The Community on Friday - Evolution or Scientific Dogmatism

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federation.org/Secretariat/TConFri/tconfri_evolutn_or_scientific_dogmatsm.htm

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Under the Facilitation of the World Federation of KSI Muslim Communities
Issue No. 23-05, June 24, 2005/ Jamada al Ula 16, 1426 AH

In today's ultramodern hi-tech sophisticated society, everyone acknowledges the

pivotal position of science and appreciates its contribution to the betterment of
human life. However this has also subconsciously made us trust scientists a bit
too much. To illustrate, try to recall how many times have you heard an argument
that refers to science as an authority. So common has this practice become that
even Zakireen sometimes explain the Islamic position on something and then qualify
it with a statement such as "Even science has proved this." Thus it would not be
an exaggeration to state that the scientists today command an authority akin to
the priests of yester years. Yet in this very field, whose pursuers characterize
themselves as seekers of truth, a growing corruption has largely gone undetected.
In this essay I hope to expose a few examples of this corruption in evolutionary
biology, with the hope that we will be more wary of swallowing everything with the
label "scientific' and more aware of the scientific ness of the theory of
evolution.
One of the standard arguments that evolutionary biologists advance to support
their view, is the story of the peppered moth Biston betularia. This famous
example can be found in almost all introductory biology textbooks as evidence for
evolution. However, what evolutionists leave untold is the fact that this oft-
repeated story is actually a farce. The study in brief is as follows: In the
1970s British scientist Kettlewell carried out an experiment whose results
suggested that moths in England had over time changed from the lighter to the
darker variety in response to changes in their environment brought about by the
Industrial revolution. For two decades this experiment remained the gold standard
for all evolutionary biology experiments.
In the 1990s however, Michael Majerus challenged this study demonstrating it to be
a complete hoax. Majerus showed that the moths neither rest on tree barks as
previously thought, nor do they have an innate preference for any particular bark
color. Furthermore modern genomic studies have revealed that the gene system for
peppered coloration is also not as simple as was previously believed. Most
importantly however, it is now known that the relative preponderance of these
moths does not correlate with areas of high pollution at all. Hence, Kettlewell's
hypothesis has been disproved and ideally his study should be discarded. However
this is not the case. The story of the peppered moth continues to be included in
almost all biology textbooks that get published.
This study, however, is not the only fuzzy science that is passed of as truth.
Another infamous example is that of Haeckel's embryos. Ernst Haeckel forged and
fudged pictures of human embryos claiming that they were of different species in
an attempt to show that embryonic development is nearly the same in all these
different species. His study had absolutely no scientific credulity and he was in
fact charged with fraud in the 1970s. Despite his study being rejected decades
ago, the figures he forged continue to decorate major biology textbooks as
evidence for evolution. In fact even the current president of the National
Academy of Science, the most prestigious scientific body in the United States,
Bruce Alberts, has not been spared from this malicious practice. Albert's latest
textbook "Cell Biology", which is widely acknowledged as the best textbook on cell
biology, still contains elaborate references to Haeckels embryos.
Although this may seem surprising, it has been standard practice for a long time.
What this demonstrates is that scientists like any other people are susceptible to
mistakes and prejudices and have in fact been influenced by their preconceived
notions. This is not to assert that all scientists are bad and willfully mislead
people, but rather it is to make us aware that everything labeled scientific or
sanctioned by the consensus of the scientific community is not necessarily
scientific or truthful. Just like all of us, scientists too are subconsciously
biased by the views and beliefs that they hold to be true and by social
influences. As conscientious Muslims, we have to be aware of this and ensure that
our aqeedah is not shaken by the great variety of wishy-washy theories out there.
Inshallah in my next essay I will delve further into the evolution debate and
demonstrate how Darwinism is fatally flawed.
By Aunali Khaku (Pennsylvania, USA)
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