Archive for category: Biology

The scopes trial is popularly called the Monkey Trial and it in 1925 shaped the psyche of American nation for decades to come.

The Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school biology teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee’s Butler Act which made it unlawful to teach evolution.

Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality and he was never brought back to trial. The trial drew intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to the small town of Dayton, to cover the big-name lawyers representing each side. William Jennings Bryan, three time presidential candidate for the Democrats, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, spoke for Scopes. The trial saw modernists, who said religion was consistent with evolution, against fundamentalists who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The trial was thus both a theological contest, and a trial on the veracity of modern science regarding the creation-evolution controversy. The teaching of evolution expanded, as fundamentalist efforts to use state laws to reverse the trend had failed in the court of public opinion.

Read further in Wikipedia.

In this two-hour special, NOVA captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools. Featuring trial reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants, including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers, and town officials, “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” follows the celebrated federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District. This program was coproduced with Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Productions, Inc.

In 2004, the Dover school board ordered science teachers to read a statement to high school biology students suggesting that there is an alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution called intelligent design–the idea that life is too complex to have evolved naturally and therefore must have been designed by an intelligent agent. The teachers refused to comply. Later, parents opposed to intelligent design filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the school board of violating the constitutional separation of church and state.

“There was a blow-up like you couldn’t believe,” Bill Buckingham, head of the school board’s curriculum committee, tells NOVA. Buckingham helped formulate the intelligent-design policy when he noticed that the biology textbook chosen by teachers for classroom use was, in his words, “laced with Darwinism.” Read further.

The featured picture is of Archaeopteryx, classified as the world’s earliest bird and regarded by many experts as the “world’s most important fossil,” which provides compelling evidence that modern birds are direct descendants of the dinosaurs.

Intelligent Design Movement: A Branch of Philosophy

This article by Zia H Shah MD was originally published in Fall volume of 2009 of the Muslim Sunrise the oldest Muslim publication in North America.

“Let no man out of weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well-studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficiency in both.”Sir Charles Darwin

The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.  This is where the definitive evidence for the common lineage of all life forms on our planet earth first started.  In this sense the islands are an important Exhibit and key witness for the theory of evolution!

The group consists of 15 main islands, 3 smaller islands, and 107 rocks and islets. The islands are located at the Galapagos Triple Junction. The archipelago is located on the Nazca Plate (a tectonic plate), which is moving east/southeast, diving under the South American Plate at a rate of about 2.5 inches per year.^[2] It is also atop the Galapagos hotspot, a place where the Earth’s crust is being melted from below by a mantle plume, creating volcanoes. The oldest island is thought to have formed between 5 million and 10 million years ago. The youngest islands, Isabela and Fernandina, are still being formed, with the most recent volcanic eruption in April 2009, where lava from the volcanic island Fernandina started flowing both towards the island’s shoreline and into the centre caldera.

Theory of evolution means that Adam and Eve were not the first humans and this inference blows away the dogma of Original Sin, a hallmark of Christianity.  In this sense Galapagos islands become an Exhibit and a key Witness for Islam against Christianity!  As you enjoy the scenic beauty and the unique species of the islands in an hour long documentary, the archipelago of volcanic islands becomes a proof for the truth of Islam against the dogma of Original Sin, which is linked to atonement through the vicarious sacrifice of alleged literal son of God, Jesus Christ!

Read this in continuation of my First Exhibit: Madagascar.

Almost 80% of species in Madagascar are unique to the island and are not found else where.  As a result this largest island is a witness for evolution, which for our purposes means, a common lineage of all life forms on our planet earth.  The uniqueness of Madagascar species is a proof for the theory of evolution, rather than of the theory of separate creation of individual species.  Theory of evolution means that Adam and Eve were not the first humans and this inference blows away the dogma of Original Sin, a hallmark of Christianity.  In this sense Madagascar becomes an Exhibit and a key Witness for Islam against Christianity!  As you enjoy the scenic beauty of Madagascar in an hour long documentary, through the eyes of legendary, Sir David Attenborough, it becomes a 587,041 square kilometers Exhibit for the truth of Islam against the dogma of Original Sin, which is linked to atonement through the vicarious sacrifice of alleged literal son of God, Jesus Christ!

As you enjoy the beauty of the oldest and the largest island, Madagascar, in the company of the world famous narrator and BBC producer David Attenborough, you could also bask in the thought that Sir Charles Darwin spent a life time to propose his theory, highlighting the common ancestry of all plants and animals, Attenborough spent a life time collecting beautiful video clips of different life forms, and I by the Grace of Allah, in a few lines can utilize their monumental work, as a grand victory of Islam over Christianity! How come?

The concept of Original Sin is completely incompatible with the fundamental laws of biology including the principles of gene inheritance and the facts supporting the theory of evolution, which is the reason why Christianity has fought the theory of evolution tooth and nail for more than a century now.  My article on the issue of Original Sin was first published in Summer 2008 volume of Muslim Sunrise, the oldest Muslim publication of North America.

For a detailed answer see one of my popular Google knols, Biogeography: One of the best proofs for Darwin-Wallace theory of evolution.

For further details about, Evaluating Original Sin against scientific discoveries, click here.