My question then is: How can we trust Darwin's "Origin of Species"
if the processes of speciation are still obscure?
Gould's answer to your question may make sense -- but again the
verbiage of speciation has never been substantiated by models that
explain the various ways in which speciation may occur.
Good point. I may have gone very close to that myself! It is the
logical foundation of Islam that almost stipulates that most of
its intellectual followers find rationality behind every nook and
cranny, and be disillusioned if they do not. In other words,
believing in a "son of God bridging human and divine" (Benedict
XVI) leaves much more room for "blind faith" -- while on the
other hand, ". . . those that ponder over the creation of the
Heavens and the Earth . . . " (Aal-Imran) encourages rational
thought.
I will just talk with reference to the Qur'an -- trying to stretch
and twist and rationalize every word based on "current" scientific
knowledge is a redundant although not useless exercise -- but it
should never form the basis of faith or apostacy (in case of
disillusionment). Why? Because following in the same way, one
would be disillusioned with the human race that kills itself, with
science that contradicts itself.
I take a broader approach. The Qur'an is not a scientific manual
-- but its assertions stand the test of time. First the points
you raised: the splitting of the moon is not mentioned in the
Qur'an as a miracle. Second: the philosophy of raising the dead
is explained in 2:258-260. The "parting of the sea" by Moses is
most likely one of the estuaries of the Nile in the Nile Delta as
that lies directly between the Pharaoh's Egypt and the land of
Canaan and begs the question -- how else did the Israelites cross
over into Canaan? Maybe the version in the Ten Commandments is
not that accurate but the miracle was that he passed and Pharaoh's
troops perished. Had they not perished, they would have surely
killed them - so they must have perished! Anyways, back to more
serious stuff --
Concepts like the relativity of time, the inability of humans to
even create a fly from scratch (Drosophilia, anyone?), the ability
to go away from the earth, the possibility of life on other
planets, the creation of life depends on water, the instinctive
complexity of honey bees (most extensive research) and the paths
they follow, the "unfolding" of the universe and its "folding
back", the intitial creation and subsequent creation of life. Such
concepts were necessary to explain the metaphysical and
spirituality of Islam -- and not serve as a scientific manual.
The miracle is that they still hold -- while the similes and
examples of prior religions (Mahabharatha, Old Testament) cease to
hold although they serve essentially the same purpose.
In summation, the Qur'an renders the physical world and its
processes as parameters and evidence of its spiritual teaching,
not as some scientific paper whose minutest misunderstanding
automatically results in a total loss of faith in the spiritual
and social system that the Qur'an espouses.
Theists believe its God who defined the process, atheists
believe its NOT God. I am neither. I just don't know. I don't
have enough evidence to join one club or the other.
Safe choice! The entity who is privy to all the variables
behind the apparently random processes may be God. And the
sheer amount of information that needs to be processed and in
the time that it needs to predict the outcome may be learnt by
humans to some degree. A doctor says "do not smoke" for it can
cause cancer. At a specific point in time, in a specific cell
in the lungs a specific molecule errs - causing cancer. The
doctor is sharing a macro view of the micro -- for he is
"Allah's khalifa on Earth" (according to the Qur'an) and "in the
image of God" (Bible). This also leads to the atheist's fallacy
that whatever is unknown at a certain point in time is defined
as "God", although the reverse is true -- that man is such an
idiot representative that it takes him thousands of years to
understand even the simplest of processes that has been around
forever. Understanding something does not negate the wonder of
the Creator -- understanding the Big Bang cannot enable us to
re-create it!
So, going in a positive loop - the more science the theist
knows, the more his awe of God -- in the exact spirit of
3:190-191 -- and in this way when one day scientists come up
with a plausible explanation for speciation, it will fill me
with awe for the Creator, if I am still around. But if you try
to convince me that humans started in the Rift Valley because
they needed to stand upright to access trees, and then their
brains slowly became larger -- and do not tell me how -- give me
a break, that is not science. And if someone scoffs at my
skepticism, then who is the skeptic and who is the mullah? The
difference between the Homo genus (including extinct
sub-species) and the closest ape is so huge that whenever a
plausible theory for speciation is found, this particular
speciation will be considered so unusual as to be "an act of
God" (in insurance policy language)! What Qur'anic teaching
will that contradict? That man was created from clay? Just
like the Jinn were created from fire? Read the whole passage and
you will get the thrust of what I am trying to say -- the
Shaitan saying - why should I prostrate before someone created
from clay? We are talking about spirituality here -- not
science.
A God who is outside the realm of natural laws can easily
prove His existence but what if He has decided not to violate
his own pre-ordained laws? Considering, somehow, that
revelation of Qur'an itself is not a violation of His
pre-ordained law, it can be assumed that He has established a
line of communication with human race (whatever maybe the
eventual purpose of this entire exercise), so it shouldn't be
hard for Him to provide the evidence.
Very good questions. I'll just tell you what I think -- do
you ever think of The Force, The First Cause, Mother Nature,
Chance, the total body of knowledge, the Singular, the
Singularity. They may be concepts, idols or attributes of the
One God -- take your pick! Now, that does not necessarily
equate the three :) Why?
My rather controversial view is that modern science would have
been very hard to initiate without the rationality behind the
concept of the One Unseen God -- for it is the concept of the
One Unseen God that kicks us off our idolatrous asses and asks
us to go out there and find out how He manages to create all
the physical processes that we see. So, it is no wonder that
modern science through hypothesis and algorithm and experiment
and theory is a product of the Islamic civilization -- which
Europe could only emulate in the Renaissance when it shod
itself clear of its superstitious past. I am not writing this
to prove some superiority of the Islamic civilization (later
on that) but rather that it was the Islamic concept of God
that sent those great rational minds out in search of the
truths -- as all truths are part of The Truth.
Two more points in this rather long post:
1. Qur'an levels - or butoon - are part of the miracle of the
Qur'an. A philosopher finds gems in there that solves
problems while a person who can barely read with an IQ of 75
can still find enough things in there to keep him/her on the
right track. It does not behoove a Ph.D. to criticize a Grade
5 book's version of Einstein's relativity -- and the Grade 5
student will never be able to open up the secrets that the
Ph.D. knows. So it is for the intelligentsia to not engage in
frivolous textual debate when talking at the philosophical
level.
2. World future - in the history of civilizations - the yoyos
occur as a result of cultures unyielding to the obvious.
Europeans, by their superior organizational abilities and
exploitation of natural resources taken science and its
exploitation to an unprecedented level after picking up from
where the Muslims left off. What do you foresee in a world
where organizational superiority is copied the world over, and
resources start to diminish? That is probably off-topic here
but is the question for the next 150 years.