Guided Evolution
Rather than adopting the Darwinist theory of unguided natural selection, Ahmadis promote the supposition of “guided evolution” as being part of the progressive design of God. As such they deny that natural selection occurred purely by chance, or merely by survival of the fittest – and view each stage of the evolutionary process as being selectively and continually woven to an intricate level by one creator (Allah).
Furthermore illustrated with scientific theories and Quranic scripture, Ahmadis contend that the processes of life on Earth started from one single point of species (bacteria) with a mixture of water and a viscous clay-like substance. From the source of that one single organism, to the point of the first Prophet Adam (so the Ahmadiyya view) was a slow gradual evolutionary process that occurred over several stages (Lane). Each stage being of a variable timescale - perhaps over billions of years.
Proponents of Ahmadiyya consider that the notion of unguided 'natural selection' does not adequately explain how various species that have progressed from the lowest forms to the highest forms have solely depended upon occurrence of random mutations within the gene pool, or purely by the demands of environmental factors. In his book Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge and Truth (published 1998), Mirza Tahir Ahmad, the late leader of the Ahmadiyya movement, elaborated the complex mechanism of evolution as having been played more like strategic game of Chess than a game of Dice. Subsequently evolutionary processes could only have been guided by a vastly higher intelligence (God).
Read more about this topic: Ahmadiyya Views On Evolution
Famous quotes containing the words guided and/or evolution:
“I do not know whether there be, as a rule, more vocal expression of the sentiment of love between a man and a woman, than there is between two thrushes. They whistle and call to each other, guided by instinct rather than by reason.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)