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1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

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Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#91

Post by skim_milk »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #67

I saw that old explanation "living things have an innate urge for survival" in there. Its not necessary at all, and diminishes the idea of natural selection. Creatures/species don't get selected because of what they want. The ones that behave to avoid early death (before reproduction) are represented larger in the population. The makeup of the population shifts over time. That's it. That's about all. No need to imagi…

When a person gives nature human-like qualities it always seems to upset some people. Consider that the people that are most concerned at our poor treatment of environment probably do so in part because they see nature as an extension of themselves and give nature human-like emotions despite knowing it's definitely not "real".

The purpose of educators and writers giving animals etc. human qualities is intentional - it makes people more focused and concerned about losing nature and preventing the possible collapse of the environment's food chains, not about intentionally miseducating the public.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#92

Post by jjjbokma »

noncoml wrote: post #79
diego_moita wrote: post #30

This is like saying the pre-socratic Greek philosophers "discovered" the atom. Their "discovery" was just vague speculation. Darwin didn't just say "evolution happens", he demonstrated it. Before him no one else demonstrated it. Surely, a lot scholars speculated about evolution long before Darwin. One of them was Erasmus Darwin, Charles grandfather. But that misses the whole point: no other scholar was able to embed…

Or how the bible is telling the story of Eve(Mitochondrial Eve) and Adam(Y-chromosomal Adam)

Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam lived not in the same period of time.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#93

Post by dragonwriter »

Ccecil wrote: post #50
sfjailbird wrote: post #47

There is a verse in the Quran[1] about the origins of the universe and life: And have not the ones who disbelieved seen that the heavens and the earth were an integrated (mass), then We unseamed them, and of water We have made every living thing? Would they then not believe? Commentators observe that this verse at the same time lends support to the idea of the Big Bang, and the origins of life in water. Thus there is…

I find it interesting that the story of "Genesis" in the Bible basically goes through the order of operations for how the universe formed (aside from a couple of the days out of order...but it is very close). It does lean towards at least a reasonable assumption of what came first. Makes me think there was some sort of "knowledge" being encoded in the story that was attempting to teach the uneducated of the time.

> I find it interesting that the story of "Genesis" in the Bible basically goes through the order of operations for how the universe formed (aside from a couple of the days out of order...but it is very close).

As a Christian but decidedly not a biblical literalist, that's...just not true, without a whole lot of strained appeal to metaphor informed by knowing the answer you want it to get to.

Genesis has two mutually incompatible creation stories, and while the reference to "days" means this has to refer to the first one, its not really true of either of them.

I mean the first one has creation in this order of days:

(1) Light, day vs. night

(2) separation of the waters (which, incidentally, appear to preexist creation, as they don't get created anywhere) into waters above and waters below, divided by a "firmament" which is named Heaven.

(3) Gathering of the waters below the firmament into one place (the Seas), producing dry land as side effect. And the creation of grass, herb-yielding seed, and fruit trees on the land.

(4) Creation of the Sun, Moon, and stars.

(5) Creation of sea and avian animals.

(6) Creation of (non-avian) land animals, including man.

That's more than a couple days out of order.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#94

Post by dragonwriter »

Someone wrote: post #60
Ccecil wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that the story of "Genesis" in the Bible basically goes through the order of operations for how the universe formed (aside from a couple of the days out of order...but it is very close). It does lean towards at least a reasonable assumption of what came first. Makes me think there was some sort of "knowledge" being encoded in the story that was attempting to teach the uneducated of the time.

I don’t see it that way. Genesis doesn’t mention the creation of earth, stars get created after there’s land and water on earth, there’s light with days and nights before stars, the sun and moon are equally old, fruit-bearing plants are created before sea life, and water plants aren’t mentioned at all. I think it’s about you can expect from randomly picking fragments, and throwing away variants that do not hold up to…

> About the only thing it gets truly right is the creation of water life before land life.

Sea animals and birds are created at the same time, after land plants, so it has land life first, and sea and land animals together.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#95

Post by noncoml »

jjjbokma wrote: post #92
noncoml wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or how the bible is telling the story of Eve(Mitochondrial Eve) and Adam(Y-chromosomal Adam)

Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam lived not in the same period of time.

Does it matter? I mean it’s still close enough for such a prediction so long back.

What I am saying is that, like with the “atoms”, the intuition was there. They just didn’t have the means to prove stuff

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#96

Post by jandrese »

hnracer wrote: post #33
throwaway123x2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discovery isn't attributed to God, but the existence of the phenomenon. So in your example, God made radium. God made the raw materials to make computers and gave man the intellect to make them.

This sounds like the God Of The Gaps line of fallacious reasoning. Once we figure out where radium came from then God will be inserted just before that new discovery, ad infinitum, turtles all the way down

The God of the Gaps reasoning always seemed dangerous to me. It creates a system where each scientific discovery diminishes God, pitting religious people against the advancement of science. As the gaps grow smaller so does God. In the long run you're in danger of reducing God to some mathematical constants.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#97

Post by asadlionpk »

It's sad to see open hatred towards Islam (and religion in general) on my favorite Hacker forum.

Nitpicking any theory in support of God's existence and not even consider any findings/research/point of view.

Isn't this plain ignorance?

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#98

Post by ebalit »

artificial wrote: post #44
curiousgal wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in a Muslim country, unlike Christianity, Islam accepts scientific discoveries but attributes them to God instead. For instance, we were taught about the Big Bang in an Islamic Thinking class but the trick was that "God was responsible for it".

Interesting, are you aware that the big bang theory originated from a Belgian priest?

And Mendel was a catholic monk.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#99

Post by [deleted] »

noncoml wrote: post #79
diego_moita wrote: post #30

This is like saying the pre-socratic Greek philosophers "discovered" the atom. Their "discovery" was just vague speculation. Darwin didn't just say "evolution happens", he demonstrated it. Before him no one else demonstrated it. Surely, a lot scholars speculated about evolution long before Darwin. One of them was Erasmus Darwin, Charles grandfather. But that misses the whole point: no other scholar was able to embed…

Or how the bible is telling the story of Eve(Mitochondrial Eve) and Adam(Y-chromosomal Adam)

[deleted]

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#100

Post by ibn_khaldun »

I find this article to be questionable, if not outright misleading and incongruent to the creed of Islam. For one, the quote from Ibn Khaldun (the only reputable individual mentioned, albeit briefly in this piece) is taken out of context and mistranslated.[1] Evidence suggests that what Ibn Khaldun was in fact making reference to (the concept of the celestial spheres/emanation) is antithetical to the theory of evolution or anything of its ilk. In fact, the passages that precede the quote that is referenced in this piece and others establish this evidence as clear. [2, pg. 137]

In investigating the remaining invididuals mentioned in this piece, it appears that not one of them is of a doctrinal pedigree similar to that of Ibn Khaldun's (who is what the general public would refer to as a Sunni Muslim). To juxtapose the label of "Islamic" next to the opinions of Mu'tazilites, "Neoplatonist" and Shiites in regard to the theories of evolution, natural selection, et cetera, does not spell for a valid argument from a purely traditional point of view. The likes of those mentioned in this article would be deemed heretic at the least and out of the fold of Islam entirely at the most.

This article is a product of the misappropriation and degradation of Islamic scholarship and history in academia and abroad for the sake of "pluralism" and "inclusiveness". It is unfortunate that Ibn Khaldun has to be shoehorned into these arguments. Anyone involved in these sort of studies would pain themselves to find reputable scholars of Sunni Islam propogating or inclining toward Darwinist thought to the degree of the aforementioned groups that are traditionally established to be deviated from the main stream.

[1]: https://www.islamicboard.com/health-amp-science/134349270-ib... [2]: https://archive.org/details/ibn_khaldun-al_muqaddimah_201611

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