1. Context and setup
1.1 The Islamic view of human origins: Two issues to tackle
There are two issues that need to
be adequately addressed in order to defend the Islamic view of human origins,
which is that all of humanity was brought about from an original pair, who were
created miraculously.
The first issue is more substantial. Science puts some empirical limits on when and how humanity might have originated. For example, some population genetic evidence suggests that the current genetic diversity among humans cannot be accounted for with a two-person origin if the event happened in the past 500,000 years. If this line of argument is correct- although there have been detractors- that means humanity could not have originated more recently than half a million years ago.
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Over at BioLogos, Stephen Schaffner (left) and Richard Buggs (right)- two biologists have been going at it over the issue of most recent possible two-person human bottleneck |
These are just a few examples of
how the scientific data might constrain where and how we might be able to
reasonably place the origin of humanity. The first challenge, therefore, is
to defend at least one scripturally allowable model of human origins which
isn’t contradicted by empirical data. This project would require an
in-depth investigation of the scientific evidence to demarcate exactly where
the origin of humanity might be placed without rubbing up against the evidence. Also, note that I'm not suggesting all of the examples above needs to be accepted at face value, hence the need for an investigation of the scientific data itself. If at least one of these models is consistent with what scripture teaches us
about human origins, then we succeed. The challenge, then, is finding such a
model. For example, if we find that the hominids living 500,000 years ago had
the ability to speak, were anatomically and behaviorally similar to modern
humans, and could have reproduced to produce the amount of genetic diversity we
see among humans today- then we can comfortably say that the origin of humanity
through Adam and Eve (peace be upon them) can be placed at some point around that period without
contradicting any scientific evidence.
As I mentioned in the last post
on this blog, I want to pursue this as a longer-term project- where I
investigate each scripturally allowable model of human origins and hold them up
against the scientific data to see which of them can be reliably subscribed to. I know I mentioned the “old Adam” model which places our origin 500,000
years ago, but I don’t want to bias the conversation towards any particular view.
In truth I haven’t really looked at the relevant evidence in any significant
depth- maybe I’ll come out of this exercise defending a much more recent human
origins model. Time will tell.
This article is about the
second issue, which is independent from the first. Even if we can defend a
model (or models) of human origins which is scripturally allowable, the fact
remains that humans look evolved. There are features in human biology
which, the argument goes, are best explained by human evolution or common descent. I have written about
this issue at length in a previous blog post,
and won’t recount the arguments here. The present article assumes that you
already know about the strong arguments for human evolution, are convinced that
they need to be taken seriously, and understand why the popular responses to
them are wrong or misguided (read the post
I linked to earlier, is what I’m trying to say in so many words). So even if we can defend the possibility
of an Islamic view of human origins, one might argue that given the many pieces
of evidence for human evolution, it is, however, not very probable.
This, then is the challenge that
occupies us presently. How can we explain the evidence for human evolution?
1.2 Previous notable attempts
Before we size up this beast, let
me first note that I haven’t really seen any good or interesting responses to
this challenge, Muslim or non-Muslim. Let’s quickly go over a couple such instructive attempts- I promise this excursus will be beneficial in delineating precisely
what it is we’re trying to achieve here.
1.2.1. Nazir Khan: Evidence on balance
In his 2018 essay, Dr. Nazir Khan provides a nuanced take on the evidence for evolution. The
argument, as I understand, is as follows: yes, when we look exclusively at
genes and fossils, it’s easy to conclude that we indeed evolved. However, to do
so would be to ignore other important evidence. We have information in other
fields of study- linguistics and philosophy of mind for example- which prove
the absolute uniqueness of humans. This other evidence cuts against the
conclusion that humans evolved. So when we take all evidence into consideration
(and one could even throw in scriptural justifications, if evidence for the
truth of Islam can be presented)- on balance, the creation hypothesis would win
out. The problem all along was looking at a subset of the total evidence, while
taking the entirety of the evidence solves the issue completely.
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This is awkward- the article on their website only mentions Nazir Khan as an author, but the PDF file mentions Yasir Qadhi as well. I'm noticing this just now, as I was pasting this photo |
I won’t comment on the other evidence Dr. Khan adduces, and whether they successfully show what he’s trying to establish (I’m not well read in any of those fields). But even if this argument is successful on the whole, you might notice that this approach, at the end of the day, is just an evasion of the central issue. Even if the entirety of the evidence points to creation, it’s still a legitimate question to ask- why is some evidence pointing the other way?
Let me illustrate this with an example in another field of apologetics. One
popular argument for the truth of Christianity is the putative historical
evidence for the resurrection. Let’s say, faced with such an argument, a Muslim
apologist replies- well, yes, if we’re just looking at those specific
historical facts, it does seem like Christianity is true. But in doing so,
we’re ignoring other important information about Christianity. For example, the
New Testament theology is inconsistent with Old Testament theology, and the
Trinity is incoherent, and there are scientific contradictions in the Bible.
When we consider this evidence against Christianity together with the
evidence for, then on balance, Christianity turns out to be
false.
Assuming that this "other" evidence against Christianity is indeed solid, how should we evaluate such a response? One can definitely satisfy
themselves with it if they’re concerned with the broader worldview-level question of “is Christianity true or false”. However, this response doesn’t
really address the putative evidence for resurrection at all. Even if
Christianity as a whole turns out to be false, one might still ask- why
is there historical evidence for the resurrection then? There needs to be an
explanation of this anomaly, no? Incidentally, that's how Muslim apologists and du'at have actually dealt with this issue- in addition to just talking about the Trinity or historical issues with NT preservation, they have felt the need to produce material about the resurrection evidence as well. They didn't like things sticking out awkwardly.
I believe this is where Dr. Khan comes up short. The putative evidence for
evolution is something that sticks out, and we’d want to see it addressed, as
opposed to being combed over under other evidence.
1.2.2. Joshua Swamidass: Skeptical
theism
Our second example is from Professor
Joshua Swamidass. He’s a Christian biologist who believes in common descent, but
nonetheless maintains that a supernatural origin of humanity can still be
believed in without discounting the scientific evidence (i.e. it’s possible
that humans had a supernatural origin). So how does he explain all of the
evidence for common descent (quoted from here)?
One of the key lessons of theology is that “things are not always as they appear.” It appears, sometimes, that God is absent and does not care about our suffering, but in fact He is present and mourns with us. One of the key lessons of science, also, is that "things are not always as they appear." It appears, for example, that the sun moves in the sky, but the earth actually orbits the sun. If reality were always as they seemed, there would be no need for science or for theology.
In problem of evil literature,
this view is what’s referred to as skeptical theism.
God’s actions are so inscrutable that we can’t make any judgments about them.
Maybe God had his reasons for making things seem like we evolved, contrary to
fact. Who could know? Who are we to judge?
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Professor Joshua Swamidass of the Washington University of St. Louis, here seen being quite pleased with this new book. I mean I would be too, it looks like a fun read |
Islam is certainly sympathetic to certain aspects of this response (see Qur’an, 18:65-82). But let’s follow the problem of evil analogy a bit further- while Islam does teach that Allah’s wisdom may be completely inscrutable in some cases, the Qur’an and Sunnah also give us plenty of specific reasons as to why Allah does what He does. For example, the Qur’an says that Allah allows suffering to test us for the hereafter (29:2, 67:2), suffering sometimes comes as punishment and reminder (30:41), and of course, suffering is an occasion for forgiveness from sins. So in addition to acknowledging that Allah’s wisdom is indeed beyond our ken, Islam is also transparent about some of Allah’s wise purposes. These “reasons” or “purposes” for Divine actions are what’s referred to in the literature as theodicies. Based on scriptural and theological reasoning, Muslim scholars have constructed various such theodicies for allowing suffering in the world. They didn’t take refuge exclusively in the unknowability of Divine wisdom, but also took comfort in the fact that we can try and understand some of the reasons for Divine actions, based broadly on scriptural injunctions.
Coming back to the case with the evidence for evolution, in addition to
admitting that we might never know Allah’s purposes behind allowing such
evidence, as Dr. Swamidass does, we can also try to tease out specific
reasons as to why such evidence might exist. Based on what scripture has
informed us about who Allah is, maybe we can construct theodicies about
what purposes Allah might have behind creating humans in a way that seems to
suggest we evolved.
This, then, is the task in front of us: constructing a theodicy for
the putative evidence for evolution.
1.3. The problem, restated
Several lines of scientific evidence (that I characterized as constituting
a gratuitous similarity-nested hierarchy pattern in my previous blog post) are said to be readily explained on an evolutionary hypothesis, but they
do not fit as well on a creation hypothesis. This is not to say they are logically inconsistent with creation- just that there is nothing about a creation
hypothesis that leads us to expect these patterns. As such, they are at best ad
hoc, theory-saving additions to a creation view, in contrast with a natural
fit with an evolution view. Therefore, inference to the best explanation
suggests we should prefer evolution over creation (please read the blog post I linked to for a fuller discussion on this- I'm summarizing it in as few words as possible, at the risk of coming off too simplistic).
In other words:
- The gratuitous similarity-nested hierarchy pattern is explained easily and naturally on the common descent hypothesis.
- There’s no reason to expect such a pattern on the Islamic creation hypothesis.
- (From 1 and 2) All other things being equal, we should prefer common descent to Islamic creation as an inference to the best explanation.
(This argument can also be phrased in theological terms, such as: if Allah
created humans miraculously through the exclusive parentage of Adam and Eve,
why did He allow there to be evidence which seems to contradict this reality?)
The second premise in this argument, I believe, has been really
underexplored. It’s a substantive question to ask- does an Adamic/Islamic
creation hypothesis have the explanatory resources to accommodate the gratuitous
similarity-nested hierarchy pattern we see in life? In this essay, it’s this premise that I’ll be contesting at length. My thesis is the following:
an Islamic creation hypothesis does give us theological reasons to
expect just the sort of evidence we in fact see in reality. The putative
evidence for evolution, then, becomes at least as plausible on Islam as it is
on human evolution, which means one can be completely justified in accepting
the former.
1.4. Some disclaimers
1. As I just stated, this essay is about finding theological reasons as to
why things are the way they are. Meaning, this essay assumes that Allah works because of His wise purposes (the same way Allah allows suffering for the purpose of
testing us, for example), and those purposes are- to some extent- knowable by
us, via reasoning based on broad scriptural injunctions.
2. In this essay, I’ll take “humanity” and “Adam and his descendants” to be
synonymous. I make this disclaimer because Dr. David Solomon Jalajel has
recently attempted to show that as far as scripture goes, these two terms are not necessarily
synonymous (they can be, but there’s nothing in scripture that suggest that
they are).
3. In our discussions of the laws of nature, it might seem like I’m assuming a
particular metaphysic of laws. For ease of writing, I distinguish between
supernatural intervention on one hand, and Allah “using the laws of nature” or
“through the operation of the laws of nature” or even “the laws of nature have
produced X” on the other. I understand that on an occasionalist metaphysic, Allah
is the only operating agent in both cases, since contingent things don’t have
power. For the occasionalist, therefore, the distinction between these two sets
of phenomena is just that the latter conforms to a regular pattern, while the
former is a break from the pattern. I want to clarify ahead of time that this
language is used only for ease and brevity, and not to imply anything
theological. The entire argument can be made using occasionalist language.
E.g., where I might imply a “clockwork” nature (where laws of nature are used
by Allah to produce an end) is better or more elegant in some way- one could
rephrase that as- a universe where Allah acts in a regular, uniform way is more
elegant, and so on.
4. The essay is mostly concerned with theological/philosophical reasoning,
but due to its nature there will be some biology discussions as well. I don’t
think any of those sections will be inaccessible to the lay reader, however.
5. While I’m framing this essay as an explicitly Islamic project (there's heavy use of Islamic language), I think
the argument is available to believers of other faiths as well, but of course
that would depend on their specific scriptural commitments.
6. I think this essay required me to do more original thinking than anything
else I’ve ever worked on. A consequence of this is that the argument at
this stage seems quite raw and bloated (not to overuse the quip but, somewhat
intellectual gymnastic-y). I think further reflection and feedback might help
me streamline it further, so the central intuitive thrust becomes clearer.
2. General strategy and structure of essay
My foremost priority in this essay is to avoid the charge of ad hoc-ness-
the idea that I’m conjuring up untenable, theory-saving theological justifications
after having seen the evidence for evolution. To counter this charge, I’ll
first detail some general principles of how Allah creates (the Sunnah or
‘way’ of Allah) from the Qur’an and Sunnah. Taken together, I will refer to these principles as least intervention with didactic exceptions. This exercise is completely
independent of the specific biological questions that would ultimately occupy
us. Meaning, the principles we’ll first develop should be relevant not
only to evolution, but any Divine creative project, as demonstrated by both
scriptural and theological reasoning.
Afterwards, when it comes to the creation of all life on earth, including humans, we'll decompose it into four separate points of discussion (one can think of them as creative decisions):
- Creation of humans requires the presence of creatures with functionally similar goals as humans,
- Functionally similar creatures would need to share the same design plan with humans,
- The process of creation of humans and non-human creatures on the same design plan,
- The need for a didactic intervention during the creation of humans.
At each of these points (except 1, which can be settled on its own terms), we'll make use of the least intervention and didactic exception principles to answer questions. Again, to reiterate, the principles themselves have nothing to do with this latter task- they are independent theological maxims that are being applied to specific questions in what I believe are straightforward ways.
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Very general flowchart: we derive general principles of creation from Islamic sources, which we use to answer questions related to how humans and the rest of earthly biodiversity would have been created. These answers then together form our model of creation. The goal of this project is to show that the model of creation that results from theological principles is the one that's seen in reality- meaning the putative evidence for evolution or common descent can be explained on theologically plausible premises as well |
3. The Sunnah of Allah
The general shape of the question we’re grappling with is this- what is the
Divine purpose behind creating things a certain way? To address this, we’ll
first have to look at scripture- and as an extension, theology- to unearth some
principles behind Allah’s creative choices. We can think of these principles as
constituting Allah’s preferences in how He creates- the Sunnah of Allah,
if you will. The concept of a way or Sunnah of Allah, a general
preference for how He does things, is not novel (see Qur’an 17:77, 40:85, 48:23
as examples). My first task is to tease out such a Divine Sunnah in His
creation of things, by referring to the Qur’an and Prophetic narrations, and
then furnishing additional support via theological reasoning.
3.1. First principle of creation:
Least intervention
Allah describes the process of human creation in the Qur’an:
We created man from an essence of clay, then We placed him as a drop of fluid in a safe place, then We made that drop into a clinging form, and We made that form into a lump of flesh, and We made that lump into bones, and We clothed those bones with flesh, and later We made him into other forms ––glory be to God, the best of creators! [23:12-14]
There are two things of note
here. First, with the exception of the reference to “an essence of clay”, the
rest of the passage is describing the natural process of human birth- how each
of us develop into a fully formed human being, starting from a humble drop of
fluid in the womb. This process is not describing a miracle story- Allah is not
intervening in the laws of nature in any of this. Second, Allah ends the
description by glorifying Himself- meaning, this process is evidence for the
fact that He is the best of creators.
When we observe it closely, this
mode of creation has two features-
- More complex states arise from simpler ones
- The process occurs via the instrumentality of natural regularities- Divine intervention is absent or kept to a minimum.
There are many other examples in scripture where this mode of creation is attributed to Allah. For example, Allah says
It is He who sends down water from the sky. With it We produce the shoots of each plant, then bring greenery from it, and from that We bring out grains, one riding on the other in close-packed rows. From the date palm come clusters of low-hanging dates, and there are gardens of vines, olives, and pomegranates, alike yet different. Watch their fruits as they grow and ripen! In all this there are signs for those who would believe. [6:99]
This is a beautiful, picturesque
description of Allah’s creation- and none of this is via direct Divine fiat.
All of these events- the falling of rain, the various phases of the production
of vegetation, their growing and ripening- are occurring through the
observable, mundane instrumentality of natural laws. And yet, “in all this
there are signs for those who would believe”. For the Qur’an, the fact that the
earth’s “system” has been set up in a way that it routinely produces beautiful
vegetation following rain, is something that clearly evinces design.
In addition to scriptural support, there are strong theological reasons for thinking this mode of creation to be one preferred by the Designer. Many philosophers and theologians have pointed out that this mode of least intervention, simple-to-complex creation is, at least in some contexts, a greater reflection of Divine creative majesty. Let’s go back to the Qur’anic description of agriculture once again, and imagine an alternative scenario where trees and their fruits just continuously popped into existence ex nihilo, akin to magic tricks. While that universe might have been interesting, one finds the way Allah actually created things to be much more impressive- He “set up” the earth in such a way that one state of affairs predictably transforms into another; simpler, less interesting things like dry earth give way to gorgeous landscapes of greenery. Clockwork.
The 19th century minister Henry Ward Beecher devised some visual analogies that capture this intuition:
Suppose, then, that someone should take [a man] and introduce him into that vast watch factory, where watches are created in hundreds and thousands by machinery; and suppose the question be put to him: ‘What then do you think about the man who created this machinery, which of itself goes on cutting out wheels, springs, and pinions, and everything that belongs to making a watch?’
If the creation of a watch
evinces design, argues Beecher, wouldn’t a watch-making assembly line, putting
together thousands of watches from simpler and less interesting stuff, evince much
greater design? If nothing else, clearly the latter is a much more significant
feat of engineering.
In another similar analogy,
Beecher talks about what our reaction might be when we encounter an intricately
designed oriental rug:
Well, that is a beautiful design, and these are skilful women that made it, there can be no question about that. But now behold the power-loom, where not simply a rug with long, drudging work by hand is being created, but where the machine is creating carpet in endless lengths . . . Now the question is this: Is it an evidence of design in these women that they turn out such work, and is it not evidence of a higher design in the man who turned out that machine . . . which could carry on this work a thousand-fold more magnificently than human fingers did?
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Beecher's oriental rug vs. power loom |
Beecher summed up his argument by
saying “design by wholesale is grander than design by retail”. In other
words, a mode of creation where laws and initial conditions are set up (e.g.
the watch assembly line, the power loom) in such a way that the system transforms
them into more complex things (watches, rugs) is much more impressive than just
creating each rug or watch at a time.
There are many other thinkers who
have expressed similar opinions as Beecher. Michael Murray in his 2009 book Nature
Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering provides
a useful list in chapter 6 (in fact, my quotations of Beecher are lifted from
there).
Tangent: Least intervention principle in the Prophetic biography
To close off this section, let me
return to some additional scriptural endorsements of this view of creation.
There’s a very simple test for
whether this sort of least intervention, simple-to-complex mode of creation is
preferred by Allah. Scripture tells us that there are certain periods of
history where Allah sends His messengers with special missions. During the
careers of these messengers, Allah is directly active in the affairs of
humanity (more so than usual), to ensure the victory of His messenger and the
Divine religion they are sent with. If we examine the events within such
periods, we can get a distribution of the modes of Divine action- supernatural
intervention vs. through the instrumentality of natural laws, and hopefully draw
tentative conclusions about the preferred mode of Divine action.
As it happens, we have detailed
records of such a period of time when Allah was directly and frequently active
in human history - the 23 years of Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) Prophethood.
The Divine project during this period- to make Islam and His messenger
victorious- has clearly come to pass, but how was this end achieved?
For the most part, we don’t
actually see a lot in terms of Divine intervention in this period. Most of the
time, Allah achieves His ends through the instrumentality of nature (and the
believers), instead of supernatural fiat. Most of the Prophetic da’wah,
for example, seems to have happened via interpersonal communication, not direct
divine miracle. This rule has been maintained even during times of extreme
distress on part of the Prophet and the believers (e.g. the boycott of Banu
Hashim and the incident of Ta’if).
Now one might object that there are other reasons for this than just Divine preference: da'wah, for example, is supposed to be a test for the believers. But consider an even more dramatic
example: the battle of Badr. Allah promised the Messenger and
the believers that they will receive supernatural help- angels will descend on
the battlefield and fight with them. In a period when Divine miracles are more
frequent than usual, the battlefield is where such events are concentrated to
an even greater degree. And yet, even in such a context- we don’t see the
angels mowing down the enemy en masse. Rather, the charge is led by the
believers, and the Angels help them by striking only at certain occasions.
Perhaps better yet, consider the
event of the Prophet’s migration to Madina. This was an extremely dangerous
period in the Prophet’s life, as he was under direct threat of assassination. But
even in such a situation, Allah takes care of His messenger mostly via regular
means- long-term, meticulous planning on part of the believers, and careful
execution of the plan. Allah does intervene at some important points in the
journey, most notably by providing supernatural protection to the Prophet and
his companion Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) in the cave of Thawr.
But overall, the story consists mostly of natural events, sparingly peppered
with instances of miraculous intervention.
The preservation of the Qur’an is
another example of the same theme. Allah Himself promises in the Qur’an that He
would preserve this book (Sura Hijr, 15:9), and yet any reader of history would
know that a huge part of preserving the Qur’an was through the efforts of the
Prophet and His companions.
For all three such examples- the
battle of Badr, the Hijra and the preservation of the Qur’an- the
overwhelming impression one gets upon reading the accounts is how much planning
and effort the messenger and the believers had to put in to accomplish these
goals. Without direct Divine intervention, these efforts would probably still
have been inadequate, but clearly most of the “work” was done by natural
agents. Guided by Divine revelation all right, but the effort was very much human. I think when one considers all of these examples at once, they cumulatively demonstrate a Divine preference for minimum intervention in our earthly affairs.
Taken together, our brief survey of
some key events in the Sira produces a picture where Allah achieves His
projects mostly through the natural activity of His agents on earth. Miracles
are definitely a part of the story, but they constitute a minority of these
events. If we take this pattern as indicative of Allah’s preference for a
particular mode of creation, we again reach the same conclusion- Allah
prefers to achieve things via the natural unfolding of an initial setup,
intervening sparingly and only when needed. In addition, this mode of
creation- all other things being equal- is a more elegant form a design, a
greater engineering feat.
So when might things not be
equal?
3.2. Second principle of
creation: Didactic exceptions
Let’s now turn to another Divine
project: the sending down of Divine revelation to the Prophet.
In the vast majority of the
cases, this process followed a very routine structure- the Angel Jibreel (peace
be upon him) came down to the Prophet with revelation. The Prophet received the
revelation in a myriad number of ways, but what was common in all of this is
the coming down of Jibreel. That was the Angel’s assigned station, and this
Angelic delivery route operated like clockwork for the entirety of the
Prophet’s career.
There was one occasion, however,
when this routine revelation delivery system was put on hold. And that was
during the Night Journey of the Prophet- when instead of Jibreel coming down
with revelation, the Prophet Himself was taken up above the seven heavens for a
personal communication with Allah. From a purely “efficiency” perspective, one
might think this was redundant. After all, Allah already had a pretty smooth
conveyor belt set up to get the revelation delivered to the Prophet. Also, and
again speaking from that pure “efficiency” point of view, bringing up a regular
human all the way up to Allah to deliver a message seems rather
counterintuitive. Why opt for such a circuitous route to effectively achieve
the same ends (communicating revelation), when there was already a perfectly
operational one?
As our scholars explain- and as
common sense suggests- the reason behind breaking with the more “efficient”
option in this case was because this action had a point. The message
that was revealed to the Prophet on this occasion was the commandment of Salah,
the five daily prayers. The fact that the Prophet was being brought up above
the seven heavens to communicate this message underscores the gravity of this
commandment. Sure, Allah could very well have let the Prophet know about this
commandment via Jibreel, and sure, that would’ve been the more efficient,
“engineerly” option. But then the emphasis on the command would not be the
same, and in turn, the message would not be the same either. The way the
message is delivered is in itself a message. The fact that Allah singled out
this one commandment where the Prophet had to be brought up to Him and spoken
to directly, speaks volumes about how singularly significant this piece of
revelation is. This certainly could not have been achieved with the routine,
indirect mode of revelation. To use an earthly analogy- with the caveat that Allah
is above all analogies- think about a message delivered to someone via an
emissary of the King, vs. the King himself coming to visit the recipient to
deliver it first-hand. Wouldn’t the latter event significantly emphasize the
importance of this message?
This, then, provides us with
another feature of Divine creation: while Allah does often maintain a “least
intervention” principle when creating, He dispenses with this to directly
intervene when this act of intervention makes a spiritual or didactic point.
The intervention isn’t necessarily required to achieve a different end- rather,
as the example above demonstrates, maybe the same end could be achieved without
intervening. But the act of intervention emphasizes the point in a way that
could not have been possible otherwise.
Putting these two considerations
together, we get a general picture of how Allah creates. For the most part, Allah
prefers to achieve His ends through the instrumentality of the laws of nature-
the “least intervention” principle. However, there are occasions where Divine
interventions are used to make a didactic point. In these cases, Allah “interrupts”
the normal course of events to intervene.
Together, we can perhaps call this
overall mode of Divine creation- least intervention with didactic exceptions.
4. The project of creating
earthly biodiversity (including humans)
The rest of the exercise would be to apply these principles to the Divine project of creating life on earth. However, as alluded to above, there’s some discussion to be had about the exact nature of the project of creating life on earth, including humans. This might involve some application of the least intervention principle, but I believe the relevant intuitions would be clear even without it. With that accomplished, we can move on to more direct application of these principles.
4.1. Human existence requires the existence of non-human creatures with a similar design plan
I’ll first demonstrate that human existence also requires the existence of creatures with a similar (not identical, or even very similar, but generally similar) design plan as ours. This will be achieved in two steps: first, by showing that human existence requires the existence of creatures with similar functions (or ‘ends’) as ours in our environment, and second, by showing that these creatures not only needed to have similar ends as ours, but in fact needed to share the same general design plan as ours as well.
4.1.1. Human existence requires
the existence of creatures with similar functions as ours
In order to create humans on
earth, Allah also needed to create similar, but still non-human
creatures. This is because in order to survive, humans require an appropriate
sort of biosphere, and that biosphere needs to be inhabited by creatures
at least somewhat similar to us. I don’t mean anything radical by that
proposition- I’m not saying, for example, that the non-human biodiversity
needed to be exactly as it is, up to and including the great apes and extinct
hominids, in order for humans to survive and sustain themselves. For all we
know, it’s possible that at least some species of microorganisms occupy
environmental niches so distant from ours, that even if they didn’t exist it
wouldn’t have affected our existence in a very significant way. Perhaps the
same could also be said about some species of plants and animals, especially insects.
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| Giant tube worms grow on underwater hydrothermal vents. Did our existence necessarily require the existence of this species? I don't know- but at least some biodiversity was definitely required |
However, it’s not uncontroversial
to suggest that human existence and sustenance requires the existence of some
non-human creatures that resemble us at least somewhat. Consider the fact, for
example, that we need microorganisms to be abundant and ubiquitous on earth, to
maintain the biogeochemical cycle and make the planet habitable. We
also presumably need at least some plants and animals to fulfill important
ecological roles for human sustenance. Microorganisms, plants and animals are
really “similar” to humans, in that they have the same fundamental bodily
processes and energy sources as we do. It’s easy to understand why these
similarities are required at a functional level: since other creatures share
the same fundamental metabolism as humans, they would live off the environment
in such a way that humans (with similar processes) would also be able to
survive and thrive there. We wouldn’t do very well, for example, on a planet
occupied by and “terraformed” for a completely different sort of creature, say
a breed of aliens that use silicon and arsenic as food. That environment would
not suit our biological needs at all. On the other hand, if Allah created
humans to live off of silicon and arsenic, we’d not do well in an earthly
biosphere. The human biosphere must be made up of creatures with similar ends
and functions as ours.
More generally, humans are
created to be embodied and limited, and therefore dependent on external actors
for their sustenance. If humans are to live in a “natural” environment (as
opposed to a supernatural one like in Paradise, or in the case of the Banu Israil
where sustenance was miraculously provided to them)- it’s plausible that they
would need other creatures with similar ends as theirs, to create habitable
environments for them. As such, human existence requires prior (or at least,
concurrent) creation of other creatures who are sufficiently similar to us.
4.1.2. Humans and similar non-human
creatures plausibly require the same design plan
The next issue I want to address
is, given that human existence requires other similar creatures in our
environment, would we share the same “design plan” with them? This is a subtler
point- just because the creatures need to be similar to us in terms of their
ends (e.g. how they use the environment, produce energy from raw materials,
take care of waste products etc) doesn’t mean they also need to share the same
design plan. You can achieve the same ends with many different underlying
designs.
To phrase the problem in more
concrete terms- all life on earth shares an astonishing degree of similarity at
the biochemical level. The biological information in all creatures, from
bacteria to dinosaurs, is written in the same four-letter code of DNA, arranged
exactly the same in the form of a double helix. This is difficult to explain in
terms of functional reasons alone, because it’s plausible that the same end
results could’ve been achieved with at least minor variations in their
underlying design. For example, all creatures produce proteins using what is
called a ribosome. The ribosome has an extremely peculiar structure- its
mechanical core, which carries out the protein synthesis reaction, is made up
of RNA molecules. The reason this is peculiar is, most of our bodily reactions
are carried out (‘catalyzed’) by protein molecules, not RNA ones. It’s
plausible that, from a purely design perspective, one could have a creature
with a ribosome-like structure which is constituted entirely with proteins.
Same goes for the very many other biochemical constituents of life. At least
some subset of living creatures, for example, might have had some differences
in the letters of the DNA, or had a different complement of cofactor molecules,
ultimately leading to similar functional consequences. But we don’t see this.
At the rock bottom of biology, we see a remarkable degree of similarity.
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The structure of a ribosome: the yellow stuff are proteins, and the grey stuff is RNA. As can be seen, the core is made up completely of RNA. This is definitely a peculiar design among other molecular machines in biology |
The question I’m asking is, from a design perspective- when creating life forms with similarities in their end goals (which we argued was necessary in the previous section), is it also necessary to have them share the same underlying design plan, like we in fact see in nature?
Again, from a purely functional
perspective, the answer seems to be no. What’s required for human existence is
only creatures with overall similarity in their function, not exact
similarities in their underlying design plans. However, I think here the least
intervention principle we discussed earlier becomes relevant.
Let me borrow (and modify) an
analogy put forward by Winston Ewert in his 2018 essay
in the Intelligent Design journal Bio-Complexity. Consider a computer
programmer who wants to write a simple program, that does two things: 1. Logs
on to a particular website, 2. Downloads a particular file. Now “logging on to
the internet” and “downloading a file” are general enough functions that
programmers have already written codes for. Each of these codes with a
particular function is called a “module”. These modules are stored in libraries
that are available to all programmers. When our programmer sits down to write
his new program, he doesn’t write it from scratch- that would be inefficient-
rather, he “imports” the two modules from the library into his program. He then
makes necessary emendations to the code, until it serves his particular purpose.
The general intuition to take
away from this analogy is, while there might not be strict functional
constraints on creating similar creatures on the same design plan, it is,
however, an efficient mode of creation. To fashion new design plans out of
whole cloth to serve the same functions in different creatures, even though the
extant design plans serve the functions just as well, is tantamount to
re-inventing the wheel. Imagine a world containing creatures with the same
functions, but different underlying designs. I think a legitimate question to
ask of that situation would be- why did the designer bother to create so many
different underlying plans, when any one plan might have served these functions
just as well, and would’ve been more efficient?
I think this intuition is just a
specialized application of the least intervention principle we discussed above.
The principle derives from a general priority for elegance and efficiency in
creation- if a watch factory can keep making watches without the designer
having to step in frequently, that’s an instance of efficient, elegant design.
In creating different design plans in similar creatures, when that serves no
functional reasons, seems to violate these intuitions.
If I don’t have you on board for
this, consider a more radical analogy. This might be a tangent, but since this
point is crucial to the argument I’m making- I think it’s worth spending a
little more time on this.
Tangent: Did Jesus (peace
be upon him) have a Y-chromosome?
We know from scripture that Jesus
was created miraculously, without a father. We also know that in ordinary
humans, you need the Y-chromosome, which is passed down from fathers, to
determine male sex. Now, keep in mind, in the creation of Jesus- the natural,
biological process by which one acquires a Y-chromosome- through paternal
lineage- is not operational. So the question is- how was the maleness in Jesus
determined? Was a Y-chromosome supernaturally installed within him? Or was it
some completely unique male-defining process we have no idea about?
I think it’s more plausible that
Jesus had a Y-chromosome installed in him. Or in more general terms, the way
Jesus had his maleness determined is the exact same way the rest of humanity
has it determined- through a Y-chromosome. Even more generally still, while
Jesus was supernaturally created- he probably had a similar biology to humans.
If you agree with me on that,
let’s now move on to ask- what justifies this intuition? After all, there’s no
mechanistic reason to expect Jesus to have a Y-chromosome. The reason we need
Y-chromosomes to determine our maleness is because that’s how the natural
process works. But for the creation of Jesus, no natural process was
operational. Allah could’ve determined his maleness in a completely different
way, even one completely inscrutable to scientific investigations.
We can actually ask this question
for other instances of miraculous creation. When Jesus miraculously gave life
to the clay birds, how do you think their internal biology looked? Did they
have bird genomes, resembling those of other birds? I want to say their biology
was probably the same as their “natural” counterparts, but again, there’s no
mechanistic reasons for thinking this. Miraculous creations don’t need to obey
natural patterns.
I think the operating intuitions
here are similar to the ones we encountered with the programmer analogy above.
In the case of a supernatural
creation- like Jesus or the birds- they could indeed have had a different
biology than the one they in fact had. They would still look like a male human
being and birds, with a different internal mechanism. Since Allah is creating
these entities supernaturally, the creation process isn’t limited to the
natural processes operating during biological reproduction and development. But
to create altogether different mechanisms for these purposes would be
re-inventing the wheel. There are already existing designs in nature that serve
the same purpose, and they will function perfectly well in the case of these
special, supernatural creations. As such, If the Y-chromosome determines
maleness in other humans, there’s no reason why the same process shouldn’t be
used in the case of Jesus as well. In fact, foregoing available design
options to make new mechanisms out of whole cloth seems to contradict the least
intervention principle we discussed above. Same goes for the birds- why bother
inventing an entirely new genetics or biology for these creatures, when the
existing system found in other creatures work just as well?
Let’s import these intuitions to
the case we’ve been discussing: creation of similar life forms. Mammals, for
example, require blood for a number of different reasons- transporting oxygen
to cells, regulating body temperature, and so on. Suppose Allah wants to create
something with the same biological processes and functional constraints as
mammals, who also require a system of internal transportation and temperature
regulation. I suggest it would make sense for this new creature to also have a
blood-based circulatory system. Making entirely new underlying mechanisms out
of whole cloth for essentially the same purpose is a form of inefficiency, if
not inelegance- and that contradicts our earlier scriptural and theological
justifications for a streamlined, least intervention mode of creation to the
extent possible.
As such, I think we can agree
that in creating a number of different life forms with similar functions, Allah
would plausibly use the same or similar design plan, including modifications as
and when necessary.
4.2. Applying the least
intervention with didactic exceptions principles
We now understand the task in a little more detail: creating a bunch of life-forms, including humans, with a shared design plan. On the least intervention with didactic exceptions principle(s) we discussed above, how would we expect them to have been created?
4.2.1. Applying the least intervention principle
Since the creatures, including
humans, have significant similarities in their design plan, the least
intervention principle suggests that they would be brought about using the same
mechanism or general process. Of course, Allah could supernaturally create each species separately,
but that would involve numerous interventions and therefore violate the principle. It follows that we would expect the laws
and initial conditions to be set up in such a way that the earthly
biodiversity, including humans, would be produced naturally (if we’re
considering only this principle and nothing else- caveat coming in next
section). This is basically another way of saying that life on earth would be
produced via an evolutionary mechanism- whatever the details of such
a mechanism might be. To really spell out what this would mean- when Allah is
bringing about all biodiversity on earth, including humans (again, caveat
coming below), with a natural mechanism, that entails one would see the
eventual emergence of creatures that resemble humans more and more- think of
the great apes or the extinct hominids. This serves both goals- creating humans
and creating earthly biodiversity on a shared design plan. To put it more
generally, all the least intervention principle states is that creatures with a
similar design plan would be made using the same general process.
 |
On the least intervention principle alone, Allah would bring about all creatures with a shared design plan using the same non-interventional process- one that we call evolution these days. Think about a conveyor belt going upwards the picture- producing all sorts of biodiversity along the way, eventually reaching for humans. But that might be a reach too far...read along |
Tangent: Illustrative analogies
We have already explored the
plausibility of a general least intervention mode of creation based on
scriptural and theological considerations, and I won’t belabor the point here.
However, I do want to quote a few thinkers who made the same point specifically
about the evolutionary origins of earthly biodiversity. I think these quotes
serve to demonstrate that the evolutionary origin of biodiversity isn’t an ad
hoc proposition I’m shoehorning in my argument- rather, it follows
naturally from widely shared theological assumptions.
First, consider a video (I can't find the original link) from the
educational website Khan Academy. This is one of the most renowned educational
organizations on the internet, and their views lie squarely within the realm of
mainstream opinion. As such, one could consider them as representative of
modern secular thought. In a video discussing the merits (lack thereof, rather)
of the intelligent design movement, the instructor Sal Khan says the following-
A belief in a universal, all-powerful God would not point to a God who designs the particular. Who designs each particular. . . In order to give credit to the all-powerful, at least to my mind, [we need] a system that comes from very simple and elegant basic ideas . . . and from that simple and elegant basic ideas, for complexity to emerge. . . This is what really evolution speaks to, that look, our universe is this profound world, this profound environment, where from these very basic, simple, beautiful ideas, we have this complexity and this structure that is truly, truly, truly awe-inspiring. This is, in my mind, what evolution speaks to. And in my mind, even as an engineer, this speaks to a higher form of design. This speaks to a more profound design.
In the latter part of the video,
Khan illustrates his argument with the example of mathematical fractals. On
Khan’s view, a relatively inelegant way of creating a fractal would be
hand-drawing the whole thing. However, a much more elegant way would be to
specify the equation- the initial “setup”- that predictably produces the
fractal pattern. In addition to Beecher’s analogies with oriental rugs and
watches, I believe this too is an excellent illustration of the general point.
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Fractals are incredibly pretty, and also apparently specified by mathematical equation |
Next, consider this quote from Dr. William Lane Craig. While Dr. Craig is a Christian apologist, he is very progressive-minded and open to non-literal readings of Genesis. Commenting on how God would’ve plausibly created earth’s biology (exactly the question we’re grappling with here), he says
It would depend upon whether or not you think that these acts of intervention on God’s part would be acts of creating something ex nihilo – just out of nothing, brand new. For example, there would be a pond with nothing on it and then suddenly some ducks would appear out of nothing on the surface of the pond, miraculously created by God. I have to confess that, to me, that smacks a little bit of magic to be attractive. I noticed that when God creates in the Genesis narrative, he uses nature. He says, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation and fruit trees” and “Let the earth bring forth the terrestrial animals." When he creates man, he creates man out of the dust of the earth. God uses means. So, it may well be the case that God uses preexisting life forms as the stuff on which he acts by intervention.
Finally, let’s look at one more
quote from a scientist you might have heard of. When finishing off his Origin
of Species, Charles Darwin says
Musing on his theory of life’s
origin, Darwin appreciates the “grandeur” of a creation where complex forms of
life are generated from “so simple a beginning” according to specified laws of
nature. This quote isn’t explicitly theistic, however- like the Sal Khan and
Henry Beecher quotes above- it does emphasize the elegance of such a mode of
creation. As we’ve been arguing, elegance befits a Divine creative process.
I would also like to point out
that this intuition- things having been set up by Allah in such a way that
natural laws gradually produce complexity- is quite acceptable to Muslims (and
other religionists) when it comes to the non-biological part of the universe.
The fine-tuning argument for God’s existence, for example, posits that the
laws, constants and initial conditions of the universe were set up in such a
way that their operation would predictably produce complex structures like
stars and galaxies. This argument is incredibly popular, and I haven’t really
seen any Muslim or theist these days having trouble accepting it. No one to my
knowledge has been going around claiming that Allah created each individual
planet in the universe in special, supernatural acts of creation. I don’t see
why these same intuitions cannot be extended to the case of earth’s
biodiversity as well.
4.2.2. Applying the didactic exceptions
principle
Let’s take stock: thus far, we’ve arrived at the following conclusions.
1- In order to create
humans, Allah would also plausibly need to create a biosphere, with creatures similar
to us
2- Humans and other members of this biosphere would need to share the same
design plan
3- Creating a biosphere, including humans, would be better achieved with an
evolutionary mechanism, than supernaturally creating each member individually
(on the least intervention principle).
On this view, the initial conditions and laws would be set up in such a way
that all of life’s biodiversity would be produced naturally, eventually leading
to humans as well. But can that principle of least intervention really be
extended to include all creatures?
If we were only operating on the
principle of least intervention, we might be tempted to say yes. However, as
discussed earlier, there are also points in history where Allah interrupts the
laws of nature to intervene supernaturally. These interventions are necessary,
because they serve a didactic purpose. These constitute exceptions to a general
application of the least intervention principle.
In this section, I’ll argue, as the Qur'an does, that
the creation of humanity was an event which required just such an exception. In
other words, while all other creatures might have been naturally produced
through an evolutionary mechanism, when it came time for the origin of humans-
Allah intervened and created Adam and Eve via special creation, and then the
rest of humanity followed.
We know from scripture that the
supernatural creation of humanity through Adam and Eve served important
didactic purposes. For one, Allah’s direct intervention in creation confers a
special status to the creature. The Qur’an explicitly tells us that humans are
a special, honored creation, and the way in which this honor was bestowed on us
was via our creation process:
[Allah] said, "O Iblees, what prevented you from prostrating to that which I created with My hands? Were you arrogant [then], or were you [already] among the haughty? [38:75-76]
Here, Allah spells out the
“point” of creating Adam supernaturally i.e. with “His hands”: because Adam is
deserving of a special honor. This meets our other plausible expectation: Allah
supernaturally intervenes in His creation when such intervention serves a
point. Here, it clearly does. Elsewhere, Allah and His messenger spell out the
didactic implications of this event in more detail. For example,
People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into races and tribes so that you should recognize one another. In God’s eyes, the most honored of you are the ones most mindful of Him: God is all knowing, all aware. [49:13]
Here, Allah is making an argument
for the universal equality of all mankind: we all had the same origin. The
moral commandment stems from a metaphysical fact about human creation. In other
words, when someone claims superiority over another on a basis other than being
mindful of Allah, they’re not only being immoral, but also unscientific-
such a belief isn’t borne out by the special way in which humanity was created.
The Messenger of Allah made the same argument when he said
O you people! Verily Allah has removed the slogans of Jahiliyyah from you, and its reverence of its forefathers. So, now there are two types of men: A man who is righteous, has Taqwa and honorable before Allah, and a wicked man, who is miserable and insignificant to Allah. People are children of Adam and Allah created Adam from the dust. [Tirmidhi, English reference- Volume 5, Book 44, Hadith 3270]
In sum, the creation of humanity
constitutes a necessary exception to the least intervention principle, because
here Divine intervention serves a didactic purpose.
5. The completed picture
Let’s now bring all these strands
together and see how the entire creation project would look.
In order to create humans, there first needed to be an appropriate biosphere that we could inhabit. The biosphere would be made of creatures similar to us- both in terms of their functions and ecological niches, but also their design plans. This would mean creating a human-containing-biosphere with a common same design plan. On the least intervention principle, this project would be achieved via an natural, "evolutionary" mechanism: the initial conditions would be set up in a particular way, and then all creatures, including humans, would gradually evolve. However, the creation of humans couldn’t be allowed to happen naturally, because this event is meant to serve a didactic purpose. As such, when it was time to create humans, Allah intervened in the inexorable march of evolution towards humanity, and supernaturally created and sent down Adam and Eve on earth.
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| Forgive the poor image quality. Allah intervenes and sends down Adam and Eve, after the evolutionary process has brought about creatures resembling (but not identical to) humans. |
Remember, since the biodiversity on earth was evolving “towards” humanity, there would have been creatures on earth that resemble us to a great extent. This is natural, since the process has been set up in such a way that evolution would eventually lead to humans (in addition to producing other forms of life). So when Adam was being created, his design plan- the underlying biology- resembled these other, similar creatures.
(Important) Tangent: Is this view intuitive?
One objection I’m anticipating
is, while this view is said to be derived from pre-established theological
principles, it’s not super intuitive. Essentially, what this view expects us to
believe is that much of the human design was being “cooked” over billions of
years, until Allah intervened and made a new creation based on an extant design
plan.
Let me try to make this easier to
understand with another analogy. For this analogy, place yourself in 7th
century hijaz: say you’re someone living at the time of the Prophet
(peace be upon him). In your time, you’ve slaughtered plenty of camels and seen
their insides. You know that camels too have blood, just as humans do. Meaning,
you would have to acknowledge that humans and other creatures share a similar
design plan.
If I pushed you to philosophize a
little more, you’d have to admit what this entails: at least one component of
human design- blood- is found in non-human creatures as well. Same goes for brain matter, intestines, muscles, bone structure, and so much else of the
human design. It’s all present, in near-complete form, in other creatures that
are not humans. So if large parts of the human design has already been made in
non-human creatures, what’s so unintuitive about most of our design plan
being developed in non-human creatures as well?
This essay is just a fleshing out
of the philosophical justifications for this view, by referring to principles
of least intervention. The reason parts of the “human design” are found in other
creatures is because we are part of the same creative project, because we share
the same basic design plan, and (at least most of) our design have been produced
by Allah via a natural, least intervention, evolutionary mechanism.
Let me round of this section off with
a long-ish quote from an Australian Catholic philosopher, Dr. Vincent Joseph
Torley. This was from one of his articles
on an Intelligent Design blog, where he was responding to an objection:
In his post, Professor Moran (acting as devil’s advocate) proposes the intelligent design hypothesis that “the intelligent designer created a model primate and then tweaked it a little bit to give chimps, humans, orangutans, etc.” However, he argues that this hypothesis fails to explain “the fact that humans are more similar to chimps/bonobos than to gorillas and all three are about the same genetic distance from orangutans.” On the contrary, I think it’s very easy to explain that fact: all one needs to posit is three successive acts of tweaking, over the course of geological time: a first act, which led to the divergence of African great apes from orangutans; a second act, which caused the African great apes to split into two lineages (the line leading to gorillas and the line leading to humans, chimps and bonobos); and finally, a third act, which led humans to split off from the ancestors of chimps and bonobos.
“Why would a Designer do it that way?” you ask. “Why not just make a human being in a single step?” The short answer is that the Designer wasn’t just making human beings, but the entire panoply of life-forms on Earth, including all of the great apes. Successive tweakings would have meant less work on the Designer’s part, whereas a single tweaking causing a simultaneous radiation of orangutans, gorillas, chimps, bonobos and humans from a common ancestor would have necessitated considerable duplication of effort (e.g. inducing identical mutations in different lineages of African great apes), which would have been uneconomical. If we suppose that the Designer operates according to a “minimum effort” principle, then successive tweakings would have been the way to go.
This quote is
where I first got the idea of developing this argument in detail. It's
interesting to note that, as he mentions in the beginning of the same article,
Dr. Torley accepts common ancestry of humans and apes. I think this summarizes the key intuitive thrust of my argument.
6. How this solves things
This is a theologically plausible
account of the creation of humans (along with the rest of biodiversity) that
can explain the evidence for evolution. Since humans share a design plan with
other similar creatures on earth, and these other creatures had an evolutionary
history, the human genome (and the rest of our biology) would also bear these
marks of evolution.
I want to discuss these in terms
of some case studies.
6.1. Case study 1- The fossil
record
One of the key pieces of evidence
for human evolution is the existence of creatures very, very similar to us. If
their fossils- both bones and archaeological remains- are placed on a temporal
scale, we see an evolutionary progression from simple to complex. The less
complex technology, for example, always precedes the emergence of more complex
technology- Oldowan gives way to Achulean gives way to Mousterian (admitting
some overlaps). Same goes with other human features like bipedalism and brain
size, we always see a progression to more and more human-like features with
time in the fossil record. This is taken as evidence for human evolution.
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In terms of tools used by hominids, there's a clear progression from simple to complex |
These features can also plausibly
be explained on the model I’ve been sketching out. In the process of creating
earthly biodiversity (including humans), Allah used an evolutionary process.
This process brought about all biological species, and was also on the path to
the origin of humans. However, when it came time for humanity’s origin, Allah
created Adam and Eve supernaturally and the rest of humanity through them, and
their design plan was based on the creatures that resembled us the most. As
such, of course we’d expect to see a progression from less-to-more human-like
forms in the fossil record.
6.2. Case study 2- Junk DNA
Let’s now turn to what is
considered perhaps the most conclusive evidence for human evolution: DNA
similarity between humans and chimps (and the other great apes). I go into some
detail explaining why this is evidence for human evolution in a previous post
of mine, and why popular creationist explanations for them generally fail. For
the present purposes, let me go over (or rather, allude to) a couple of choice
examples of this evidence (beyond the general fact of the high degree of
similarity between human and chimp genomes).
6.2.1. Two examples of the evidence for common ancestry based on DNA similarity
1. Evidence indicates that two of the chimp chromosomes fused together to produce a human chromosome.
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| Comparison of the human and chimp chromosome sets: see how the second chromosome comparison suggests fusion? |
The evidence for this is at least threefold: first, the genes on two of the chimp chromosomes under suspicion are found lying end-to-end on a human chromosome. Second, each chromosome has some specific sequences at their ends- telomeric sequence, per jargon- that form a sort of “cap” to prevent the ends from being chewed up by enzymes in the cell. So if two chromosomes were to fuse, we’d expect there to be a “fusion site” where these tell-tale “cap” sequences will be found. That’s exactly what we see in the case of the human chromosome under suspicion, there’s indeed a fusion site populated with cap/telomeric sequences. Third, each chromosome also has a central region called the centromere, which are there for structural reasons (they are used as attachment points during cell division). So again, if two chromosomes were to fuse, you’d expect centromere-like sequences to appear near the edges of the larger chromosome- which, again, is exactly what we in fact find. Here’s a lay-friendly explanation of the phenomenon. You could dig into the hyperlinked references in the article if you want to understand the evidence in more detail. The upshot of this is humans are said to clearly share an ancestry with chimps, hence two chromosomes in one species ended up in a fused form in another.
2. Retroviruses are a special type of virus that have the unique ability of inserting their genome into host. So if a retrovirus infects a germ cell of a human, and it successfully inserts (integrates, per jargon) its genome into the germ cell DNA, then there’s a chance the offspring of that human would also carry that virus genome in his DNA. The human genome is absolutely littered with these viral sequences, and so are chimp and other great ape genomes. As it happens, the vast majority of these viral sequences are found in the exact same site in both humans and chimps- same viral corpse, same spot on the genome. The only plausible explanation of this is that the common ancestor of human and chimps were infected with the virus, and its offspring (humans, chimps and other great apes) are carrying the remnants. As I explained in my previous post on this topic, the evidence is actually deeper than just similarity in sequence in two species- rather, the similarity is arranged in a pattern that can only plausibly be explained on common descent. Here’s a lay-friendly explanation which fills in a lot of detail in what I’ve been talking about.
There have been attempts by
creationists to provide alternative explanations for these patterns (or to
question the data), but these have all been unsuccessful. I believe the most
valiant effort came from Jeffry Tomkins and Jerry Bergman, who’s work has been
refuted by a computer scientist by the name of Glenn Williamson. Check out his blog for more details, or maybe this article
if you want more insight into the drama.
So, how would the model we’ve
been discussing explain these phenomena?
6.2.2. Solution
Since on this model, Allah
created Adam on the design plan of creatures similar to him, that would mean
the biological information in these other creatures would be retained in the
design of Adam. In concrete terms, that would mean Adam would share much of their
genomes, including the markers for the chromosome fusion and remnants of viral
infection, and other such indicators of evolutionary processes. They will not
have been removed when the Adamic genome was being constructed, because they
constitute the human design. To go back to an earlier discussion in this essay,
since these elements perform the role they are supposed to in the human design,
there’s no point in replacing them with a new design plan. That would be
contrary to the least intervention principle, and the intuitions from the
specific analogies we discussed in that section.
The objection to this view might
be, these elements are not functional, and they do not specify meaningful
biological information. If Adam is being created via supernatural intervention,
wouldn’t we expect these elements to be removed from his design?
Here’s my response in brief,
although the topic is fascinating and complex enough to warrant its own
article. There’s actually reason to believe that these elements in the DNA are
indeed functional, but not necessarily for the sequence information they carry (see here and here).
At the very least, the processes in our cells are adapted to a specific program
of DNA replication, which involves making a copy of the entire 3 billion letter
of DNA per round of cell division. If significant amounts of DNA are removed
from our genomes, that would interfere with these other interlocking cellular
processes, like DNA replication and maintenance. Those processes, in turn, are controlled by other overarching cellular processes. In other words, you can’t make changes to the system- the genome-
without making significant changes to much of the rest of our design. Of course, that
would defeat the whole purpose of setting up an evolutionary process that leads
to creatures with a design plan similar to humans, if at the end of that
process the designer needs to make massive changes to the plan. The whole point
of using an evolutionary process to achieve these ends is to make sure the
creative process “runs by itself” so to speak, minimizing the amount of
intervention necessary. Having to re-create the human design once more would be
contrary to this principle.
So to answer the objection- these apparent markers of evolution cannot be randomly removed from humans. That doesn’t mean every single letter of DNA needs to be exactly as it is and even removing a small piece would throw the system into haywire, but you do need sufficient amounts of “filler” DNA to maintain the pace of the rest of your cellular processes.
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I included this figure in my previous blog post as well. This shows parts of the DNA perform "structural" roles in the cell- they fold up in certain ways for purposes of packaging. These "filler" DNA cannot be removed willy-nilly without consequence. They can be mutated, sure, but what's important is not the information they encode, but their function as ballast |
It might be useful to think of DNA as we would think of water. The
earth requires water, and plenty of it, but that doesn’t mean every single
water molecule is absolutely necessary. In fact, some amount of water could
probably be poofed out of the system without significant consequence. However,
that doesn’t mean the designer should have shaved off every single redundant
drop of water and grain of sand from the earth. The earth needs water and sand,
and so we’ve been provided with such, at an amount that’s useful for us. Things
wouldn’t be better if the amount of water on earth exactly matched our
necessity (using possible world language: a possible world which contains a
little more or a little less water or sand on its earth, with the rest of the
system being maintained as it is, is not better or worse than the actual one).
The same considerations apply for DNA: the human cellular processes require
“filler” DNA of a certain amount, and we’ve been provided with such, and it’s
not necessary (or a sign of better design) for all strictly unnecessary DNA to
be meticulously shaved off.
These are my interim thoughts on the matter, based on admittedly limited readings. I might return to this issue at a later date to publish an entire series.
7. Possible objections
Let’s wrap up by discussing some
possible objections or further points of clarification about this argument.
7.1. Overreaching with the least intervention principle
The application of the least
intervention principle in this argument has been too stretchy. Let’s say I
accept the claims that creation of humans also requires the existence of a
biosphere with a shared design plan. Those two things still constitute separate
creative projects, however. I would expect biodiversity to be created for its
own sake, not being directed at making humans; and humans being produced on
their own. Yes, perhaps the human design plan would share components with the
rest of biodiversity, but to say that all of biodiversity would need to be
directed at the production of humans is overreaching.
Answer. I believe this is the
weakest part of my argument (weakest doesn't mean weak, however). Taking the least intervention with didactic
exception principle at face value, one might think the objector’s view of creation
could be justified as well. Regardless of a shared design plan, the
biodiversity would be brought about for its own end, without necessarily being directed at the production of humans. And then at the appropriate time, Allah
would produce humans miraculously through Adam and Eve. We might have design
components in common with other creatures, but the rest of biodiversity wouldn’t
look progressively human-like.
Here’s my response. I suggest
that creating non-human life-forms with a similar design plan as humans is
already a form of human-directed “molding” of biodiversity. In other words,
since we have to share a similar design plan with them, it’s unavoidable that the
biodiversity would be directed at producing human-like features in other
creatures to some extent. Going back to the camel example: from a design perspective, the reason camels
have blood is not exclusively for their own sake, but also because they would
inhabit an environment where humans would exist, and so they would need to
share the same design plan as them. A camel has to be designed with humans in
mind, not exclusively for its own sake.
So the question then becomes,
what’s the “appropriate” extent to which the biodiversity should be molded to
be human-like? If it’s tolerable that biodiversity should be made to resemble
humans to some extent, then I think the least intervention principle would dictate
that this extent would have to be as much as feasible. That would mean the
amount of Divine intervention (in the form of creating new design plans) would
be kept to a minimum when creating humanity through Adam and Eve.
A more intriguing response, but
also one on empirically shakier ground, would be that it’s impossible to
disentangle creating biodiversity for its own end from making it evolve towards
humanity. Proponents of strong convergence in evolutionary history, like Simon Conway Morris,
believe that the advent of humans are an inevitable consequence of evolution. On
this view, even if there were significant changes to the trajectory of
evolution, the process would still lead to creatures resembling humans. In his pop-sci
book Improbable
Destinies, Jonathan Losos suggests (without endorsing) that this would
probably hold true in other planets as well: humans or creatures like humans
are the natural end products of any biological evolutionary process. If
this is true, and I don’t know if it is, then it might be the case that the
production of biodiversity would, as a matter of nomic necessity, lead to
emergence of creatures very much like humans. Perhaps that’s the most efficient
way of generating not just humans, but also biodiversity of the form that would
need to accompany humans.
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| Simon Conway Morris' recent book where he argues for pervasive convergence in evolution (I think, I only started reading it) |
I don’t know if this argument is true, but it’s definitely fascinating- and would provide some empirical support for the model I’ve been at pains to defend. I would probably change my argument to be something like:
- Human existence requires the existence of non-human creatures with a similar design plan
- On the least intervention principle, these non-human creatures would be made using a natural, evolutionary process
- This way of creating non-human creatures, however, would plausibly lead to the development of human-like creatures. In other words, a necessary consequence of using evolutionary process to create non-human biodiversity would be the emergence of human-like creatures
- When comes the time for didactic intervention, Allah would miraculously create humans on the design plan of these human-like creatures.
This view has the advantage of
sidestepping the objection that we would expect biodiversity and human origins
as two different creative projects: as long as they’re on the shared design
plan, materializing the former would inevitably lead to the latter. That’s just
a consequence of creating biodiversity, even for their own sake.
As I mentioned, however, I haven’t really looked into what empirical support this view has. Also, this view would probably need some philosophical buttressing as well: if this is to go through smoothly, the “necessary consequence” I’ve been talking about needs to be of a strong form. Perhaps not true in all possible worlds, but something that’s plausible across worlds relevantly similar to ours.
Either way, definitely
worth investigating in detail.
7.2. How was Adam different?
If Allah made Adam based on
the design plan of similar creatures already present on earth (e.g. extinct
hominids), what modifications were made to his design?
Answer. This is a question on
which my argument is agnostic about. It might be that Adam and his descendants looked
and behaved completely differently from any other creature on earth. It might
be that we looked the same, but we had some special cognitive or spiritual
capacities these other creatures lacked. It might be that the only difference
was in the honor that was bestowed on Adam and his descendants, and we were
otherwise the same (this is a possibility Jalajel suggests in his essay).
My argument doesn’t really take a stance regarding this.
However, I think this is an
interesting research avenue that should be pursued in earnest- exactly what
sets apart humans from non-humans? Could it be that no evolutionary
explanations can be given for uniquely human properties, like linguistic
capacity or other features of our mind (as Khan
and others argue)? If so, it seems like these are features which would
necessitate Divine intervention. In other words, no pre-Adamic biological creation
would have these features, because nature doesn’t have enough “steam” to
produce them- they require supernatural aid. What that implies is, while this
essay doesn’t take a stance regarding what made Adam unique, it could perhaps
be a question that could be settled semi-empirically.
7.3. What about intelligent design?
On this model, is the creation
of Adam the only occasion where Allah intervened supernaturally?
Answer. Not necessarily. My model
requires there to be least intervention with didactic exceptions. It could be
that the creation of some other creatures involved such a didactic exception we’re
not privy to. Alternatively, it could be that it’s physically impossible for
initial conditions and laws of nature to produce significant biodiversity (an
argument the Intelligent Design crew is fond of making). On this latter view, creation
could be front-loaded with only so much information before Divine intervention
is needed for new forms of life to arise. Also, there could also be different modes
of intervention- de novo creation of new species, like Adam was created;
or “tweaking” at the molecular level, say to produce beneficial mutations at
opportune moments of history. The essay doesn’t rule any of that out: all we
are arguing for here is least or minimum intervention, not absolutely
no intervention. In fact, one might notice that I’ve spoken about “initial
conditions” being set up in such a way that biodiversity arises naturally,
without specifying what that quoted term refers to. It could be initial
conditions of the universe (cosmological fine-tuning), or maybe fine-tuning at
the origin of life, maybe the genetic code- all interesting questions, but issues
largely irrelevant to the overall argument I’m making.
7.4. Does least intervention even apply in case of supernatural creation?
Allah didn’t need to base Adam’s
design on the similar creatures, since he was being created supernaturally
anyway. This would’ve required an intervention step regardless of how Adam is
created. Why would earthly biodiversity need to be
human-directed in the first place, since it’s not saving any additional “work”
so to speak?
Answer. Efficiency considerations
are also relevant for supernatural creations- see the section on Jesus having a
Y-chromosome. The point of least intervention isn’t just reducing the number of
intervention events, but also the extent of design input required per
intervention. As Muslims, we believe Allah doesn’t need to expend any effort to
achieve His goals- He just says “Be”, and things happen. So a large number of interventions
would require just as much “effort” from Allah- zero- as a smaller number of
interventions would. The issue therefore isn’t the amount of work needed,
rather the amount of new information to be introduced into the system. Making
Adam’s design plan out of whole cloth, as opposed to naturally producing his design
components and then intervening, would involve introducing more information,
and therefore be a violation of the thrust of the least intervention principle.
Consider, for example, how Allah
intervened to help the Muslims during the Sira. For the majority of
cases, Divine interventions were always subtle: a cobweb at the entrance of the
cave of Thawr, sending down rain before the battle, Angels only striking
when Muslims have already raised their swords to strike at the enemy. There are
very little in the way of grand displays, even when these displays have limited
consequences. I take it to mean Allah prefers His creation run by the regular,
uniform laws He has set up already with subtle interruptions as necessary, as
opposed to introducing huge interventions. Smaller inputs of information are
therefore preferable to Allah than larger ones, if such can be helped.
7.5. Charge of hubris
This model requires us to philosophize about the motivations of Allah, which is inappropriate.
Answer. I think this is a value judgment- some people might think I'm reading the theological principles and applying them in a straightforward way, while others might deem I'm going overboard. I would point out, however, that this view is meant to be a plausible account of events, not a definitive one. I'm suggesting this is how things could have happened, not that they had to happen this way. This is a sort of exercise Muslims engage in all the time- when faced with a certain fate, we sometimes rationalize it by saying "maybe Allah wanted me to get such-and-such results out of this". In those cases, we're not trying to read Allah's motivations per se, but thinking about possible reasons why a certain event might have happened in life. These reasons, of course, follow from the general principles of Divine actions and purposes as laid out in scripture.
I don't see myself doing anything different in this essay, but of course may Allah forgive me if I overstepped my bounds!
