Episode 10 – Blind Darwinian Faith about Innate Dispositions

Introduction: Blind Darwinian Faith

Peace be upon you. In this episode, we answer a question: has any innate phenomenon been shown to have an evolutionary cause, or do atheists and evolutionists hold blind faith with which they fill gaps in their knowledge?

When atheists denied God’s existence and consequently denied that God endowed people with a fitrah, they fell into a dilemma: they possess no explanation for any innate phenomenon, including the religious disposition, moral disposition, sense of purpose, free will, and instincts. These phenomena appear immaterial.

They therefore searched for materialist explanations and claimed that all these phenomena have material causes within Darwinian evolution. A particular innate phenomenon supposedly results from a specific gene or group of genes, arises from other gene-related traits selected by nature, or was selected by Darwinian processes even though we do not know how it first appeared: it simply appeared and was then selected.

The question is whether this claim has scientific evidence. As for the third possibility—“we do not know how it appeared”—that is an appeal to the unknown, an answer atheists refuse to accept from believers in God when explaining phenomena.

Innate Phenomena and Materialist Explanation

The remaining explanation that can be examined and tested connects innate phenomena to genes. To claim that a trait in an organism is related to a particular gene, specific scientific methods establish whether such a relationship exists.

Linking Traits to Genes: Scientific Methods

The first method is gene insertion into a fertilized ovum or gene deletion, followed by observing whether a particular trait appears or disappears. This is possible in animals, as with knockout mice, for example. It has not been carried out in human beings, and complex factors enter the matter, such as compensatory mechanisms that may compensate for the deleted gene.

The method possible in human beings is to conduct a genetic scan and demonstrate that people possessing a particular trait or disposition have a gene absent from others without that trait, or that some of their genes are expressed differently from those of others, as in epigenetics. This method has linked certain physical traits and illnesses to genetic causes.

Darwinizing Everything: Innate Phenomena

We return to our point: atheists and Darwinists have “Darwinized” everything, including innate phenomena. A long list of books rests upon this foundation, including The God Gene, The Evolutionary Basis of the Moral Disposition, The Evolutionary Basis of Freedom, A Darwinian View of Parental Love, The Evolution of Mating Desire, and many others.

Let us set aside the Darwinist claim that traits appeared through unknown means and were then selected, since “we do not know” is not testable science. That leaves the supposed genetic link. Based upon the scientific methods just described for establishing a relationship between genes and traits, does any scientific evidence support the claims in these works? Has any gene responsible for any innate disposition been identified?

Critiquing Darwinian Claims

No Scientific Evidence for the Genes behind Innate Dispositions

The shocking answer is no. These are claims without scientific foundation—in other words, blind Darwinian faith. Such writings skip the question, “Does this innate phenomenon actually have a material cause?” They treat the answer as settled and its existence as an established fact, then move to subjects such as the phenomenon’s supposed evolutionary benefit in fruitless speculative prose.

Criticism from Darwinists Themselves

This evidence-free Darwinization of everything has been criticized even by some atheist Darwinists, including the atheist professor of ecology and evolution Jerry Coyne. In his book Why Evolution Is True, Coyne wrote: “There is a growing and disturbing tendency among psychologists, biologists, and philosophers to Darwinize every aspect of human behavior, turning these studies into a collective scientific game. Reconstructing possible ways things evolved through expansive imagination is not science; it is merely storytelling.”

The Case of Dean Hamer’s “God Gene”

As an apparent exception, Dean Hamer, unlike the other authors, spoke of a particular gene to explain the human religious disposition. But as we will see, Hamer is a champion of unsupported claims that other researchers contradict. He based The God Gene upon a single alleged study that he never published and whose results no later researcher managed to reproduce, as Carl Zimmer stated. Even some atheists mocked his claims, saying: “There is no God and no God gene.”

The Complexity of Relationships Between Genes and Traits

In truth, those who claim that a particular gene can be found for a particular innate disposition are either shamefully ignorant of genetics, however many doctoral titles they bear, or are deceiving their audience. For years, our knowledge has shown that the relationship between genes and traits is far more complex than we once thought. A scientific paper published in the renowned journal Nature in 2008 explained that decoding the genetic code through the Human Genome Project disappointed expectations. Even physical traits such as height and mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, which appear related to heredity, cannot be attributed to one gene or even to a particular group of genes. The matter is far more complex than schools and universities used to teach.

Other studies state that a single behavioral trait may be connected to thousands of genes, each making only a tiny contribution. Yet the studies admit that these hypothetical genes cannot be identified, even if we concede that a connection exists in the first place. The subject is clearly extremely complex and obscure.

Nevertheless, people like Hamer come and tell you about “the God gene,” while Western media publish headlines such as, “This particular gene determines whether you vote Republican or Democrat.” This trivializes the subject and insults and deceives people’s minds. We may not be surprised that such laughable claims pass through the minds of some young people distant from scientific environments, but it is truly astonishing when they are circulated by people with even the most elementary principles of scientific research, by physicians, or by students in medical and biological fields.

Darwinian Fallacies and Blind Faith

Before continuing, I want to say that, in theory, I see no objection to God, Most High, creating genes in the human being that assist the formation of innate dispositions. In the fourth episode of this series, we explained why, if such genes truly existed, they would be further evidence for the Creator’s existence and greatness.

What Is Defective in the Materialist Explanation

What is truly and profoundly defective is for materialists to base their explanation of innate phenomena upon the existence of these genes or upon evolutionary means not yet discovered, presenting these as alternatives to the Creator’s existence when they possess no evidence for them. They deny what all the evidence establishes by appealing to something for which no evidence exists.

What is defective is that atheists criticize our belief in the unseen existence of God, for whom evidence exists, while feeling no discomfort about unseen belief in these genes or undiscovered explanations for which they have no evidence.

What is defective is that atheists claim our belief in the Creator fills gaps in knowledge—that we do not know the cause of some phenomena and therefore posit God to explain them. This is not true of the Islamic system of belief, while atheists themselves practice this blind Darwinian faith to explain phenomena their materialism failed to explain.

They denied the Creator, so they required an alternative: a materialist substitute that denies the soul and fitrah. Upon that alternative, they built palaces, assertions, and stories, wrote books, and delivered lectures—upon nothing, upon a vast illusion. Is there any faith blinder than this? Any greater surrender of one’s reason? Any greater scientific bias and prejudgment?

Conflict with Reality and Experimental Science

Of all people, are these atheists and Darwinists not the most deserving of the accusations they cast at Muslims? They claim Islam conflicts with reality and experimental science. Yet when they say, for example, “A human being has no free will; genes move him,” they reach the height of conflict with the reality that human beings possess free will despite every denial. Their evidence-free genetic claims reveal their lack of respect for experimental science. All of this is the price of stubbornly opposing the innate proofs of God’s existence, Most High.

Conclusion: Deception in the Name of Science and the Next Episode

We have now approached the end of our discussion of innate proofs and do not wish to digress far from the subject. But we want to mention one example of deception practiced by atheists and Darwinists in the name of science: justifying homosexuality by claiming a genetic basis for it. We will examine one final cost of denying the innate nature of human instincts and attempting to explain them in purely material terms in the next episode, God willing. Peace and God’s mercy be upon you.