Evolution of whales; one of the best documented episodes of the history of evolution. Click on to see the whole picture

I personally don’t think creation must be instantaneous and out of nothing; this is a wide-spread human prejudice. We don’t need such a miraculous creation; we only need a natural transformation process like evolution because anything, call it matter energy or whatever, that exists need not be created at all. I will try to explain here why I think this way.

When a man says “god created me” he doesn’t mean god created him instantaneously with hairs and beards. Religious or not, we all accept that this is a natural process; conception, pregnancy, birth, childhood, adulthood and so on.

Then why don’t some religious people accept that the human creation can be a natural process like evolution? We don’t take everything in Bible or Kuran literally, do we (I mean the famous 6-days story)?

I have a hypothesis as to why most people might think divine creation must be instantaneous.

Magic is a very old job. For example, there was a tradition of prophets in India. Every prophet was at the same time a magician. The prophets were not only trained in magic and illusion, but also in philosophy, rhetoric and poetry to impress people. These talented prophets traveled from village to village, demonstrated their crafts and told people that they were prophets. In turn, they received free catering, food and much respect. What do you expect more from a fruitful job?

How did a prophet prove that he is a prophet at all? Through magic of course. By instantaneously producing a pigeon for example, or by instantaneously curing a blind man (this is a well known trick). You see, magic is always instantaneous! The naive villagers believed that the prophet must really have some supernatural powers which always acted instantaneously. So, a miracle must be instantaneous.

Believe or not, there are still such traveling prophets in India.

Magicians and medicine men were not unique to India; they were to be found in almost every society of the world. All these men apparently had some supernatural powers and all their miracles were instantaneous. Why? Because a natural and understandable process is no magic for people.

If you boil a cup of cold water through heating, say in 10 minutes, nobody thinks you are a magician. It’s another story if you can boil it instantaneously without an apparent mechanism.

What is God? A supernatural power, so his creation or other miracles must be instantaneous! I say, this is a historical human prejudice, a leftover from ancient magicians and superstitions.

Up to this point, I tried to explain why creation need not be an instant magic. But there’s still another question however which awaits an answer. All these things that exist in our universe, stars, planets, galaxies, atoms… How did they came into life? What created them? How was the start?

There was a related comment in Richard Dawkins forum:

I guess the reason why it (creation) has to be in some way instantaneous is in the word creation: Creation implies that first there was nothing and at some point later something exists. I simply don’t see how something can gradually start to exist, it either does or it does not. So at one point it instantaneously exists. Certainly evolution could be interpreted as being the progressive work of a creator (assuming he exists as you do). But there is a moment were this creation starts to exist, the moment the universe begins if you want, and this will always have to be instantaneous. (The first molecule, or the first particle, or whatever, in short the first existing thing)

I personally don’t think total emptiness or nothingness should be the initial state of the universe. If we found an empty universe we could as well ask who emptied it. Why must something existing be actively created but an emptiness not? I think, non-emptiness and emptiness should have equal weights. That is, the universe need not be created from nothing because total emptiness was not necessarily the initial state.

Thanks to modern science and astronomy we know today that even stars have a life cycle; they came into life, shine for billions of years and die. The existence of starts are not explained by creation in the literal sense of the word creation as explained in the above comment. Their existence is explained by some natural transformation processes; from one form and shape into another.

Similarly, the word creation in the context of “life on earth” must not be taken in the literal sense. After all, all living things are made of organic molecules. We only need a natural transformation process like evolution.

Tunç Ali Kütükçüoğlu, July 2009, Zürich

Evolution resources in internet:
see http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19713 for an excellent listing. I personally recommend:

1. Understanding Evolution, University of California
2. Becoming Human Organisation
3. Evolution of cetaceans
4. The Evolution of Whales

Right wing evangelists love Intelligent Design. Source: http://www.bay-of-fundie.com/archives/280/discovery-institute-reeling

We don’t deny a natural process -do we- when we say “God created us” as adults? Religious or not, everyone of us accepts that this is a biological development process from the conception to embryo, from embryo to baby, childhood, adulthood etc.

I guess, religious fundamentalists hate the idea of evolution because they possibly fear that a wide-spread understanding of Darwinian evolution might harm the belief in a benevolent God with supernatural powers. Some even non-religious people might think the society needs for stability the authority of an omnipotent hands-on God.

As Bertrand Russel once said “societies need free-thinking for creativity and unquestioned dogmas for cohesion”. That is, every society needs to find a fine balance between rational and dogmatic thinking.

Anyhow, the American Evangelists put forward the idea of intelligent design as an antithesis of evolution. I tried to understand what they say and write, but soon came to the conclusion that all they do is pseudoscience and conservative right-wing propaganda directed to people who are sufficiently ignorant about science and biology.

Even then, “don’t you please have any prejudices” I told myself. “Try to understand what they say properly”.

Then I asked myself what’s actually the difference between intelligent design and evolution? Can there be intelligence without evolution at all?

I had directed this question also to the forum at RichardDawkins.net:
Is there any difference between intelligent design and evolution?

With intelligent design people usually mean purposefully devising a design as if instantaneously, in a single quick step out of nothing. But that’s probably not true; every design is a product of a thinking process, and a thinking process is a sort of evolution which happens in our brains.

How do we think at all? Do we really create some ideas from the scratch? I don’t believe so. I think, many axioms, options and ideas built upon past experiences compete in our brain in a subconscious area; a mental simulation of trial and error. We don’t need to test each step in real life, because our brain has the capability of simulating the approximate real life conditions, even if not always perfectly.

Because we consciously perceive only the winning ideas that come to the surface we live under the illusion that we create our ideas out of nothing.

I think, even intelligent design is the product of some evolutionary processes. The question is, can there be another kind of intelligence other than evolution?

The difference between evolution and intelligent design is in my opinion not the process, but maybe the lack of purpose and foresight in evolution. How can we explain the evolution of purpose and foresight in animal brains, or some implicit purpose in nature which we don’t even notice? How can we define purpose in the philosophical sense? A challenging task indeed!

Tunç Ali Kütükçüoğlu, July 2009, Zürich

Evolution resources in internet:
see http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19713 for an excellent listing. I recommend:

1. Understanding Evolution, University of California
2. Becoming Human Organisation