Page 358 - General Knowledge from the Qur'an

356 GENERAL KNOWLEDGE FROM THE QUR'AN

gists have revealed that Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo
erectus lived at different parts of the world at the same time. 30
Moreover, a certain segment of humans classified as Homo erectus
have lived up until very modern times. Homo sapiens neandarthalensis
and Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) co-existed in the same region. 31
This situation apparently indicates the invalidity of the claim that
they are ancestors of one another. A paleontologist from Harvard Uni-
versity, Stephen Jay Gould, explains this deadlock of the theory of evo-
lution although he is an evolutionist himself:
What has become of our ladder if there are three coexisting lineages of ho-
minids (A. africanus, the robust australopithecines, and H. habilis), none
clearly derived from another? Moreover, none of the three display any
evolutionary trends during their tenure on earth. 32
Put briefly, the scenario of human evolution, which is sought to be
upheld with the help of various drawings of some 'half ape, half
human' creatures appearing in the media and course books, that is,
frankly, by means of propaganda, is nothing but a tale with no scien-
tific ground.
Lord Solly Zuckerman, one of the most famous and respected scien-
tists in the U.K., who carried out research on this subject for years, and
particularly studied Australopithecus fossils for 15 years, finally con-
cluded, despite being an evolutionist himself, that there is, in fact, no
such family tree branching out from ape-like creatures to man.
Zuckerman also made an interesting 'spectrum of science.' He
formed a spectrum of sciences ranging from those he considered scien-
tific to those he considered unscientific. According to Zuckerman's
spectrum, the most 'scientific'—that is, depending on concrete data—
fields of science are chemistry and physics. After them come the bio-
logical sciences and then the social sciences. At the far end of the
spectrum, which is the part considered to be most 'unscientific,' are
'extra-sensory perception'—concepts such as telepathy and sixth
sense–and finally 'human evolution.' Zuckerman explains his reason-
ing:
We then move right off the register of objective truth into those fields of
presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpre-