Optimality is defined as the “most favorable condition or greatest degree or amount possible under given circumstances.”¹ It denotes a general equilibrium in which no improvement in one part of a system is possible without a larger sacrifice in another part. Thus, optimality is not mere order; rather, it is the highest state of it. Every optimal state is also orderly, but every orderly situation does not have to be optimal. The houses that we live in are examples of this. It is quite clear that our houses are not the optimal design for a house, but they are still orderly, hence the result of intention and intelligence.

A common trend among today’s evolutionists is to consider apparent sub-optimality (or “poor design” as some put it) sufficient proof for the nonexistence of a designer (hence, God). Biologist Richard Dawkins, for example, contends that “evidence of telling imperfections” in design is important evidence that “no designer exists.”² However, there are serious problems with this argument. First, judgments about optimality require knowledge of the entire set of objectives and available means, whereas we have no complete knowledge of divine objectives as to the creation of anything. The Bible refers to this point in Job 38:4, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Similarly, the Qur’an states, “I did not make them witnesses of the creation of the heavens and the earth, nor of the creation of their own selfs” (Kahf 18:51). As we were not witnesses to the creation of the universe and human beings, we can never confidently say that something is “sub-optimal.” As one political scientist, George Tsebelis, has noted, cases of apparent sub-optimality are in fact cases of disagreement between “the actor” and “the observer”: “while the observer focuses attention on only one game, the actor is involved in a whole network of games”-what he calls nested games.³ What appears sub-optimal from the perspective of only one game is in fact optimal when the whole network of games is considered. Consequently, all conclusions about sub-optimality in the universe are unwarranted because as observers we have no comprehensive vision and understanding regarding God’s plans and objectives, which relate to multiple issues and platforms. Indeed, most sub-optimality arguments regarding creation are based on the assumed objectives of scientists, which do not necessarily correspond with the more complex and comprehensive objectives of God.

The sub-optimality arguments of evolutionists come in two forms: biological and theological. A famous example of the former is the “poor design” argument regarding the “inverted” arrangement of the vertebrate retina.⁴ Several neo-Darwinians have taken issue with the way retina is typically situated in vertebrates. The vertebrate retina is inverted in the sense that the photoreceptors sit at the back of the retina, so that light has to pass through a layer of neurons before it reaches them. Evolutionists have argued that this invertedness results in inefficiency in vertebrate vision, which is sufficient for them to conclude for the nonexistence of an all-knowing and all-powerful God. Yet, later research proved that in return for the above-mentioned negligible loss in vision, the current structure of the vertebrate retina is found to make possible better absorption of excess light⁵ and superior supply of blood to photoreceptors,⁶ both of which are essential for healthy vision. They are so essential that “[i]f the human retina were ‘wired’ the other way around,” concludes Peter Gurney, “the photoreceptors would be left in darkness.”⁷ This brings us to a verse in the Qur’an: “Were the truth to follow their lusts and fancies, the heavens and the earth and all those who live in them would certainly have gone to ruin” (Muminun 23:71).

A prominent example of the theological sub-optimality arguments of the evolutionists is the so-called “problem of evil,” which goes back to Darwin himself in the evolutionist tradition; Darwin had troubles with the apparently cruel acts in the animal world. Some of Darwin’s famous contemporary followers also take “the existence of human evil as well as of natural catastrophes and diseases” to mean that a benevolent God does not exist.⁸ For these evolutionists, the coexistence of evil and good is a sub-optimal situation and this is sufficient proof to reject the idea of a benevolent God. This argument suffers two ailments, though. The first and most ironic one is that the argument itself is more theology than science. From a scientific point of view, the question for which an answer is sought is whether the universe and everything inside it could have come into being by chance or not. The nature of God and how He ought to act are not questions that science seeks answers for. Second, these arguments stem from evolutionists’ own expectations regarding how the things should be, which are bounded by their strictly earthly considerations. When transcendental and other-worldly considerations are also taken into account, the problem almost evaporates into thin air. Throughout history the “problem of evil” (or theodicy) has been debated by hundreds of scholars in almost all religions. The reconciliation of worldly pains and sorrows with the mercy of a benevolent God has been one of the most challenging topics in the history of religion. Scholars of many religions have offered diverging explanations with varying degrees of consistency and persuasiveness. Some Christian explanations for human evil, for example, have rested on God’s wish to love and be loved out of free will. From this point of view, a genuine love requires a genuine free will, which results in evil actions as well good ones.⁹ Muslim scholars have also developed explanations that would account for all types of “evils.” First, similar to the previous Christian argument, human evil is argued to have been allowed for the realization of a genuine relationship between God and human beings. As for other “evils” such as natural catastrophes or diseases, most Muslim scholars do not view them as evils to start with. In the Muslim faith, everything that takes place happens out of a divine wisdom, which ultimately aims at the well-being of a believer in the afterlife. In this line of thinking, an adversity such as a disease can play three main possible divine roles. It is either a punishment for a believer’s sins or misbehavior in this world, which would replace a harsher punishment in the hereafter; or a test to be passed for spiritual development; or a tool to make a believer approach God by increasing his or her supplications meanwhile.¹⁰In each of these cases, the disease is given to the believer with a benevolent wisdom on the part of God. Moreover, some Muslim scholars have pointed out that sick people also remind other healthy people to give many thanks to God for their health, thereby channeling the whole community to the path of God. As such, what evolutionists claim as sub-optimalities are indeed essential parts of the divine plan, and they collectively function for the realization of the ultimate goal of creation. Thus, for Muslims, a disease is a gift of God with an evil face. As the Qur’an states, “it may well be that you dislike something while God has set in it much good” (Nisa 4:19). Again, a holistic view renders sub-optimality arguments unwarranted.

What these examples suggest is that most sub-optimality arguments are premature and assumptive. Proving a “poor design” argument requires more work than many evolutionists believe. Given our lack of comprehensive knowledge regarding the universe, it is safe to believe that we can never be sure whether something is ultimately sub-optimal. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily doom the study of optimality to a state of impasse. Although it is almost impossible to prove the theoretical optimality of things, we can assume tentative practical optimality in cases where we cannot suggest some practical means to improve on existing things. Thus, a practical test of optimality can be replacement of any purportedly sub-optimal thing in the universe with its artificial counterpart that is produced by human beings. If we can manage to replace any sub-optimal part with a better alternative without introducing new sub-optimalities elsewhere, then we might have a right to a tentative claim for sub-optimality. What is interesting is that all human attempts to improve on natural goods have failed so far. A prominent example to these failures is sugar substitutes. After the scientific discovery of the relationship between sugar consumption and certain health problems such as obesity and tooth decay, several scientists have advised that certain, if not all, people should refrain from or minimize sugar consumption. This resulted in a scientific interest in as well as a popular demand for sugar substitutes (or artificial sweeteners) that would give us the same sweet taste without sugar’s adverse effects. Surprisingly though, recent studies have demonstrated that sugar substitutes create more problems than they solve. Sugar-free sweeteners like aspartame and saccharin come with dozens of side effects, some of which are lethal.¹¹ Consequently, an increasing number of dietary experts advise us today to refrain from “diet” products, most of which include artificial sweeteners.¹² Thus, here we might be justified in claiming that natural sugar has practical optimality because it is proven to be superior to all other alternative sweeteners so far. Another prominent example is baby formulas. Despite all improvements in biochemistry, all baby formulas continue to come second after breast milk. Until human beings succeed in producing an infant formula that is overall more nutritious than breast milk and that is inexpensive enough to be produced in mass quantities, we are safe in saying that breast milk has practical optimality.

Finally, I should note that even if any sub-optimality does exist in the universe, it does not by itself provide any evidence for the absence of an all-powerful Creator. True, most believers believe in a God who is perfect in its self or essence and in its creation. Yet, this does not come to mean that any sub-optimality in the universe would necessarily negate the idea of God. From an Islamic point of view, for example, as everything in this life is part of a test, negligible sub-optimality might have also been purposefully included in God’s “design” as a test for human beings. If everything in the observed world was as perfect as each and every one of us would like it to be, there would be little room for disbelieving in God. However, the Qur’an states that this is not something God wished for human beings. Faith requires a struggle; and minimal sub-optimalities (if there are any) might be part of that struggle as well. If one in a thousand parts comes in seemingly sub-optimal character, it is not rational to conclude for the absence of intelligence or design.

Kaan Kerem has a PhD in Political science. He is freelance writer on philosophy and scientific thought.

1. Wordnet Online dictionary: http://dict.die.net/

2. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: Norton, 1986), p. 91.

3. George Tsebelis, Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics (University of California Press, 1991), pp: 6-7.

4. Dawkins, pp. 93-4.

5. Juan Ramon Martinez-Morales, Isabel Rodrigo, and Paola Bovolenta, “Eye Development: A View from the Retina Pigmented Epithelium.” BioEssays. 26:766-777, 2003.

6. Helga Kolb, “How the Retina Works,” American Scientist, 91:28–35, 2003. 7. Peter W.V. Gurney, Technical Journal, 13(1):37–44, 1999.

8. Massimo Pigliucci, “Design Yes, Intelligent No.” Skeptical Inquirer, September 2001.

9. Richard Swinburne, Is There a God? (Oxford University Press, 1996). Also see, Casey Luskin, Good Theology and Bad Design or Bad Theology and Good Design? http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/722

10. Said Nursi, The Flashes, trans. S. Vahide (Istanbul: Sozler Publications, 1996), pp: 26, 28, 334–336.

11. Janet Starr Hull, Sweet Poison (New Horizon Press, 1998). Visit author’s website www.sweetpoison.com for detailed information.

12. Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet Oz, You: The Owner’s Manual (Collins, 2005).

In the West, the theory of evolution continues to be promoted as if it were a proven fact or a secure, testable and tested law-something that no-one in their right minds questions any more. This presentation implies that there is no room, let alone any need, for discussion. The most common media cliché is that the evolutionary chain has been confirmed yet again by yet another discovery of the missing link proving human ancestry from apes. Faced with this kind of promotion and presentation, and the sheer pervasiveness of it, it is no surprise if non-specialists come to accept that the theory must be true, and that it must be accepted by all the specialists, the whole scientific community, with no serious doubters. However, that perception is far from the reality. In the first place, the theory lacks completeness on two major counts and there is no likelihood of these deficiencies ever being made up. In the second, there are major voices of dissent from within the scientific community, alongside alternative theoretical explanations which demonstrate a far superior conformity with observed or experimentally obtained data.

The origin of life

To have any enduring claim to viability the theory of evolution must explain the origin of life in its own terms. It must be able to answer the question, ‘How did life evolve from non-living forms?’ It needs also to explain how the notion of ‘selection for survival’ operates before life exists, to explain how ‘life’ is the best way for non-living forms to exist longer. Just as the theory tells us that, because rhinoceroses with the thickest skin did best in battles with other rhinoceroses, over aeons of time rhinoceroses evolved skins as thick as skins can possibly get while still functioning as skins-so too, it needs to tell us how life is an adaptation. If it is, what is it an adaptation to? Moreover, if life is an adaptation, why is it the same across the whole range of living forms (animal or plant or in-between)? We have innumerable varieties of living forms (adapted, we are told, to different conditions of climate and competition for food resources) but we do not have different varieties of being alive. Is that what we should expect? Should we not expect that the creatures who lived longest (and had offspring the least often) would have out-survived all competition, until eventually they lived so long it was for ever? Or, vice-versa that those who lived the shortest lives (and therefore had more offspring more often) eventually fell back, after aeons of trial and proof, into hardly being alive at all individually, but merely replicating themselves? In fact, of course, the same climate and conditions of competition for food resources support both relatively long- and relatively short-lived forms at every level of complexity and thoroughly intermingled within even the same individual life-form.

Life rests upon an infinitely precarious equilibrium among the proteins, the building blocks of life, found in the simplest to the most complex of living forms. Denying the existence of a conscious Creator, the theory of evolution cannot explain how this equilibrium was established and protected. The theory proposes chance and coincidence as the only scientific way to think about the question. But a scientific way of looking at a problem must have at least some likelihood of being true, if we are to expend energy fruitfully on verifying or falsifying it. In other words, a hypothesis must be reasonable to start with so that we can test and judge it. It must not be irrational: the appeal to chance and random coincidences is nothing if not an abandonment of reason. A protein is made up of the combination of on average 1000-1500 aminoacids in 20 different types in a certain sequence. Even a single error in that sequence renders the protein useless. There is zero probability of this happening by chance, not even if the universe is billions of light-years wide and long. One of the foremost advocates of evolution, the Russian scientist A.I. Oparin confesses this impossibility in his book The Origin of Life (pp.132-133). Even the simplest of these materials (proteins), consisting of thousands of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms, each with a unique design presents highly sophisticated structure. For those who study the structure of the proteins, it is as hopeless for these proteins to have formed by chance as for the Aeneid (the long Latin epic by Virgil) to have been composed by random association of the letters of the Latin alphabet.

Another evolutionist scientist has offered a different analogy with the same conclusion. The probability of a chance formation of only one of the proteins required for life (Cytochrome-C) may be likened to the probability of a monkey writing out the history of humanity by randomly pushing the keys of a typewriter.

What evolution theory defends is exactly this nonsensical assertion. Yet, the examples above are only the probability calculations for the chance formation of a single protein. However, millions of similar impossible coincidences should have been realized consecutively in order for the evolution of life to be effected.

The probability of chance formation of a Cytochrome-C sequence is a low as zero. If life requires that certain sequence, it is likely to be realized only once in the whole life-time and space of the universe. Now it could be proposed that some metaphysical power(s) beyond our definition consciously enabled its formation. But to entertain such a proposition is, apparently, not appropriate for the modern enterprise of science. Therefore we have to fall back on the first hypothesis as the best we have at present.

If, as it appears, the theory of evolution is not justified by the information we have, how does it survive? Has questioning it become, among the specialists, a taboo which they violate at the risk of their reputation and their careers? If so, why? We will return to this question.

The problem of transitional forms

Another of many difficulties with the theory of evolution is that the theory requires there to exist or have existed in the past transitional forms. For example, if the theory claims, as it does, that life originated in the sea and then sea creatures were driven (by some force, let us say, a climatic change like a fall in sea-level) to move on to dry land, the theory must produce evidence (or at least convincing argument) of the transitional forms between the sea-creatures and the land-creatures they evolved into. Our present experience of, for example, fish, is that if they come out of the water, they very quickly die. We have no reason to believe that fish were so radically different aeons ago from what they are now. If anything, the evidence is all the other way: that fish as fish were the same then as now. So how could enough of them have lived long enough in shallow-water or no-water to establish in their gene pool the skill to evolve gills into lungs? Nobody can say that maybe some of these fish happened to acquire a lung at the end of the four-millionth year while they were in the throes of death. It is entirely nonsensical. But this nonsense is exactly what the evolutionists assert. The same problem arises when we look for transitional forms between land-bound reptiles and flying birds.

Some allegedly extinct intermediate transitional forms have turned out to exemplify only the temptations of forgery and distortion in the service of falsehood into which some scientists have allowed themselves to fall. For instance, the fish Coelacanth (Rhipitistian Crossopterigian) presented by evolutionists as a transitional form between marine and land creatures, and supposedly extinct about 70 million years ago, was found alive and well in 1939 near Madagascar, and has been caught about 50 times since in the open seas. Furthermore, the organs that prompted the evolutionists to present the coelacanth as the transitional intermediate form (inner ear alcoves, head typed backbone and swimming bag), do not have these properties at all. The same is true for other fossils presented as transitional intermediate forms. The well-known nature scientist A.H. Clark acknowledges that, since we have no single evidence indicating a transition between fossils and living groups, we must accept that such transitional forms never existed.

A well-known genetic and evolutionist, Richard B. Goldschimdt admits that there is no such a thing as the transitional intermediate form. He explains the differences in species by sudden leaps. Now to say that a species originated all of a sudden is tantamount to saying that it was consciously originated or ‘created’. Although the evolutionists are embarrassed on scientific platforms, they do not have a hard time deceiving the ordinary person in the street, because the theory is so well-packaged. You draw an imaginary schema representing transition from water from land, you invent Latin words for the animal in water, and for its descendant on land, and you draw sketches of both (both wholly imaginary constructs), and the package is completed or, as we should rather say, fabricated. ‘Eusthenopteron transformed into first Rhipitistian Crossoptergian, then lchthyostega in a long evolution process.’ If you put these words in the mouth of a scientist with thick glasses and a white apron, you are half way to convincing most people. For the great many people who see reality through the media packaging of it, this kind of presentation is good enough to be truth: it is easy to believe, it makes no demand on consciousness, or reason, or conscience: we are all here by chance, we are not here by the will of a Creator to Whom we are answerable.

The most common package is, inevitably, the one that relates to

human beings. A central feature is the string of related sketches (all imaginary constructions) of an all-ape, three-quarters-ape, half-ape/half-man figure, gradually ending in a drawing that looks more or less like a European male of average build and features. This is offered as our story, our beginning long ago, our present being now. This string of sketches will be found on virtually every classroom wall, from primary schools to secondary schools and in every popular textbook or encyclopaedia which touches upon the subject, and in the form of stuffed exhibits in every science museum in the West.

In these drawings, half-ape half-human creatures are seen as a family. Having a hairy body, a slightly bent walking posture, and a face in between a man and an ape, these creatures are supposedly drawn from the fossils found by the evolutionist scientists. But the fossils found give information only about the bone structure and skeleton, and examination of the teeth will reveal information about the probable range of diet.

The fossils tell us nothing at all about how hairy the body was that hung upon those bones, nor what kind of nose, ears, lips or hair would once have rested upon the particular skull. But the evolutionists’ sketches picture do, almost always, show the organs like nose, lips and ears, and these are drawn (to fit the theory) and do indeed show something half-man, half-ape. This is not science, it is fiction or, more precisely, it is myth. Another support for this fiction, and another proof that it is fiction, is that the same bundle of bones can give be made to give rise to quite different re-constructions, depending upon the particular theorist’s preference: for example, the three totally unlike re-constructions of the fossil called Australoplthecus Robustus (Zinjanthropus). There is certainly a power behind these presentations of the theory, but it is not the power of reason disciplined by facts and evidence, but the power of myth-making imagination inspired by a particular ideology.

The ideological background to the theory

In order to understand why the evolution theory is promoted and defended so insistently, we need to look to the historical background behind it. Until the modern period, the intellectual life of Europe was basically subject to the authority of the Church. Starting from the 16th century, the order justified and underpinned by the authority of religious beliefs and principles started to conflict with the interests of certain social groups. Acquiring great wealth through commerce but having no political power, these groups began a long struggle to limit the authority of the Church. They did so not only on the political and social fronts but also on the philosophical front: religious beliefs and the authority of religion had to be weakened before the social-political system underpinned by religion could be radically reformed. Almost all the 18th century ‘enlightenment’ intellectuals and 19th century positivists came from these secularising groups and were funded and supported by them. (The French Revolution was the biggest single social transformation realized by their machinations.)

The space opened by the weakening or elimination of religious beliefs was filled by new ideologies generated by the same social groups. The first ideology was liberalism, followed by socialism which developed as a reaction to it. Later came fascism meddled with racism. Despite containing some opposing ideas, these ideologies were all by-products of the new secular system and stood on the same anti-religionist ground. None of them spoke of the man’s responsibility before his Creator or the obligation to organize personal and collective life according to His guidance. Conversely, the principles that necessitated belief in religion were harmful to the new ideologies. One of the most important of these principles is that man was created, as the Church had always held (following the same belief in Judaism), by God in His own image, for the purpose of doing His will and worshipping Him.

It was very noteworthy that communism, the most radical and outspokenly anti-religious of the modern ideologies, showed a particular zeal for the theory of evolution. Karl Marx wrote of Darwin’s Origin of Species in a letter to his comrade Friedrich Engels (dated December 18, 1860) that this book presented the natural-historical basis for their critique of capitalism (Marx and Engels’ Letters, vol.2, p.426).

Darwinism laid the basis for fascism which is one of the by-products of the new secular order. Holding some human races superior to the others, this notion proposed that some races were in advance of others in the evolutionary process. This trend called Social Darwinism inspired many racists from Arthur de Gobineau to Adolf Hitler. Darwin himself prepared the ground for racism by proposing that the white man was more advanced in evolutionary terms.

Besides communism and fascism, the capitalist ideology dominant in the Western world and now in nearly the whole world, needs people to believe in evolution. To undermine people’s commitment to religion and moral principles, to reduce their aspirations and relationships to merely economic ones, it was necessary to convince them that man was not created by God as a morally responsible being. It is very noteworthy that major capitalist dynasties like Rockefeller and Carnegie come first among those who have granted funds and other support to the flourishing of Darwinism in the U.S.A. Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, in their book The Hidden History of the Human Race, explain how the Carnegie Institution was virtually aiming for the victory of the scientific cosmological vision over the old religious cosmologies. The Rockefeller Foundation supports the same materialist cosmology and serves the mission of ‘modern civilization’, aiming to confine the concepts of God and spirit to the mythology museum. The evolution propaganda promoted in the distinguished media organs of the West, and reputable science journals is a consequence of this ideological requirement.

Conclusion

No ideological program, whatever the illusions of its supporters, and whatever their means of promoting and packaging their untruths, can survive for ever. Precisely because man is God’s creature, made for nobility of being and action, he must and will seek truth, albeit temporarily deviated.

All the information revealed by modern biology shows that the origin of life, especially the molecular structure of living creatures, cannot be explained by coincidence in any way. The transcendent consciousness ruling over the whole universe is the ultimate evidence of God’s existence. As a matter of fact, some eminent names in microbiology have come to the point where they cannot defend evolution any longer. Instead, another theory has begun to get a long overdue hearing among these scientists: the theory of conscious design. The scientists defending it remark that it is very evident that life has been created by a conscious designer.