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Science & Technology

Islam's Darwin problem

2009-10-28

In the Muslim world, creationism is on the rise.

Why do people keep insisting that understanding Darwinian evolution is necessary to becoming Modern? Understanding the difference between science and magic, and that magic doesn't actually work, is necessary. Accepting that we humans have discovered a great deal more about the world around us than God (whatever one's group might call him/her/it) revealed in the Holy Book, that is necessary. Accepting also that not every word in that Holy Book means what one was told as a child, and in fact that some of those words have been mis-copied... or even were mis-transcribed or are the result of incomplete understanding by the original recorder, these things are necessary. But one can make use of electric lights without understanding electro-physics, the engineering of power plants and the wiring of communities for power, although it is useful, Darwinially speaking, to realize that it's a good idea to call in a professional electrician to fix a non-functioning light switch if one doesn't have a grasp of the key concepts. The Muslim world would do better to understand how application of Darwin's concepts of "survival of the fittest" and "competition for a particular niche in the environment" result in the dynamic economies and non-tyrannical politics that the Muslim world so often lacks. In other words, Darwin should be studied to understand why the Ummah has been falling ever further behind the West since 1492. They can figure out how Ardi fits into things later.

Posted by:tipper

#1 My opinion is that an understanding of >>>Biological<<< Evolution brings utterly ZIP to any discussion. The vast majority of Bioengineering benefits are strictly a case of reverse-engineering upon which Darwinists take free rides. And there is utterly no need for Darwinian evolution when it comes to, say, wiring the countryside. And the concepts of "survival of the fittest" and "competition" are not exclusively biological in nature, being shared by capitalism at base.

Personally, I am still abivalent as to the Long-age/short-age debate: there is good evidence on both sides. What I AM convinced is that if God did nothing, nothing would happen.

Here are some sites I have found useful: Creation Safaris (short age), Answers in Genesis (short age), Reasons to Believe (long age), and True Origins (can't ever tell).

But I simply MUST agree with Trailing Wife about the inability of the Ancients to be able to adequately communicate what they were shown. They were limited by both their vocabulary and the concepts they held to grasp what they were seeing. it takes a considerable amount of second-guessing and some close reading and comparing of passages, along with a good imagination, to even come close to what they MIGHT have been seeing. I don't bother, mainly because I can't subject any speculations to confirmative testing (the same objection I have to many Darwinist explanations). I have turned my attention to spiritual matters that would do me more personal good and which are potentially reproducible, and am quite excited by what I have found and demonstrated so far.

Posted by: Ptah 2009-10-28 19:49

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