. Over time, this results in the survival of hummingbirds only with lengthy beaks at that particular region’.
Likewise, with the changes in the world, and with specific conditions at particular regions the organism that live varies over time and transform from one form to another. The similar species that live at different conditions could have immense physical differences.
For an atheist, this is evidence that everything happens naturally. But as a believer, and because The Quran have evidences for this, I prefer to refer to it as Allah’s Magnificence. Allah created the universe, implemented formulae that will keep the movement of the universe functioning till an allocated time.
If asked the question, ‘can God create a stone which he cannot demolish?’ Islamic scholars are very keen in answering that God does not work the way we do. And this is in fact very true. God does not work the way we do and we cannot even imagine how God works. The problem is we cannot digest this. And when it comes to certain other matters we forget this.
Sometimes, perhaps most of the times, we tend to take the literal meaning from certain versus. For instance, when the creation of the earth in seven days is mentioned, several of us start assuming that is human 24 hour 7 days that God took to create the world. But in reality it could be or could be not. But when scientific theories came into existence, such as the Big Bang theory, we now understand that it was an action of God that initiated the sequence of creation.
When a tsunami hits, or when a hurricane hits, it is not a sudden natural disaster. The fact that tsunami warning could be issued beforehand is evidence that such events are not sudden. Such events are planned and occur ‘naturally’ as part of an ongoing sequence of events. That is why we see a reason for every such disaster. A tsunami could be the result of an earthquake which could be the result of certain movements in undersea plates, which could be the result of a volcanic eruption, which could be the result of … and this list of reasons could continue forever and ever and could even be traced to the very beginning, because the whole sequence of life and universe is a continuing sequence with a single point of origin.
And from that moment in which creation started, the sequence continue to happen and will continue till an allocated time, the End Time.
-thadu
interesting. a similar thought i have. energy cannot be created or destroyed. i find this definition very similar to definition of God and phrases like God is everywhere and he know everything and he has no begining etc. when you think of all of it you realize how small and insignificant, helpless your are and how little you know. some scholars are right when they say our brain is incapable of comprehending all around and within the universe.
God of the gaps much?? as we know more and more about how the world really works (through science) there is less and less things believers can claim their preferred deity can do.. before every wave every quake could be attributed to him. now Allah is just a tinkerer who pushed the start button on the universe and retired till doomsday. how long before he becomes so small and irrelevant that you can just accept that he was never even there?
Mendel was contemporary to Darwin. Too bad they never “met”.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090227072739.htm
If you are interested.