As process of nature, natural selection was familiar to biologists before Darwin, who defined it as a "mechanism that keeps species unchanging without being corrupted". Darwin was the first person to put forward the assertion that this process had evolutionary power and he then erected his entire theory on the foundation of this assertion. The name he gave to his book indicates that natural selection was the basis of Darwin's theory: The Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection...

However since Darwin's time, there has not been a single shred of evidence put forward to show that natural selection causes living beings to evolve. Colin Patterson, the senior paleontologist of the Museum of Natural History in England, who is also a prominent evolutionist by the way, stresses that natural selection has never been observed to have the power to cause things to evolve:

No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has ever got near it and most of the current argument in neo-Darwinism is about this question. 1

Natural selection holds that those living things that are more suited to the natural conditions of their habitats will prevail by having offspring that will survive, whereas those that are unfit will disappear. For example, in a deer herd under the threat of wild animals, naturally those that can run faster will survive. That is true. But no matter how long this process goes on, it will not transform those deer into another living species. The deer will always remain deer.

When we look at the few incidents the evolutionists have put forth as observed examples of natural selection, we see that these are nothing but a simple attempt to hoodwink.

Natural selection means the survival of those individuals best suited to the natural conditions around them. In a herd of zebra menaced by lions, for instance, the fastest running zebra will survive. But the survival of the fastest zebra does not mean that these zebra will subsequently turn into a different species, cheetahs for instance. Natural selection merely weeds out sickly, weak or crippled individuals, or those in the group that have failed to adapt to their surroundings. It cannot create new species, new genetic information or new organs.

The British evolutionist and paleontologist Colin Patterson admits this fact:

No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has ever got near it and most of the current argument in neo-Darwinism is about this question. 2

Alongside this important truth, there is another fact that Darwinists in particular in his explanations regarding natural selection, either ignore or are reluctant to consider. A tiger uses an amazing intelligence in selecting the weakest in a herd of antelope. It "deliberately" chooses a weak and helpless individual. Rather than mindlessly heading for the front of the herd, it directs its attention to the last, most helpless member. In other words, it uses intelligence. What Darwinists have to do is define this consciousness that directs the tiger. He has to explain where the intelligence and consciousness causing the tiger to make the most intelligent selection come from. We are looking at a conscious preference, in which the details are analyzed and the one correct solution is arrived at, rather than at false mechanisms such as natural selection. That being the case, Darwinists must answer the following question: who is responsible for this conscious, rational, intelligent and accurate selection?

There is only one answer to this question that Darwinists will attempt to respond to in terms of evolution, and which will therefore in effect be unanswered: It is Allah Who bestows this consciousness. All the elements involved, such as the target animal, the tiger's choosing just the right moment to go into action, the way it attacks when its prey is most helpless, and its use of the incredible ability to neutralize its prey in a very short space of time, require an enormous intelligence, and all are inspired by Allah.

A mindset that seeks to make a conscious mechanism out of the imaginary system known as natural selection by attributing a power to it is an unseeing one. A gene, organ or organism will never evolve because it survives. The surviving antelopes will never turn into stronger animals, such as tigers, because of their survival. The illusory mechanism of natural selection has never turned arms into wings, or fins into feet. It has no ability to turn one life form, or even a single gene, into another.

Darwin's Imagination

The person who put forward the theory of evolution the way it is defended today, was an amateur English naturalist, Charles Robert Darwin.

Darwin had never undergone a formal education in biology. He took only an amateur interest in the subject of nature and living things. His interest spurred him to voluntarily join an expedition on board a ship named H.M.S. Beagle that set out from England in 1832 and travelled around different regions of the world for five years. Young Darwin was greatly impressed by various living species, especially by certain finches that he saw in the Galapagos Islands. He thought that the variations in their beaks were caused by their adaptation to their habitat. With this idea in mind, he supposed that the origin of life and species lay in the concept of "adaptation to the environment". According to Darwin, different living species were not created separately by Allah but rather came from a common ancestor and became differentiated from each other as a result of natural forces.

Karl Marx made it clear that Darwin's theory provided a solid ground for materialism and thus also for communism. He also showed his sympathy to Darwin by dedicating Das Kapital which is considered as his greatest work to him. In the German edition of the book, he wrote: "From a devoted admirer to Charles Darwin". (left)

 
Darwin called this process "evolution by natural selection". He thought he had found the "origin of species": the origin of one species was another species. He published these views in his book titled The Origin of Species, By Means of Natural Selection in 1859.

Darwin was well aware that his theory faced lots of problems. He confessed these in his book in the chapter "Difficulties of the Theory". These difficulties primarily consisted of the fossil record, complex organs of living things that could not possibly be explained by coincidence (e.g. the eye), and the instincts of living beings. Darwin hoped that these difficulties would be overcome by new discoveries; yet this did not stop him from coming up with a number of very inadequate explanations for some. The American physicist Lipson made the following comment on the "difficulties" of Darwin:

On reading The Origin of Species, I found that Darwin was much less sure himself than he is often represented to be; the chapter entitled "Difficulties of the Theory" for example, shows considerable self-doubt. As a physicist, I was particularly intrigued by his comments on how the eye would have arisen. 3

While developing his theory, Darwin was impressed by many evolutionist biologists preceding him, and primarily by the French biologist, Lamarck. 4 According to Lamarck, living creatures passed the traits they acquired during their lifetime from one generation to the next and thus evolved. For instance, giraffes evolved from antelope-like animals by extending their necks further and further from generation to generation as they tried to reach higher and higher branches for food. Darwin thus employed the thesis of "passing the acquired traits" proposed by Lamarck as the factor that made living beings evolve.

But both Darwin and Lamarck were mistaken because in their day, life could only be studied with very primitive technology and at a very inadequate level. Scientific fields such as genetics and biochemistry did not exist even in name. Their theories therefore had to depend entirely on their powers of imagination.

While the echoes of Darwin's book reverberated, an Austrian botanist by the name of Gregor Mendel discovered the laws of inheritance in 1865. Not much heard of until the end of the century, Mendel's discovery gained great importance in the early 1900s. This was the birth of the science of genetics. Somewhat later, the structure of the genes and the chromosomes was discovered. The discovery, in the 1950s, of the DNA molecule that incorporates genetic information threw the theory of evolution into a great crisis. The reason was the incredible complexity of life and the invalidity of the evolutionary mechanisms proposed by Darwin.

Natural Selection: Assistant of the Imaginary "Mother Nature"

The late evolutionist author Stephen Jay Gould.

Natural selection is evolutionists' favorite mechanism, to which they most frequently attribute creative power. This actually is a process that can be observed in the natural world among living things. But it certainly cannot advance the development of any living thing, much less create a new species, as evolutionists imagine it can.

This natural process was known long before Darwin, but he was the first to assert that it had "creative power." His theory is founded on his belief that the mechanism of natural selection has the power to fuel evolution. But natural selection is based on the premise that living things can continue to survive only if they conform with the natural conditions in which they find themselves. Those individuals not equipped with attributes that ensure harmony with their environment will perish. In other words, natural selection has no power to cause or direct evolution.

One example can illustrate this point. Suppose that two dogs live in the same geographical area. One has long hair, and the other's is comparatively short. If the temperature in their area should fall significantly as a result of ecological change, the longer-haired dog could better resist the cold than the shorter-haired one. In this situation, the long-haired dog has the greater advantage; it would be healthier, live longer and thus, be able to sire more puppies. Within a short time, the number of short-haired dogs would noticeably decrease; they would either migrate to a warmer climate, or their strain would die out. So as a result, longer-haired dogs would be "naturally" selected and enjoy the advantage.

But notice that no new species of dog appeared during this process. Natural selection merely chose between two different already existing breeds of dog. Long-haired dogs did not suddenly come into existence by natural selection, at a time when long-haired dogs did not already exist. It is absolutely impossible that these dogs could evolve into an entirely new species with the passage of time.

In short, natural selection cannot produce new species or new characteristics; it only "selects" from among the attributes of creatures that already exist. And because no new species or characteristic is ever produced, we cannot say that any "evolution" occurs. In other words, natural selection by itself, does not cause evolution.

Nevertheless, evolutionists use natural selection to pull the wool over people's eyes, resorting to illusions to distort the facts. They credit natural selection with a much greater effectiveness than it actually exhibits. They believe that natural selection not only gets rid of the weak, but also creates countless new living species. It is accurate to say that evolutionists want to believe in this process because they've nothing else to rely on. Darwinists' hopes and aspirations play a major role here; they are described by one of the best known evolutionist paleontologists-the late Stephen Jay Gould:

The essence of Darwinism lies in a single phrase: natural selection is the creative force of evolutionary change. No one denies that selection will play a negative role in eliminating the unfit. Darwinian theories require that it create the fit as well. 5

But Darwinists have been unable to prove their aspirations, because not one single example has ever been observed of natural selection causing new life forms to evolve. Colin Patterson, a noted English evolutionist and paleontologist, admits as such:

No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has ever got near it and most of the current argument in neo-Darwinism is about this questions. 6

Surprisingly, even though Darwinists know that natural selection cannot have any creative powers, they continue to believe it. (Just like the bewitched man we described in our introduction, who believes he is getting wet on a sunny day.) Modern evolutionists admit that a mechanism like natural selection removes only weak individuals; it cannot create a complex creature like a human being with his superior qualities, capable of building entire civilizations. But interestingly, such admissions do not change what they believe. It is plain to see that evolutionary theory is in crisis; they witness this for themselves, but won't give up their obsessive preconception that human beings came into being through a process of evolution.

Under the weight of this contradiction, anthropologist J. Hawkes states:

I find it difficult to believe that the extravagant glories of birds, fish, flowers and other living forms were produced solely by natural selection;I find it incredible that human consciousness was such a product. How can man's brain, the instrument which created all the riches of civilization, which served Socrates, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, and Einstein, have been brought into being by a struggle for survival among hunters of wild game in the Pleistocene wilderness? 7

Hawkes' words underscore a very important point. No matter how evolutionists may not want to believe it, no intelligent human being or any other living creature with its amazing qualities could ever have arisen by the mechanism of chance. Similarly, Cemal Yildirim, a leading evolutionist in Turkey, admits, despite his loyalty to the theory, that it is very difficult to believe that natural selection has any creative force. As he writes:

A third and more important criticism is directed at natural selection as an adequate explanatory principle. Living things at all stages of life, from amoebae up through human beings, exhibit an extraordinary order, and a teleological [purpose-oriented] tendency that do not allow any physical and chemical analysis. The mechanical mechanism of chance, or natural selection is unlikely to explain this. Take the example of human eye. Could an organ, with structure and functions of such complexity, delicacy and perfection, have been formed mechanically, without the purposeful involvement of any creative power? Could human being, who form entire civilizations along with works of art, philosophy and science, have evolved through natural selection? Can we explain the love a mother feels for her young through a "blind" mechanism embracing no spiritual element whatsoever? No doubt, biologists (let alone Darwinists) find it hard to offer satisfactory answers to such questions. 8

Despite all this, evolutionists keep on believing that nature and certain mechanisms within it, such as natural selection, can create a sentient human being who can make discoveries, establish nations, and produce works of art. They truly deceive themselves by expecting that one day, science will support their beliefs.

These world-renowned scientists, with their white lab coats and serious expressions, appear cultured and educated. But to see what they really believe, to understand their view of life, we have to take a broad look at these subjects. They may well be intelligent and well-trained, but they believe stories and legends reminiscent of Greek mythology that even children would mistrust.

1- Colin Patterson, "Cladistics", Interview with Brian Leek, Peter Franz, March 4, 1982, BBC.

2- Colin Patterson, "Cladistics," Interview by Brian Leek, Peter Franz, 4 March 1982, BBC

3- H. S. Lipson, "A Physicist's View of Darwin's Theory", Evolution Trends in Plants, Vol 2, No. 1, 1988, p. 6.

4- Although Darwin came up with the claim that his theory was totally independent from that of Lamarck's, he gradually started to rely on Lamarck's assertions. Especially the 6th and the last edition of The Origin of Species is full of examples of Lamarck's "inheritance of acquired traits". See Benjamin Farrington, What Darwin Really Said, New York: Schocken Books, 1966, p. 64.

5- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters" Natural History, Vol. 86, July-August 1977, p. 28.

6- Colin Patterson, "Cladistics" Interview with Brian Leek, interviewer Peter Franz, March 4, 1982, BBC.

7- Jacquetta Hawkes, "Nine Tantalizing Mysteries of Nature" New York Times Magazine, 1957, p. 33.

8- Cemal Yildirim, Evrim Kurami ve Bagnazlik (The Theory of Evolution and Bigotry), (Ankara: Bilgi Publishing House, January 1998), p. 185.