Evolution and Islam: Difference between revisions

This article analyses the claim by apologists that the Qur'an and Darwin's theory of evolution are compatible. The scope of this article also includes the claim that the Qur'an predicted evolution centuries before Charles Darwin put forward his theory. For this, we will consider several claims the Qur'an makes about itself. It calls itself a book in which there is no doubt,<ref>http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/002-qmt.php#002.002</ref> in which everything is explained clearly,<ref>http://islamawakened.com/quran/16/89/default.htm</ref> and whose verses have details.<ref>http://islamawakened.com/quran/41/3/default.htm</ref> It claims that it is the word of Allah, who is an all-knowing god.

 

== Verse 21:30 - All Living Things Made From Water==

The "Zn-World" model postulates that zinc salts have the unique ability to store radiation energy, e.g. provided by UV light which was 10 to 100 times more intense in the distant past than now and provided the ideal energy conditions for the synthesis of informational and metabolic molecules. The primordial atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide and the chemistry of water condensates and exhalations near geothermal fields would resemble that of modern cells. Ionic composition conducive to the origin of cells is shown to be more compatible with emissions of zones that have today become inland geothermal systems than with marine settings. The precellular stages of evolution may have taken place in shallow "Darwin-ponds" lined with porous silicates, metal sulfides, zinc, potassium, and phosphorus compounds.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Mulkidjanian | first1=A. Y. | last2=Bychkov | first2=A. Y. | last3=Dibrova | first3=D. V. | last4=Galperin | first4=M. Y. | last5=Koonin | first5=E. V. | year=2012 | title=Origin of first cells at terrestrial, anoxic geothermal fields | journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | volume=109 | pages=E821–30 | doi=10.1073/pnas.1117774109 | issue=14 | pmid=22331915 | pmc=3325685 |bibcode=2012PNAS..109E.821M }}</ref><ref>For a deeper integrative version of this hypothesis see {{cite book | last=Egel | first=R. | editor-last=Lankenau | editor-first=D.-H. | editor2-last=Mulkidjanian, | editor2-first=A. Y. | year=2011 | title=Origins of Life: The Primal Self-Organization | publisher=Springer | isbn=978-3-642-21625-1}}, in particular {{cite book| last=Lankenau | first=D.-H. | chapter=Two RNA Worlds: Toward the Origin of Replication, Genes, Recombination and Repair | title=Origins of Life: The Primal Self-Organization| publisher=Springer | publication-date=2011 | isbn=978-3-642-21625-1 | pages=225–286 }}, interconnecting the "Two RNA worlds" concept and other detailed aspects; and {{cite journal | last1=Davidovich | first1=C. | last2=Belousoff | first2=M. | last3=Bashan | first3=A. | last4=Yonath | first4=A. | year=2009 | title=The evolving ribosome: from non-coded peptide bond formation to sophisticated translation machinery | journal=Res Microbiol | volume=160 | pages=487–492 | doi=10.1016/j.resmic.2009.07.004 | issue=7 }}</ref>

There is also a "Primitive extraterrestrial organisms" model, which finds support in the studies of Martian meteorites found in Antarctica and in studies of some microbes' survival in outer space.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/evolution/dn2844 | title=Tough Earth bug may be from Mars | publisher=New Scientist |date=25 September 2002 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/experimentDisplay.do?id=1992-049B-03 | title=Exobiology and Radiation Assembly (ERA) | year=1992 | work=[[ESA]] | publisher=NASA }}</ref><ref name="Gerda Horneck">{{cite journal | doi=10.1128/MMBR.00016-09 | title=Space Microbiology | year=2010 | last1=Horneck | first1=G. | last2=Klaus | first2=D. M. | last3=Mancinelli | first3=R. L. | journal=Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews | volume=74 | pages=121–56 | pmid=20197502 | issue=1 | pmc=2832349 }}</ref><ref name="Clancy">{{cite book | last1=Paul Clancy | title=Looking for Life, Searching the Solar System | publisher=Cambridge University Press | date=23 June 2005 }}{{page needed|date=November 2013 }}</ref><ref name="Rabbow">{{cite journal | title=EXPOSE, an Astrobiological Exposure Facility on the International Space Station – from Proposal to Flight | journal=Orig Life Evol Biosph | date=9 July 2009 | first=Elke | last=Rabbow | first2=Gerda | last2=Horneck | first3=Petra | last3=Rettberg | first4=Jobst-Ulrich | last4=Schott | first5=Corinna | last5=Panitz | first6=Andrea | last6=L'Afflitto | first7=Ralf | last7=von Heise-Rotenburg, | first8=Reiner| last8= Willnecker | first9=Pietro | last9=Baglioni | first10=Jason | last10=Hatton, | first11=Jan | last11=Dettmann | first12=René | last12=Demets | first13=Günther | last13=Reitz | doi=10.1007/s11084-009-9173-6 | volume=39 | issue=6 | pages=581–98 | pmid=19629743 | bibcode=2009OLEB...39..581R }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | title=Survival of Rock-Colonizing Organisms After 1.5 Years in Outer Space | journal=Astrobiology | date=May 2012 | first=Silvano | last=Onofri | first2=Rosa | last2=de la Torre | first3=Jean-Pierre | last3=de Vera | first4=Sieglinde | last4=Ott | first5=Laura | last5=Zucconi | first6=Laura | last6=Selbmann | first7=Giuliano | last7=Scalzi | first8=Kasthuri J. | last8=Venkateswaran | first9=Elke | last9=Rabbow, | first10=Francisco J. | last10=Sánchez Iñigo | first11=Gerda | last11=Horneck | volume=12 | issue=5 | pages=508–516 | doi=10.1089/ast.2011.0736 | pmid=22680696 | bibcode=2012AsBio..12..508O }}</ref><ref name=Beer>{{cite news | last=Amos | first=Jonathan | title=Beer microbes live 553 days outside ISS | url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11039206 | publisher=BBC News | work=Science and Technology | date=23 August 2010 }}</ref> Studies which apply the equivalent of Moore's Law to evolution have proposed that life began 9.7 billion years ago, billions of years before the Earth was formed. Life may have started "from systems with single heritable elements."<ref name="arXiv-20130328">{{cite journal |last1=Sharov |first1=Alexei A. |last2=Gordon|first2=Richard |title=Life Before Earth |url=http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1304/1304.3381.pdf | format=PDF |date=28 March 2013 |journal=[[arXiv]] |arxiv=1304.3381v1 }}</ref><ref name="NIH-20060612">{{cite journal |last=Sharov |first=Alexei A. |title=Genome increase as a clock for the origin and evolution of life |journal=[[Biology Direct]] |volume=1 |pages=1–17 |date=12 June 2006 |issue= |doi=10.1186/1745-6150-1-17 |pmc=1526419 }}</ref>  

Furthermore, there is no proof or clear indication that this Qur'anic verse is about the role of water in evolution. Probably, it is only about water as a constituent compound of all living things. Tafsir Ibn Abbas says that this verse refers only to the dependence of all living things on water.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/TanwirAl-MiqbasMinTafsirIbnAbbasEng Tanwir al-Miqbas min Tafsir Ibn Abbas] p.361-362</ref> There is nothing miraculous about the claim that water is a constituent of living things or that it is important for their survival. In fact, the Greek philosopher [[w:Empedocles|Empedocles]] had already proposed that all living things are made from water among other substances, hundreds of years before the Qur'an was revealed.<ref>Frag. B17, (Simplicius, ''Physics'', 157-159)</ref>

If this verse is about the unicellular organism, then the claim of it having a mate must also be true. But the earliest organisms were prokaryotes whose reproduction is overwhelmingly asexual; they do not have any mates. Also we must ask why an all-Knowing deity says that men and women emerged from this "being" but does not mention that millions of plants and animals (most of them now extinct) also did, and in fact, existed on earth for much longer timespans than humans.

This verse has only a vague resemblance to evolution. It is an ad hoc hypothesis to claim that death being inevitable and humans getting transfigured means evolution. It also contradicts Tafsir Ibn Kathir which says that death and transformation pertain to the Day of Judgement.<ref>[http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1653&Itemid=112 Quran Tafsir Ibn Kathir]</ref>