...of irony...
bismillahirrahmanirrahim...
always wanted to write on this, now i will...
editor's note:this is based on what is known to the author at the time of writing. hence there may be questionable facts in which the author hopes the reader will bring it up so that the article can be improved, and knowledge can be spread...from ALLAH is all knowledge...
in all the hype of evolution and creationism, i find it interesting to note that there is NOTHING in the Quran that is against evolution. there is only the creation of Adam a.s. which is detailed in the Holy Book of Quran, but nothing about the creation of other life forms...
but before we continue with the discussion, i would like to point out that i will not indulge too much in the evidence for and against evolution, nor the possibility of having other species of humans, as was pointed out in Saifulislam.com, rather, i would like to focus the argument on more logical aspects of the theory, and try to come to a conclusion whether or not we need to invoke the supernatural to explain life..
firstly, let us assume that we are in primordial earth, where the conditions are just right for the formation of life..
the argument goes that organic molecules are formed out of this 'primordial soup', or from other parts of the galaxy, and then slowly develop into life.
now, the more perceptive of you would by now say, 'no, that is impossible! how can such a thing occurred? it simply is appalling to logic!' well, the thing is, the entire world is in front of you. and you cannot simply say that that is impossible, because it appeals not to logic. if you say that is the case, then we physicists can't use quantum mechanics, because its illogical, but is proven to be true in some aspects of the micro universe.
hence, from the argument above (that there is life in this world already), we can assume that the probability of such occurrences to happen is not zero, but from logic, we can deduce that it would be very small. why? because although demonstrated in the lab that it is possible to for organic chemicals to come into being in certain conditions, for it to organize itself into a living organism seems, to me, rather ambitious. but again, the probability is not zero.
taking that stand, we can now say that indeed evolution may have been the method in which life came into being, and because we are here observing nature, it is possible. but there is just one thing that it must comply to: thermodynamics. the 2nd law of thermodynamics (i am being simplistic and taking a broad view of the law), is related to a concept called entropy, which provides a quantitative measure of disorder [c.f. Young and Freedman, University Physics with modern physics, 12th edition]. systems tend to move from order to disorder, and the sudden rise of life would mean that for some reason, disorder has decreased on earth. as pointed out of a very good friend of mine (read the comments), entropy could decrease (entropy in a closed system cannot be decreased, but in an open system it may decrease). and since earth can be considered an open system, entropy might decrease. but i personally think that successive decrease in entropy is rather hard to be realized..but, life have no reason to exist in the first place, so why is it developing?
and with the existence of life, it seems that life becomes more and more complicated, which is weird because life, in the early stages, have no reason to do that. i mean, we are to take a simplistic view on this, then we might say that life have no reason to continue living, because it may not be optimal to the physics of the environment...
so the question arises, why is life so persistent? and why should it develop consciousness? we are often bombarded with the notion of struggle of the fittest, but we never really thought about why there must be a fittest in the first place. we know so much about HOW things are going about, but we never question WHY it is so.
and interestingly enough, if we humans are not here, who would give meaning to all of this? if there is no human intelligence, we wont even saying stuff like this, and the universe will still function (as far as conventional wisdom holds)
so, it after reading this, it is up to you to decide what to believe in...
wallahua'lam
[revised at 2330 on 06-01-07]
always wanted to write on this, now i will...
editor's note:this is based on what is known to the author at the time of writing. hence there may be questionable facts in which the author hopes the reader will bring it up so that the article can be improved, and knowledge can be spread...from ALLAH is all knowledge...
in all the hype of evolution and creationism, i find it interesting to note that there is NOTHING in the Quran that is against evolution. there is only the creation of Adam a.s. which is detailed in the Holy Book of Quran, but nothing about the creation of other life forms...
but before we continue with the discussion, i would like to point out that i will not indulge too much in the evidence for and against evolution, nor the possibility of having other species of humans, as was pointed out in Saifulislam.com, rather, i would like to focus the argument on more logical aspects of the theory, and try to come to a conclusion whether or not we need to invoke the supernatural to explain life..
firstly, let us assume that we are in primordial earth, where the conditions are just right for the formation of life..
the argument goes that organic molecules are formed out of this 'primordial soup', or from other parts of the galaxy, and then slowly develop into life.
now, the more perceptive of you would by now say, 'no, that is impossible! how can such a thing occurred? it simply is appalling to logic!' well, the thing is, the entire world is in front of you. and you cannot simply say that that is impossible, because it appeals not to logic. if you say that is the case, then we physicists can't use quantum mechanics, because its illogical, but is proven to be true in some aspects of the micro universe.
hence, from the argument above (that there is life in this world already), we can assume that the probability of such occurrences to happen is not zero, but from logic, we can deduce that it would be very small. why? because although demonstrated in the lab that it is possible to for organic chemicals to come into being in certain conditions, for it to organize itself into a living organism seems, to me, rather ambitious. but again, the probability is not zero.
taking that stand, we can now say that indeed evolution may have been the method in which life came into being, and because we are here observing nature, it is possible. but there is just one thing that it must comply to: thermodynamics. the 2nd law of thermodynamics (i am being simplistic and taking a broad view of the law), is related to a concept called entropy, which provides a quantitative measure of disorder [c.f. Young and Freedman, University Physics with modern physics, 12th edition]. systems tend to move from order to disorder, and the sudden rise of life would mean that for some reason, disorder has decreased on earth. as pointed out of a very good friend of mine (read the comments), entropy could decrease (entropy in a closed system cannot be decreased, but in an open system it may decrease). and since earth can be considered an open system, entropy might decrease. but i personally think that successive decrease in entropy is rather hard to be realized..but, life have no reason to exist in the first place, so why is it developing?
and with the existence of life, it seems that life becomes more and more complicated, which is weird because life, in the early stages, have no reason to do that. i mean, we are to take a simplistic view on this, then we might say that life have no reason to continue living, because it may not be optimal to the physics of the environment...
so the question arises, why is life so persistent? and why should it develop consciousness? we are often bombarded with the notion of struggle of the fittest, but we never really thought about why there must be a fittest in the first place. we know so much about HOW things are going about, but we never question WHY it is so.
and interestingly enough, if we humans are not here, who would give meaning to all of this? if there is no human intelligence, we wont even saying stuff like this, and the universe will still function (as far as conventional wisdom holds)
so, it after reading this, it is up to you to decide what to believe in...
wallahua'lam
[revised at 2330 on 06-01-07]
