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Peace be upon you, my brother! If one day you wake up, feel your body, and find a bump growing under your back, you neglect it, and it grows over the days and becomes like a tail, what do you do in this situation? Could this tail actually be a message that makes you long for your parents whom you have neglected?
Adnan Ibrahim: "Perhaps the most painful blow to man is when he is told or confronted with the truth that he is nothing more than an animal in an evolutionary chain. Your first parents are animals; they are shared parents with you and other animals, including monkeys, and the so-called 'African apes.' A very painful blow to human narcissism. This is what Charles Darwin did. This (theory of evolution) made us understand that we are a lineage of animals; we are derived from animals, nothing more than that!"
Wait a moment, my brothers, before you object or laugh, is it not possible that this talk is correct? Is it not possible that our narcissism drives us to reject a scientific truth and deny our first parents? Have you not heard Abu al-Ala al-Maarri saying: "And it is ugly for us if the ancient covenant is the humiliation of the fathers and grandfathers"?
Is it not possible that if we scientifically accept that we are a species of monkeys, we will feel pride and honor as Professor Richard Dawkins feels? Are you not satisfied with what this professor of evolutionary biology has accepted? Is it not possible that you have cousins, and you are cutting them off with your arrogance and narcissism?
Adnan Ibrahim: "We and the chimpanzees and bonobos, then the gorillas, and orangutans, these African apes are four, they are the African apes. We are cousins, sons of uncles, not brothers for sure, but cousins; because our grandfather is one common ancestor (in English) common ancestor, common origin. A common grandfather, a common ancestor, this is the grandfather from whom a branch (Branch) or a branch branched off, and another branch branched off. This branch, for example, ended with the chimpanzee (Chim), and this branch ended with man; so we are cousins."
Therefore, before we become emotionally arrogant, let us judge the matter scientifically. What is the evidence that man's origin is an animal?
Adnan Ibrahim: "The chimpanzee is our cousin; he resembles us in a very strange and striking way; in his skeletal system, in his muscular system, his nervous system, in the chemistry of his blood, and even in his behavior in many things. Of course, at the genomic level (genome), about 99% of the chimpanzee's genome matches the human genome. About 99% is the closest to us ever."
This is indeed a strange thing - without a doubt, it has caused man great pain. Frankly, I would be pained if I discovered after forty years of my life that I had been deluding myself all these past years, thinking of myself as something special, and that other creatures are subservient to me. But never mind, I will humble myself to the scientific facts and abandon emotional narcissism, and I invite you to do the same with me.
So, we have two main pieces of evidence - at least - according to our friend's statement: resemblance and genetic similarity at a rate of 99%. As for the 99%, it has a very interesting story that we will tell you later, God willing. Now, let us study the issue of resemblance.
Evolutionists say: There is a similarity between living organisms, and this similarity indicates that the origin of all organisms is a being that was exposed to mutations, random processes, and blind natural selection until millions of species of living organisms resulted. Therefore, it is possible to draw an "evolutionary tree" based on morphological similarity and genetic similarity. Of course, the estimates will differ, and we will get varying proposals for the evolutionary tree based on the difference in the estimation of morphological similarity and the methods used to determine genetic similarity.
The important thing is that morphological similarity is evidence to evolutionists of a shared origin, and the more similar certain organisms are, the closer they are to each other in the evolutionary tree, and they descended from a close common ancestor. For example, look at humans, cats, bats, whales, and horses. Their positions are close in the evolutionary tree. Do you know why? Because they are very similar! As you can see, this indicates that they are from a common origin, isn't it?
I see you, the viewer, staring and gazing as if you are not convinced! According to the evolutionists, this is due to your superficiality and lack of observational accuracy - unfortunately. Teach us, then, O evolutionists! Come, let us learn... For example, this book by Raven and Johnson, 2017 edition, page 432, is titled: (Similar organs suggest or indicate a common origin). The 2018 edition tells you, "Essentials of Biology," that these mentioned organisms are anatomically identical and that this is evidence that they are from a common origin. Such drawings fill English biology books and lectures by evolutionists, both Arab and non-Arab.
Okay, so we understand from your accuracy of observation - O evolutionists - that this similarity, which is hidden from the common people - like us, is strong evidence of a common origin, and that the more similar the organisms are, the more they indicate that they are more closely related, so that it was easy for random mutations and selection to produce from the common origin these similar forms, isn't it? Yes, indeed. So, similarity indicates kinship, and the more similarity there is, the more kinship there is, and the more kinship there is, the more similarity there is. Hmm, I understand...
But wait a moment, maybe - if you allow me, O evolutionists - before the bell rings and the lesson ends, can you explain this drawing that I found in a biological book by a world-renowned scientist, I will tell you his name in a moment. This drawing talks about marsupial and placental animals. The placental animal is one whose fetus completes its growth in the placenta of the womb, like most born animals. While the marsupial, like the kangaroo, comes out of the womb immature and completes its growth in a special pouch in its mother's belly, where it sucks food and matures little by little, comes out into the world, feels it, and returns to the pouch until it can do without it.
You - O evolutionists - say that marsupial animals separated from placentals about 160 million years ago, as in this paper from the journal Nature. And therefore, they are very distant in kinship from placental animals. That is, the common ancestor is very old, and the bonds of kinship were severed, and random mutations and blind natural selection worked on both lines so that we have marsupial organisms that differ greatly in their genes and their load from placentals. Therefore, the kinship is very distant, and it is supposed that there is no similarity between marsupial and placental animals.
But this book proves the opposite completely, as it proves a great similarity between organisms from both groups; the placental squirrel resembles the marsupial very much, and the placental wolf resembles the marsupial. And we see the same thing in the rat, the dormouse, the wombat, the ant-eater, the lemur, and others. According to your rule, similarity means unity of origin and means closeness of kinship. While we find these animals have no kinship to speak of - according to your evolutionary tree - and yet they are very similar in shape.
You considered us ignorant because we did not notice the great similarity that the placental squirrel shares with the whale, the elephant, the gazelle, and all the known placental mammals that are close to each other according to the evolutionary tree. Is this clear? Is this similarity or the similarity of the placental squirrel to the marsupial squirrel? How then do you consider similarity as evidence! And we see that the very similar animals are very distant in kinship according to your alleged tree, while those that are very close on the tree are very different in shape, if compared to the similarity of the marsupial to the placental.
We want an answer from you - O evolutionists - to this question. Either you say: Indeed, the placental squirrel is more like the whale than the marsupial squirrel. At that time, congratulations on your scientific facts and the accuracy of your observations. Or you admit that similarity does not mean unity of origin, and that the evolutionary trees are indeed not more valuable than a Pokémon evolutionary tree. At that time, we thank you for the admission, and we move on to another joke of yours to discuss it. There is only one of the two answers.
Peace be upon you, my brother and sister. This is a practical application you can use today. Pose this question to any believer in evolution and see what happens. Either they will remain silent, in which case give them an opportunity to reconsider. Or they will try to distract you with convoluted language, presenting you with a red herring to divert you from the question. For example, they might say, "The theory has been modified to Evo Devo. Most marsupials are found in Australia, which separated from the other continents 70 million years ago. Similarity is not the only evidence; there is also molecular inheritance. There is a difference between (in English) complete similarity and partial similarity."
Of course, my brothers, with the knowledge that Allah has blessed us with, we know that this resembles what is called "word salad," a salad of words, a symptom that helps in diagnosing schizophrenia. A cocktail of logical fallacies and claims that in turn need to be proven, and issues unrelated to the topic. And praise be to Allah, we can prove that to each of these terms and even turn their evidence against them as we have done before.
This diversion from the topic is one of the logical fallacies that followers of superstition master. This fallacy is known, even in Western culture, as the "Red Herring Fallacy," raising issues unrelated to the question. Therefore, my brother, do not let him distract you. Tell him, "My question is specific, so answer me with a specific answer. Is similarity evidence of common origin? Yes or no? If yes, then you are telling me that the placental squirrel is more similar in shape to the elephant than the marsupial. And if no, then do not argue with me about similarity again."
Before we conclude this topic, we cannot but thank the book that alerted us to the phenomenon of similarity between placentals and marsupials. The book that alerted us to the falsity of the claim that similarity means common origin. The book that embarrassed the authors of (Biology by Raven and Johnson) 2017 and their ilk among the evolutionists. Come, let us see the name of this book. It is Biology by Raven and Johnson, 2017 edition. Unbelievable? Yes, unbelievable. Everything is believable in the world of superstition, for similarity means the intensity of kinship and thus the validity of superstition. And the strongest similarity does not mean kinship, but it still means the validity of superstition. And all roads lead to superstition.
But wait a minute! Is it reasonable that doctors, authors, and reviewers of world-renowned books, all of them, did not notice the contradiction? All of them do not have an evolutionary explanation for the phenomenon of similarity between placental and marsupial animals? Notice, my brothers, this question has nothing to do with our topic. Our topic is: Does similarity mean common origin? The follower of superstition is now in the corner, and he must answer yes or no. Our question was not: What is your explanation, O followers of superstition, for the similarity of placentals and marsupials? This is another separate question that we ask after obtaining an answer to the first question, which is the topic of the episode.
This observation is very important, my brother, so that the follower of superstition does not escape with the fallacy of changing the subject. Assume that superstition has a convincing explanation for this phenomenon of similarity. Does this explanation support the claim that similarity means a close common origin? Never. They themselves say that the origins of placentals and marsupials are very far from each other 160 million years ago. Therefore, we will discuss the followers of superstition's explanation for this similarity in its place later, God willing, to see another episode of evolutionary comedy and defiance. We will discuss what is called convergent evolution, evolutionary bias, and genetic channeling, and these terms.
Until then, do not let anyone argue with you, my brother, by saying, "Impossible! Scientists and authors fall into this contradiction and put two diagrams with different conclusions in the same book and on close pages?!" We saw in the episode (Sleep Tight), how when it comes to superstition, there is no science, no logic, no honesty, no updating of information, nor keeping up with discoveries. And it is enough for you in the case of the book Raven and Johnson, for example, to see how many old superstitions and myths of the first are stuffed between these two diagrams from page 432 to page 435 from the claim of bad design in the retina to the claim of the existence of useless organs such as what is called the (appendix) and the pelvic bones in the whale. These are the claims that we have explained in detail in the episode (I Embarrassed You) and the episode (Sleep Tight) and with research by the followers of superstition themselves, we have shown that they are stupid, backward superstitions. All of this, the authors put it in a chapter entitled: (Evidence of Evolution). And the matter is not limited to Raven and Johnson but in other world-renowned books. Do not rent your mind, and do not argue with me by saying, "It's not reasonable for them to do that!"
We return to say, brother, assume that you have not watched this episode and have not heard about the marsupials at all. Is it a rational, scientific position - if we find some similarities between creatures - to conclude that they evolved from a common origin through random mutations and blind nature, without the need for design or an omniscient Creator? When you find that each of these animals has bones composed of specific dimensions, density, and harmony among themselves, and harmony with the blood vessels that nourish them, the nerves that move them, and other body systems that enable the bird to fly with them, the whale to swim, quadrupeds to run with grace, and humans to walk and create with their hands. Does any rational person, after that, say anything other than: "Our Lord is He who has given everything its creation, then guided it" [Ta-Ha: 50]? He has given everything its creation, making the bones of each harmonious and consistent with its function; for each is facilitated for what it was created for. "You do not see any inconsistency in the creation of the Most Merciful" [Al-Mulk: 3]. Every type of creature is precise and harmonious.
If you free yourself from superstitions and the falsification of science, do you, in the face of the strong phenomenon of similarity between marsupials and placentals, despite the great difference between them in genetic coding and biological systems, have any choice but to know that they are signs shown by an omniscient Creator, an exalted Creator who demonstrates His power and greatness through them? The similarity to the point of morphological correspondence, despite the great difference in facts, is one of the manifestations of the miraculous power with which Allah the Most High boasts.
I was reflecting on the saying of Allah the Most High: "And it is He who has sent down from the sky water, and We have brought forth thereby the growth of all things, and from it We have brought forth greenery from which We produce grains in layers and from the palm tree - from its spathe - clusters of dates hanging down, and gardens of grapes, olives, and pomegranates, similar yet dissimilar. Look at their fruits when they yield and their ripening. Indeed, in that are signs for a people who believe" [Al-An'am: 99]. And I paused at His saying: "Similar yet dissimilar." Similar things are those that confuse you with their great similarity, making you think they are one, while they are different in reality. They say similarity in persons if you think that someone is the required one because of their great similarity to the real required one.
So I said to myself: Perhaps the verse refers to the fact that the mentioned kinds of fruit, such as olives and pomegranates, have varieties that are so similar to the point of confusion that the observer may think they are one, while they are different in reality. So I searched on the well-known scientific research website PubMed for the phrases "genetic diversity of olives" and "genetic diversity of pomegranates," meaning the genetic variations in olives and pomegranates. I found many scientific studies stating the immense diversity in olives, for example, more than 500 different varieties in Italy alone! This is a scientific study from the publications of the University of Oxford announcing the creation of a database for global olive varieties due to their great similarity and the ease of mixing their oils with lower-quality varieties, and it states that they resemble each other in shape and even in components in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish them, forcing them to differentiate them according to genes. I also found similar recent studies about pomegranate varieties, stating that they are genetically different but difficult to distinguish by shape. "Similar yet dissimilar," this is one of the manifestations of the power with which Allah the Most High boasts. And look at its like in marsupials and placentals.
Therefore, in today's episode, we have proven, brothers, that similarity does not indicate unity of origin, nor kinship, nor the validity of the superstition. However, we still have to answer the question we started with in the episode... What if a protrusion grows on your lower back, lengthens, and begins to resemble a tail? What do you do?
The beginning of the story is the hero of the similarities, Darwin, in his book "The Descent of Man," who named this protrusion "Rudiment of Tail," remnants of a tail, and the idea fell into place with Darwin's tails. A human tail?! What could it be but evidence of his animal origins? So they began to gather evidence of this kind and gave it a resonant scientific name: Devolution and another name Atavism, regression. They said it is the appearance of traits - in humans, for example - after they were buried and suppressed for generations, humans got rid of the tail through the process of evolution, but it returned and appeared in some of its individuals. And they presented these pictures in conferences and discussions with a message to humanity, the gist of which is: "Did we not tell you, O man, that you are nothing but the son of an animal? O animal!"
Adnan Ibrahim: "We are descended from animals, nothing more than that."
And they were so obsessed with human tails that they presented pictures of tails in their conferences that were later found to be Photoshop drawings. But wait! Indeed, what could this tail be? Is it possible that we are taken by pride in sin when we disassociate ourselves from this tail? And we refuse to belong to tailed creatures?
Some researchers took it upon themselves not to stop at the external appearance and to go beyond the skin layer a little. So the scientific publications followed, and some researchers from the supporters of the superstition - as in the Nature group - to confirm that what is called the "true tail" is actually growths and appendages of fatty tissue, and fibers that have nothing to do with the animal tail, nor are there bones or cartilage in them. Rather, these appendages may appear in many places, such as the neck, as in this paper from Nature. And I do not know, is there an animal that has a tail on its neck that we could have regressed from?
What the supporters of the superstition call a tail is diseases with scientific names: Spinal Dysraphism, Spina Bifida, Lipoma, and not a "true tail" that indicates animal origins as claimed by Darwin's tails.
Adnan Ibrahim: "Some of these tails, as I told you, wriggle."
As Allah the Almighty said: "But most of the people do not know. They know the outward things of the life of this world, and they are heedless of the Hereafter. Have they not reflected within themselves? Did not Allah create the heavens and the earth and what is between them except in truth and for an appointed term? And indeed, many of the people, in the meeting of their Lord, are disbelievers." (Surah Ar-Rum 6-8). "They know the outward things of the life of this world" is the epitome of superficiality.
After this presentation, my brother, if one day you wake up and find that something has grown on your back, you are the one who makes the decision. Either you consider it a tail, a dignity of the dignities of evolution, which saw you hesitating to accept that it is a scientific fact, so it gave you a tail to return you to your origin and your first ancestors, so you apologize to them and return to them as the righteous son returns. Or, you may even take a plane to India; to transform, thanks to this tail, from an unemployed person to a pampered deity, after the theory of evolution has given a scientific basis for this worship. Or you may consider it a spinabifida spinal dysraphism or lipoma and go to a surgeon to remove it for you. And peace be upon you.
Certainly, I will continue from where I stopped:
After this presentation, my brother, if one day you wake up and find that something has grown on your back, you are the one who makes the decision. Either you consider it a tail, a dignity of the dignities of evolution, which saw you hesitating to accept that it is a scientific fact, so it gave you a tail to return you to your origin and your first ancestors, so you apologize to them and return to them as the righteous son returns. Or, you may even take a plane to India; to transform, thanks to this tail, from an unemployed person to a pampered deity, after the theory of evolution has given a scientific basis for this worship. Or you may consider it a spinabifida spinal dysraphism or lipoma and go to a surgeon to remove it for you. And peace be upon you.