Talk:Islamic views on evolution

message: I'm working on Qur'an and creationism, maybe the material can be used in this article as well. Imad marie (talk) 11:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't want two articles. Move the bulk of it here and leave a summary there; this is the main article on Islamic creationism, after all. --Adoniscik(t, c) 22:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Qur'an and science]]

message: I'd like to propose the theory that God uses Genetic algorithms to do his bidding. This is a field of study in computer science where randomness, more or less, is utilized in creating a result that fits a "fitness" criteria, and over numerous iterations through time, the output approaches perfection. For example, scientists will program a machine to try different variations of plastic limbs and motors to generate a device that moves from point-a to point-b. The first couple of iterations, it's possible the devices generated are so primitive they can't even move, but over time, the results get better and better, until one of them will start moving, perhaps worm-like, perhaps using a single-leg to push, but eventually being able to make it to point-b. Genetic algorithms were based on the techniques of real-world evolution, and like evolutionary biology, they've produced amazing results.
So I propose that God, having created a universe to his liking, set in motion a plan to create a human being, one with the ability to reproduce, think, feel, worship, etc. It took a few million years, and a number of iterations of primitive beings, and all sorts of fitness tests (e.g. coping with variations in weather, geography, diet, etc) before the prototype Adam and Eve came about.
We're obviously delving into intelligent design territory here. It's not science. It's theological theorizing, and trying to match up our beliefs with what science has uncovered.
At the very least, I think a "Genetic Algorithm" link deserves to be in the "See Also" section.
--Fshafique (talk) 04:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd also like to mention that even though GA utilizes randomness at every run, the "fitness" tests however are not, and they determine what lives and what dies. If evolution happened in a random environment, then God is laying down the fitness tests. I'm not suggesting that God left things to be random, but rather that a complex system such as a "Universe" could be self-running and wouldn't require God's intervention for the movement of every particle within it -- something which to us might be considered "random".--Fshafique (talk) 04:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Genetic Algorithms

message: Would it be worth changing the article title to something like "Islamic creation belief". "Islamic creation story" might also work.  
I also think that it may make sense to merge the "Islamic mythology" article under the "Islamic creationism" article under any description.  The "Islamic mythology" article was created a month after this article and I think it is possible that it may have been set up in competition.
See also the recent discussion on the neutrality of the title of the 'Creation myth' article.
I add this as someone who has no personal belief in a personal god but who acknowledges the possibility that, within conceptions of a god of great power, anything is possible.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregkaye (talk • contribs) 09:04, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Given that this article contains little or no information on an "Islamic creation story" or "Islamic mythology", a merge/name-change does not appear to be appropriate. The subject of this article is Islamic promotion of anti-evolution (and/or antiscience more generally) views. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  suggested title change and article merger 

message: I find the lead very misleading. It suggests that Muslims are at peace with the idea of evolution and science in general, when in fact even if you take a very liberal (by Muslim standards) country like Turkey you find that almost everyone doesn't believe in evolution. This is not the picture the flowery lead section presents. Richard001 (talk) 23:28, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I would tend to agree that the lead tends to exagerate things, at times more than a little. I think part of the problem is a dearth of RSs on the topic of Islamic Creationism. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  It actually seems to have missed the following article: History of Evolutionary Thought in Islamic philosophy Faro0485 (talk) 19:53, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead section doesn't seem to reflect reality 

message: Please don't blank the quotation of İbrahim Hakkı of Erzurum. it's a remarkable quotation from 18th century Islamic scholar regarding evolution theory.
--Polysynaptic (talk) 10:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Amusing what one can find on the internets, but this doesn't look like a WP:RS and there are no specific proposals above for improving the article. . dave souza, talk 13:39, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Erzurumi Quotation 

message: This article is mislading and someone should do something about muslim apologetics giving a misleading and biased outlook throughout wikipedia scientific articles. Harun yahya (a muslim apologetic) has been even more outspoken against evolution than christian creationists.Jigglyfidders (talk) 09:51, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You only hear people that are outspoken. (see Attentional bias). Furthermore, one person doesn't represent a whole community, no matter what you want (see Confirmation bias). Please find some validated evidence in your claim and then come back to Wikipedia. --124.168.140.62 (talk) 16:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

text: I think you'd be hard pressed to demonstrate that Harun Yahya is "even more outspoken against evolution" than the likes of Kent Hovind and Ken Ham. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 16:22, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hovind and Ham are about as similar as Henry Osborn and Stephen Jay Gould. Hrafn, Hovind is rejected by mainstream creation scientists. Ken Ham, unlike Hovind, has qualifications in the field. Wekn reven i susej eht Talk• Follow 14:44, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There can hardly be "mainstream creation scientists" as creationism is fringe in science, and your comparison is clearly false. Hovind and Ham were born within a couple of years of each other, are both still alive, and both promote the amusing conceit that humans and dinosaurs coexisted. Henry Fairfield Osborn died in 1935, and his ideas have little in common with Gould (born 1941) who of course worked in the rather different field of invertebrates rather than vertebrates. Neither has relevance to Yahya, unlike Kent and Hovind who share anti-evolution beliefs. . dave souza, talk 15:43, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: All this is irrelevant, since there is nothing in Quran or authentic Hadith that makes Islam and evolution mutually exclusive.  Yes, some Muslim scholars expressed opinions based on limited view, but they were  were wrong, and their opinion serves as a discussion about Muslims (but not Islam since their reasonings is not adequate). For details on why they are wrong about their claims about evolution and Islam, read this subsection to find out the mistakes that such Muslim individuals did (and some still do).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.107.184.220 (talk) 03:49, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

text: This article is about Islamic views on evolution, which are diverse to say the least. There are muslims (scholars as well as scientists) who accept evolution and there are others who reject it. And although it is true that a majority of muslims today reject evolution, that still does not make the evolution accepting muslims opinion about the compatibility of the quran invalid. In summary, this article should give only give the diverse views muslims have about evolution instead of making judgmental claims about the compatibility/incompatibility of the quran with evolution.  That is the reason I removed a sentence from the lead " .... underlying issue is that Adamic descent as written in the Quran is contradicted by modern anthropology and empirical evidence..". talk  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.32.255.21 (talk) 23:44, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  islam + human evolution are incpmpatible

message: The "pre-modern thought" section misses the subject. It contains lots of interesting informations about the work of (probably) muslimic scientist. But there is no explicit connection to the religion. At most you can conclude that the islam was maybe in parts more liberal in older times, than it is today in general. It is a bit like mentioning Darwins ideas in the context of Christianity and Evolution. There is simply no connection. Much more interesting would be, to stay in the picture, what the anglical church thought in these times about Darwins writings (and that is not alltoo positive i guess). --128.214.14.200 (talk) 06:02, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pre-modern thought section misses the subject 

message: The premodern thought section smacks of the banned user Jagged85's systematic dishonest use of widely unavailable, rare sources to promote the agenda that virtually every scientific theory, and half of all engineering, was invented by Muslims a millennium before the stupid Westerners had an inkling of it. The reference to Isis, on "The Supposed Darwinism of Biruni", which I can not access, smacks of this, as do the multitude of references to the Azerbaijani International. As all know, Jagged85 made many "contributions" of this sort of systematic disinformation (over which ArbCom banned him), many of which stand to this day. Looking at the edit history, the sections in question were added by Jagged85; based on the source of the information and the inability to find third-party academic references to it (not just repeaters of Wikipedia) in a cursory search, I believe it should be at least tagged, if not struck completely, until the rare, obscure, and arcane sources can be verified as actually stating what Jagged claimed (based on his contributions, the actual citations almost always stated the exact opposite of what he used them for). This reminds me of the need, even two or three years after the fact, of the need for a "Jagged85 Damage Control and Clean-up Task Force". St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 16:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I deleted it. It was extremely dubious OR. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought so, but I've caught flak for bias in dealing with Islamic topics on Wikipedia, so I thought it was best to post here and let someone else take care of it. I doubt, unless Jagged85 is back, anyone is going to be arguing for re-instating it. However, do you believe the entire thing needed to be struck? If it was ten short paragraphs in length, I believe at least two were encyclopaedic, just stuck in a bunch of synthesis and unreferenced/falsely referenced statements. That section could, theoretically, be made to work in the future (with a very drastic rewrite), but, pursuant to the first sentence in this comment, I believe I'm not the one to do it (my reputation around WikiProject Islam is such that even if my edits are generous to to the Islamic religion or Muslims, let alone factual, I'm likely going to get taken to AN/I - talk about bias in action, look at the scrutiny something like "Genesis creation myth" receives, and then trawl through any twenty articles dealing with Islam... do you notice a difference in the level of criticism, in both senses of the word, displayed therein?). St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 12:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed section

message: Two reports of a conference held in London, convened by the Deen Institute in January 2013, which help to illustrate some of the positions being taken:
* Yasmin Khan, Muslims engage in quest to understand evolution
* Salman Hammed, Muslim thought on evolution takes a step forward
Here's also the homepage for the meeting.
Jheald (talk) 15:07, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two reports of a conference held in London 

message: Whoever included something as bogus as a WebSite questionnaire should be put on notice.  WikiBloggers, I hope evolution rules out your future as quasi-information disseminators. 
The percentages reflect nothing due to the radical disparity in participant volume.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.142.46.161 (talk) 10:55, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  WebCite 

message: Can anyone check this edit for consistency? Problem is that the pdf in the ref does not load...!Super48paul (talk) 13:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  20 january 11.52 

message: This article is about Islam, which is different than Muslims.  Islam is defined solely by Quran and authentic Hadith.  However, Muslims are defined by Muslims, and can have all diverse opinions they want, and this includes some ancient scholars that had opinions on the matter where they rejected evolution by using wrong definitions of evolution, or by adding their own extra assumptions beyond Islamic scripture (Quran/hadith).  For more information about this abuse also read this subsection.
Since this article is discussing Islam, 100% of its claims must be supported by citations from Quran or authentic hadith.  A scholar simply claiming something is not a proof that this is Islam's opinion. The job of a scholar in Islam is to present to us the proof by showing the Quran and Hadith that support his claim. If a scholar claims without supporting it with Quran/Hadith, then his claim is meaningless, since the scholar is not a prophet (scholar cannot originate new law on his own.  Even Qiyas has its rules that binds it to Quran/Hadith, and a scholar that uses Qiyas must justify it).
This is an aspect that makes Islam different than some religions, such as Catholicism. With Catholicism, the Church is by itself an entity that can declare religious teachings as it claims to be the inheritor of some holiness that entitles them of such tasks.  I.e. Catholicism is not sola scriptura.  Islam, on the other hand, is not like this, and closer to "sola scriptura" where "scriptura" is Quran (Allah's literal words; as Islam claims) and authentic Hadith (Mohammad's literal words).
For example, based on my experience the vast majority of non-poor Muslims are pretty wasteful (e.g. luxury). Such waste is a sin in Islam, and having majority Muslims commit such mistake will not make it part of Islam, but rather will only make the majority of Muslims sinners.
If anyone wants to discuss Muslims' opinions on evolution, I suggest to use a separate article titled Muslims views on evolution. Or at least a separate section in this article.  But conflicting Muslims and Islam is technically incorrect, since Islam is not defined by Muslims. Islam is defined solely by Quran and authentic Hadith.
--5.107.184.220 (talk) 04:16, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Claiming that this article must rely 100% on citations from Quran and hadith reveals a profound ignorance of how an encyclopedia works. We don't cite primary sources here. We don't engage in original research to interpret what those primary sources say. Ideally, 100% of the claims in this article must cite the research and interpretations of recognized reliable secondary sources, both journalistic and scholarly. ~Anachronist (talk) 13:38, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: First, yes you do cite primary sources. Second, this has nothing to do with whether the source is primary, but is strictly related to the correctness of the claim of this article. Islam is Sola Scriptura and is defined by the scripts (scripts being Quran and authentic Hadith).  Using texts other than the Scriptura is simply not supporting the claim, because Islam is not defined by non-Scriptura. Even Qiyas is required to be based on the Scriptura.  This also includes the less popular Shia Islam, or Suffism, except that they extend the Scriptura by texts from certain special Imams.  What this article is doing is not much different than claiming that Catholicism permits polygamy simply for having a priest announce that polygamy is permitted (which is false logic since Catholicism is defined by higher ranking individuals in the Church such as the Pope, while the priest mostly executes Church's law without modifying it) --5.107.184.220 (talk) 04:19, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, you don't understand how an encyclopedia works. We emphatically do not interpret scriptural passages. We cite scholars who do that. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:49, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

text: Muslims don't even agree on what constitutes "authentic" hadith. Therefore, there is no meaningful definition of Islam, and views on evolution must be based on views of Muslims as influenced by whatever flavor of Islam they follow. ~Anachronist (talk) 13:38, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Not entirely true, and the proposed consequence that you offer is false (details in this paragraph). First, even amongst various sects in Islam, such as Sunni and Shia, they agree on many authentic Hadiths as "authentic". Sure, they disagree on the authenticity of some, but the solution is not to conflict the concept Islam against the concept Muslim; the solution is to rather discuss how different Islamic sects disagree on the authenticity of Hadith, and how such disagreement affects their sects statement about evolution.  There is no workaround this, since Islam is Sola Scriptura (even Shia, it's just that Shia consider that Scriptura to include the statements of some special "Imams" as sources of religion). --5.107.184.220 (talk) 04:19, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

text: If this article can't have the views of Muslims against evolution why can it have the views of Muslims who supported evolution? I propose that the historical views of Muslims on evolution be moved to a seperate article entitled "Historical Muslim Views on Evolution" Can someone please create this page as I'm not up to scratch on creating pages?Daniel De Mol (talk)  — Preceding undated comment added 09:49, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: A note on Islam vs. Muslims

message: How to handle the situation when a verse is used to claim something that the verse doesn't actually say?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.48.240.226 (talk) 04:08, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: If the claim isn't cited to a reliable scholarly source, then remove it. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:45, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to Correct Abused Evidence?