Experienced Evolutionists vs Muslim

So

with Jimmy, I

do believe in the theory of evolution.

I think I think it probably has, I think it's still an evolving theory. I don't think it's concluded. So it's not. But I think it's the best understanding that we have at the moment for how we reached.

No, it's not it's called the evolution. It's called the theory of evolution.

There is a lot of

a lot of there's a lot of evidence that is very tangible, with regard to theory of evolution,

bring forward to prove it to a large claim to have the final answer. making an effort to narrow the gap between knowing and not knowing, whereas religions, for example, say this is facts already. Everyone else cannot forget about religion for now, because we're just establishing something before religion, if you don't mind, because essentially, the reason why I brought up this issue of evolution,

I don't disagree with you that there are some evidences for some, some phenomena in terms of evolution, like speciation, adaptation, things like that you can actually from a microbiological perspective, observe.

But what I'm saying is the thesis I'm being very specific here the thesis that human beings had a common ancestor, which, which was a primate. Yeah. So basically, the fact that the Homo sapiens sapiens, which is what we are, had a common ancestor had a primitive like a primate. To what extent do you believe in this, this theory, or this thesis, or this idea, like almost items I've seen,

visited by me in Ethiopia, in a museum, and I've seen the skeleton, I'm just wanting to know what extent you believe it? Yeah. Believe while I saw it,

a bit like as in like, I'm just making sure you've seen it? Yeah. 99.99? How about yourself? Yeah.

I'm happy that you said that, because now I want to put in something else. Yeah.

Because the reason why I've brought up this issue of evolution, is because we wanted to establish something called truth claims, and your standards of truth.

You said that you believe in the theory of evolution, whereas before, you did admit that evolution has evolved itself evolving, evolving? In other words, that is changing. The theory itself, conceptually, is actually changing from one generation to the next. Yeah, but it's not changing. It's not changing is backwards, it's not going to be Oh, actually, we were completely wrong. And actually, there's never been any evolution. Okay. Okay. Slowly, it's only confirming itself and thinking that, you know, the understanding of like, the, the Tree of Life is growing. It's not, it's not that we're adapting back to a point where, okay,

I want to I want to pick up a witness I want to pick up. It's interesting what you say, yeah. Let me make my position clear. First of all,

in terms of like, the scientific realities, yeah. That we can observe around us or what the scientific method has been able to, has been able to basically pick up and the Quranic discourse of the Islamic discourse,

there is nothing that I can think of that goes against the Quranic discourse,

except for the theory of human evolution. So that's something which is scientific, when it goes against Islam. That's clear. Yeah, pretty major. No, it's for you. It's major, right? Because you believe it's 99% true, isn't it? But what I'm saying is, there's something to this, which I want to bring one on one I want to flesh out right now.

So you believe in the theory of evolution,

theory of revolution, someone's religion. I said, I believe that what I saw in terms of the primate, which actually proves from point a tangible, tangible evolution.

To the point one point us was like believing

you would you like to use our current understanding? Yes, how we are how we use your exact terminology. So according to our current understanding of evolution, is that we've evolved from a common ancestor with some primary revolts. Many Yeah, ancestor in many, but let's just call sapiens sapiens, Homo sapiens, Sapiens has come from another primitive ancestor. But here's my point. Here's my question.

This is my question. You said beginning in the beginning, right, that you do not deny the fact that evolution has evolved itself, the theory the theory? Yeah. So when we look at science in general, I want to make a point, that when you look at science in general, if you look at something which is in the background,

science to the philosophy of science, which is a very, very important part of science, because philosophy of science actually sets the kind of framework of science.

And when you have contributions like the one that has been made by Karl Popper and others, this actually sets the tone for the scientific method. So, for example, the scientific method itself, you could say has gone has undergone a change. And the way we do science has undergone a change in the in the hundreds of years evolution. Alright, so we all agree, but that's no different to how, like a religious theory would work.

If you believe in something you're always gonna preach, and

to be honest, my friend, I'm not talking about religion right now. I'm just talking about the theory of evolution and truth standards. And I can talk about religion later on, if you want. Yeah, but

because what we have just established the two things with established, which I feel are contradictory, if you don't mind me saying, the first thing we've said, is that science is undergoing change. And we've all agreed to it. We have evidence of this, as Thomas Kuhn has mentioned in his book, The paradigm shift, that actually, every once in a while, science undergoes an incredible paradigm shift, which actually not only changes science by changes the framework with it, through which science operates. And a good example, example of this is the Newtonian theory, moving to Einstein, your theory, from 1900, to 1905, to such an extent that people have thought that

Newtonian theory was the be all and end all. But in 1905 1906, when Einstein came out with a special theory of relativity, the whole world of science in physics in particular, was turned upside on its head. So I mean,

so what I'm saying to you is that you just said to me, that science is 99.0, this evolution, particular human evolution, you believe that to an extent of 99%? My question is, how can you be so sure of something which you have admitted, is changing? That's my question. I didn't say I was so sure.

I didn't say this theory. Or how about you?

theory of our relationship to as you called it a primitive species?

That hasn't changed that much. Okay. That's a good point here. If you don't mind me coming back and offering you some, some interesting points. I say, no, it has changed. And I'll give you the evidences. If you look at how evolution on the theory of evolution in general, how that is actually formalized, is formalized, usually three, we're using three different kinds of evidences, the first evidence is the fossil record. So it's a kind of archaeological evidence in

the fossil record isn't relevant, because they still use the fossil record, Lucien to use other fossils that they have found. And they excavate it. And they and they mentioned those fossils, and they try and link them together. So the fossil record is part of the

DNA, and RNA, DNA and RNA. These are different things. So they look at how animals are basically formulated and the wounds or basically other animals in the genome.

They look at

a genetic component. Number three, they also look at the

the point is this material and material evidence is these are the major I would say is one of the major things that the the evolution is rely upon, is the fossil record. Now, if you look at what has been discovered by the fossil record, you realize that there's a massive shift. So in other words, as you've mentioned correctly, whenever they find a new fossil, basically, they re re render the theory. They read, basically, the theory is we shuffle a question aspects of it, or we shuffle the entire thing.

If we look at the discipline biology, yeah, as in a broad way, would realize actually that there are people that are biologists that basically like gold, Stephen gold, who wrote a book or an essay called the punctuated equilibrium, punctuated equilibrium, he reshuffled the whole theory completely. What he said gold is that instead of a he, basically what he said in his essay, was a revolutionising of Neo Darwinian evolution. What he said was, instead of like a slow gradual change of basically one species moving into another specific cetera, what you find is that there is a sudden change and he causes punctuated equilibrium that that happens, because basically of

speciation or something like a sudden shift, a climate change is something that happens. So in other words, his idea is that his idea of evolution is different to the standard Neo Darwinian evolutionary,

evolutionary idea that's propounded by people like Richard Dawkins. So part of

it

Yes, yes.

Yeah. Okay. So what gold is saying and punctuated equilibrium? It's not it doesn't fit. It does not

say it. But let me be clear. Exactly.

Rhys Grace, I'm wanting to be clear. I'm not saying that he's against evolution. I didn't say that. I said that his understanding of evolution does not follow the the narrative set by the majority of Neo Darwinian evolution. And that's why there have been papers that have been published.

seem to

get one.

Yeah, no, I'm not saying that. But you're saying you're saying, by the way, can I? Can I? Can I tell you something. Yeah, there's a difference between the theory of evolution as positive by Charles Darwin in the origins of species, and the theory of evolution, which now has to take into consideration that the new by biological elements and microbiology, so basically, the transformation from Darwinian evolution, to to the post 1960s era is called Neo Darwinian evolution.

So what I'm saying is that, the change from Darwin's theory, there's been already a change. So you've got one change from Darwin, to the Neo Darwinian evolutionary, basically, model, which relies more on microbiology, and now I'm saying within this Neo Darwinian theory, you have different people now questioning the validity of Neo Darwinian evolution like gold. So, clearly.

Yeah, exactly. So, now, here's my, here's my ultimate question. Here's my ultimate.

By the way, I didn't disagree with you that I agree with you completely. What I'm gonna say to you, this is my this is my, basically my ultimate question to you. If we know that the theory of evolution is changing,

we can document the change in the theory of evolution, or we can even we can document the evolution ironically, in evolutionary theory.

We know that there have been rogue opinions or different opinions within the framework of Neo Darwinian evolution. We know that the fossil record is a big part of the basically, the biologists coming to this conclusion. And we know that every once in a while the fossil record, there's new information that is presented, which means that the new Darwinian evolutionary theory has to be reshuffled. If we know all of these things, my question is as follows. Yeah.

How do we not know and this is my question, actually, let me make a different question. Can we say that

there will not be a series of evidences, yes, fossil records or otherwise, that will not discount what we know already. of human evolution? Can we say that for sure? 100%. Can we not say that? So you agree with me that Yeah, yeah.

That's why I said 99.9%. Thank you very much. So this arbitrary number of 99.9% is not I'll tell you why it's arbitrary. Because you're the reason why it's up. Can I tell you, sir, and this is not to put you down? I know you're an intelligent person, and you're an intelligent person.

But the problem is, is that when you are stuck in a sociological, yes, snapshotted basically part of history. You have one idea of how science works. So for example, if we want rewind 600 years ago, geocentric Excuse me, but if you look at 600 years ago, the geocentric model was such a basically, it was so embedded in people's minds and hearts, they couldn't even imagine egocentricity. Yeah. So if you ask someone 600 years ago, what do you think of Helio centricity? And do you think that geocentric theory is true? And that there's a chance of it being changed into a heliocentric kind of model by people and they'll be accepted? They'll say, probably 99%? No. Why? Because they can't

conceptualize it. Just conceptualize the difference between Oh, I can't say that because you don't want to go to religion. But what's the difference between that and like the say, the doctrine of Islam been creating 1600 years by the way, this was to say that that snapshot wasn't complete. No, not what I'm saying. Is that look, religion played to the side for this discussion is by evolution. Why no, it's not because

the theory of evolution you just said yeah, is the only thing that the Quran potentially doesn't agree with, not in terms of the scientific method. As far as my research has gone. I've looked at basically the the extra Jesus, the exegetical works of all of the basically I've looked at all of the Quranic

verses that reference science. Yeah.

I've looked at them. And I've looked at the exegetical work of all of those verses. And I looked and I can say something quite confident that almost all of the theories that we believe in today are

Basically, most of the science that we know of today

does not even contradict none of us are different. But even the old one, the old scholars said, so 1350 years ago, what those scholars had said about, for example, the cosmos,

there is always going to be something in the exegetical work, which corresponds to today's reality, that with the exception of with the exception of human evolution, which is why I'm taking an issue with human evolution, because I see, there's no way of reconciling between human evolution and the Quranic look, analogy. So that's my honest assessment. I sent you this, because if I was a flimsy individual, that could just break parallels of everything I just said, you look, the truth is, we don't have any problem of any science. That was the percentage. Can you believe that? The theory of human evolution could be 0%? And I need to tell me why No, no, I'll tell you why. The reason why is

as follows.

I, I'll be impressed if you can.

That's the whole point is that

if I was in a non religious person, with no other epistemological and ontological world,

epistemological ontological thing informing my worldview, that I could say what you're saying, I can say, You know what?

Let me just finish off saying I would be more I would be more liberal. I'll say maybe about 50%. I'd be more agnostic of I just be honest. If I was saying we are epistemological. Yeah, we don't have definitive.

If I was epistemologically, and ontologically informed, in a different way to Islam, I would be more agnostic about knowing what I know about the philosophy of science. But since I am, epistemological, and ontological informed by Islam, which is a religion, which claims to be the ultimate truth, from a God who is all wise and all knowing, and it's clear, and in the revelation, which I believe has been sent down from God, that human evolution is not true, basically. Then from that angle, from a probabilistic view, from probabilistic perspective, I think to myself, since he's saying this, then I have to agree with this. So I mean, so my epistemology is informed by the Quranic discourse.

Information on

the ground that disproves human evolution. So for example, there's many verses chapter number four, verse number one, yeah, you Vanessa, taco packability, Holla

Holla.

to have him in the locker, and I like him lucky. But for example, that Oh, humankind, fair, God, he was crazy. From one soul I have created from it. His partner, from one soul is implying an image is implying, sorry, a direct, God created the first human being directly.

With me

to direct questions, yeah. Have you been exposed to the discourse or the evidence base, which aims to prove or a way in which Islam aims to prove itself? Have you been exposed to that?

All right, so you're basically a yes, but you haven't. So I'm speaking to you now? Oh, well, basically, because you haven't. So what you're missing here is that the fact that Muslims do not just believe in their religion, because the book says so there is a basically, that is the Quran, and Islam by extension, has a mechanism, but you just say,

remove human evolution, and therefore the Quran is to not let the two can't work together. What human evolution? Yeah, yeah. That's nothing to do what I'm saying. Now, I'm saying that the Quran itself has a mechanism by which and through which aims to prove itself. If you have a certain standard of truth, you can either accept this mechanism or the Accept the arguments are proposed or rejected. And that's part of freewill and having your ability to do whatever you want to do. So what I think the reason why I feel like you're still my you're basically is a straw man of my opinion, the straw Manning My opinion is because what you're saying is, it's different to believe in the

theory of evolution, which has evidence based on and records and fossil records tend to believe in religion, which doesn't have that i'm saying is, and this is not,

not to say that I can expose you to the arguments I've made over and over again, it's with the scholar, that Islam itself has a mechanism or has a way by which through which aims to prove itself. Do you understand? So? I'll tell you later, All right, we'll come to that. We'll put that as like a little like, you know, put in a footnote. Oh, yeah. We'll come back to it because I want to finish off this discussion. Why would I say to you now for someone that says 99? You said in the beginning of this discussion, that you believe in the theory of human evolution, to a degree of 99.9% enough to 0.1%? Dad, maybe because because of the things that we've talked about before, but I was open to

it yet. So I want to ask you a direct question.

Is it possible for you to hit claim that the theory based on the fact that because of the problem of induction, because of the fact that you can't have all of the access to all the fossil records, because of the fact that you cannot, you cannot obtain this, it's impossible things obtain. And because of the fact we know that science is changing, like paradigm shift, based on these two realities, can you say that the theory of evolution is an absolute certain truth? human evolution?

See, that's, that's, basically what you're doing is you're creating a question, which is almost impossible for me to ask because you're in a win win situation. But you've always

said no, I said no, earlier. So you can't, I would say, you can't you can't say that evolution is a certain truth. I would say the understanding of human evolution is, I think, pretty concrete, but is open to change. Thank you very, very much. I will actually conclude with that, because what I feel is happening. And I'll say to everyone here, I want atheists in particular, it is also people from a non Islamic viewpoint. So to basically know something, yeah, let me address this directly. Yeah, you can.

Always you got to know something. Science is meant to be something that is meant to humble you. Because Science is a way to try and understand the natural environment around you. Science is not something you're meant to be completely certain about. Because Science, the scientific method, in and of itself, doesn't attempt to actual bring philosophical certainty to our human being. It attempts to bring theories which you can run by for the present time and present moment. But science in general, unfortunately, it doesn't give you the grounding. It doesn't give you the ability to say that actually what we have today is true, or what when you look at and by the way, Thomas Kuhn is an

interesting person who wrote about this in a book called paradigm shift. When you look at the history of the world, this becomes patently clear, if you look at the shift, as we said, from Newtonian physics, tiny, tiny physics as an example, from the geocentric model to the heliocentric model, as a secondary example, from the static state theory to the Big Bang, as a third example. These are actual examples where people were so sure assure us Willis today that those models IE geo centricity, the static state, and what's the other one,

the other one I mentioned,

the Newton Newtonian theory of relativity. These were actual truths, absolute truths, that you cannot change. What I'm saying to you is that that's not what science says. It's not what science can prove, therefore be humble about science. For the atheist, now, evolutions become his, his main bullet, his main ammunition, it's an unfortunate reality that your main thing that you're trying to prove, as an atheist is something which is not a certain truth, according to who you are. And we're not talking I'm not talking to you, agnostic atheist, or let's just say it is, in particular, apply a secondary double standard, you know what that is, they say that, as a theist, a theists, we have

to provide evidences

that satisfy a certain value, truth standard, we have to we have to put forward evidences that satisfy a certain truth standard, to prove God. However, what they have been able to provide is the same kind of evidences for evolutionary manipulation in particular, therefore, there is a double standard in the way they're applying their logic. But I think this goes back to our conversation earlier about the fact that whether or not you can prove human evolution, it still doesn't, then, like, let's say that they proved that human evolution as we understand it, today was completely wrong. That still doesn't give any evidence towards a religion.

I agree with most scientists, I do agree with

what you're trying by saying.

We don't we

don't talk about the way

we talked about the fact that the Neanderthal man which was discovered in 1973, wherever it was discovered him, that was something which was discovered, right, and then you had another you had another muscle, which was discovered later on, and we can DNA matches.

By the way, you're saying when 99% similar to apes, were 49% similar to chickens, these things are

neither here nor there. Okay, so the point is,

like a chicken 50% similar to the point is really not how it works. You just discredited the entire idea of evolution by saying that if a chickens 50% us we should have one wind and a tail. You know, like, you know,

I'm

not.

I'm not saying like, I'm not saying that what I'm saying.

I'm just saying, using percentages strategically, it doesn't help your argument if you remove so that's what percent of DNA from humans, because you can use it you can use percentages strategically. Yeah to make an argument like they do in America, when they say well, let's talk about you know, the black people being unemployed and this kind of thing. And when really think about our black people are x y Zed sociologically, if you look at the statistics, like for, like, you realize there's something fishy about this statistic, for example, was Thomas are one of the black academics in America. And he he looks at he there was no talking about black people not being

employed. Yeah, in America. And they said that, if you look at Black people, X amount of time, more likely not to be employed. When you look at it for like, for like, so the black person now has got a parent who goes to university and the white person has got apparently goes to university, the black person is more likely to have an education, or to have a good education than the white person, or it's a very similar amount. So in other words, statistics and numbers can be manipulated by individuals, this individual so I'm not saying that you've done that. I'm saying that some individuals, do you manipulate this whole thing about 99% of a way or 99%? Similar to?

What I'm saying is I can say that we're 49% similar to chickens, it doesn't actually have any meaning. Unless you're able to shocking.

Right away, it doesn't necessitate that. Logically, it doesn't just because you're similar to something it doesn't mean that you've been

just because you're similar to something it doesn't necessarily follow that you've been you are you an extension of a shoe.

The way this leap of faith, what I'm saying, at the same time, in one way isn't the same. What I'm saying for sure, no doubt is that we believe as Muslims, that's true human beings. And by the way, there is there's a logical component to this. And I'm not making the case for basically, I'm not trying to, once again, I'm not trying to disprove necessarily what I'm trying to do, as I'm trying to show you,

human evolution.

A speciation adaptation is fine. But the fact the fact that

the point is, what I wanted to say to you was as it relates to human evolution now, if we talk about what we believe, we believe that the human being and the clients,

we have certainly dignified the child of other human being is, in many, many ways, completely different from the rest of the animal kingdom. We believe that's true from a philosophical perspective, from a moral philosophy. I just finished philosophy is, if you don't mind me, if you don't mind me, just let me just reason and I'm just, I'm just finishing up finishing what I'm saying. One thing is that human beings are able to reason

don't care.

I mean, we don't reason or

reason.

People don't

know

how human beings have differences. I mean, you're no one's gonna refute me here. Human beings have civilizations. Animals don't have civilizations refute me.

Only based on the theory that you think that every animal is trying to evolve to become a human. No, no, I'm not.

saying that the the height of evolution.

As evolved as a human, it's just evolved in a different way.

So

you stumped me in the beginning the middle of what I was saying, because what I was saying is that human beings have civilization. Animals don't have civilization. Human beings have a higher level of intelligence than every other animal that's pointing to what human beings have an ability to make conscientious moral decisions that affect them and the animal kingdom soldier, we're animals. Okay, that's your opinion which animal

which and what animals don't make it based on

what he says what but he finished by saying, the human beings decision affects the animals.

The animals issues don't affect Oh, yeah.

So the point is, my friend is that there was no doubt that there are clear distinctions.

between human beings but as a byproduct, isn't that easy? The reason if you don't mind?

just finishing off, I'll say, Actually, I will say something else. There are clear distinctions between the human being and the rest of the animal kingdom. Not only are these distinctions pronounced and clear for everyone to see unexperienced, while there are also distinctions which mean and listen to this carefully.

Which mean really, that becomes very, very difficult for someone who's an evolutionist to contend, by the way that humans needed all of this. Wait a minute, what do I What do I mean head? The theory of evolution contends that the things that we develop or evolve are the things which are required for the survival of the of the human being. I'm asking the question,

why do we, one of the things I've just mentioned the majority of damage, they are not contingent, you don't need them for survival. You don't you don't need morality for survival. You can be the biggest immoral person that says, You don't need to be a moral mogul if

even if you live alone

in a society and you carry out certain immoral actions dependent on the view of society, okay, so cute.

immoral people who live

outside morality.

Okay, I'm gonna go to my mom. I'm not gonna have sexual intercourse.

Excuse me the

idea that

I'm gonna be good to my parents.

Yeah, exactly. So I think we're on the same page, if you will. The point is, is

everyone

we're talking about my friend, we're talking about the biological perspective from a biologic from a clearly scientifical purely scientific perspective. You do not need morality. Yeah. In order to survive.

you agree with that? Yeah, you don't you don't need it. You don't need you don't need a lot of the things that we have the ability to, to make poetry. What would you how how's it gonna help you survive? It doesn't help. You don't need any of those things in order to have the ability to write a play, the ability, ability to think about philosophy deeply, the ability to think about what we're thinking about right now, these intellectual things that, that we have as human beings. We don't need them in all this divide the point? Maybe, yeah, fitness. The point is then, so why do they exist in us? So I mean, so hey, we have a clear distinction between the human being and the rest of

the animal kingdom, essentially, because essentially, it almost requires no not if you can, it's not if you count ourselves as animals.

If we are if we are just an animal,

but our brains already capable of doing it. That's the point.