 
# 2nd International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe - May 21, 2017 - the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Ballroom Istanbul

**Honorary Chair:** Adnan Oktar

**Chairman:** Tarkan Yavaş

**General Coordinator:** Kartal İş

Organizing Committee:

Tarkan Yavaş

Altuğ Berker

Kartal İş

Dr. Oktar Babuna

Dr. Cihat Gündoğdu

Sadun Ergin

Scientific Committee:

Dr. Oktar Babuna

Dr. Paolo Cioni

Carlo Alberto Cossano

Fabrizio Fratus

Jeff Gardner

Dr. Fazale Rana

Dr. Anjeanette "AJ" Roberts

# Contents

Introduction

A Detailed Account of the 2nd International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe

Conference Program

May 21, 2017 - the Ritz-Carlton Hotel – Ballroom / Turkey – Istanbul

Abstracts of Presentations

DNA's Inspirational Design - Fazale R. Rana, PhD

Evolution: Myth or Reality? - Fabrizio Fratus

Why Did God Create Viruses? - Anjeanette "AJ" Roberts, PhD

Informatics Records and Protein Production - Carlo Alberto Cossano

Psyche and the Crisis of Materialist Reductionism - Paolo Cioni, PhD

The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution and the Fact of Creation - Oktar Babuna, MD

Picture Christians Project - Jeff Gardner

Transcriptions of the Talks

Altuğ Berker - on behalf of the TSRF Foundation

Dr. Fazale R. Rana - "DNA's Inspirational Design"

Dr. Fabrizio Fratus - "Evolution: Myth or Reality?"

Dr. Anjeanette Roberts - "Why Did God Create Viruses?"

Carlo Alberto Cossano – "Informatics Records and Proteins Productions"

Dr. Paolo Cioni – "Psyche and the Crisis of Materialist Reductionism"

Dr. Oktar Babuna - "The Secret Beyond Matter"

Jeff Gardner - "Picture Christians Project"

Conclusion

# Introduction

##  A Detailed Account of the 2nd International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe

On May 21st, 2017, the Technics & Science Re- search Foundation (TSRF) held its second annual International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.

Focusing on the question of "What is the origin of life?" the TSRF's the Origin of Life and the Uni- verse Conference drew a line in the shifting sands of the scientific community, declaring boldly that evidence for a God-driven Creation exists plainly in such fields as genetics, biology, paleontology, physics, chemistry and astrophysics.

Unique among creation-oriented groups, TRSF is the ONLY Islamic-based organization, and prides itself on its interfaith dialogue. TSRF frequently hosts events, which feature Christian, Jewish, and other leading theologians and scientists from around the world.

Attended by approximately 500 participants, the 2nd Origin of Life and the Universe Conference featured two sessions of speakers.

In addition to the talks presented on topics rang- ing from the nature of viruses to the complexity of the DNA, conference goers viewed several exhib- its of fossils, many dating back millions of years, and enjoyed performances of musicians and the Istanbul Dance Factory.

TSRF has been working for quite a long time to bring to the public's attention the latest scien- tific developments offering insights as to the origin of life and the universe, as well as the findings of modern science in an effort to highlight how this knowledge can be used to change our outlook on life.

The second conference provided answers from genetics, biology, pa- leontology, physics, chemistry and astro- physics to the question 'How did life begin?' with the valuable input of scientific figures who are experts in their fields and who have published many academic studies in respectable peer-reviewed journals.

In addition to discussing the latest scientific dis- coveries of the 21st Century, the speakers provid- ed their insights as to how science can be utilized to build a peaceful world where people can live together harmoniously.

Guest speaker Fazale R. Rana, gave a presentation entitled 'DNA's Inspirational Design.' in his pre- sentation, he described how works in biomimetic and bio-inspiration—exemplified by the inspira- tional design of the DNA molecule—focuses fresh perspective on the elegant designs of biochem- ical systems—designs befitting a Creator's hand- iwork.

Anjeanette "AJ" Roberts, in her speech 'Why Did God Create Viruses?' spoke of God's fingerprints in every living thing.

Carlo Alberto Cossano, MD, with his presentation entitled 'Informatics Records and Proteins Pro- duction' shared the latest information on how bio-informatics and the design found in proteins show us the flawless Creation of God.

Psychiatry Professor Paolo Cioni's presentation was on 'Psyche and the Crisis of Materialist Re- ductionism', in which he talked about the failure of materialist reductionism in human mind.

Fabrizio Frautus, in his presentation titled 'Evolu- tion: Myth or Truth?', talked about the scientific evidences which refute the theory of evolution.

Oktar Babuna, MD, presented a talk titled "Matter: the Other Name for Illusion", in which he pointed out a crucial secret of our lives. Throughout his talk, in the light of scientific evidences, he showed the whole material world is really a shadow, and that this is the key to understanding the existence of God, His Creation, and the fact that He is the one absolute Being.

And lastly, Jeff Gardner, in his closing speech said, "That is, at the heart of it, our challenge, our task is to instruct the world that each of us has been made purposefully, and with the purpose of being seen, of being heard and not being si- lenced, forgotten or disappeared."

The conference also hosted a 'fossil exhibition' along with the book stall, where the audience could see clear paleontological proofs that living things haven't gone through any change over hundreds of millions of years.

The evidence and scientific arguments provided by our speakers included information that will

lead the world of science to the good and right, and enlighten the Turkish youth as well as the whole world. for this reason, our international conference themed "The 2nd Origin of Life and the Universe" was an utterly important and influ- ential initiative that shed light to the whole world and the future.

For further information or interviews about Tech- nics & Science Research Foundation or the 2nd Origin of Life and the Universe Conference, con- tact:

info@theoriginoflife.net

# Conference Program - May 21, 2017 - the Ritz-Carlton Hotel – Ballroom Istanbul

10:00

Arrival at the Conference Venue 10:00-10:30

Morning Refreshments

10:30 / OPENING

Short Movie on the Origin of Life and the Universe

Opening Speech

Altuğ Berker on behalf of the TSRF Foundation National Anthem and a Moment of Silence for our Martyrs

The Presentation Film of the Honorary President of TSRF

11:00 / SESSION 1

Moderator Zuhal Mansfield Introduces the

Speakers

  * Dr. Fazale Rana - "DNA's Inspirational Design"

  * Dr. Fabrizio Fratus - "Evolution: Myth or Reality?"

  * Dr. AJ Roberts - "Why Did God Create Viruses?"

  * Q&A Session

Dance Show by "Istanbul Dance Factory" 12:45 – 14:00

Lunch Break

14:00 / SESSION 2

Moderator Ms. Mansfield Introduces the Speakers

  1. Carlo Alberto Cossano – "Informatics Records and Proteins Production"

  2. Dr. Paolo Cioni – "Psyche and the Crisis of Materialist Reductionism"

  3. Dr. Oktar Babuna – "The Secret Beyond Matter"

  4. Q&A Session

Percussion Show

Coffee Break/Refreshments Closing Speech

Jeff Gardner – "Picture Christians Project"

Plaques Ceremony

# Abstracts of Presentations

## DNA's Inspirational Design - Fazale R. Rana, Phd

Vice President of Research and Apologetics - Reasons to Believe, Specialist in the Field of Biochemistry, Southern California, USA

### Abstract

### It's exciting to be part of a project in which one of the goals is to show the world that Christians and Muslims can work together to demonstrate how scientific advance 1) points to the existence of God; and 2) undermines the evolutionary paradigm—a paradigm often used to justify atheism.

**If evolutionary mechanisms can account for the origin, history of life and the design of bi- ological systems, then the obvious question arises: 'what role is a Creator to play?"** Evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard **Dawkins wrote in his book the Blind Watch- maker:** "Although **atheism might have been logically** **tenable** **before** **Darwin,** **Darwin** **made it** **possible** to **be** an **intellectually** **fulfilled** **athe-** ist." **Statements** **like** **this** **cause** **many** **people** to **conclude that scientific advance makes belief in God** **impossible.**

**Yet, it was science that led me to the strong conviction** **that** a Creator **must** exist. **When** **I** en- **tered college, I was an agnostic. I didn't know if God existed or not, and I honestly didn't re- ally** **care.** **I** **simply** **wasn't** **interested** in **religion. the focus of my attention was biochemistry. I wanted to do everything that I could to pre- pare myself to go to graduate school so that I could earn a PhD in biochemistry.**

### As an undergraduate, I was convinced that evolutionary mechanisms could account for the origin, history, and design of biological systems. My convictions were not based on a careful examination of the evidence. but instead, they were based on what my bi- ology professors taught me. I admired my professors and because I respected them, I accepted their claims about the evolution- ary paradigm without hesitation.

### When I speak on university campuses in the United States, I often encounter stu- dents who—as I did—uncritically embrace the evolutionary paradigm, because they, too, respect and admire their professors.

**But, my views changed during my grad- uate studies. One of the goals of a grad- uate education is to teach the student to independently think through the scientific evidence and develop conclusions based on the evidence alone, regardless of what other experts might** say. and **because I was learning to think for myself, I was willing** to **ask** **questions** **that** **I** **did** **not** **ask** as an **under- graduate student. One of those questions was: How did life originate?**

**The elegant design, the sophistication, and the ingenuity of biochemical systems prompted** **me** to **ask** **that** **question.** **I** **wanted to know: How does the scientific communi- ty account for the origin of such** **remarkable biochemical systems through strictly mech- anistic processes? After examining the var- ious explanations available at that time, I was shocked. the explanations presented by the scientific community seemed to me to be woefully inadequate. I was convinced that chemical and physical processes alone could not generate life itself. This realiza- tion coupled with the elegant design and biochemical systems forced me to that con- clusion– for intellectual reasons alone– that a Creator must indeed exist and must have been responsible for bringing life into be- ing.**

Who is the Creator? Do I relate to the Cre- ator? If so, how? I became convinced that the answer to these questions was found in Christianity.

I reached these conclusions over 30 years ago. and in the prevailing decades, the sci- entific evidence has continued to confirm my convictions about God's existence. the case that can be made for a Creator from the design of biochemical systems and the problems associated with the origin of life has become even more compelling.

### The Goal of This Lecture Is to Give You a Window into Some of the Reasons Why

— as a Biochemist— I Think a Creator Must Exist

Towards this end, I will focus on the elegant, ingenious design of DNA and describe three ways this biomolecule's structure and function are inspiring new nanotechnolo- gies.

## Evolution: Myth or Reality? - Fabrizio Fratus

#### Sociologist, Italy

### Abstract

Is Darwin's theory myth or reality? to give an answer to this question we must first know if Darwinism is science. So let's try to understand in a simple way what science is.

Science must be observable, repeatable and test- able. We must be able to verify that an experiment produces an effect that cannot be falsified. in this regard, it is very important to understand Karl Pop- per's theory. in an attempt to epistemologically un- derstand what Darwin's theory was and how it has formed, Karl Popper tried to find out a proof that could confute the theory itself.

At some point, Karl Popper came to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable theory but it is just a metaphysical research program. This means that Karl Popper, an atheist philosopher, described Dar- win's theory as a metaphysical theory that has noth- ing to do with science. Antonino Zichichi, president of the World Physics Association in Italy, wrote a book entitled: "Colui Che Ha Fatto Il Mondo" (The One Who Made the World) in which he explained the credibility of a scientific theory and said that the evolution of the human species remains below the level of scientific credibility because Darwin's theory does not pass the test of reproducibility and, since it is not possible to study events that are not reproducible, it is also impossible to observe an ef- fect that have occurred only once.

So, Antonino Zichichi thinks that Darwin's theory is not science, therefore it is not observable, it is not repeatable and not testable. This is an impor- tant point because it means that when we speak about Darwinism, we are not talking about science. Therefore, the science system must reject this hy- pothesis.

Let's now talk about what Darwinism produces. Let's see the definition of the word "race" found in Italian vocabularies. a race is a human population locally or globally located, distinguished as a group

more or less differentiated by genetically transmit- ted physical characteristics. So this is the definition of "race". We know that anthropologists classify the four existing races in: Australians, Negroid, Mon- gols, and Caucasians.

What does Darwinism say instead?

Darwinism says that races have developed inde- pendently, and that some of them have developed better than others. This is an important point to understand. in 1833 Darwin wrote, referring to the inhabitants of Terra del Fuoco: "These were the most abject and miserable creatures I anywhere beheld. Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe that they are our fellow-creatures." in 1871, speaking about the descendants of man, he said that non-white races simply cannot elevate entirely to the level of civilized human beings, and that they are mentally and morally at a lower level, in a way they are stuck at a previous stage of the biological evolution of human species. This means that they are inferior. That's what Darwin said. Dar- winism creates racism.

In Darwin's theory, we know that nature is a con- tinuous war for survival, a battle that every living being must constantly fight against his own kind and other species. This is the interpretation of evo- lutionists and not the reality. It is clear that, if man believes he descended from the primates, he will believe in values that would be different from the values he believed in if he knows that he was cre- ated by God. Darwin's theory teaches us that man is perpetually in competition to survive and that his survival depends on his ability to choose what is best for him.

Humans are not the production of chance, are not a mistake, but are desired and designed and so are all the living things on earth. the Designer cannot be other than God.

# Science Must Be Observable, Repeatable &Testable.

## Fabrizio Fratus

## Why Did God Create Viruses? -Anjeanette "AJ" Roberts, PhD

Research Scholar with Reasons to Believe (Former assistant professor of graduate education at the University of Virginia 2006-2013 and staff scientist at the National Institutes of Health, NIAID, LID 2003-2006)

### Abstract

When others learn I'm a virologist, they often ask, "Are viruses alive?" When they learn that I'm a Chris- tian, they often ask, "Why would a good God create viruses?" I love to address questions like these and have spent years thinking about viruses and their roles in Creation and human sickness, and their use as tools in mitigating suffering, and more. as a Christian who is also a scientist I often use scientific discoveries to help others see how God reveals him- self to us in Creation. Christian scriptures actually tell us that Creation or nature actually points people to the realization of God's existence. but not just that, nature actually reveals God's power and attri- butes to us as well.

Now certainly some viruses can be very dangerous and even deadly. So the question, "Why would a good God create viruses?" is a great question! of course this question assumes that viruses are bad, causing sickness, suffering and sometimes, even death. This question though actually reveals a lack of understanding of viruses and their role in nature. Now of course we know of viruses like bird flu or fowl pox, or herpes, or measles — which kills 15 peo- ple every hour — and hemorrhagic fever viruses that can affect entire populations and cause widespread disease and mortality even on a global scale.

Recent technological advances and the advent of metagenomics have changed the way we under- stand viruses. Scientists now have the capability to extract DNA from environmental samples and se- quence multiple organisms at once. Through such analyses we now realize that Earth is filled with a truly vast array and diversity of viruses. Everywhere we find life, we find viruses. and we find them in overwhelming abundance! a single milliliter of ocean water or a gram of soil can harbor 10 — 100 million virus particles or more!

Viruses outnumber all other living things by a factor of 10 to 1 or even 100 to 1 or more! Yet only an infinitesimal fraction of an infinitesimal fraction of viruses is associated with human disease, or diseases of any kind. the vast majority of viruses on planet Earth are not associated with disease or suffering. in fact they are critical for sustaining balance in Earth's ecological webs and providing higher ordered or- ganisms ecological space in which to thrive.

If it were not for viruses, bacteria and other single-cell organisms would rule the Earth, se- questering all nutrients and filling all ecological niches, making higher life and the survival of mul- ticellular organisms impossible.

Bacteriophage also helps keep our planet's eco- logical niches and our bodies' microbiomes in bal- ance so that we are not overrun by bacteria. Some viruses allow infected plants' survival advantages under drought or cold temperatures that prove det- rimental to un-infected plants.

Viruses can also be manipulated and engineered to use in an arsenal to fight diseases. We can use viruses to fight cancers, congenital and genetic dis- eases, and viral and bacterial diseases according to the latest WHO targets.

Viruses are now being used to fight cancers directly and as shuttles to deliver gene-editing molecules in fights against cancers such as sarcoma, melanoma and myeloma.

Viruses may also be the next best weapon to fight multi-drug resistant bacteria too!

Although a few viruses are remarkably bad, we cannot paint all viruses with the same brush. in fact, life as we know it would not be possible and our thriving as human be- ings and caretakers of Creation would be impossible without the vast array of viruses that fill the Earth.

Creation's design certainly necessitates a vast storehouse of diverse viruses for keep- ing life on Earth well regulated, whether in the human gut or the global biogeo- chemical cycles. With such an abundance of still unknown viruses, we have so much more to discover! and so many reasons to marvel at God's amazing Creation and providence.

Thanks be to God.

## Informatics Records and Protein Production - Carlo Alberto Cossano

Clinical Pathologist, Italy

### Abstract

We're living in the Digital Age. It's really hard, if not impossible, to find a process that is not in some way managed, controlled, administered or enhanced through the use of a computer pro- gram or a database or any software application. It's normal that we have these solutions today, having reached the peak of the information age, thanks to decades of enhancements applied by intelligent beings with that specific purpose, so what we have is the best of what intellectual and technological growth can develop in years and years.

But it may seem less "normal" to find out that these very same logics and considerations, that we've just described as the product of years and years of applications by the most clever being of the planet, are fully adopted in biological pro- cesses operating in the cells inside our body, as in those of every living organism.

And this happens since the appearance of the first unicellular life forms, with logics and processes fundamentally unchanged from the extant ones. Proteins aren't "substances", as how sometimes are simplistically defined; granted, from a certain point of view everything is a "substance", even the computer that we use when we surf the Internet, since substances are constituted by atoms, and atoms are the fundamental building blocks of matter.

Proteins are rather electrochemical mechan- ical (and, as we will see, even information processing) mechanisms that constitute, assemble, regulate, maintain, manage, transform create and destroy (and much more) cells and tissues of any living organism (and even of any "non-living" one, like viruses).

Their almost boundless diversity is remarkable: it's been estimated that inside of the human body there are at least 25.000 different kind of proteins, every one with its specificity that can be connected to a moment, a purpose, a quantity essential or concurrent to the completion of a certain function.

What prepares and produces proteins in the cell? Very simple: other proteins, themselves prepared and produced in the same way.

But, if we make an analogy, it will be easy to grasp that for a production line that must continue ac- cording to specific and highly variable require- ments with 25.000 different pieces, you need to manage the production flow, in some way.

The amount and diversity are so high that a "pro- duction problem" in such a "factory" would mean not only a halt in the production line, with a fol- lowing money loss, but the very same, cost the life of the cell and maybe of the entire organism. It becomes clear that it's essential to have the pieces production line under control, managing the different phases, maybe having the informa- tion of the point at which the single piece is in the production phase: a state management.

It is incredible that the solutions used by infor- matics today, which resulted from decades of enhanced applied intelligence, and ideas of com- petent intelligent human beings, is exactly what is happening inside the cell.

## Psyche and the Crisis of Materialist Reductionism - Paolo Cioni, PhD

Psychiatrist, Italy

### Abstract

Increasingly hard times are ahead for pure mate- rialists. Famous neuroscientist C. Koch, who has worked for 20 years with F. Crick, co- discoverer of the DNA molecule, has recently (2009) shocked the scientific community by publishing his belief that consciousness probably does not reside exclusively in the brain, but it is an essential manifestation of reality. This view, known by philosophers as "pan- psychism", today finds its highest expression in the scientific theory of consciousness of neuroscientist G. Tononi, in the past collaborator of super materialist G. M. Edelmann, Nobel Prize winner, and co- writer of the book:

A Universe of Consciousness, How Matter Becomes Imagination" in 2000.

Tononi has outlined in 2004, and then developed later, the so-called ITT (Integrated Information Theo- ry). According to this perspective, "consciousness is a fundamental property, such as mass and charge. Wherever there is an entity with multiple states, there is some consciousness. a special structure (like human nervous system) is needed to gather much of it, but consciousness is everywhere, it is a fundamental property." This theory, so distant from the initial purely materialistic mainstream approach, is now subject to serious consideration by the neu- roscience world, being based on empirically quan- tifiable assumptions. the implications are vast, and unthinkable until today: the mathematical value of the information integrated into a network, known as Phi, is greater than zero in every living cell, each electronic circuit, even in a proton consisting of only three elementary particles.

Physicists like J. Wheeler have laid the foundation for an understanding of a completely new reality, in which matter, laws and physical constants of nature, and the whole universe are best described, not in terms of physical objects, but through '"processing of a fundamental dynamic information".

Quantum mechanics suggests that at the deepest level of nature, the entire physical universe is in- terconnected. Could the total information of the Universe be integrated in some deep sense? Is the Universe in some way conscious of itself? Are we ourselves, with our separate and cooperative indi- vidual consciences the way in which the Universe is conscious of itself?

Mystery and awe are part of our lives and accompany us through all our transformative experiences. Ma- terialistic reductionism only distances us from the truth.

## The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution and the Fact of Creation - Oktar Babuna, MD

Neurosurgeon, Istanbul, Turkey

### Abstract

The subject of this presentation reveals a crucial secret of your life. the content of this presentation presents not just a different approach, or a philo- sophical thought: it is a fact, which is also proven by science today.

Man is conditioned right from the beginning of his life, that the world he lives in has an absolute mate- rial reality. So he grows up under the effect of this conditioning and builds his entire life on this view- point. the findings of present-day science, however, have revealed a completely different and significant reality than what is presumed.

All the information that we have about the external world is conveyed to us by our five senses. the world we know of consists of what our eyes see, our ears hear, our noses smell, our tongues taste, and our hands feel.

Man is dependent on only those five senses since birth. That is why he knows the "external world" only the way it is presented by these senses.

Yet, scientific research carried out on our senses has revealed very different facts about what we call the "external world". and these facts have brought to light a very important secret about matter, which makes up the external world.

In order to better grasp this secret behind matter, let us be reminded of our information about our "sense of sight" which provides us with the most extensive information about the external world.

The act of seeing is realized progressively. at the in- stance of seeing, light clusters called photons travel from the object to the eye and pass through the eye lens where they are refracted and focus on the reti- na at the back of the eye. Here, rays are turned into electrical signals and then transmitted by neurons to the center of vision at the back of the brain. the act of seeing actually takes place in this center in the brain. All the images we view in our lives and all the events we experience are actually experienced in this tiny and dark place. Now, let us reconsider this information more careful- ly. When we say, "we see", we actually see the "effect" the rays reaching our eyes form in our brain by being converted into electrical signals. When we say, "we see", we actually observe the electrical signals in our brain.

We can explain this interesting situation with an example: Let us suppose that in front of us there is a burning candle and we view its light. During this period when we view the candle's light, the inside of our skull and our brain are in absolute darkness. the light of the candle never illuminates our brain and our center of vision. However, we watch a colorful and bright world inside our dark brain.

The same situation applies to all our other senses. Sound, touch, taste and smell are all perceived in the brain as electrical signals.

Therefore, our brains, throughout our lives, do not confront the "original" of the matter existing outside us, but rather an electrical copy of it formed inside our brain. It is at this point that we are misled by assuming these copies are instances of real matter outside us.

## Picture Christians Project - Jeff Gardner

Founder of the Picture Christians Project, USA

### Abstract

Representatives of such different faiths, some, even, that the world would assume could not come together as we have. This in itself is an accomplishment worthy of note. We are here because despite our differences as Muslims, Christians and Jews, we all share, we all face, a common enemy - secularism, atheism and vio- lent ideologies. the first two - secularism and atheism, are the most pervasive and thus more problematic.

Secularism and atheism share a common tactic in their attempts to silence those that they dis- agree with - they work constantly at making their opponents disappear.

How do you make someone or someones dis- appear in the 21st century? It does not involve a magical formula. No, it is as simple as not showing or discussing them, that is, not allowing them to be heard or seen, especially in public. Out of sight is truly out of mind - and secularists and atheists know this.

If we look back to the book of Genesis, that ac- count of God's relationship to Creation and hu- manity, we find that after forming humankind, God breathed life into us - an intimate commu- nication with us, an intimate connection with us. Secularists and atheists attack this connection between humanity and the Divine, not only by denying that it exists, but by refusing to even discuss the matter, in word and especially image.

Concerning struggle with secularism and athe- ism, our challenge is twofold.

First - we must continue to formulate sound, ra- tional arguments concerning the origins of life. Second – we must better understand and utilize the means of communication to deliver the mes- sage.

In this instance, communicating the message, the challenge is the opportunity.

Communication in the 21st century is a moving target, a rapidly developing mix of electronic, so- called conventual and tried and true interperson- al methods of connecting and communicating, a mix that welcomes innovation and is often forgiving of mistakes.

We should embrace this op- portunity along with its challenges. God Breathed Life Into Us - an Intimate Communication With Us, an Intimate Connection with Us. - Jeff Gardner

# Transcriptions of the Talks

## Altuğ Berker - on Behalf of the TSRF Foundation

Esteemed guests, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the international scientific conference or- ganized by Technics & Science Research Foundation, the Foundation for the Protection of Na- tional Values, and the National Values Foundation.

Science Illuminates Our World.

Nevertheless, the darkness of certain ideologies and dogmas prevent the light of science from reaching mankind. This is due to the materialist ideology that dominates the world of science.

Since Darwin's time, materialism has been misleading the scientific community and has had a profound negative inflwuence on societies by way of Social Darwinism.

After Darwin published his book on the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, our world has suffered countless social crises, many world wars, clashes, massacres and the ever-present violence of terrorist groups.

Darwin's false idea of 'the survival of the fittest in the fight for life' implicated societies under the title of Social Darwinism. the ideologies that led to wars were based on this false notion of conflict.

Marxism claimed that conflict was between the classes, fascism said it was between the races, and imperialism claimed that it should be between empires. Naturally all these mistaken ideas led to wars.

### They caused the deaths of millions of people, the destruction of cit- ies, and the decline of civilizations. Similarly, the hypothesis of the 'Clash of Civilizations', based on Darwinism's negative suggestions, is one of the most well-known bases for today's wars and ongoing terrorism.

TO CITE SOME EXAMPLES to HOW DARWINISM BROUGHT DESTRUCTION; HITLER EXPRESSED HIS TWISTED IDEAS WITH the FOLLOWING WORDS: "TAKE AWAY the NORDIC GERMANS and NOTHING REMAINS but the DANCE of APES."1

### Heinrich von Treitschke, who laid the foundations for the philosophy of Nazism said; "Nations can only develop by violent competition like Darwin's survival of the fittest.''

### Karl Marx, dedicated his Das Kapital to Darwin with the following words: "To Charles Darwin, from his fervent admirer Karl Marx."

**Also** in a **letter** **he** **wrote** to **Engels,** **he** **said** **that** **Darwin's** **book** **contained** the **basis** in **natural** **histo- ry for their** view. in **other words, he believed that Darwinism provided a so-called scientific basis to Marxism. Stalin, who caused the deaths of millions of innocent people, after implementing this twisted ideology, said:** "... to **disabuse the minds of our seminary students... we had to familiarize ourselves with Darwin's** **teachings."** 2

**Ocalan,** the **leader** of **the PKK** **-** **YPG,** **which** **are** at the **moment** **among** the **most** **dangerous** **terror- ist groups in the world, also pledged his allegiance to the theory of evolution and said:**

"THE EVOLUTIONARY LAW THAT IS VALID AMONG ANIMALS IS the GOVERNING RULE."

**Another** **statement** **from** **Ocalan,** **who** **views** **Darwinism** as the **absolute** **truth,** and **who** **has** **based the ideology of his terrorist organization completely on this unscientific deceit, is as follows:**

"THE MOST SOCIALLY DEVELOPED FORM of ANIMALS IS the HUMANS. HUMANS ARE the MOST RUTHLESS, the MOST CRUEL ANIMALS."3

**In other words, the fallacy of evolution claiming that human beings are merely evolved** **animals lies** at the **basis** of **today's** **conflicts,** **never-ending** **violence,** **cruelty,** **persecution** and **tyranny.** the **error of evolutionary ideas is deeply rooted in the minds of those that fire weapons at children with no hesitation.**

### The theory of evolution, with its wrong ideas, has provided a fertile ground for aggression, an- archy and murder. Social Darwinists believe that the so-called conflict they presume to exist in nature should also be present in societies so that new and improved generations could rise.

**Regrettably,** for the **past** **hundred** and **fifty** **years,** **people** **have** **been** **indoctrinated** **with** **this** **wrong belief. However, even Darwin admitted the wrong nature of his** **claims:**

  1. _Carl_ _Cohen,_ _Communim,_ _Fascism_ _and_ _Democracy,_ _New_ _York:_ _Random_ _House_ _Publishing,_ _1967,_ _ss.408-409_

  2. _E._ _Yaroslavsky,_ _Landmarks_ _in the_ _Life_ _of_ _Stalin_ _(Moscow:_ _Foreign_ _Languages_ _Publishing_ _house,_ _1940),_ _pp._ _8-12_

  3. _Kurdish Humanism and New Human, Istanbul, April 2001,_ _p.13_

4- Ibid.

" **... Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well de- fined?...** **But,** as by **this** **theory** **innumerable**

**transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless num- bers in the crust of the earth?... Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly** **does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest ob- jection which can be urged against my theory."** 4

**Today,** **more** **than** **seven** **hundred** **million** **fossils** **have** **been unearthed and just as Darwin feared, they belong to living beings** in **perfect** **forms** and **they** **clearly** **show** **that** **life** **forms have never undergone any changes. Fossils refute evolution.**

**Biology** **also** **rejects** **evolution.** **Molecular** **observations** and **findings show that building blocks of life such as DNA cannot come** **into** **exis- tence** by **coincidences,** and **that** **they** **display** **incredible** **intelligence involving** **genetic** **codes,** and **very** **complex** **functions.** the **owner of this** **supreme** **intelligence** **is** **our** **Almighty** **Lord** **Who** **created everything.**

### Unless we save science from the clutches of Darwinism, itself a dogma and a false religion, we cannot save humanity. for this reason, I would like to reiterate the important role you play, esteemed scientists who are doing science objec- tively and attending this and similar conferences. You play a particularly important role in the establishment of peace and love in the world and in the salvation of mankind.

By communicating the truths that science shows to people, you are going to be among the people helping our world's transition from darkness to light. We therefore, are grateful to you.

Mr. Adnan Oktar, the honorary president of our foundation, leads the global efforts in this field. Under the pen name Harun Ya- hya, he has written more than three hundred books.

In his works, Mr. Oktar mainly focuses on the scientific invalidity of Darwin- ism with overwhelming scientific evidence. He also sends his warm- est regards and gratitude to you, esteemed scientists, for being in our country and making these important contribu- tions.

Esteemed guests, thank you again for your time.

### The Error of Applying Nature's Laws to Human Beings

The Social Weapon Darwinism - Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya)

If a society's needy are mistreated and abandoned to their own devices, this leads to tension and an- ger, unless patience and forgiveness prevail, en- couraged by religious moral values.

At the time when Darwin proposed his theory, sci- ence was still rather backward in many respects. the electron microscope had not yet been invent- ed, for which reason the minute details of living organisms were unseen. the cell still resembled a simple blot, and no one knew that it possessed a structure no less complex than that of a city, made up of a great many different organelles. There was no science of genetics; the biological laws of inher- itance remained to be discovered. Many biologists and scientists, including Darwin himself, were sufficiently ignorant as to believe that "acquired" characteristics could be passed on to subsequent generations. for example, they believed that if a blacksmith developed powerful muscles because of his work, his sons would have equally strong muscles. in that primitive scientific climate, Darwin developed his theory. Neither Darwin nor any who supported him was able to submit evidence for the theory of evolution from such branches of science as paleontology, biology or anatomy. Moreover, observations and experiments performed in the following years, and especially new findings ob- tained in the 20th century, revealed that the theory was clearly wrong. but despite the theory's scien- tific weakness, its providing a basis for materialist and atheist thought led to its immediate adoption by one part of the scientific world.

Certain circles began to apply the theory of evolu- tion to the social sphere, on account of the ideo- logical messages it contained. It took its place at the root of such 20th-century disasters as geno- cide, mass slaughter, civil wars in which brother

slew brother, and world wars that ruined nations. Religious moral values and the virtues they bring with them, were abandoned in favor of the law of the jungle in which the weaker are oppressed and eliminated. This theory, devoid of any scientific va- lidity, influenced an entire century.

One of Social Darwinists' major errors was their attempt to implement that theory to the social are- na. Another of their errors was to assume that laws applying to animals also applied to human beings whom God has created with conscience, reason, consciousness and the ability to make judgments. Therefore, contrary to what Social Darwinists claim, the laws of the jungle do not apply to human be- ings, every one of whom is responsible for using his abilities as best as he can throughout his life. God has also created human beings with a finite life span. When it comes to an end, all individuals will die, and will then be resurrected to account for all their behavior during their life of this world.

In nature, living things may die or become ex- tinct when they cannot adapt to the prevailing conditions. for example, a dark-haired rabbit in a snow-covered forest may soon fall prey to a fox who can see it clearly. Yet, contrary to what Darwinists would have us believe, dead dark-haired rabbits don't give rise to the emergence of a new light- er-haired species. Furthermore, animals are very different from human beings, who do not have to adapt to natural conditions in order to live. We pos- sess the means to change our surroundings in ac- cordance with our needs and wishes. for instance, we adapt our buildings, heating and cooling sys- tems and clothing according to the climate where we live. There is no natural selection in human soci- eties, because human beings' reason and abilities prevent such elimination.

Such errors lead Social Darwinists to look at soci- eties from an inhuman perspective. an important example of that perspective, so devoid of reason and conscience, is how they thought that societies could progress by abandoning the weak and needy, the powerless and handicapped to their own devic- es. the fact is that such a selfish refusal brings with it decline, not progress. Those whom Darwinism maintains should be neglected and left uncared for are conscious human beings, able to think and reason. When abandoned to injustice and cruelty, unless they possess the virtues of patience, for- giveness and understanding imparted by religious moral values, they may feel great anger and hatred for those who inflict such treatment on them. to as- suage that anger, as many recent examples have shown, they may then resort to violence, which can then give rise to conflict and tumult. as a result of all the material and spiritual means expended to resolve those conflicts, there will be a decline in all spheres—from art to technology, from the economy to science—rather than progress.

Furthermore, killing the sick or handicapped in the name of eugenics, is not only terribly brutal, but also contributes nothing whatsoever to social prog- ress. Such an open acceptance of murder will bring enormous losses that will spell ruin for society. To- day, some 6% of the world's population—some half a billion people, a very large number—are handi- capped. That would mean that everyone would lose someone from his family or circle of acquaintances, and will have acquiesced in their deaths. This will open spiritual wounds that wreak great harm on people's psychological well-being. in any society where a mother cannot trust her children, children their mother, or brothers each other, where one can allow another to be killed at any time, there will be severe degeneration and depression. in any case, a society that kills people just because they are handicapped is undergoing a devastating moral collapse. It must already have lost all spiritual val- ues, all humanity. Without doubt, to claim progress by means of murder indicates very serious mental and psychological problems.

Social Darwinism sought, to apply to societies the theory of evolution—itself based on Charles Dar- win's rather backward scientific understanding— but its worldview is in total conflict with human na- ture. When put into practice, it belittles humanity and drags it back towards depression and chaos, bringing hatred that leads to conflict, warfare, and murder. Social Darwinism reached its peak during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, but its adverse effects can still be seen in the present day. Under such names as "evo- lutionary psychology" and "genetic determinism," attempts are still being made to evaluate societies according to the errors of Darwinism. in order to protect the 21st century from further catastrophes, the dangers of Social Darwinism must be revealed in all their aspects, and the world must be told that there is no scientific evidence for the theory on which this philosophy is based.

### Fossils Refute Evolution

Darwinists claim that by undergoing minor chang- es, living beings evolve from one species to anoth- er over millions of years. According to this claim, which is refuted by scientific findings, fish trans- formed into amphibians, and reptiles transformed into birds. This so-called transformation process, asserted to last for millions of years, should have left countless evidence in the fossil record. in other words, during their intense researches for the last hundred years, researchers should have uncov- ered many grotesque living beings such as half- fish half-lizard, half-spider half fly or half-lizard half-bird.

However, although almost every stratum on Earth has been dug, not even a single fossil has been found that Darwinists can use as an evidence for their so-called transition. on the other hand, there are innumerable fossils showing that spiders were always spiders, flies were always flies, fish were always fish, crocodiles were always crocodiles, rabbits were always rabbits and birds were always birds. Hundreds of millions of fossils clearly show that living beings have not undergone evolution, but were created. Hundreds of millions of fossils prove that living beings did not evolve, but were created.

### The Darwinist Hoax Will Absolutely Be Defeated

There is no one who would not adore a bird that glides away through

the sky with its wings open. Today, almost every- one agrees that birds can fly due to their certain extraordinary biological traits. However, how birds attained these traits that allow them to fly has be- come a source of speculation for some people.

Based on birds' feather structure, the lightness of their bones and unidirectional respiratory system, some people who can reason with their mind and conscience think that it is impossible to be able to fly without all these traits and this can only be a work of a superior mind: Yet some look at the same creature and claim it evolved by itself in the nature and "even though they know the truth in their con- science", they are in denial of the superior mind, namely God, Who brought this bird into being. Furthermore, they believe in extremely unreason- able explanations such as birds evolved in time from dinosaur-like reptiles and started to fly while chasing flies or jumping from tree to tree.

This unfounded story is presented as a scientific view all around the world, and through the impo- sition of the Darwinist dictatorship, hundreds of millions of people are led to believe in it.

In fact, this situation is not new, but has been go- ing on ever since the period of the Egyptian, Bab- ylonian and Sumerian civilizations. in historical research, expressions have been found in Sumeri- an inscriptions that deny Creation and claim that living beings came into existence as a result of a gradual and random process. Egyptians, by the na- ture of their false religion, believed that "snakes, frogs, worms and mice were formed from the mud of the Nile that was inundated with floods."

As it can be understood from this, communities and ideas that attack those who believe in God have always existed ever since the era of Nimrod or

Pharaoh. However, these people have never been more organized than they are today and they hold a tremendous power called the media. They try to impose upon students at schools the idea that liv- ing beings were not created by God, but suppos- edly came into existence through coincidences. as a result of the Darwinist dictatorship's compulsion, hundreds of thousands of teachers and professors and thousands of schools and universities teach the theory of evolution as if it is the only scientific fact. Through books and documentaries, the youth are led to believe in superstitions such as dino- saurs turned into birds by chasing flies and bears that hunted fish in rivers turned into whales.

No one is able to stand against this assertive sys- tem and governments fail to stop this education system. Even countries that are known as Islamic nation-states have given into the evolutionary be- lief.

Today, the faith of the people is under attack be- cause of this Darwinist propaganda carried out in schools, press and media. Even though many Muslims suffer from this system that denies God, they cannot speak up and stand out against this issue. This superstitious Darwinist dictatorship, by reason of being a dajjal (antichrist) system, is a massive threat to the world. the wars, massacres, colonial mindset, moral corruption and all of the man-made disasters are caused by Darwinism, the deviant thought system that explicitly denies God. (Surely, we hold God above such thoughts.) There- fore, what Muslims must do is to wage a scientific struggle against this false system and spread the evidences that disprove the theory of evolution wherever possible.

For the first time in history, the denial of God is rampant and widespread. of course, Almighty God will render this vile audacity futile and establish the reign of the Islamic moral values. in the Qur'an,

God states this promise as follows:

**God has promised those of you who have faith and do right actions that He will make them suc- cessors in the land as He made those before them successors, and will firmly establish for them their religion** **with** **which** **He** **is** **pleased** **and** **give** **them,** **in** **place of their fear, security... (Qur'an,** **24:55)**

In the 55th verse of Surat an-Nur, God reveals in detail of a period when Islamic moral values will reign over the world and people will live their lives according to the beauties of Islamic moral values. This promise will come true in the era of the system of the Mahdi, in other words, in this century. When this promise is fulfilled, Hazrat Mahdi (as) will be- come the spiritual leader, guide of the Muslims.

Our Prophet (saas) also stated that this victory of the believers will become a reality through Hazrat Mahdi (as) and talked in detail about the peace, love, prosperity and illumination of the period when Islamic moral values reign over the world. the faith of Muslims will be established upon solid foundations and find its place into Muslims' hearts only after the denial has become as strong as it can get and Muslims have started to wish for a Savior that would bring sal- vation to them. Muslims have always waited for a spiritual leader, a Savior, in every time of hardship. the commandment of the Qur'an necessitates this.

**What reason could you have for not fighting in the Way of God – for those men, women and children who are oppressed and** **say,** **'Our Lord, take us out of this city whose inhabitants are wrongdoers! Give** **us** **a** **protector** **from** **You!** **Give** **us** **a** **helper** **from** **You!'?** **(Qur'an,** **4:75)**

As God states in the verse, Muslims should pray to God for the coming of Hazrat Mahdi (as), who will deliver them from the seemingly powerful deniers to salvation and safety, as soon as possible. While doing that, they also should wage the most effec- tive scientific struggle against the dajjal system of Darwinism that besets the entire world and should carry out a scholarly and effective work against the theory of evolution, the root of all disasters. With- out doubt, all power belongs to God and victory will always belong to those who devote themselves to God.

AS for THOSE WHO MAKE GOD THEIR FRIEND, and HIS MESSENGER and THOSE WHO HAVE FAITH: IT IS the PARTY of GOD WHO ARE VICTORIOUS! (QUR'AN, 5:56)

## Dr. Fazale Rana - "DNA's Inspirational Design"

Greetings!

I am honored to be invited to take

part in this year's 2nd International Con- ference on the Origin of Life. I had the privilege

of speaking at last year's conference. And, like last year, I am grateful for this opportunity.

It's exciting to be part of a project in which one of the goals is to show the world that Christians and Muslims can work together to demonstrate how scientific advance 1) points to the existence of God; and 2) undermines the evolutionary

paradigm—a paradigm often used to justify atheism.

If evolutionary mechanisms can account for the origin, history of life and the design of biological sys- tems, then the obvious question arises: 'what role is a Creator to play?" Evolutionary biologist and athe- ist Richard Dawkins wrote in his book the Blind Watchmaker: "Although atheism might have been logi- cally tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Statements like this cause many people to conclude [mistakenly] that scientific advance makes belief in God impossible. Yet, it was science that led me to the strong conviction that a Creator must exist. When I entered college, I was an agnostic. I didn't know if God existed or not, I simply wasn't interested in religion. the focus of my attention was biochemistry. I wanted to do everything that I could to prepare myself to go to graduate school so that I could earn a PhD in biochemistry.

As an undergraduate, I was convinced that evolutionary mechanisms could account for the origin, his- tory, and design of biological systems. My convictions were not based on a careful examination of the evidence. but instead, they were based on what my biology professors taught me. I admired my pro- fessors and because I respected them, I accepted their claims about the evolutionary paradigm without hesitation.

When I speak on university campuses in the United States, I often encounter students who—as I did— uncritically embrace the evolutionary paradigm, because they, too, respect and admire their professors. But, my views changed during my graduate studies. One of the goals of a graduate education is to teach the student to independently think through the scientific evidence and develop conclusions based on the evidence alone, regardless of what other experts might say. and because I was learning to think for myself, I was willing to ask questions that I did not ask as an undergraduate student. One of those questions was: How did life originate?

The elegant design, the sophistication, and the ingenuity of biochemical systems prompted me to ask that question. I wanted to know: How does the scientific community account for the origin of such re- markable biochemical systems through strictly mechanistic processes? After examining the various ex- planations available at that time, I was shocked. the explanations presented by the scientific community seemed to me to be woefully inadequate. I was convinced that chemical and physical processes alone could not generate life itself. This realization coupled with the elegant design and biochemical systems forced me to that conclusion– for intellectual reasons alone– that a Creator must indeed exist and must have been responsible for bringing life into being.

AFTER CONCLUDING THAT GOD EXISTS, I ASKED MYSELF: WHO IS the CRE- ATOR? DO I RELATE to the CREATOR? IF SO, HOW? I BECAME CONVINCED THAT the ANSWER to THESE QUESTIONS WAS FOUND in CHRISTIANITY. - DR. FAZALE RANA

I reached these conclusions over 30 years ago. and in the prevailing decades, the scientific evidence has continued to confirm my convictions about God's existence. the case that can be made for a Creator from the design of biochemical systems and the problems associated with the origin of life has become even more compelling.

The goal of this lecture is to give you a window into some of the reasons why—as a biochemist—I think a Creator must indeed exist. Towards this end, I will focus on the elegant, ingenious design of DNA and describe three ways this biomolecule's structure and function are inspiring new nanotechnologies.

The Optimal Design of DNA Is Inspiring Technology Development in at Least Three Key Areas:

  * New Digital Data Storage Media

  * Computing

  * Nanoelectronics

The use of biological designs to drive technological advance is one of the most exciting areas in en- gineering. This area of study—called biomimetics and bioinspiration—presents us with new reasons to believe that life stems from a Creator, and, at the same time, raises fundamental problems for the evo- lutionary paradigm.

### DNA's Role in the Cell

To appreciate how DNA can inspire advances in nanotechnology, it is important to understand the role this biomolecule plays in the cell. DNA's chief role is as an information storage system. Built into the structure of the DNA molecule is digital information. the cell's machinery uses this information to pro- duce the molecules needed to form the cell's structures and carry out the cell's operations.

### DNA's Structure Is Optimal for Data Storage

As biochemists have characterized the properties of DNA, they have come to appreciate that this mole- cule is optimally designed as a molecular-scale data storage system. in fact, biochemists think that DNA approaches the theoretical maximum in terms of its digital data storage capacity.

Because of time constraints, I can't describe all the features of DNA responsible for its optimal data storage properties. for those interested, I recommend my book the Cell's Design, in which I describe many of the just-right chemical characteristics of DNA that make this molecule uniquely suited as an information storage medium.

### DNA as a Digital Storage Medium

DNA's data storage capabilities are inspiring nanotechnologist to explore the prospects of using this biomolecule to solve the data storage crisis that confronts us.

Currently, there is 44 trillion megabytes of digital data existing in the world today. to put this number into context, assuming 10 billion people in the world, each person would have to possess over 6000 CDs to store all this data. If we continue to generate data at this pace, by 2040 there will not be enough high quality silicon to produce digital data storage devices. Because DNA approaches the theoretical maximum for digital data storage, one kilogram of DNA can store all the digital data existing in the world today.

In 2012, as proof of principle, a research team from Harvard University, headed up by George Church, encoded the entire contents of a 54,000-word book into fragments of DNA. in addition, they also encod- ed 11 jpeg images into the DNA fragments. These researchers also showed that they could read out the information found in the DNA fragments, using locater sequences designed into each fragment. These locater sequences function in the same way that page numbers function in a conventional book. Since then, researchers have encoded computer programs and operating systems into the DNA molecule.

Not only are researchers exploring the use of DNA as a digital storage medium, they are also gaining inspiration from DNA's structure and function to design novel man-made polymers with the capabilities of storing digital data.

### DNA Computing

Computer scientist and molecular biologist have come to realize that the cell's machinery which manip- ulates DNA literally functions like a computer system at its most basic level of operation.

The similarity between cellular processes, such as transcription, DNA replication, and DNA repair, and the fundamental operation of computer systems is inspiring an area of nanotechnology called DNA computing. the idea for DNA computing is the brainchild of computer scientist Leonard Adelman, who is at the University of Southern California in the United States.

DNA computers are made up of DNA and the proteins that manipulate this biomolecule inside the cell. These computers are housed in tiny test tubes, yet, they are more powerful than the most powerful su-

per computer system we have available to us. That power largely stems from the capacity to perform a vast number of parallel computations, simultaneously.

Researchers have used DNA computers to solve problems that silicon-based supercomputer systems can't solve, such as the Hamilton Path problems and the Knight problem.

### DNA Wires

In the early 1990s, chemist Jacqueline Barton discovered an unusual property displayed by DNA: name- ly, this biomolecule can conduct electrical current through its interior, along the length of the double helix. Conductance of electrical current through DNA is more rapid and more efficient than through 'standard' wires.

A little over a decade later, Barton and her collaborators showed that charge conductance through the DNA double helix allows the cell's machinery to efficiently detect damage to the DNA double helix that results from chemical or physical insults.

Damage detection is done by 'surveillance' proteins. These proteins bind to DNA. Once bound, they send an electron from an iron-sulfur redox center through the interior of the double helix, establishing a current through the DNA molecule. Once a surveillance protein loses an electron, it cannot dissociate from the DNA double helix. Other surveillance proteins bound to the DNA, pick up the electrons from the DNA's interior at their iron-sulfur redox center. When they do, they dissociate from the DNA, resum- ing their migration along the double helix. Eventually, the migrating surveillance protein will bind to the DNA again, sending an electron through the DNA's interior.

This process is repeated, over and over, again. However, if damage has occurred to the DNA molecule, it will distort the double helix, interrupting the flow of electrons through its interior. When this happens, the surveillance proteins remain attached to the DNA, signaling the location of the damage to the DNA repair machinery.

Currently, nanotechnologists are exploring the use of DNA as nanowires, allowing them to build na- no-electronic devices. Researchers think that DNA nanowires may find specific use in building the next generation of medical diagnostic devices.

### DNA Inspires the Case for a Creator

DNA's optimal design not only inspires new technologies, it also inspires the case for a Creator. to more fully appreciate why this is the case, I would like to turn our attention to the Watchmaker Argument for God's existence.

### Paley's Watchmaker Argument

Eighteenth-century Anglican natural theologian William Paley posited the Watchmaker argument. in the opening pages of his 1802 work, Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature, Paley sets the stage for his famous Watchmaker analogy:

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there: I might pos- sibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever... but suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? for this reason, and for no other, namely, that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive - what we could not discover in the stone - that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are... or placed after any other manner, or in any other order, than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it... This mechanism being observed... the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker: that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer: who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.

For Paley, the characteristics of a watch and the complex interaction of its precision parts for time-keeping purposes implied the work of an Intelligent Designer. Paley asserted, by analogy, that just as a watch requires a watchmaker, so too, life requires a Creator, since organisms display a wide range of features characterized by the precise interplay of complex parts for specific purposes. According to the Watchmaker analogy, both watches and organisms display design. Watches are the product of a watchmaker. Therefore, organisms are the product of a Creator. It is straightforward to appreciate how advances in biochemistry breathe new life into the Watchmaker Argument.

As a case in point, DNA computers, inside the cell and test tube, highlight the remarkable similarities between human designs and the biochemical designs inside the cell. We know from common experience that computer systems— the pinnacle of engineering achievement in our day—require a mind (in fact, many minds) to explain their existence.

In light of this conclusion, consider what Adelman says about the relation- ship between computers and biology:

"The most important thing about DNA computing is that it shows that DNA molecules can do what we normally think only computers can do. This im- plies that Computer Science and Biology are closely related. That every living thing can be thought to be computing something, and that, sometimes, we can understand living things better by looking at them as computers."

### A Watchmaker Prediction

In conjunction with my presentation of the revitalized Watchmaker argu- ment in the Cell's Design, I proposed the Watchmaker prediction. I contend that many of the cell's molecular systems currently go unrecognized as analogous to human designs because the corresponding technology has yet to be developed. That is, the Watch- maker argument may well become stronger in the future, and its conclusion more certain, as human technology advances.

The possibility that advances in human technology will ultimately mirror the molecular technology that already exists as an integral part of biochemical systems, leads to the Watchmaker prediction: as human designers develop new technologies, examples of these technologies, which previously went unrecognized, will become evident in the operation of the cell's molecular systems. in other words, if the Watchmaker analogy truly serves as evidence for the Creator's existence, then it is reasonable to expect that life's biochemical machinery anticipate human technological advances.

### Biomimetics and the Converse Watchmaker Argument

A related argument to the Watchmaker prediction can be dubbed the converse Watchmaker analogy: If biological designs are the work of a Creator, then these systems should be so well-designed that they can serve as engineering models and, otherwise, inspire the development of new technologies. in this way, the disciplines of biomimetics and bioinspiration add support for the Watchmaker argument. at some level, I find the converse Watchmaker argument more compelling than the classical Watchmaker analogy. It is remarkable to me that biological designs can inspire engineering efforts. It is even more astounding to think that biomimetics and bioinspiration programs could be so successful if biological systems were truly generated by an unguided, historically contingent process, as evolutionary biolo- gists claim.

### The Blind Watchmaker Rebuttal

I find the Watchmaker Argument to be compelling. Yet, in my experience when I present this argument to skeptics, they will argue that evolutionary processes can serve as the watchmaker. in fact, they regard these processes as the blind watchmaker. This idea is articulated by Richard Dawkins in his book the Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins says this:

"Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker."

Dawkins goes on to add:

"[Paley] had a proper reverence for the complexity of the living world, and he saw that it demands a very special kind of explanation. the only thing he got wrong was the explanation itself... the true explana- tion... had to wait for... Charles Darwin."

### Biomimetics and Bioinspiration: the Challenge to the Evolutionary Paradigm

Work in biomimetics and bioinspiration provide a response to the blind watchmaker challenge. to ap- preciate this challenge, we need to discuss the nature of the evolutionary process. Evolutionary biolo- gists view biological systems as the outworking of unguided, historically contingent processes that co- opt preexisting designs to cobble together new systems. Once these designs are in place, evolutionary mechanisms can optimize them, but still, these systems remain, in essence, kludges.

Most evolutionary biologists are quick to emphasize that evolutionary processes and pathways seldom yield perfect designs. Instead, most biological designs are flawed in some way. to be certain, most biol- ogists would concede that natural selection has produced biological designs that are well adapted, but they would maintain that biological systems are not well designed. Why? Because evolutionary pro- cesses do not produce biological systems from scratch, but from preexisting systems that are co-opted through a process dubbed exaptation (by the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould), and then modified by natural selection to produce new designs. Once formed, these new structures can be fine- tuned and optimized through natural selection to produce well-adapted designs, but not well-designed systems. According to biologist Ken Miller:

"Evolution... does not produce perfection. the fact that every intermediate stage in the development of an organ must confer a selective advantage means that the simplest and most elegant design for an organ cannot always be produced by evolution. in fact, the hallmark of evolution is the modification of pre-existing structures. an evolved organism, in short, should show the tell-tale signs of this modification."

Planes fly much faster than birds, but give off a lot of heat during flight. in a bird's body, however, the air circulation works just like a cooling system. It is therefore impossible to hit a bird with a heat-seeking missile as one can with a plane.

If biological systems, in effect, are kludged together, why would engineers and technologists turn to them for inspiration? If produced by evolutionary process- es—even if these processes operated over the course of millions of years—biological systems should make unreliable muses for technology development. Does it make sense for engineers to rely on biological

systems—historically contingent and exapted in their origin—to solve problems and inspire new technologies, much less build an entire subdiscipline of engineering around mimicking biological designs?

Using biological designs to guide engineering efforts seems to be fundamentally incompatible with an evolutionary ex- planation for life's origin and history. on the other hand, biomimetics and bioinspiration naturally flow out of an intelligent design/creation model approach to biology.

Using biological systems to inspire engineering makes better sense if the designs in nature arise from a Mind.

### Biomimetics and the Book of Job

As a scientist and as a Christian, I find it remarkable how the Old and New Testaments anticipate scientif- ic advance.

When it comes to biomimetics and bioinspiration, Job 12:7-9 immediately comes to mind:

7"But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;

8 or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.

9 Which of all these does not know

that the hand of the Lord has done this?"

13 "To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.

### Dna: a Glorious Marvel of Creation

Each person has an average of 100 trillion cells, each of which contains a DNA molecule. Just one of these contains information regarding 3 billion different subjects, enough information to fill approximately 1,000 volumes of books, each one containing 1 million pages. If we were to lay these pages out side by side, they would stretch from the North Pole to the Equator. If we were to read it 24 hours a day, it would take 100 years to finish it. This glorious information belongs to a sin- gle DNA molecule, which exists everywhere in our body, such as in a single fingernail or a single hair.

How could such an incredible library have been squeezed into a minute hair too small to be seen with the naked eye? How could it have been packed into all of the cells that constitute that hair and all of the other cells that make up our body? How could so much information, which we could never carry on our own, have been installed in our bodies 100 trillion times? Could human beings manage to do this themselves? Can any known technology achieve such an amazing feat? Could this glorious informa- tion be present in the cells by chance?

Clearly, random events, human beings, and technolo- gy cannot produce such an astonishing work. This fact has been scientifically proven. This amazing work in our bodies belongs to God, Whose might makes all things according to His will:

We created humanity from a mingled drop to test him, and We made him hearing and seeing. We guided him on the Way, whether he is thankful or unthankful. (Qur'an, 76:2-3)

### Volumes of Information in the Human Cell

### The information stored in DNA must by no means be underestimated. So much so that

ONE HUMAN DNA MOLECULE CONTAINS ENOUGH INFORMATION to FILL a MILLION-PAGE ENCYCLOPEDIA, or to FILL about 1,000 BOOKS.

Note this fact well: one million encyclope- dia pages, or 1,000 books.

This is to say that the nucleus of each cell contains as much information as would fill a one-million-page encyclopedia, which is used to control the functions of the human body. to draw an analogy, we can state that even the 23-volume-Encyclopaedia Britan- nica, one of the greatest mines of informa- tion in the world, has 25,000 pages. There- fore, before us lies an incredible picture. in a molecule found in a nucleus, which is far smaller than the microscopic cell wherein it is located, there exists a data warehouse 40 times bigger than the biggest ency- clopedia of the world that includes mil- lions of items of information. This means a huge 1000-volume encyclopedia, which is unique and has no equal in the world. Were one piece of information present in human genes to be read every second, non-stop, around the clock, it would take 100 years to complete the process. If we imagine that the information in DNA were put into book form, the volumes placed on

top of each other would reach 70 meters high. the latest calculations have revealed that this huge encyclopedia contains some 3 billion different "subjects." If the infor- mation in DNA were to be written down on paper, that paper would stretch from the North Pole to Ecuador.

These examples are an indication of the im- posing amount of information contained in DNA. Yet how can we talk of a molecule containing information? This is because what we talk about here is not a comput- er or a library, but just a piece of flesh that is a hundred thousand times smaller than a millimeter, simply made up of protein, fat and water molecules. It is a miracle of astounding proportions that this infinitesi- mal piece of flesh should contain and store even a single bit of information-let alone millions of bits.

Computersarecurrentlythemostadvanced form of technology for storing information. a body of information, which, 30 years ago, was routinely stored in a computer the size of a room, can today be stored in small "discs," yet even the latest technology in- vented by human intelligence, after centu- ries of accumulated knowledge and years of hard work, is far from reaching the in- formation storage capacity of a single cell nucleus. the following comparison made by the well-known professor of microbiol- ogy Michael Denton, will probably suffice to highlight the contrast between the tiny size of DNA and the great amount of information it con- tains: "The information nec- essary to specify the design of all the species of organisms which have ever existed on the planet, a number according to G.G. Simpson of approximate- ly one thousand million, could be held in a teaspoon and there would still be room left for all the information in every book ever written."1

How can a chain invisible to the eye, made up of atoms arranged sideways, with a diameter the size of a billionth of a millimeter, pos- sess such information capacity and memory? and to this question also add the following: While each one of the 100 trillion cells in your body knows one million pages of information by heart, how many encyclopedia pages can you, as an intelligent and conscious human being, memorize in your entire life? Even more import- ant, the cell uses this information quite flawlessly, in an exceedingly planned and coordinated manner, in the ap- propriate places, and never makes any errors.

1- Michael Denton. Evolution: a Theory in Crisis. London: Burnett Books, 1985, p. 334

### No Design Can Happen by Chance

You must have seen the name of a building spelt out in flowers on the ground in front of it. Looking down at them or from far away, you can im- mediately make out the name of the building or company concerned. That is a sign that the flowers are not there by chance, that they have been set out by gardeners and landscape design- ers. You may not see the gardeners actually doing it, but you can see that it has happened from the name the flowers spell out.

Alternatively, let us imagine that you leave the tiles scattered about at ran- dom on the table after a game of Scrab- ble. When you return, you see that the tiles now spell out the words: "I have won," and you immediately realize that someone has arranged them in a meaningful sequence. You would nev- er imagine that they had come togeth- er by chance and formed those words, in just the same way that you would never imagine the name the flowers spelt out had appeared by chance. in short, if there is a design directed to a particular end somewhere, then you know that there must definitely be a designer behind it. You may not have seen the designer, yet you can be certain of his existence and intention from his work or the traces he leaves behind him.

The main idea we would like to convey with these examples is this: If there is even the slightest sign of something planned somewhere, there certainly lie the traces of a possessor of wisdom. for example, if you roll white stones down a mountain trillions of times, you will never see that they come to spell out the name of a building. If there is a word or a sentence somewhere, everyone will agree that that word or sentence must have been written by someone. Words without writers, or designs without designers are quite impossible.

The human body, on the other hand, possesses a structure trillions of times more complex than the name of a building or the words "I have won," and it is again totally impossible to imagine that this complexity could have come about of its own accord, or by chance. Moreover, the trillions of DNA that billions of living things have possessed for millions of years have been used in the most intelligent manner, written in the most perfect manner with no flaws, and placed in a tiny area invisible to the naked eye. That being the case, there is a Creator who planned and designed the cell and the DNA inside it so perfectly. Claim- ing the opposite means to go beyond the bounds of reason and attack the very foundations of truth, reason and logic.

Nevertheless, many people, who would readi- ly say that it is impossible for letters to arrange themselves to form even three little words, can listen without objection to the deceit that it was all as a result of "coincidences" that billions of atoms came together one by one in a planned sequence and formed a molecule such as DNA, which performs such a super-complex task. This is just like a hypnotized person's submitting to the hypnotist and accepting by suggestion that he is a door, a tree or a lizard...

Flawless design samples in DNA are not lim- ited to the above-mentioned examples. the coding of the data in DNA has been designed in a much more fascinating and amazing way.

### In Response to Michael Skinner: Epigenome Does Not Provide New Information to the DNA

On the website of AEON digital magazine, Darwinist Professor Michael Skinner came forth with a new evolution- ary account. in his article dated November 9th, 2016, Skinner suggested that neo-Lamarkism and neo-Darwinism should be combined under "Unified Theory of Evolution" and the alleged effect of epigenetics analyzed from this perspec- tive. Trying to incorporate the obsolete theories from the 1800's into the science of epigenetics is a futile attempt. Epigenetics is a field that demonstrates the perfection in the functioning of the DNA in a more comprehensive way, and it is such a complex as well as precise mechanism, which no evolutionary claims of "chance" could ever account for.

In this article, we will elaborate once again on what epigenetics is, and we will show that en- vironmental factors do not add any new genetic information to the organism by presenting sci- entific proofs.

### DNA Code System in Which Information Is Written

Today, based on advancing technology, we can better understand DNA and how it works. the content of human DNA is a sea of knowledge that we can barely fit in a thousand-volume en- cyclopedia. Intermolecular reactions, how inter- actions between chemicals occur are all written in this giant databank. of course, the smallest piece of information available, whether it is a letter, a sign, or half of a sentence, is interpret- ed as the message from an intelligent individ- ual. When one sees three pieces of stone in a desolate desert placed on top of one another

or arranged in an orderly fashion, the person immediately realizes that it is a message left by an intelligent individual. DNA encoded by mol- ecules also points to the existence of a superior intelligence. Just as any sign that is a product of intelligence excites the explorers and motivates them to seek out the owner of that information, the scientist is also obliged to search for and find the intelligence that wrote the DNA. DNA is a living code system operating so perfectly that it cannot be explained by the materialist philos- ophy through blind coincidences.

### Selective Use of Information

There is a nonstop flow of information from the DNA into the cell. What is surprising, however, is that the coded information is selectively trans- mitted within DNA. for example, in the human body there are about 1 trillion cells forming dif- ferent tissues and organs. What renders cells different from each other despite having exactly the same DNA is that different genes in the DNA are turned on based on the tissue they are locat- ed in. for this purpose, when necessary, the DNA keeps certain genes activated, and when not, it keeps them inactivated. Genes are regions of the DNA that encode proteins. the production of different proteins causes the cell to behave dif- ferently, acting as cells with completely distinct roles such as neurons or in other words nerve cells, liver, pancreas, muscle or skin. This control mechanism, which is aware of the environment, conditions and needs of the cell, keeps the re- quired genes turned on while keeping the oth- ers off. Here, we come across once again God's artistry in His creation of this system with atomic precision.

Let us examine the delicate work here with an example. a neuron in the brain does not pro- duce insulin secreted by the pancreatic cell; on the other hand, the pancreas cell does not produce electrical signals like a neuron, either. So, what determines this? Why is the gene en- coding insulin production suppressed in all other cells? How is a pancreatic cell aware of the fact that it is not located in the brain, but in the ventral cavity? How does it know in the dark among 25.000 genes that a specific gene is the one encoding insulin production and how can it turn on and read that gene? Now let us briefly examine how this mechanism which is the topic of epigenetics function.

### Epigenome: the Molecular Brain Ruling the DNA

Today it is understood that what determines life is not merely the DNA codes. the field of genet- ics that study the DNA has come to the following significant conclusion: There is a system over the DNA that governs it. Today, this system called the 'epigenome' is studied by epigenetics, the branch of science that makes research on it. in fact, 'epi' means 'above', which refers to the gov- erning mechanism that has influence over the genome, in other words the DNA.

### Epigenome: Decision-Selection-Production

The epigenome concept, in short, means the ac- tivation of the genes needed according to time and environmental needs, and the production of the relevant proteins by deciphering the in- formation written there. for example, during the development of the embryo inside the mother's womb, stem cells multiply ceaselessly but in the meantime every single cell knows what type of a cell it will turn into. Some are turned into nerve cells, others become red blood cells in the form of a disc, while some others are formed into long filaments acting as muscle cells.

How is it possible for the DNA molecule to di- rect a stem cell in the darkness of a billionth of a meter size spot to turn into a heart cell which has the capacity to pump a 10-thousand tanker loads of blood and produce its own electricity through its lifetime?

Scientists initiated the Human Genome Project with a budget of millions of dollars just to carry out research for revealing this marvelous devel- opment in the human body. However, the secret of how an embryonic cell gets decided to turn into a heart cell is not revealed yet. the part that is unraveled brings forth the amazing details of God's artistry in His creation.

Every cell contains the information of the entire body in its DNA. and a cell may function as part of the heart, pancreas or brain according to the directives it receives. During the development of the embryo, trillions of cells are aware of their roles without any complication and the entire body is formed perfectly through an astounding planning. How do the embryonic cells, turn into other types of cells? This is the topic of research of epigenetics.

How blood is to be pumped, how kidneys will filter the blood, how insulin will balance the glu- cose levels in the body, and all other informa- tion pertinent to the functioning of our organs are coded on the DNA. Yet, once a stem cell turns into a red blood cell, it only uses the information that describes how it will transport oxygen and carbon dioxide. the red blood turns off all the other data that are present in its DNA but are of no use. What activates certain parts of the DNA, but keeps others inactive is some chemicals found outside the DNA helix. These chemical compounds that are made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms are extended along the DNA helix. Their duty is to turn on and off the various parts of the DNA to allow for the activation of the related information on the DNA. in this process, the DNA is in place of a computer uploaded with 920-volume encyclopedia data, while the epigenome is a superb computer program that is capable of activating this stunning information on the DNA. Without the epigenome, DNA is of no use while without DNA, the epigenome is of no use either.

God has created genetics as such an intricate and breath- taking system that every step of this process functions without flaw. There is no place for even a single error or random decision in this process. However, evolu- tionists claim that all this punctilious operation occurs out of "coincidence." There is no rationality in alleg- ing that such a mechanism of superior intelligence and precision came to happen through evolution.

Claims of evolution can never account for the bio- chemical information found on the epigenome, or the accurate pinpointing of this data to take part in the production process.

The allegation that the information in DNA appeared out of "coincidence" as claimed by evolutionists has now been completely con- futed by the astonishing evidence conferred by science. in fact, what is question here is a mechanism that understands what the organism needs at that moment and then knows in which codes that need is writ- ten. This mechanism is capable of finding those codes in the wrapped up, double helix DNA chain to decipher them lat- er. This delicate molecular process, of course, cannot be explained in any way by unconscious mechanisms that function randomly. It is very clear

that the correct decision, the correct choice and the correct production steps that we observe in the epig- enome constitute explicit evidence for the existence of the All-Know- ing Intelligence and Power that encompasses everything. That power and intelligence belongs to God, our Almighty Lord, the Creator and Protector of all the worlds.

### Can Epigenome Create New Information?

By means of the epigenome, it was discovered that the genes of an organism turned on de- pending on the conditions might remain acti- vated for 10 to 100 generations. but it should not be forgotten that no new information is cre- ated here. the epigenome is merely a regulation process regarding the inclusion of the genes that already exist in the production or their withdrawal from it. However, the evolutionists claims that, in the face of changing conditions, the organism invents new solutions, and it does this by producing new genes. However, the science of genetics has shown us that no such mechanism exists. Variations resulting from the turning on and off of genes lead to changes only within the existing genetic information of that species. in no way does this mean that the spe- cies goes through change. Although the species undergoes variations based on environmental conditions, they are still able to mate with the members of the same species and bear new off- spring. However, a member of the current spe- cies is formed through this reproduction, a new species does not occur.

### Conclusion: Another Blow on Evolution Through the Epigenome

The epigenome is nothing more than the turn- ing on and off of the existing genes in the DNA. in this case, epigenetics as a branch of science falsifies the claims of evolution, to the argument that organisms improve themselves over time. the genetic information is just as perfect as it was in the moment the organism first emerged, and related parts of this data is turned on for use when required. This means that the DNA code ensures that the organism operates itself in changing conditions through an intelligent system found in the epigenome. in this context, it is clear that epigenome is a program created by our Almighty Lord.

Michael Skinner has taken the groundless argu- ments of Lamarck and Darwin in 1900's based on the old-fashioned understanding of science of the time as reference and made a serious mis- take with his unified theory of evolution. What is more, he attempted exploiting genetics and epigenetics, the branches of science that prove God's creation of all livingness with clear-cut ev- idence, as a basis of his blunder. However, Dr. Francis Collins, one of the leading geneticists of our world who was the director of the Human Genome Project and made the most compre- hensive research on the DNA, stated in his own words that his discoveries made him "feel close- ness to the Creator." His words are another tes- tament that there is no place for coincidence in genetics, and this perfect regulation seen in the epigenome.

Source: https://aeon.co/essays/on-epigenetics-we-need- both-darwin-s-and-lamarck-s-theories

## Dr. Fabrizio Fratus - "Evolution: Myth or Reality?"

The first thing I want to say is that I personally think that Dar- win's theory is a lie, a falsehood. I will start from the question: Is it myth or reality? to give an answer to this question we must first know if Darwinism is science.

So let's try to understand in a simple way what science is. Science must be observable, repeatable and testable. We must be able to verify that an exper- iment produce an effect that cannot be falsified. in this regard, it is very important to

understand Karl Popper's theory. in an attempt to epistemologically understand what Dar- win's theory was and how it has evolved, Karl Popper tried to find out a proof that could confute the theory itself. at some point, Karl Popper came to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable theory

but it is just a metaphysical research program. This means that Karl Popper, an atheist philosopher, described Darwin's theory as a metaphysical theory that has nothing to do with science.

Antonino Zichichi, president of the World Physics Association in Italy, wrote a book entitled Colui Che Ha fatto Il Mondo in which, by explaining what the credibility of a scientific theory is, he said that the evolution of the human species remains below the level of scientific credibility because Darwin's theory does not pass the test of reproducibility and, since it is not possible to study events that are not reproducible, it is also impossible to observe an effect that have occurred only once. So, Antonino Zichichi thinks that Darwin's theory is not science, to and therefore it is not observable, it is not repeatable and not testable. This is an important point because it means that when we speak about Darwinism, we are not talking about science. Therefore, the science system must reject this hypothesis.

Let's now talk about what Darwinism produces. Let's see the definition of the word "race" found in Italian vo- cabularies. a race is a human population locally or globally located, distinguished as a group more or less dif- ferentiated by genetically transmitted physical characteristics. So this is the definition of "race". We know that anthropologists classify the four existing races in: Australians, Negroide, Mongols, and Caucasians. What does Darwinism say instead? Darwinism says that races have developed independently, and that some of them have developed better than others. This is an important point to understand.

In 1833 Darwin wrote, referring to the inhabitants of Terra del Fuoco: "These were the most abject and miser- able creatures I anywhere beheld. Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe that they are our fellow-creatures." in 1871, speaking about the descendants of man, he said that non-white races simply cannot elevate entirely to the level of civilized human beings, and that they are mentally and morally at a lower level, in a way they are stuck at a previous stage of the biological evolution of human species. This means that they are inferior. That's what Darwin said. Darwinism creates racism. When we talk about Darwin we talk about racism.

Why Are There Big Differences Between Races?

The human beings body contains melanin, and this applies to all human populations. Depending on the de- crease or increase of the level of melanin, the skin color is lighter or darker. So dark skin people, i.e. Negroid, have high levels of melanin and light skin people i.e. Caucasian, have lower levels of melanin. When there is a low level of melanin and a very sunny weather, the consequence will be skin cancer, when there is low level of melanin and a little sunny weather the consequence will be a vitamin D deficiency. We all know that for the northern populations it is very difficult to sunbath because their skin become red easily under the sun.

Let's now explain the eyes' differences: why do some populations have almond-shaped eyes while others have eyes with a different shape? for a simple reason: it depends on the fat quantity present in the part above the eye. the greater the fat quantity is in this part, the more the eye will have an almond shape. So, in this case, it is not a breed difference but just an encoded feature. the DNA contains everything that represents human being.

The entire codes necessary for man is found on the DNA. Just as our colleague explained before, all are regis- tered on the DNA in the form of codes. How tall we are, the size of our nose, the size of our feet, if we are fat or thin, these are ciphered on the DNA. Actually, DNA's are long sequences of information and inherited from one generation to another. Genes are smaller parts of the DNA. Mutations are errors that occur during reproduction and are generally harmful. It is important to understand this, because Darwinists claim that new generations emerge through mutations. This has never been proven, and it is mere manipulation.

We see different genes here and look into the difference between genes in various races. This is the Negroid race, and here is the mixture of the white and black people. According to this, no Caucasian parent could give birth to a Negroid child. in a similar way, no Negroid parent could give birth to a Caucasian child. Darwinism says

that natural selection would eliminate these children. But, the truth is not like this, it is different. I am repeating again, this is only manipulation.

Here below, we can see various probabilities, which show the combinations of genes. the combinations from the egg, and the sperm may occur differently. Let me give you an example from the Anglo-Saxon race. a couple gives birth to twins, and one is white and the other is black. Because this was coded on their DNA before, this is not new information. Yet, newspapers and media culture outlets regard this to be a mutation. However, the situation is different here, we can only talk about the information coded on the

DNA right from the start. Now, I am going to give another example. in a Newsweek article dated 1988, they made research on Adam and Eve. This research was carried out using placenta from 147 women with claims that the DNA of the mitochondria was not the product of the mixing. They named this to be "mitochondrial DNA." This date caused more problems for evolutionists because they presumed that man had appeared millions of years ago. They had no agreement on the date of man's origin. and only 10 years after this in 1998, Science magazine wrote about mitochondrial DNA saying it changed faster than expected. This fact raises doubts on the history of evolutionary claims since evolutionists are concerned because of the effects of a more rhythmic mutation. Evolutionists thus proved that research made 10 years ago was in fact invalid. It mentions of a faster mutation here and claim in the Science magazine that Eve's age is only 6000 years. and that is a scientific research held by Darwinists, the supporters of evolution theory. However, the author of the article kept on with his manipulations saying that nobody could think like him and only his allegations were the facts. for them this evolution did not occur through millions of years, but only in thousands of years.

Now, let me mention of evolutionist propaganda that is so influential in the media. From magazines to cinemas, there is strong indoctrination and pressure on people. If we mention of textbooks used for education, Haeckel's drawings are included. Haeckel produced some embryo drawings that would indicate evolution according to his suppositions. in brief from fish to salamander, salamander to frog, frog to rabbit, and rabbit to man, he came up with a strange theory. Even though these fallacies were disclosed many times, this error is repeated over and over again in textbooks.

And there is the truth about Lucy that we all know very well. in Italy, we still see Lucy introduced as a chimpanzee with long arms, jaw and thighbone structure, hands and brain size. the Australopithecus were monkeys.

The Australopithecus we've heard about in the last decades are irrevocably not part of the history of the evolution of human bipedalism. This should create doubts about the traditional representations of man's evolution in textbooks. This is what a paleontologist has written.

The human beings body contains melanin, and this applies to all human populations. Depending on the decrease or increase of the level of melanin, the skin color is lighter or darker.

Another very important case is that of the Neanderthal man found for the first time in 1856. in Italian textbooks, the Neanderthal man is described as the man who precedes Homo sapiens.

About the Neanderthal man, it has been discovered that he used to bury the deaths, wear jewels, create paint- ings, he used an advanced communication language, used to play musical instruments, and that he lived in the same era as the modern man. Neanderthal man's DNA analysis revealed that there is no difference between the Neanderthal man and us. but in the textbooks it is said that the Neanderthal man is the man who preceded the Homo sapiens. the Neanderthal man fossils analysis has revealed that there is no difference between the Ne- anderthal man and us. but in textbooks it is said that the Neanderthal man is the man who preceded the Homo sapiens.

We cannot rely on anatomy and fossil record to reconstruct the evolutionary connections. Despite everything, paleontologists continue to use the same methodology. They know they are wrong, but they carry on with their works because they want to keep telling us about these lies. Let's now speak about a topic that is very dear to me since I am carrying out studies on it. We describe the free will as a denial of materialism and therefore of Darwinism.

In Darwin's theory, we know that nature is a continuous war for survival, a battle that every living being must constantly fight against his own kind and other species. This is the interpretation of evolutionists and not the reality. It is clear that, if man believes he descended from the monkeys, he will believe in values that would be different from the values he believed in if he knows that he is created by God. We can have societies based on the accumulation of money and materialistic, or a system of completely different values if based on the existence of the Lord. Darwin's theory teaches us that man is perpetually in competition to survive and that his survival de- pends on his ability to choose what is best for him, inside the system in which he lives. This is the environmental adjustment. the Western system is capitalistic and therefore based on the accumulation. He, who accumulates more money and power, in the eyes of Darwinian, is better and the others have failed. This is Darwin's theory applied to the social system.

Solidarity is against Darwin's logic. Donating and sacrificing oneself is the empirical testimony that man has a conscience that cannot be explained through materialistic interpretations. Evolutionist psychology has no sat- isfying answers that can explain how man can donate without asking for anything in return. This is free will. If analyzed with the materialistic model, many man's choices are incomprehensible, and according to Darwin's the- ory, it is not possible to understand some of man's choices. but these choices can be understood by interpreting them with a completely different way of thinking.

Let's try to apply man choices that in our system are considered irrational, to the model represented in Thomas More's book. We will then understand that we live in a fictitious system, that we organize this world ourselves but that, at the same time, it does not care about all the spiritual needs we have. We will encounter different things when we read this book. the relationship of man with nature in the postmodern world is not healthy. He can be manipulated socially and turn out to be a slave of a system that does not belong to him. However, man has a very precious value, which is free will. Yet, in a postmodern society man has lost his connection with his true percep- tions and thus turned out to be easily manipulated socially. Free will is the direct and unequivocal testimony of the lack of validity of the materialistic hypotheses. Man is not the son of chance, he is not a mistake, but he is a perfect being and so are all the living things on earth.

THE DESIGNER CANNOT BE OTHER THAN GOD.

Thank you.

## Adnan Oktar Says: Darwin's Racism

Darwin's close friend Professor Adam Sedgwick was one of the people who saw what dangers the theory of evolution would give rise to in the future. He remarked, after reading and digesting the Origin of Species that "if this book were to find general public acceptance, it would bring with it a brutal- ization of the human race such as it had never seen before."1 and truly, time showed that Sedgwick was right to have doubts. the 20th century has gone down in history as a dark age when people under- went massacres simply because of their race or eth- nic origins.

Of course, there were discrimination and genocide based on it in human history long before Darwin. but Darwinism lent this discrimination a false sci- entific respectability and a false rightfulness.

### "The Preservation of Favoured Races..."

Most Darwinists in our day claim that Darwin was never a racist but that racists comment on Darwin's ideas in a biased manner for the purpose of sup- porting their own views. They claim that the expres- sion "By the Preservation of Favoured Races" in the subtitle to the Origin of Species is used only for animals. However, what those who make this claim ignore is what Darwin says about human races in his book.

According to the views put forward by Darwin in this book, human races represent different stages of evolution, and some races have evolved and pro- gressed more than others. Some of them, in fact, were pretty much at the same level as monkeys.

Darwin claimed that the "fight for survival" also applied between human races. "Favoured races" emerged victorious from this struggle. According to Darwin the favoured race were the European whites. as for Asian and African races, they had fallen behind in the fight for survival. Darwin went even further: these races would soon completely lose the world-wide fight for survival and disap- pear, he claimed.

"At some future period, not very distant as mea- sured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the sav- age races throughout the world. at the same time the anthropomorphous apes... will no doubt be exterminated. the break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the ne- gro or Australian and the gorilla."2

Again in another part of the Origin of Species, Dar- win claimed that it was necessary for the inferior races to disappear and that there was no need for developed peoples to try to protect them and keep them alive. He compared this situation to people who raised breeding animals:

" _With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly ex- hibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has pre- served thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breed- ing of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man."3_

As we have seen, in his book the Origin of Species, Darwin saw the natives of Australia and Negroes as being at the same level as gorillas and claimed that these races would disappear. as for the other races, which he saw as "inferior," he maintained that it was essential to prevent them multiplying and so for these races to be brought to extinction. So the traces of racism and discrimination, which we still come across in our time, were approved and lent justification by Darwin in this way.

As for the task befalling the "civilised person," ac- cording to Darwin's racist idea, it was to speed this evolutionary period up a little, as we shall see in the details that follow. in this situation there was no objection, from the "scientific" point of view, to these races, which were going to disappear any- way, being done away with now.

Darwin's racist side showed its effect in much of his writing and observations. for example, he openly set out his racist prejudices while describing the natives of Tierra del Fuego whom he saw on a long voyage he set out on in 1871. He described the na- tives as living creatures "wholly nude, submerged in dyes, eating what they find just like wild animals, uncontrolled, cruel to everybody out of their tribe, taking pleasure in torturing their enemies, offering bloody sacrifices, killing their children, ill-treating their wives, full of awkward superstitions". Where- as the researcher W. P. Snow, who had travelled the same region ten years before, presents a very different picture. According to Snow, the Tierra del Fuegians were "fine powerful looking fellows; they were very fond of their children; some of their arti- facts were ingenious; they recognized some sort of rights over property; and they accepted the author-

As has been seen from these examples Darwin was a complete racist. as a matter of fact, in the words of the author of the book What Darwin Really Said, Benjamin Farrington, Darwin made many com- ments regarding "the greater differences between men of distinct races" in his book the Descent of Man.5

Furthermore, Darwin's theory's denying the exis- tence of God had been the cause of peoples' not seeing that man was something created by God and that all men were created equal. and this was one of the factors behind the rise of racism and the acceleration of its acceptance in the world. the American scientist James Ferguson announces the strict link between the denial of Creation and the rise of racism in this way:

" _The new anthropology soon became a theoreti- cal background between two opposed schools of thought on the origin of humans. the older and more established of these was 'monogenism,' the belief that all humankind, irrespective of color and other characteristics, was directly descended from Adam and from the single and original act of God's Creation. Monogenism was promulgated by the Church and universally accepted until the 18th century, when opposition to theological authority began to fuel the rival theory of 'polygenism,' (the- ory of evolution) which held that different racial communities had different origins."6_

The Indian anthropologist Lalita Vidyarthi explains how Darwin's theory of evolution led racism to be accepted by social sciences:

" _His (Darwin's) theory of the survival of the fittest was warmly welcomed by the social scientists of the day, and they believed mankind had achieved various levels of evolution culminating in the white man's civilization. by the second half of the nine- teenth century racism was accepted as fact by the vast majority of Western scientists."7_

As for the Darwinists who came after Darwin, they put up a great struggle to prove his racist views. in the name of doing so they had no scruples about making many scientific inconsistencies and false- hoods. They thought that when they had proved these, they would have scientifically proven their own superiority and "rights" to oppress, colonize, and if needs be exterminate other races.

In the third chapter of his book the Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould pointed out that some an- thropologists were not above falsifying their data to prove the "superiority" of the white race. According to Gould, the method they used most was falsifying the brain size of the fossilized skulls they found. Gould mentions in his book that, assuming brain size had something to do with intelligence, many anthropologists intentionally exaggerated the size of Caucasian skulls and underestimated the size of skulls from Blacks and Indians.8

In his book Ever Since Darwin, Gould explains the perverted claims the Darwinists undertook to demonstrate that some races were inferior.

Haeckel and his colleagues also invoked recapit- ulation to affirm the racial superiority of northern European whites. They scoured the evidence of hu- man anatomy and behavior, using everything they could find from brains to belly buttons. Herbert Spencer wrote that "the intellectual traits of the un- civilized... are traits recurring in the children of the civilized." Carl Vogt said it more strongly in 1864: "The grown up Negro partakes, as regards his intel- lectual faculties, of the nature of the child... Some tribes have founded states, possessing a peculiar organization, but, as to the rest, we may boldly as- sert that the whole race has, neither in the past nor in the present, performed anything tending to the progress of humanity or worthy of preservation."9 and the French medical anatomist Etienne Serres

really did argue that black males are primitive be- cause their belly buttons were in a lower level.

Darwin's contemporary, the evolutionist Havelock Ellis, supported the distinction between superior and inferior races with an alleged "scientific" expla- nation, saying:

" _The child of many African races is scarcely if at all less intelligent than the European child, but while the African as he grows up becomes stupid and ob- tuse, and his whole social life falls into a state of hidebound routine, the European retains much of his childlike vivacity."10_

The French Darwinist anthropologist Vacher de Lapouge suggested that non-white classes were the descendants of savages who had not learnt to be civilised, or else the degenerate representatives of mixed-blood classes. He produced results by measuring the skulls from Paris' upper and lower classes in graveyards. According to his results, de- pending on their skulls some people were inclined to be rich, self-confident, and free, and others con- servative, content with little, and possessing all the qualities of a good servant, classes were the prod- ucts of social selection, society's upper classes went together with superior races, the degree of wealth was in proportion to the skull index.

And it was not only anthropologists: entomologists (those who study insects) also jumped on the rac- ist bandwagon that Darwinism had set in motion with perverted claims. for example, in the year 1861, one English entomologist arrived at the con- clusion, after collecting lice that lived on peoples' bodies in different parts of the world, that the lice of one race could not live on the bodies of another, which when looked at from the scientific level of today, is just plain ridiculous.12 When even people with the status of scientists made such announce- ments, it was not surprising that some dogmatic racists should use such illogical, unintelligent, and completely meaningless slogans as "even Negroes' lice are Negro."

In short, the racist side to Darwin's theory found very fertile ground in the second half of the 19th century.

1- A.E. Wilder-Smith, Man's Origin Man's Destiny, the Word for Today Publishing, 1993, p.166 2- Charles Darwin, the Descent of Man, 2nd edition, New York, a L. Burt Co., 1874, p. 178

3- Charles Darwin, the Descent of Man, 2nd edition, New York, a L. Burt Co., 1874, p. 171 4- Godfrey Lienhardt, Social Anthropology, Oxford University Press, p. 11

Benjamin Farrington, What Darwin Really Said, London: Sphere Books, 1971, pp. 54-56

James Ferguson, "The Laboratory of Racism", New Scientist, vol. 103, (September 1984, p. 18)

Lalita Prasad Vidyarthi, Racism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Unesco, France, Vendôme, 1983. p. 54

David N. Menton, Ph.D., the Religion of Nature: Social Darwinism, St. Louis MetroVoice, September 1994, Vol. 4, No. 9 9- Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin, W. W. Norton & Company, New York 1992, p. 217

Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin, W. W. Norton & Company, New York 1992, p. 220

Alaeddin Şenel, Irk ve Irkçılık Düşüncesi (The Idea of Race and Racism), Ankara:Bilim ve Sanat Yayınları, 1993, p. 67-68

Thomas Gossett, Race: the History of an Idea in America, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, p.81 cited in Alaeddin Şenel, Irk ve Irkçılık Düşüncesi (The Idea of Race and Racism), Ankara:Bilim ve Sanat Yayınları, 1993, p. 68

## Adnan Oktar Says: Plos One Journal Finally Admitted: "Lucy Is Not an Ancestor of Man, She Is an Ape"

The 3.2 million-year-old fossil dis- covered in Africa in 1974, popularly known as "Lucy", has been periodically brought up for propaganda purposes. However, with the ever-growing means of science and technology, it has become evident that this fossil, which had been long alleged to be "evidence" for the theory of evolution, has actually dealt a devastating blow to the theory.

Although the Lucy fossil is supposedly portrayed as a transitional form specimen representing the so-called evolution from ape to man, it has in fact proven this claim to be a scenario based on mere prejudice.

Today, all the international scientific journals with a board of academics are, one by one, saying their goodbyes to Lucy. Now, let us take a look at some of the confessions about Lucy featured in journals from the past until today:

Evolutionists' Confession in 1999: "ADIEU LUCY" in May 1999, the well-recognized Science et Vie journal used the title "Adieu Lucy" (Good- bye Lucy) on its cover and wrote that the apes of the Australopithecus genus should be removed from human genealogy. the article, written upon a new Australopithecus fossil discovery code-named St W573, included the following statements:

A new theory states that the genus Australopithe- cus is not the root of the human race... Australo- pithecus and Homo (human) species do not ap- pear on the same branch.

However, this farewell was not limited to Science et Vie journal. After that, confessions on the fossil known as "Lucy" kept coming with each passing day.

### Evolutionists' Confession in 2000: "We Should Stop Bringing Lucy Up"

Another article published in 2000 in the journal Na- ture confessed that Lucy was a member of an ape species. the article wrote that the Lucy fossil, with respect to her "relatively long and curved fingers, relatively long arms, and funnel-shaped chest" was exactly like chimpanzees. Upon the close examina- tion of its hand bones, the confession came that contrary to what had been previously claimed, Lucy was not bipedal, but "knuckle-walked as chimps and gorillas do today."1

The ape-like features of the Lucy fossil are not lim- ited to its way of walking and hand bone structure only. Its chin is U-shaped, identical to those of ape species, and teeth are quite large compared to humans.

Anthropologists from Tel Aviv University have also pointed out that the upward-projecting mandible (mandibular ramus) on Lucy's lower jaw is very sim- ilar to that of gorillas, and thereupon, researchers advocating the theory of evolution have consented that keeping the Lucy fossil on the agenda will not serve their interests.2

### Evolutionists' Confession in 2016: "Lucy Is a Chimpanzee"

A more recent study on Lucy published in the No- vember 2016 issue of PLOS One gave the same re- sults. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Texas, who micro-CT scanned Lucy's skeleton by tomography, admitted that much of Lucy's life had been spent in trees and that, from this aspect, it resembled a chimpanzee more than a human being.3

John Kappelman, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, examined Lucy's skeleton at the National Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and interpreted it as follows:

"I think that by demonstrating with an indepen- dent data set that Lucy very likely spent enough time in the trees that the evidence is preserved in her bones provides additional support for the idea that she may have fallen out of a tree as well... She (Lucy) comes out showing a similarity to chimpan- zees which suggests that was due to climbing." 4

However, these facts revealed by modern technol- ogy were already known at the time of the fossil's discovery. in a speech at the University of Missouri, Kansas City on November 20, 19865, Dr. Johanson claimed they had found a knee bone and asserted their allegations that Lucy is the ancestor of man based on this bone. in response to this claim, one of the participants (Roy Holt) asked Johanson, "How far away from Lucy did you find the knee?" Dr. Johanson answered, "About 200 feet lower and two to three kilometers away." Continuing, when he was asked, "Then why are you sure it belonged to Lucy?" he answered, "Anatomical similarity". but this answer was met with cynicism because of the scientific inconsistency it posed. the scientific world was already aware of the fact that even com- pletely different species such as dogs and bearsing it under the light of advanced science and technology. to date, circles that ad- vocate evolutionary the- ory for ideological reasons have made a number of fossil forgeries and fictitious claims. However, not even a single one of these allegations have been proven scientifically, while on the other hand, their fallacy has been consistently demonstrated.

There is only one fact that 21st Century science shows us: Living beings have neither gone through evolution nor gradually trans- formed from one species to anoth- er as a result of blind chance. could bear anatomical similarities.

As is seen, Lucy has been promoted as 'man's so- called ancestor' for 43 years through a specially devised, biased propaganda, even though it was widely known that the fossilized skull belonged to an ape since the moment of its discovery.The entire world was indoctrinated as if it was the 'so-called 'missing link' between man and ape. However, this unscientific and non-factual supposition has been repeatedly disproved in every means of study-

Modern life forms and their millions-year-old coun- terparts all share the same appearance. They did not undergo even a single change despite the millions of years that have passed in between. They have retained the same features as they have today since the moment they came into existence. Living things did not appear on earth through millions of years of evolution but they came into existence suddenly, with all the features they possess intact in their bodies. in other words, they were created by God.

" **We did not create heaven and earth and everything between them to no purpose. That is the opinion of those who deny..." (Qur'an, 38:27)**

SOURCES:

  1. Mark Collard and Leslie C. Aiello, "From forelimbs to two legs," Na- ture (March 23, 2000), 404:339–340.

  2. Siegel-Itzkovich, Judy, Israeli Researchers: 'Lucy' is not direct ancestor of humans, the Jerusalem Post, <http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Sci-Tech/Sci-> ence-And-Environment/Israeli-researchers-Lucy-is-not-direct-ancestor-of-humans

  3. Christopher B. Ruff , M. Loring Burgess, Richard A. Ketcham, John Kappel- man. Limb Bone Structural Proportions and Locomotor Behavior in A.L. 288-1 ("Lucy"). PLOS ONE, 2016 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0166095

  4.  http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/deadthings/2016/11/30/the-latest-on-lucy-early- hominin-spent-serious-time-in-trees/#.WHfotBuLSUk

  5. <http://spiritualcoretheory.com/lucy-fails-test-as-missing-link/>

## Adnan Oktar Says: What Does the Fact That We Share the Same Diseases With Neanderthals Mean?

In its February 12, 2016, issue, Sci- ence magazine published the results of a new study conducted at Vanderbilt Univer- sity, USA. Although at first sight the article ap- peared to be about inherited diseases, the title, "The phenotypic legacy of admixture between modern humans and Neanderthals," showed that it contained evolutionist propaganda.

John A. Capra, a geneticist from Vanderbilt Uni- versity who headed the research, made the fol- lowing comparison:

"We discovered and replicated associations of Neandertal alleles with neurological, psychiat- ric, immunological, and dermatological pheno- types. ... Our results establish that archaic admix- ture influences disease risk in modern humans..."

This statement by Capra that Neanderthals shared similar diseases to us is an important one, and evidence that, in fact, refutes the theory of evolution.

Different Cultures and Different Physical Characteristics

Man has been exposed to various diseases down the ages, and genetic features of these have come down to the present day by being handed on from one generation to another. Such genetic sensitivities, described as "inherited," strengthen the probability of that disease appearing, but it is meaningless to herald this as evidence of evo- lution.

Different human societies have lived in different places throughout history, and these societies have sometimes come together and interbred. the situation we see in Anatolia today or in the USA are stark examples of this: Asian, European and African people have intermarried and inter- mingled.

The point requiring attention here is that despite individual differences, these people are all "hu- man." the fact they possess different cultures or physical properties does not make them distinct life forms or mean that they have to be classified as "advanced" or "primitive." Such thinking is er- roneous and racist. However, some people trying to justify the colonialist policies of the 19thcen- tury in the legal sphere claimed that the "White European" race (Germanic and Anglo-Saxon) was the "most modern" and "most highly developed" of the current human races. the result was the idea that the indigenous populations of Africa and Australia were supposedly closer to animals, and led to the development of the unbelievable idea that their elimination would make a positive contribution to the development of mankind, ac- cording to the processes of evolution.

### The Scourge of Racism That Began With Haeckel

Living things were first classified by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel, who placed white Euro- peans at the top of this classification of his own invention. This perverse and evolutionist view of

Haeckel's came to be accepted as "the role of the races in the progress of civilizations."

The concept of race was first proposed by a Ger- man physician, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840). He classified mankind under five headings – Caucasian (the white race), Mongo- lian (the yellow race), Malayan (the brown race), Ethiopian (the black race) and American (the red race): Haeckel arranged this concept of race on a hierarchical basis, placing Europeans at the top, while placing the Vedda people indigenous to Sri Lanka, Aboriginal Australians and the natives of Rhodesia in present-day Zimbabwe at the bottom. These ideas were so influential that many racists foolishly described marrying such people and having children with them as "falling off the evolutionary ladder" and even suggested that this would be exceedingly dam- aging to mankind as a whole.

Similar to these preposterous ideas from the past, some supporters of evolution are currently seeking to portray the admixture with Neander- thals as something undesirable. This is of course a grave error, and the scientific evidence shows that Neanderthals were fully-fledged human beings. at this point, it will be useful to remind people of some of the scientific evidence concerning the invalidity of the Darwinist mentality that seeks to portray Neanderthals as "primitive:"

### The Neanderthals Had Superior Characteristics to Those of Present-Day Humans

Their large skull size refutes the Darwinist idea of the Neanderthals as "primitive man." the vol- ume of the Neanderthal skull was approximate- ly 1700 cc, which is some 200 cc larger than that of a present-day man. This demolishes the evolutionist idea of classifying human beings as primitive or advanced based on skull volumes. According to the basic principles of evolutionist ideology, Neanderthals, with their larger brains, should be regarded as superior to present-day man, and that would represent an enormous contradiction for the theory of evolution.

In addition, archeological research has shown that the Neanderthal's social lives were no dif- ferent to those of present-day humans. the Ne- anderthals were a human race that has since become extinct. Erik Trinkaus, an expert on the Neanderthals, admits this as follows:

"... **there is nothing in Neanderthal anat- omy that conclusively indicates locomo- tor, manipulative, intellectual, or linguis- tic abilities inferior to those of modern humans...." (Erik Trinkaus, "Hard Times Among the Neanderthals", Natural Histo- ry, Vol. 87, December 1978, p. 10.)**

There is no doubt that because the Neander- thals were a human race, they possessed the same features as modern races. Neanderthal Man was a talented maker of tools and a skilled hunter. He even engaged in music and art. They had a cultural and social structure, just as soci- eties do today, and had religious beliefs. (Nich- olas Comninellis, Creative Defense, Evidence Against Evolution, Master Books, 2001, p. 194) the civilization established by the Neanderthals was therefore no fundamentally different to present-day civilizations.

### What Does the Fact We Share the Same Genes as the Neanderthals Mean?

First and foremost, it is genetically impossible to describe Neanderthals as a separate species.

The Neanderthal genome project has revealed that, like us, they had 23 pairs of chromosomes. What we see in evolutionist sources, however, is the bafflement on the part of Darwinists in the face of this finding that we share common genes; Darwinists have long described the Ne- anderthals as a separate species. the discov- ery that we shared the same disease genes of course means that we are disposed to the same diseases. to say that these genes have passed down to us from the Neanderthals is a natural hereditary outcome; these genes are not specif- ic to the Neanderthals, but are quite widespread among all humans.

### The Neanderthals Were Not a Primitive Species, but Human Beings Like Us

The social life of the Neanderthals was no differ- ent to that of human beings alive today. Arche- ological research has revealed that this human race used musical instruments, sewed clothes and engaged in artistic endeavors such as paint- ing and sculpture. Indeed, in terms of physical features, the Neanderthals were superior to us; their bodies were larger and stronger, and, con- trary to the claims of evolution, their brains were larger than ours.

### Different Races: Geographic Isolation and Humans With Different Appearances

People living in different parts of the world nat- urally look different to one another: in other words, they have different phenotypes; this is known as geographic isolation. Aborigines, Es- kimos and Africans live in very different regions far from one another yet these races and the white European race all share common genes.

Europeans, who have enjoyed more advanced technology and material means throughout the

course of history, have always described other races whom they do not like the look of as "back- ward," and have always regarded themselves as "modern" and hence, superior to everyone else. in practical terms, this racist mindset that found an alleged justification in Darwinian ideology has represented the foundations for genocide, colonialism, systematic and ruthless exploita- tion and served as a rationalization for treating those who were different to themselves with the utmost contempt.

### Conclusion: the Neanderthals Are an Ancient Human People

The way that evolutionists classify different hu- man races as "advanced" or "primitive" is devoid of any genetic or biological foundation. Indeed, archeological findings have shown that Nean- derthals possessed a highly social civilization. It is abundantly obvious that they were no differ- ent to present-day human races.

## Dr. Anjeanette Roberts - "Why Did God Create Viruses?"

When others learn I'm a virologist, they often ask, "Are viruses alive?" When they learn that I'm a Christian, they often ask, "Why would a good God create viruses?"

I love to address questions like these and have spent years think- ing about viruses and their roles in Creation and human sickness, and their use as tools in mitigating suffering, and more. as a Christian who is also a scientist I often use scientific discoveries to help others see how God reveals himself to us in Creation. Christian scriptures (for example passages in Psalm 19 and Romans 1:20ff) actually tell us that Creation or nature actually points people to the realization of God's existence. but not just that, nature actually reveals God's power and attributes to us as well. in other words, observing Creation, even through scientific discoveries, doesn't just point us to God but shows us what the Creator is like..

" **The heavens proclaim the glory of God. the skies display His craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make Him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world." (Psalm 19:1-4)**

" **They know the truth about God because He has made it obvious to them. for ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." (Romans 1:19-20)**

Now certainly some viruses can be very dan- gerous and even deadly. Historically, viruses were identified because of the diseases they caused (e.g., tobacco mosaic virus, rabies virus, bird flu, and smallpox), and since many of these viruses cause severe disease and suffering and many others lead to death, then the ques- tion, "Why would a good God create viruses?" is a great question! of course this question assumes that viruses are bad, causing sickness, suffering, and sometimes even death, and it implies certain improper remarks in regard to God's Creation. This question though actually reveals a lack of understanding of viruses and their role in nature.

Now of course we know of viruses like bird flu or fowl pox, or herpes, or measles — which kills 15 people every hour — and hemorrhagic fever viruses that can affect entire populations and cause widespread disease and mor- tality even on a global scale. High mortality rates occur with some viruses like the most recent outbreak of Ebola virus or the historic 1918 Influenza epidemic. but these viruses are the rare, yet notable, exceptions.

Recent technological advances and the advent of metagenomics have changed the way we understand viruses. Scientists now have the capability to extract DNA from environmental samples and sequence multiple organ- isms at once. Through such analyses we now realize that Earth is filled with a truly vast array and diversity of viruses. Everywhere we find life, we find viruses. and we find them in overwhelming abundance!

A single milliliter of ocean water or a gram of soil can harbor 10 — 100 million virus particles or more! Viruses outnumber all other living things by a factor of 10 to 1 or even 100 to 1 or more! the vast majority of viruses infect single-cell organisms like bacteria and Achaea. It is estimated that there are 1031 viruses on Earth, that's a one followed by 31 zeroes. That's 10 million times more viruses than stars in the universe. That number can be very hard to comprehend or imagine. If we could weigh all the viruses on Earth together, they would equal the weight of 75 million blue whales. If we could line up all the viruses end to end, they would stretch out 42 million light-years. That's almost 20 round-trips to the Andromeda Galaxy! Considering most viruses are on the order of 0.1–0.01 microns, or one one-thousandth the width of a human hair, that's a lot of viruses!

Yet only an infinitesimal fraction of an infinitesimal fraction of viruses are associated with human disease, or diseases of any kind. the vast majority of viruses on planet Earth are not associated with disease or suffering. in fact they are critical for sustaining balance in Earth's ecological webs and providing higher ordered organisms ecological space in which to thrive. Now, one of the other questions I am often asked is, "Are Viruses Alive?" I want to address this question next because the answer is important in understanding what may or may not be true about viral origins.

### Viruses Are Comprised of Two Basic Components:

proteins and nucleic acid (RNA or DNA). (Some viruses have a third basic component: a lipid envelope.) They dis- play incredible diversity in size, shape, replication strategies, genomic composition, genomic organization, and in the kinds of cells and animals they infect. This is an electron micrograph of viruses that infect bacteria, tobacco plants, animals and people (rabies), and cause infantile diarrhea. Estimates suggest that there are 1–3 million different viruses infecting vertebrates. and one study in bats indicates that more than 90 percent of viruses in- fecting mammals have yet to be identified. Despite such huge virodiversity (a phrase indicating viral diversity), all viruses share one thing in common: they cannot replicate or make more viruses on their own.

Living things consume nutrients, grow and develop, capture and/or produce energy, remove waste, and have the capacity to sexually or asexually reproduce. Viruses do not. Viruses cannot harvest nutrients from their environ- ment. They absolutely require a living cell to provide resources, machinery, and energy to produce and assemble viral components into viral progeny or new viruses. Signals in viral proteins and nucleic acids hijack cellular ma- chinery for viral protein synthesis as viruses depend on cellular metabolic processes and enzymes for provision of nucleobases and amino acids—building blocks for progeny virions.

Viruses also depend on intracellular transport systems for many steps in viral replication and assembly. Without living cells, viruses would never replicate. Replication of viruses is best captured by a paper copy machine met- aphor. Viruses are like the paper that goes in with information written on it. but the copier provides the ink and paper (the resources), the energy, and the machinery to produce more copies of the paper. Now the metaphor fails a bit, because each copy is not necessarily perfect. Viruses can accrue changes over time as cellular replica- tion machinery may introduce changes (or errors) to viral genetic sequences. and although viruses are not living they play a critical role in the history of life on Earth and in sustaining biodiversity today.

Another question that often comes up is, "Where Do Viruses Come From?"

Viruses that infect humans, like all other viruses, are of unknown etiology. We know that some viruses cross over from animal populations to human populations, like bird and swine flus and rabies. but the ultimate origin of viruses is unknown. We don't know where viruses originated. but because they are absolutely dependent upon living cells to make more viruses, many -evolutionist- scientists consider them as escape genes from once living cells. Somehow, according to their evolutionary claims, they have escaped a functional cell and maintained the necessary components needed to replicate themselves and most have likely accrued changes and added various components over time and through continued replication in a variety of organisms.

But this scenario of vi- ral origins is problematic in many ways, not the least of which is that viruses often demonstrate a strict host specificity. They are unable to successfully enter a variety of different kinds of cells or hosts. This would make it difficult to pick up a variety of components from vastly different cells. and a second complexity is that viruses are so radically diverse from one another in replication strategies and host specificities. These factors challenge a naturalistic scenario of viral origins.

But it is also possible that viruses were designed as part of the created order. Consider this. If it were not for viruses, bacteria and other single-cell organisms would rule the Earth, sequestering all nutrients and filling all ecological niches, making higher life and the survival of multicellular organisms impossible. Bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria and Achaea) kill 40–50 percent of the bacteria in Earth's oceans on a daily basis. This releases an abundance of biogenic and organic molecules into Earth's biogeochemical cycle and food chain for the survival of other organisms.

Bacteriophage also help keep our planet's ecological niches and our bodies' microbiomes in balance so that we are not overrun by bacteria. If not for a balance between bacterial replication and phage-mediated death, Earth would be a giant ball of bacteria, as they are masters of replication and adaptation. Left unchecked by viruses, rampant bacterial growth would leave no room or food sources for other organisms to survive and thrive. Viruses that infect and control bacterial populations contribute to Earth's ecological balance and biogeochemical cycles and also to Earth's precipitation cycles. for precipitation to occur particles in Earth's atmosphere must serve as seeds for nucleation events that initiate precipitation. Viruses, and bacterial proteins that are aerosolized after viral lysis, serve as seeds for precipitation. and of course higher life thrives because of Earth's abundant precip- itation cycles.

Certainly, many viruses associated with human disease have animal origins. These zoonotic viruses are trans- ferred to humans when humans come in contact with animals that harbor the virus even in the absence of disease. It is unclear what roles these viruses may have in nature before making the jump into human hosts. It's possible that some may exist to regulate animal populations, similar to the way bacteriophage regulate bacterial populations. It is also possible that many may have symbiotic effects in nature and only rarely results in disease when exposure and transmission to susceptible hosts occur from imperfect management of creation.

Viruses that have symbiotic effects have in fact been discovered. Once unnoticed because no outward sign of disease led to inquiry, viruses that allow plants, insects and other organisms to survive under otherwise challeng- ing environmental conditions continue to be discovered. Some viruses allow infected plants survival advantages under drought or cold temperatures that prove detrimental to un-infected plants. Some viral infections render mice and human hosts resistant to other subsequent infections. No doubt many more symbiotic relationships will be discovered as we continue to explore the roles of the nearly countless viruses surrounding us.

In addition to symbiotic effects and critical roles in maintaining ecological webs and biogeochemical and pre- cipitation cycles, viruses may even be part of God's Creation, providentially given for our use and management. Viruses supply an abundant matrix of untapped genes and delivery systems to address many of the challenges we face in human health and disease. Regardless of their origins (or associated diseases), many viruses are tools allowing scientists to uncover keys of cellular biology, genetically alter organisms, and mitigate disease. to name just a few ways that we wield viruses for good: viruses are harnessed for use in gene therapy, cancer therapy, vaccine production, and nano-medicine delivery.

Much of what we know about molecular and cellular biology has been knowledge gained through virus studies. This table highlights 15 discoveries linked to Nobel prizes where viruses have been used to discover such things as DNA rather than proteins serves as the substance of heredity; the triple base codon nature of the genetic code; tumor suppressor genes and RNA splicing.

Viruses can also be manipulated and engineered to use in an arsenal to fight diseases. We can use viruses to fight cancers, congenital and genetic diseases, and viral and bacterial diseases. the best-known use of viruses in this respect is probably their use in vaccines such as the polio vaccines. Prior to the advent of the polio vaccines, an outbreak of polio in the US led to more than 50,000 infections in one year (1952), over 21,000 cases of pa- ralysis and over 3,00 deaths. Since the advent of the inactivated and oral polio vaccines, global immunization campaigns have dropped the number of cases from over 350,000 cases per year in 1988 to less than 500 cases per year in 2013. Eradication of infectious polio virus may be obtained by the end of 2018 according to the latest WHO (World Health Organization) targets.

Viruses are now being used to fight cancers directly and as shuttles to deliver gene-editing molecules in fights against cancers such as sarcoma, melanoma and myeloma. Gene editing, using viruses as delivery mechanisms, may one day eliminate other congenital and genetic diseases as well as chronic infectious diseases such as HIV. the potential use of viruses to help fight human disease and enhance agricultural products is immense and ex- citing. Viruses may prove to be the best molecular tool for human use ever known. Viruses may also be the next best weapon to fight multi-drug resistant bacteria too!

Multi-drug resistant bacteria are still susceptible to bacteriophage lysis. Identifying and isolating the appropriate phage and determining ways to keep the phage lytic will allow us to keep some of themes pathogenic bacteria in check when antibiotics continue to fail.

So, although a few viruses are remarkably bad, we cannot paint all viruses with the same brush. in fact, life as we know it would not be possible and our thriving as human beings and caretakers of Creation would be impossible without the vast array of viruses that fill the Earth.

It is clear that some viruses were certainly part of the created order since the vast majority of life and biodiversity on Earth would not be possible without bacteriophage. Some may lead to disease primarily through our igno- rance and mismanagement of Creation. Still others seem to be providentially supplied by our good Creator for our discovery, harvest and transformation in mitigating disease and suffering and even improving Creation care. Individually created or occasional cast-offs, Creation's design certainly necessitates a vast storehouse of diverse viruses for keeping life on Earth well regulated, whether in the human gut or the global biogeochemical cycles. With such an abundance of still unknown viruses, we have so much more to discover!

AND SO MANY REASONS to MARVEL at GOD'S AMAZING CREATION and PROVIDENCE. THANKS BE to GOD. - DR. ANJEANETTE ROBERTS

## Adnan Oktar Says: Statements Regarding Creation in the Gospel

... We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, Who made heaven and earth and sea and every- thing in them... He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy. (Acts, 14:15-17)

... God Who made the world and everything... He himself gives all men life and breath and every- thing else. From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. (Acts, 17:24-26)

So it is written: "The first man Adam became a liv- ing being"... the first man was of the dust of the earth... (1 Corinthians, 15:45-47)

He also says, "In the beginning, O Lord, You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands [Your creations]." (Hebrews, 1:10)

In the Sight of God, Who gives life to everything... I charge you to keep these commands stainlessly and blamelessly until the appearance of... Jesus, the Messiah. (1 Timothy, 6:13)

For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. (Hebrews, 3:4)

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. to Him be the glory forever! Amen. (Ro- mans, 11:36)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of

God—not by works, so that no one can boast. for we are God's masterpiece... to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians, 2:8-10)

He [God]... chose to give us birth through... (James, 1:18)

But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. (2 Peter, 3:5)

... He [God] causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew, 5:45)

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Lord. and even the very hairs of your head are all numbered... (Matthew, 10:29-30)

When they heard this, they raised their voices to- gether in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them." (Acts, 4:24)

But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' (Mark, 10:6)

"Haven't you read [God's revelation]," he [Jesus]," replied, "that at the beginning God 'made them male and female.'" (Matthew, 19:4)

... Yet for us there is but one God... from Whom all things came and for Whom we live; and there is but one Lord... through Whom all things came and through Whom we live. (1 Corinthians, 8:5-6)

76 2nd International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe -2017

For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... all things were created by Him and for Him. He is be- fore all things, and in Him all things hold togeth- er. (Colossians, 1:16-17)

Through Him [God] all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. (John, 1:3)

... Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it [signs of His exis- tence] plain to them. for since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. for although they

knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claimed to be wise, they be- came fools and ex-

changed the glory of the immortal God for im- ages made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans, 1:19-23)

Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. (Hebrews, 6:7)

## Adnan Oktar Says: Viruses Come in Many Forms

Viruses possess a genetic structure, but have no capacity to make that genetic information work for themselves. on their own, they lack this essential property of life. This organism's genetic structure cannot even be regarded living in every sense of the word, yet it does however display an unbe- lievable variety. a virus possesses a genome of a rather large number of "letters." Another more in- teresting feature is that the genome of every virus in a matchless one-off.

Viruses possess various sequences of letters de- pending on their length. the hepatitis B virus, for example, consists of 3.200 nucleotides, or letters. the HIV virus has 10.000 nucleotides. Larger vi- ruses such as the herpes viruses that cause cold sores, have around 100,000 nucleotides. Thanks to the information concealed in their DNA, the only organs these organisms possess, they can reproduce and survive by entering other cells. All these properties have been squeezed into their DNA.

Thanks to their superior abilities, viruses can also change their genetic qualities in a very short time. the very same disease can exhibit different symp- toms and varying degrees of virulence, thanks to viruses' ability to change their genetic makeup. No vaccinations can be effective against such dis- eases because of these sudden changes.

The virus can enter a cell in its new form without its presence triggering the immune response that responded to its earlier form. Under normal con-

ditions, vaccines—-the only precaution against vi- ruses—stimulate the body to recognize viral strains that may infect it later, but are ineffective against a virus that has mutated itself. When a killed virus is introduced through vaccination, the immune system perceives it as hostile and produces anti- bodies to destroy it. However, vaccines are unable to recognize a new virus that produces the same disease but which has altered its genes. Indeed, a flu vaccine becomes obsolete the following year, because the influenza virus assumes a new form every year. This also applies to the HIV virus that leads to AIDS. However, the HIV virus mutates so fast that the antiviral medications eventually lose their effectiveness.

It is impossible not to see the superior and intelli- gent ability of the virus here. the virus's speed of reproduction and changing its own form is so rap- id as to far exceed those of human technology. an average virus can produce 10.000 new particles a day. If you have one viral particle on Monday, you will have 10.000 on Tuesday and soon 10.000 times 10.000, and then 10.000 times 10.000 times 10.000—1.000 billion viral particles.

When the HIV virus, for example, enters the body, the immune system destroys more than half the invading particles by within five days. Yet just as many new particles emerge during that same time. When at least one is recognized by the de- fense system, the others will mutate into a differ- ent form, thus resisting the attacks and becoming the first generation of the new HIV population.

78 2nd International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe -2017

From the perspective of the theory of evolution, viruses pose yet another unanswered question. the virus occupies an imaginary place on the evo- lutionary tree. When and how did this organism emerge? There are no fossil remains. All the sce- narios of evolution are conjecture. Heading the list of questions that give evolutionists trouble the virus's complex structure. in fact, evolutionists often classify viruses as primitive single-celled organisms like bacteria, except bacteria and vi- ruses possess very different structures. a great many species of bacteria possess spherical chro- mosomes that float freely within the cell, whereas the rod-shaped chromosomes of viruses (and of human beings) are protected in the nucleus. in these terms, viruses—especially ones of the pox group—are more similar to the eukaryotes than to the prokaryotes, of which bacteria are members. in addition, the DNA and RNA packets constituting the virus's structure are totally different from those of bacteria.

### What Power Gives Rise to Such Differentiation and Gives Viruses Their Ability?

Those who seek to answer "Evolution!" will always be facing inconsistencies. They may claim that the difference stems from differently functioning evolutionary mechanisms and will continue to ad- vance new theories. Though aware of this flawless Creation, they will continue to deny it.

And the more numerous such questions will be- come, forcing Darwinists to continue desperately

searching for new lies and coming up with new theories. Like all evolutionists before them, those who make these new claims will also waste their lives without finding any solution. and like all evo- lutionist claims ever been made, their claims will remain groundless and unsupported. a few will conclude that the "laws" that have been around since Darwin's era have achieved no explanations, and that it is illogical to fly in the face of the facts. but others will have no compunction about sup- porting a theory built on falsehoods.

There is absolutely no doubt that a virus, which manages to enter just one out of a human being's 100 trillion cells using incomparable methods, and which can cause the death of the individual and even of whole communities, despite being so miniscule in size, is a great miracle of God. They have been created so we may understand see the omniscience of God. Viruses have been brought into being so that we may witness how defense- less we are in the face of particles too small to be seen with the naked eye. Like all the works on Earth, this organism proclaims the might of its Creator.

That is the truth, whether people accept it or not. God reveals on this subject that:

[Hud said,] "I have put my trust in God, my Lord and your Lord. There is no creature He does not hold by the forelock. My Lord is on a Straight Path." (Qur'an 11:56)

## Adnan Oktar Says: Mers Virus and What It Brings to One's Mind

We have frequently heard of viral epidem- ics in recent years. Many people are familiar with the names of these viruses, such as HIV, Ebola, Nile Virus, H1N1 (swine flu), SARS and now Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, known as MERS.

MERS has a relatively high mortality level; thirty-five percent of reported cases have end- ed in death. According to the World Health Organization, 254 cases have to date been identified in various countries. Fifty new cases were reported last week and the Saudi death toll has crossed 100. in addition to Saudi Ara- bia, MERS cases have been seen in Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, Germany, Great Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Tunisia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

It is not yet known how the MERS virus infects humans. People carrying the virus can trans- mit the disease without being aware of it, or the disease may quickly end in pneumonia, organ failure and death. Research has thus far provided no answers, meaning there are no drugs or vaccinations against this virus at the moment.

The above information is what you can read in any newspaper or website. However, what I wish to emphasize in this article is something different. a tiny entity invisible to the naked eye is able to baffle 21st-century science and technology. a tiny virus may cause the death of thousands of people, as has been seen be-

fore in history. but what is it, apart from the will of God, that makes a virus impossible to beat?

The answer to this is an important sign leading to faith. God has created diseases in order to show the transitory nature of this world and to show people how weak they are, and has cre- ated and equipped viruses, which cause some of these diseases, with an amazing system.

The war between our cells and viruses is vitally important for human life. Viruses can be very active in the body and they literally invade cells; they then use the machinery and me- tabolism of the host cells for their replication and thus turn the cell into a factory producing more copies of themselves.

In order to accomplish its task, the virus needs enormous information, awareness and also power. It is obvious that a virus so small that it can only be seen under an electron micro- scope is itself unaware of this immaculate structure. So how did that structure come about? Even though the virus has no brain or eyes, how does it know when and how to act?

There is no doubt that it is Almighty God Who creates the virus, and the host cell and its machinery. With these complex entities He creates, God shows us His matchless artistry and infinite might. as we look at the details of these entities with their flawless structures they are evident signs for believers of the presence of God.

God reveals in one verse that: "In the alterna- tion of night and day and what God has creat- ed in the heavens and the earth there are signs for people who have piety." (Qur'an 10:6)

The virus is one of the most interesting struc- tures in nature. It does not possess a cellu- lar structure and consists solely of a genetic mechanism. It consists of a protein coat and genetic material (DNA or RNA) inside that coat. by itself it has no functions or organelles exhibiting signs of life. However, when it en- ters an organism it comes to life and becomes active. From the moment it interacts with a living cell it starts to exhibit life properties; it becomes an aggressive and also highly intel- ligent creature.

Before entering a cell, the virus works out which cell is suitable for it. If the test result is positive, it injects its own genetic material into the cell and begins replicating using the host cell's DNA and RNA synthesizing machinery, and RNA processing machinery.

It is indeed very hard for the cell to become aware of the situation: It is like finding a short sentence from an encyclopedia consisting of 20 volumes. by means of this "intelligent" method, the virus mixes with the host cell's own programming mechanisms and literally becomes a part of the cell.

Under normal circumstances, a cell never reads the code for any protein, not even of pro- teins of other cells, apart from those it needs whose codes are marked in DNA with special locks. However, the cell reads the virus DNA and continues producing the virus. How the virus does this is still a mystery for scientists.

This spells disaster for the cell. a dying cell is used right to the end of its energy for produc- tion according to the program wrongly encod- ed in its nucleus. Then it dies and is broken down. as it breaks down, the accumulated vi- ruses enter other cells and find new targets for themselves.

This viral invasion would proceed fast enough to kill a normal person in a few days were it not for the immune system; that defense mechanism identifies the virus soon after it enters the body and immediately initiates a counter-offensive. This enables us to survive instead of being killed by the simplest virus.

God shows us our weakness through a tiny entity. in order to behave so successfully, the virus has to fit the cell in the same way a key fits a lock. We are looking at a most evident truth here; God has created viruses deliber- ately to cause disease. by means of troubles of this kind, human beings are better able to re- alize their helplessness and the infinite might of God.

People who reflect on all this will realize their own weakness before God and will turn to our Lord, seeking forgiveness. God reveals in a verse how He forgives those who turn to Him:

Your Lord knows best what is in your selves. If you are righteous, He is Ever-Forgiving to the remorseful. (Qur'an 17:25)

## Carlo Alberto Cossano - "Informatics Records and Proteins Production"

We're living in the Digital Age.

It's really hard, if not impossible, to find a process that is not in some way managed, controlled, administered or enhanced through the use of a computer program or a database or any software application.

In these contexts, the computer, database or system programmer or operator has often a pleasure and pain to live with: "the record", defined in the usual jargon.

Very simply put, the record is a collection of information, that can be both complex and simple, ample or reduced, structured in one or more field or parts, the base unit of a computer archive.

Making an example: in a set called "people", formed by several records, the single record may contain two fields, the field "name" and the field "surname" but even the "sex" and the "date of birth" fields.

When we add a record similar to another introducing a variation in its content we use quite often a codified information, usually quite simple, that allows us to organize and interpret the information already or potentially present in the record itself: the "state".

Introducing another example that we will recall later, supposing that I want to insert a record for every new ac- count in the archive or database of a bank and I have to maintain a record of every closed account, I need at the very least one field in which to write "O" or "C" for identifying both the "open" and the "closed" states. If I should need to consult the archive for a feedback on the number of closed or open accounts it would be enough just to

create the above field in the record, (b) fill it with the correct information in the correct moment and (c) recall that information, that specific record "state" at the very same moment in which I need an "output" to my "query".

Record  
Number Acc. Code Acc. O Acc Type Start Date Acc. State

1 AA132989 John Smith A 15/01/2013 Open

2 AG234456 Simon Waters A 01/04/2010 Open

3 CR267539 John Milton C 15/09/2014 Closed

It's normal to come upon these considerations and logics examining details of the information management approach regarding computer programs and databases: we have these solutions today, having reached the peak of the information age, thanks to decades of enhancements applied by intelligent beings with that specific pur- pose, so what we have is the best of what intellectual and technological growth can develop in years and years.

But it may seem less "normal" to find out that these very same logics and considerations, that we've just de- scribed as the product of years and years of applications by the most clever being of the planet, are fully adopted in biological processes operating in the cells inside our body, as in those of every living organism.

And this happens since the appearance of the first so-called "simple" –supposedly named by evolutionists- uni- cellular life forms, with logics and processes fundamentally unchanged from the extant ones.

### Protein Production Requires a State Management

Every living being is made of cells; every cell is made of proteins (or of their products).

Proteins aren't "substances", as how sometimes are simplistically defined; granted, from a certain point of view everything is a "substance", even the computer that we use when we surf the Internet, since substances are con- stituted by atoms, and atoms are the fundamental building blocks of matter.

Proteins are rather electrochemical mechanical (and, as we will see, even information processing) mechanisms that constitute, assemble, regulate, maintain, manage, transform create and destroy (and much more) cells and tissues of any living organism (and even of any "non-living" one, like viruses).

Their almost boundless diversity is remarkable: it's been estimated that inside of the human body there are at

least 25.000 different kind of proteins, every one with its specificity that can be connected to a moment, a pur- pose, a quantity essential or concurrent to the completion of a certain function.

What prepares and produces proteins in the cell? Very simple: other proteins, themselves prepared and pro- duced in the same way.

But, if we make an analogy, it will be easy to grasp that; for a production line that must continually and according to specific and highly variable requirements churn out something as 25.000 different pieces, you need to man- age the production flow, in some way. the amount and diversity are so high that a "production problem" in such a "factory" would mean not only a halt in the production line, but a following money loss. the same would cost the life of the cell and maybe of the entire organism.

It becomes clear that it's essential to have the pieces production line under control, managing the different phases, maybe having the information of the point at which the single piece is in the production phase: a state management.

### State Management and Information

When a software program must control records variations it's essential that a programmer assigns semiotically a condition to information and structures the software to allow the management of that condition.

If I would want to use my program to manage the production of a car in the final steps of its construction, say for example during the painting process, I may ensure that (a) some optical sensors recognize the entrance of the car bodies in the painting basin, that (b) other proximity sensors activate drying fans for the bodies that are al- ready painted, that (c) a timer stops the drying process and (d) a weight sensor involves the activation of carrying robots designate for moving the painted models to the next production step.

If my program would follow every car body passing this phase, I could create a specific field named "Painting State" in the database used by my program, in which it will be saved the information received from the various transducers with four different letters, "A", "B","C", "D": with a simple function that compares the records with the state "A" with the ones having the others I could know in real time how many cars I still have to paint, how many are painted and how many I deliver to the next phase.

I believe that this simple example could adequately represent the usefulness of the state management in infor- matics and its countless applications.

This powerful tool of assigning "meaning" and "purpose" to simple letters - though used within the appropri- ate context and the proper tools, allows to increase tremendously the amount of feedback information from a process managed with it: I can control every aspect of the quality in my production, as speed and precision, cali- brating it on the requests flow, of the personnel, the environmental context, the raw material supply, and so on.

Potential is almost limitless if behind those "letters" there's a need, a project and a mechanism that allows its management: to utilize to the full this potential it's clearly essential that an intelligent - and competent being modifies the program inserting the instruction needed.

### A Record State in the Er and in the Golgi Apparatus

Cells are constituted by several discrete compo- nents that perform different functions, called organ- elles. Among them, endoplasmatic reticulum (ER) and

the Golgi apparatus (GA) are very important on proteins production and dispatching inside the cell. Proteins being "wrought" and distributed through these two electrochemi- cal mechanical marvels, ER and GA, circulate inside them using

vesicles that become detached from and attached to the organelles membranes using others protein functions that we will not consider in this present lecture.

Simplifying with another analogy taken from the previous ones (inevitably a little more complex), proteins could correspond to a car that must be complet- ed in an assembly line, ER and GA to the assembly line and the vesicles to the

transporter robots designated for the circulation of the car "under construction". How can all this flow of preparation, mounting and distribution be controlled?

An informatics engineer today would propose to do it with a software program, which eas- ily allows a state management in the various phases of the car production. at this point let's

introduce the heart of the matter: the real incredible thing is to find that this solution, resulted from decades of enhanced applied intelligence, thought and proposed by an expert and com- petent intelligent human being, is exactly what happens inside the cell through the use of specific

sugar chemical compounds, called oligosaccharides or N-glycans, able to provide semiotics, a precise and straight information on the state i.e. the phase at which a protein is arrived in a certain moment.

Let's compare so the proteins to the records and these sugars to the field that contains the infor- mation related to the state of the record itself and let's see if the analogy fits.

These sugar chains are prepared and "attached" on the folding protein as some kind of a "mounting diary" that will accompany them through all the following phases till they will become detached as unnecessary.

Before being used as "mounting diary", these chemical structures must be built and connected to the nascent protein or the protein in some production phase; only for preparing the oligosaccharide, 15 different proteins in- tervene, all coordinated in precise moments and designated to perform specific modifications to the sugar chain.

Once concluded, this huge work of synthesis allows the carrying out of the state management function, an es- sential function added to those that constitute what is defined by biologists and biochemists as a real "Quality Control" system, working inside the cell in the ER and GA, system that is described in a technical paper as it follows [2]:

"The QC system is adapted to handling virtually any condition that results in a protein conformation other than the native state. Accordingly, multiple scenarios of QC arise from the many ways in which proteins can fail to achieve their native conformation".

Therefore a system highly complex, able to manage and act automatically on the "quality" of the production in relation to every possible scenario that would materialize, an extraordinary thing for a process capable to pro- duce more than 20.000 different "pieces". for example, some proteins require oligosaccharides for the folding properly in the ER. Furthermore, oligosaccharides even confer stability to several secreted protein structures, as well as favor their preparation and transport.

In addition, cells adhesions are facilitated if there are oligosaccharides on the proteins that serve as "hooks".

In short, every oligosaccharide's modified form has both chemical, "structural" and "semiotical" characteristics that are, recalling our main theme, essential to the nascent protein production process.

Sugar structure is transferred on to the protein and linked to a special part of the constituting amino acids se- quence, acting then as a block or as a "promoter" for others proteins adhesion, proteins used for sorting and management like lectins homologues calreticulin and calnexin, thus even indicating at which "point" of the production the nascent protein has arrived.

Additionally, exactly as it would happen in our car painting example described above, there's no guarantee that the painting process would not be completed if the transducers that signal the car body passage would be inactivated, but anomalies on the final result quality may occur, as well as management problems of the entire process, resulting in unsellable products.

In fact, in laboratory experiments where synthesis of oligosaccharides portions is inhibited, proteins are still pro- duced but they don't fold properly (so they result to be not functional), accumulate in the ER and are less stable: in short, "unsellable".

### Adaptation or Irreducibly Complex Innovation?

The paragraph cited above describing the quality control system, has used a term to indicate how a set of these kinds of systems may have appeared in living organisms (assuming that it may have done so after the same living organism itself): that term is "adapted".

Actually we don't want to raise doubts on the fact that organisms are able to adapt to environment changes, selecting the more fitting "versions" depending on the wvarious context. but adaptation doesn't create biolog- ical novelties: at these level of complexity, nothing that wasn't pre-existing has been observed experimentally "arise" from precedent or different systems. Indeed, biological novelty so complex, with functional constraints requiring simultaneously and holistically expressed functions, it's described by intelligent design theorists as "irreducibly complex", as a whole or in its parts.

After all, in an evolutionary context, to explain why oligosaccharides are used for state management as it occurs in informatics one should not only invoke prohibitive probabilistic arguments of selection of the correct sugar structure useful to manage all the various "transitions" but even for all the systems that prepare that specific structure (and we've seen how this process is complex and structured) as well as for all the machineries that utilize the information that it represents and its biochemical design, with their stability characteristics.

It is true that [allegedly] evolutionary adaptation operates step by step, selecting the most beneficial "version" of the "program" - using informatics terms - but it's exactly this condition that makes extremely difficult to demon- strate logically and experimentally evolutionary "jumps" essential to these transitions. a complete function which brings advantage at every single hypothetical step must be identified, steps to obtain the oligosaccha- rides structure and all the specificities of the hundreds of molecular machines connected to them and which operate behind a system like this. It's easy to understand how the sum of all these probabilities that must bring an advantage at every single selective "step" makes too far implausible an hypothetical scenario in which the required biological information parameter is overlooked, even without analyzing the details behind these steps. Exactly as you would refuse to believe someone that would try to convince you to have guessed your phone num- ber making casual phone calls, the factors of (i) scientifically accepted available time since the appearance of life on earth, (ii) the mode of "exploration" of the probabilistic space that evolution adopts, (iii) holistic complexity of the systems to obtain render a hazardous fairy tale assume the appearance of such a process without being able to observe it or prove it, but just because it has to be the only way to achieve a result.

It should be noted too that these molecules are "conserved" practically in every complex form of living organism, namely we don't find noteworthy variations in their structure among living things, so it's very complicated to define an "evolutive line" related to their appearance which is scientifically satisfying, although hypothetical or speculative.

So, can we assume a simpler oligosaccharide, with less managed "states", to place in the "evolutive ladder" as a precursor of the extant forms? Very complicated, for several reasons that we can summarize resuming our anal- ogies. How could a quality control system work if it would verify, for example, just the entrance and the exit of the car bodies? How could a computer program, recompiled after the casual insertion of letters, numbers, spaces and symbols in its code, create all the needed structures for implementing the management of the state from one or two at the very best to fourteen, knowing that behind every state there are dozens of others part of the pro- gram that you would need to exist simultaneously an contextually as to carry out specific and complex functions? an oligosaccharide composed of one or two sugars is not so probabilistically prohibitive, but adding just another single sugar to the chain means at least that (i) this biological information must be semiotically connected to a certain specific condition in the protein production phase (possibly one of the biggest hurdles for the evolution of this sugar structure), that (ii) the enzyme which attaches it (and which carries out yet others functions) would "appear" or "come to aid" (we're talking about another complex protein, specifically formed by hundreds of ami- no acids), that (iii) the enzymes and the proteins which "read" that "state" would exist, would be structured for "reading it" and for acting once activated by it and finally that (iv) the structural stability which the oligosaccharides concur to create would be so, even with such a different or smaller structure.

Oligosaccharides are not an analogy with the state of an informatics record and all that surrounds it: they are real molecular support for biological information management, being automatically prepared by the very same proteins, which they

INDEED, BIOLOGICAL NOVELTY SO COMPLEX, WITH FUNCTIONAL CONSTRAINTS REQUIRING SIMULTANEOUSLY and HOLISTICALLY EXPRESSED FUNCTIONS, IT'S DESCRIBED by INTELLIGENT DESIGN THEORISTS as "IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX", as a WHOLE or in ITS PARTS. - CARLO ALBERTO COSSANO

## Adnan Oktar Says: Intracellular Molecular Machines That Perform Protein Care and Cleanup

Cells spring to life with the proteins and the functions of the cells actualize through pro- teins specially made for each task.

In a typical mammal cell, there are approximate- ly ten to twenty thousand different functioning protein varieties. for a cell to be healthy, these proteins need to be healthy first. for this reason, the existence of intracellular quality control mech- anisms is crucial.

The latest studies revealed a quality control sys- tem made up from proteins, which again control the proteins inside the cell. According to this, de- fective or damaged proteins are identified first, and then removed from the environment

### Proteins Create a Toxic Effect If They Are Misfolded

A protein leaves the ribosome as a chain formed by thousands of amino acids, however it can't fulfill its functions without transforming into the three- dimensional state folded onto itself. Pro- teins called chaperons transform these amino acid chains into their designed final state in seconds and turn them into functional nano-machines. However, during this folding phase, which re- quires sensitive connections at molecular level, errors can be made and broken amino acid aggre- gates can be formed. Faulty proteins such as these can pose a great danger to the health of the cell. Because there is a high possibility for these in- correctly folded proteins to chemically bond with other molecules in the environment due to their exposed linkups.

All manner of dysfunctional proteins that are ready for uncontrolled chemical bonding are in fact quite hazardous for the cell. Accumulation of this waste material poses a health risk for the cell and the entire body. Alzheimer's and Parkin- son's diseases, where permanent neuron damage develops, various heart diseases, diabetes and certain cancers arise due to improper handling of the intracellular protein balance. Faulty proteins cause "accumulation" by sticking to each other and other proteins and therefore a cytotoxic effect, in other words, intracellular intoxication ensues. These aggregates, which are comprised of faulty proteins, are in the form of fibrils (or filaments) and are also defined as amyloid accumulations.1

### An Intracellular Monitoring and Control System That Functions 7/24

For a cell to fulfill its functions in a healthy way, a broad and effective quality control network has to be in process at any given time. for this, faulty proteins should be collected and immediately removed from the cell. Due to proteins' dynamic structure, they have to be continuously monitored. for this purpose, chaperon molecules and protein breakdown mechanisms that work in combination with each other have to be on continuous duty.

While proteins called chaperons enable folding, they also play a role in repair and maintenance tasks. Due to their critical purpose, chaperons are defined as a cells' "technical inspection authority". They inspect other proteins for errors in quality. When chaperons identify a misfolded broken pro- tein, they engage the protein-breakdown mech- anism. This is the ubiquitin-proteasome (protein degradation) system.

### A Nano-Sized Garbage Disposal System

Protein breakdown is an annihilation process kept under tight control through consecutive steps. in addition to chaperons, Doa10 ligase enzyme was discovered to also detect faulty proteins. When a Doa10 enzyme detects a faulty protein, it marks that protein with the ubiquitin molecule. However, when generating the degradation sig- nal, Ubc6 enzyme first has to attach the ubiqui- tin molecule to the faulty protein. Following this initial step, another enzyme, Ubc7 steps in and forms a homogeneous chain consisting of many ubiquitin molecules. Once the chain is completed, the annihilation process begins. as it is seen, two separate enzymes are needed for the break down signal to be triggered.2

At this phase, proteasome, which consists of 33 subunits and two sub-complexes, detects the ubiquitin and immediately breaks the marked protein's peptide bonds. the faulty protein has now been separated into its amino acids.

When we consider the fact that the 30% of the pro- teins produced within the cell are defected, we can understand how vital a role this garbage disposal system plays better. Faulty production aside, in time, all properly functioning proteins wear down and are replaced by new ones and that means pro- teins, which have reached the end of their lifes- pan, are likewise marked and annihilated.

### Each Detail in Our Body Is an Indication of a Magnificent Creation

If it were not for the precise control system we briefly summarized here that monitors the protein world, we could never speak of cellular health at all. This vital balance system has to function with the same perfection inside each one of the almost 100 trillion cells that constitute our body, which can only be explained by a superior management and coordination.

Mindless proteins overseeing other proteins that are essentially molecules like themselves, again different unconscious molecules acting systemat- ically in a specific order as well as the degradation system being activated only when and where it is needed, can be explained neither with coinci- dences or other idle reasoning.

It is obvious that the absence of even one step in this precise process would lead to the cell's death, this indicates that there should be no deficiency in the entire system and all should be working in co- ordination at the same time. This evidently guides us to the truth that there is only a single "Power" Who has knowledge of all things and created life and all living things. the Owner of this marvelous and breathtaking Power is Almighty God, Who knows and has dominion over all things in the heavens and the earth.

References:

  1. In vivo aspects of protein folding and quality control, David Balchin, Manajit Hayer-Hartl and F. Ulrich Hartl (June 30, 2016)

  2. Science 353 (6294), [doi: 10.1126/science.aac4354] Sequential Poly-ubiquitylation by Specialized Con- jugating Enzymes Expands the Versatility of a Quality Control Ubiquitin Ligase. Annika Weber et al, Molecular Cell 63. DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2016.07.020

## Adnan Oktar Says: the Perfect Distribution of Organelles in the Cell

The basic structural unit of crea- tures, the cell, is incredibly complex enough to leave people amazed. Just like the existence of a single cell, the harmony and cooperation in the cell is very impressive. as the structure of the cell and systems in it are further inves- tigated and new details are found, this perfect order is seen more clearly.

A single cell may be said to resemble a large city with its operation systems, communica- tion networks, transportation and adminis- tration. the power plants generate the power used by cells; the plants generate the enzyme and hormones which are essential for life; the data bank including all information regarding the products to be manufactured; the com- plex transportation systems and pipelines transferring the raw materials and products from one region to the other; the laboratories and refineries separating the raw materials taken from outside into the useful parts; the expert cell membrane proteins executing the enter and exit controls of materials to be taken in or sent out of the cell create only a part of this structure.

Just like cities, there is a dense traffic flow caused by the molecules like "moving on the boats", "walking" and "taking hands" like peo- ple and by the "trucks carrying the organelles" in the cells. However, there is a great order in cells against the traffic congestion in these cit- ies.

An investigation demonstrating this smooth order was made in Exeter University in recent days and the results were published in the journal Nature Communications. This study has shown one more time that the dispersion of organelles in the cell is not random at all, and is caused by a motion depending on en- ergy.

As is known, organelles are specialized func- tional units of cells. the organelles for the cell are the same as organs in the body. Each organelle has special duties to ensure the sustaining of the cell. the order in the ar- rangement of organelles inside the cell is also exceptional. Let us review the results of the research showing how this positioning occurs in the cell.

The distribution of organelles is executed by a special molecule named ATP (adenosine triphosphate). the energy attained from food items is first packaged in ATP. Later on, this energy is used in all the production and trans- portation processes that take place inside the cell. Actually, ATP is like the fuel for molecular motors, which transport its cargo along the fibers of the cytoskeleton. Just like trucking rigs carrying a load, organelles are also carried by means of this fuel from one place to the other as to the needs. During the transporta- tion process, other organelles are also both dragged and kept under the impact of a turbu- lence increasing their motion. However, these

92 2nd International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe -2017

motions never occur randomly. Organelles do not get clustered in a certain part of the cell, or become dispersed randomly; in short, their distribution does not cause any disorder. Quite the contrary, such organization of the cell's components is essential to ensure their interaction and persistence of the cell. Lead researcher Professor Gero Steinberg, Chair in Cell Biology and Director of the Bioimaging Centre at the University of Exeter, said the fol- lowing on this matter:

"Many people had previously assumed that organelles are randomly-distributed, as that's how they appear. Our research has revealed a new fundamental principle of the way cells organize themselves -- that they use energy to create this seemingly random, even distribu- tion. This allows the organelles to interact with each other throughout the cell." 1

If organelles were distributed randomly during their transportation as claimed prior to this research, certain diseases would arise. in fact, organelle clustering without proper distri- bution inside the cell is found in some human disorders, such as Zellweger Syndrome, which

thousands of other mechanisms, and how in- organic molecules could give structure to such organizations that necessitate confounding consciousness, information and intelligence.

This new scientific research carried out by Exeter University makes evident that organ- elles in the cell are not dispersed randomly and they cannot be moved from one place to another without an intelligence that directs them. There is no doubt that this perfect or- der in the cell is not the coincidental ability of organelles that lack intellect or conscious- ness. on the contrary, that is one of the most profound instances of Almighty God's infinite power and His artistry in Creation. God reveals the following in a verse:

" **That is God,your Lord.Thereisnogodbut Him, the Creator of everything. So worship Him. He is responsible for everything." (Qur'an, 6:102)**

is a fatal disease. Children born with this disorder may only live until the age of one". 2

While evolutionists cannot even explain the origin of a single protein molecule, they keep up with their allegations that the cell came into existence through coincidences. the im- passe of evolutionists is not limited with their not being able to explain how the protein and cell originated: Just like the order in the distribution of organelles in the cell, they are obliged to give an account for the existence of

  1. University of Exeter. "How to organize a cell: Novel insight from a fungus." ScienceDaily, 2 June 2016. www.sciencedaily.com/releas- es/2016/06/160602083246.htm

  2. Femke C. C. Klouwer, Kevin Berendse, Sacha Ferdinandusse, Ronald J. A. Wanders, Marc Engelen and Bwee Tien Poll-The. "Zellweger spectrum disorders: clinical overview and management approach." Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases

## Adnan Oktar Says: Protein Synthesis Is Impossible to Explain Through Evolutionary Mechanisms

As evolutionists also well know, it is impossible that even a single protein, which is the smallest building block of life, could come into existence on its own by coincidence. Even the tiniest protein molecule has a superior cre- ation, a striking mechanism and characteristics. It is impossible that inanimate atoms could organize and form this perfect structure through coincidence.

In order to better understand this impossibility, let's summarize the stages in protein production shortly:

### Elements in Protein Synthesis

  * When the information for the protein to be produced is found, a code for protein synthesis is collected from the DNA molecule.

  * This code is a copy-molecule and named mRNA (messenger RNA).

  * mRNA is the copy taken from part of the DNA (gene) but actually there are very imortant differences between DNA and RNA.

  * Three of the 4 letters DNA and RNA use as a code are the same but one is different (Timine-Urasil).

  * There is only a single oxygen molecule different among the sugar molecules to which this single letter is attached.

  * This new mRNA copy molecule is much more active but unstable as a result of this small difference, which means that it has more tendency to enter into new reactions than the DNA.

  * Since DNA is a data bank, it must have a determined and stable structure.

  * mRNA, on the other hand, must be mobile and must transfer the copy molecule and be destroyed when required.

  * Therefore, this unstable structure of mRNA is very important for the cell.

  * Thanks to its unstable structure, mRNA can be produced in the cell at any time, can move in any way and can be degraded at will.

### Rna Polymerase

  * RNA polymerase is an enzyme, meaning a protein and it takes a role in protein synthesis.

  * RNA polymerase is the greatest translator in the world.

  * It reads the code on the DNA and forms the mRNA by translating it into a completely new language.

  * What this enzyme does is very surprising. It understands the text it reads and writes a similar version of this to someplace else.

  * This enzyme also detects any defects that take place –even though they are few in number- and corrects these.

  * What this enzyme does is quite amazing and scientists cannot even approach duplicating these processes in a lab environment.

  * DNA is composed of a double helix. These helixes rotate on top of one another to form strong bonds. However, the hydrogen bonds, which hold the chain intact, must be degraded to use the information kept in here. RNA polymerase degrades these bonds. RNA polymerase (RNAP) is an enzyme, but what it does is so high-tech that we can compare it to a factory because a separate unit is required to identify the section that will be added to the DNA chain, a separate unit to bond, to move ahead, to copy, to synthesize RNA, and cut DNA bonds. RNA can do these easy to say but difficult to do processes in the blink of an eye. It was discovered that only the E-coli bacteria has 100 sub-units for RNAP to do all these tasks (different proteins).1

### The Code in the DNA

  * The alphabet in the DNA is only four letters. the derivatives of these four letters form a perfect coding system in the DNA:

  * The beginning and end points of the genes are defined with special codes.

  * During protein synthesis, RNA polymerase finds the required code instantly in a single book inside a library of 1,000 books inside 46 chromosomes that belong to the human genome. This code is only a couple of sequences of information within this book.

  * When RNA polymerase reaches this region, DNA finds the beginning point of the protein it will make a copy of using the coding system mentioned above. This finding process is a significant problem for the world of science because this brings

  * with it many unknowns, such as how to find the beginning and end points of the gene to be copied in the DNA and how the timing of the copying is regulated.

  * Every protein begins with an amino acid called methionine and the code for this on the DNA is TAC (Timine-Adenine-Citozine).

  * When the RNA polymerase enzyme comes to the TAC code in a specific region, it understands that it has reached the beginning point of the required copy for the protein and opens the DNA helix.

  * ATT, ATC and ACT are used as the ending sequences. When one of these is reached, it understands that it has reached the end of the required copy and finishes the copying process.

### Promoters

  * There are special coded sequences in the parts of the DNA called promoters.

  * While the first line is -35 bases before the protein begins and the second line is -10 bases before.

  * The first of these sequences is named as the- 35 sequence or recognition area.

  * A counterpart for this sequence is created on the RNA polymerase.

  * RNA polymerases connect to this special sequence on the promoter sections of the gene and detect the production information of the protein.

  * After the RNA polymerase attaches to the recognition area on the DNA, they move on the DNA and close up to where the protein information begins.

  * This is just like a plane reaching the airport and closing in on the landing strip with lights and signs on it.

  * Promoter sections show the location searched to the RNA polymerases just like arrow signs. a group of atoms telling the place of another group of atoms is a clear evidence of Creation.

  * The -10 sequence, which points 10 bases before where the protein begins, points to the place where the RNA polymerase begins to open the DNA double helix.

  * This section in the DNA is like a door that opens to information. It is the place the DNA double helix begins to open for protein synthesis.

  * Even if everything were there for protein production, the system would collapse and no being could survive, had the promoter section of the DNA or the part of the

  * RNA polymerase that will identify the promoter section not existed.

### Regulator Gene

  * The RNA polymerases must be attached to promoter sections and control code production for protein synthesis: for this God created a very special system.

  * A protein to "stop" the RNA polymerase is produced in a special section called the "Regulator Gene." This protein attaches to the DNA, exactly where the code that needs to be copied for the protein that will be produced ends.

  * It holds onto the RNA. While the RNA polymerase continues to make copies, it stops as soon as it sees this protein. This is the terminus point of the copy at hand.

  * In this way, no codes more than needed are copied.

  * We can compare this to putting an obstacle between the gear wheels to halt excess production in a factory.

  * However, if the cell still needs protein production, the inhibitor proteins are sent away from the DNA and so the way ahead for protein production is clear.

  * Coding systems are often used in stores. Thanks to devices that can read codes, we are able to read what is bought. It is amazing that our coding system is through molecules in the DNA. One must not forget that all these actions, which require wisdom, caution, precision and knowledge, are carried out by unconscious molecules. It is great foolishness to claim that this perfect system comes into existence through coincidence. the details in protein production are not limited to what's presented here. Accelerators and attenuators

  * There are two special sequences in the DNA called accelerator and attenuator. These help adjust the speed of protein production.

  * It is a manifestation of the perfection in God's creation that some special sequences in the DNA adjust the speed of protein production just like the mechanisms adjusting a car's speed. Additional information in the beginning and end of the code

  * mRNAs take the code they have, meaning the photocopy, to ribosomes, which are production facilities.

  * However, different than a normal photocopy, there are some signals in the beginning and end of the mRNA other than protein information. These signals are some

  * special nucleotide sequences.

  * Here there is a great miracle of Creation because this structure is the basis of the discipline, which is today called computer networks and telecommunication. Sending data by adding control transcriptions and additional information at the beginning and end of the data is a very common application.

  * These special signal sequences are similar to codes. When the recipient gets this it under stands that there is new information coming in.

  * These signs, which are used in addition to the data, include information about where the package will be sent to, error checking, details to prevent confusion with other data packages and prioritization .

  * A sign placed right before the protein code has a special section to attach to the related ribosome. mRNA can only be attached to the ribosome in this way. Thanks to this sign, the ribosome understands that mRNA contains information about itself.

  * There is a sign at the end of mRNA. This is attached to the sign sequence with special proteins and mRNA is protected from destruction.

  * Moreover, this sign attached at the end of mRNA helps mRNA get out of the nucleolus and go to the ribosome area and recognize the ribosome.

  * This situation is like this: Let's say that you are going to send a page inside a book from a library of 920 book volumes to a friend. of course it will not be enough to take a photocopy of the related book. This must be transmitted much like a mailing system. the recipient name and mailing details on the paper are like this sign on the mRNA.

  * Proteins tied with this sign are like a mail coach that transmits this information. They carry out the related mission.

### Ribosome

  * Ribosomes are special units that carry out protein synthesis.

  * They are approximately 20-30 nanometers in diameter (1nm= one in one billionth of 1 meter)

  * The discovery of the three dimensional structures of ribosomes measured in nanometers is accepted as one of the most important success stories in the field of biology in 2000s.

  * Two third of ribosomes are composed of RNA and the remaining one third is composed of proteins. the RNAs in the ribosome are called RNA or rRNA.

  * We stated that ribosomes are composed of rRNAs and proteins. What's interesting is that proteins that make up the ribosomes are also synthesized in ribosomes.

  * In other words, without proteins, ribosomes cannot exist but ribosomes also make proteins.

  * Ribosome re-writes the information, which is formed by structuring the four letters that come from the DNA in several ways by using the 20-letter amino acid alphabet.

  * Sometimes the cell may need more than one copy of the same protein but it is not possible to synthesize the required amount of protein in a single ribosome.

  * Then many ribosomes are needed.

  * For this reason, ribosomes are aligned one after the other and form sets called polysomes.

  * During protein synthesis, mRNA passes through the ribosomes and when its tip leaves the first ribosomes, it is taken in by the second ribosome and a new copy of the same protein is synthesized.

  * At the same time, the first ribosome continues to read the rest of the mRNA.

  * When the tip of the mRNA leaves the second ribosome, it is taken in by the third ribo some and this action continues successively.

  * Thus, a single mRNA chain is read by many ribosomes at the same time and the required amount of proteins is synthesized in a short time.

### Importance of Cell Nucleus

  * DNA of prokaryote bacteria is inside the cell fluid; in eukaryote beings, the DNA is sepa rated from the cell fluid by the nuclear membrane.

  * The nuclear membrane is a system with additional protection and control of entrance and exit.

  * Even though the cell itself is covered with a single membrane, the nucleus is covered with a double membrane. There is a thin space in between the two membranes

  * and the structures and functions of the interior and exterior membranes are different from one another.

  * There are approximately 3,000-4,000 doors on the nuclear membrane and 500 molecules enter and exit through each of these doors every second. This is a akin to a highway where 500 vehicles pass in bi-directional traffic and there are no traffic accidents.

  * The building material of this membrane system and the doors (pores) on it are utterly perfect.

  * The average size of these doors (pores) is almost 30 times that of a ribosome and they are composed of hundreds of different sorts of proteins.

  * Only building blocks with special codes can enter through these pores into the nucleus. There is very strict control at these doors and it is still a great mystery for the world of science how these pores work.

  * These guards at the nuclear membrane always allow the proteins that belong to the nucleus enter so only nucleus proteins can enter the nucleus.

  * For a protein to pass through a pore it needs a special five-letter amino acid sequence. This five-letter special sequence, lysine- lysine - lysine -arginine- lysine, is the code the protein needs to enter the nucleus.

  * Special code -detecting proteins that wait at the doors detect the special code on the cargo. Entrance and exist can only be made in this way. but there is another

  * miracle here: Scientists have found that pores open for every protein only as large as that protein to pass through. So if we can give an example, this is like

  * an automatic door with a specific numerical password opening for everyone who enters the password according to the person's width. It is one of the unknowns in mi crobiology that proteins with no eyes can know about the width of a single protein inside the cell, which is a very dark place.

  * These proteins are like a doorman that helps a passenger with a ticket who doesn't know the way.

  * The receptor protein, which detects the code of the opposite party, doesn't leave the passenger alone either during exit from the nucleus or entering the nucleus. If there will be entry into the nucleus, they move along the passage channel together with the passenger. at the point of entry into the nucleus, it leaves the passenger and turns back to the channel and gets ready to take in new proteins.

  * This system is meaningful only if it is complete with all these details and sub-units. It is not possible for this system to have come into existence over time in stages.

  * The nucleus works like a brain. Under normal circumstances, all messages that are sent from the outside world are not transmitted to the nucleus. a majority of these messages is replied to by the cell membrane and ribosome.

  * However, when important jobs are concerned, the message is transmitted to the nucleus. Despite the initial elimination the nucleus is very busy; 500 passes through one second is important evidence for this.

### Protein Production With Packaged DNA

  * The flawless databank in the cell, called the DNA, is a two-meter long code when it is opened up. This code fits into an area much smaller than itself and this is a clear miracle.

  * For this packaging system, histone proteins are used.

  * Histone proteins have five varieties. When these five proteins are brought together in an orderly way, a sort of molecular reel is made. the DNA is wrapped around these reels to be packaged.

  * Every package unit is called a nucleosome.

  * Histone proteins are special proteins wrapped around the DNA. It is very interesting that the information of these proteins is also kept inside the DNA.

  * The DNA being wrapped around reel proteins to be ordered as nucleosomes prevents the wrapped information from being read. in this case, protein production cannot be done under normal conditions. However for the survival of the cell protein production must continue. Therefore, nucleosomes are not fixed unchanged structures but dynamic structures that can be changed when needed. for example, when there will be a process in that part of the DNA, an enzyme called the ATP-Dependent Chromatin Remodeling Complex2 is catalyzed and this allows nucleosomes to open. We can compare the nucle- osome-enzyme adaptation observed at this point to a key with a very special three-di- mensional shape holding onto the histone proteins' specific parts and loosening it with- out harming the DNA string.

  * Therefore, histone proteins must exist together with the systems that allow the information from the DNA to be read from histone proteins at the very beginning.

  * For this, Almighty God created robot molecules.

  * The research done shows that several molecules like methyl, acetyl, phosphate are added to and extracted from histone proteins. as a result, with these additions some additional codes are formed, and these codes are read by other enzymes.

  * For example, histones with methyl added to them symbolize parts that cannot carry out production in the DNA.

  * Such a flawless structure is no doubt a clear miracle of Creation.Evolutionists have to explain not only how a single protein molecule has come into existence but also how

  * 100 2nd International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe -2017

  * this perfect organiza- tion has come to be. Even if evolutionists were provided with all the materials required for life to come into ex- istence, it is impossible that this organization could exist on its own, or that molecules could form such a perfect sys-

  * tem. It is abundantly clear and completely certain that every detail of life is the work of Almighty and All-Knowing God.

  1. Molecular Biology of the Cell, fifth edition p. 215

  2. Akira Ishihama (2000). Func- tional modulation of Esche- richia coli RNA polymerase. pp. 499–518. doi:10.1146/annurev. micro.54.1.499)

## Dr. Paolo Cioni - "Psyche and the Crisis of Materialist Reductionism"

I start quoting famous Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka about the failure of materialist reductionism in psychology (1930): "the materialistic solution is astonishingly simple. It says: the whole problem is illusory. There are no three kinds of substance or modes of existence, matter, life, and mind: there is only one, and that is matter, composed of blindly whirling atoms which, because of their great numbers and the long time at their disposal, form all sorts of combinations, and among them those we call animals and human beings. Thinking and feeling, why, they are just movements of atoms..."

This view is not only a scientific conviction, but as well, or even more so, is a creed and a wish.

It is the revolt of a generation that saw a strongly entrenched church hold on to dogmas which science, growing up like a young giant, had crushed a generation that, by the successful applications of science to technical prob- lems, had become overly arrogant and had lost that feeling of awe which should accompany all true knowledge. Just as the victorious barbarians, be they vandals or Calvinists, destroyed thoroughly and passionately the cre- ations most dear to the vanquished enemies, so our materialists developed a hatred of those parts of human philosophy that pointed beyond the pale of their narrow conceptions. to be called a philosopher was an insult, and to be a believer was to belong among the Untouchables.

Koffka has also good arguments against Darwinism: "We could easily fall into the trap of teleological explana- tion, looking at the result of communication and using this result as a cause of the process. to say: a certain pro- cess occurs because it is biologically useful, would be the kind of explanation we have to guard against. for the biological advantage of a process is an effect, which has to be explained by the process, but the former cannot be used to explain the latter. the concept of biological advantage, on the other hand, does not belong to dynamics at all. and therefore teleological explanations in terms of biological advantage have no place in Gestalt theory". Neuroscientists are reductionists and primarily monists. in its classic form materialistic monism implies that body and mind are the same thing. the identity theory posits a complete correspondence between mind and body: mental states or mental phenomena, such as feeling pain or seeing red color, would be nothing more than neural events that depend on the activation of specific neurons, cerebral structures or pathways.

Thus, subjective events must be assimilated to objective ones at the bodily level: i.e., the sensation of pain would be a mere epiphenomenon of a neurobiological fact. Mind is consequently interpreted by mainstream material- ists as nothing more than a byproduct of brain activity.

Warnings about this raw reductionism, though, are sent even by some of the most enlightened representatives of the physicalist position.

I hereby quote two Authors:

Mark Johnson (2007): "No single method of inquiry could ever capture everything we need to help us under- stand the tightly interwoven phenomena of body, meaning, and mind. for example, unless human beings as a species someday lose their capacity for consciousness, we are never going to give up the phenomenological level of explanation. at the very least, we are going to define many of the primary phenomena of mind on the basis of our felt experience over our bodies and our world. Consequently, the adequacy of explanations of other levels (such as accounts from cognitive neuroscience) is going to be judged, in part, by how well they help us understand the phenomena so described (i.e. the phenomenological body). What else could we expect, since all explanations are explanations to and for ourselves, geared to helping us understand our world? They are necessarily going to be evaluated by us relative to our body-based capacities for meaning-making, inquiry, and thought."

Alberto Oliverio (2012): "Neuroscientists aimed at clarifying the nature of the different mechanisms of the brain, but have paid less attention to the ways in which they cooperate and to those interactions through which emerg- es a mind that is not derived from the simple sum of individual activities that are separated into watertight compartments. While describing emotional mechanisms, neurotransmitters that underlie them, nervous centers that are involved, neuroscientists have not focused on the classical aspects of the emotions: their meaning, their relationships with distant experiences, the way in which emotions help to give meaning to our existence, to di- rect our purposes, to structure our thinking patterns. for these reasons, although some theories of mind take into

account the results deriving from neuroscientific knowledge, the mind that philosophers and psychologists look at is usually different from the one described by neuroscientists. Despite advances in neuroscience –or maybe because of them- the contrast seems to persist between the world of objectivity and the one of subjectivity, the world of mechanisms and the one of meanings. "

The condition given by mainstream physicalists can be conceived as a unidirectional bottom-up process: the nervous system, at its highest level, produces mental properties. Mind as a separate entity might even be non- existent.

This theory, however, whether the brain-mind relationship is interpreted as an identity, whether it is understood as causal relationship, seems already less convincing when one considers mental pain or distress: in the case of a person suffering from what has happened to himself, any neurobiological modification will be secondary. at this level, the aforementioned unidirectional bottom-up process takes the form of a bidirectional process, where the top-down component must, as well, be taken into account.

This could lead us to ascertain that mind, once created by brain activity, has its own, somewhat independent, life. Mind interacts with itself and the product of its activity is somehow poured out on the physical structure that caused the onset of the process itself.

This way, we are able to have a better explanation of some psychophysical phenomena that are nowadays be- yond the reach of explanation in conventional physicalist terms. Among them, phenomena of extreme psy- chophysiological influence such as stigmata, hypnotic blisters, or other skin markings of specific shapes and at specific locations induced by suggestion or vivid imagination; maternal impressions; distant mental influence on living systems; which are not compatible with the known anatomic and physiological pathways. and more: life-transforming mystical experiences of both extrovert and introvert forms, and their connections with ge- nius-level creativity, psi phenomena, and NDEs occurring under extreme physiological conditions. but also: the central phenomena of our everyday conscious mental life including meaning, intentionality, and consciousness itself with its built-in features of unity, qualitative or phenomenal content, and subjective point of view.

This concept (the mind interacting with itself and with the structure that produces it in a two-way direction) is anything but naïve, and perfectly compatible with the latest developments of modern physics.

With regard to this, Henry Stapp, a renowned quantum physicist, has proposed a systematic attempt to use the implications of quantum physics for mind-brain theory. According to Stapp, there continue to be bottom-up and locally acting mechanical processes (which von Neumann calls Process 2), like the process of exocytosis in which neurotransmitter molecules are released into the synaptic cleft, but these now take the form prescribed by quantum-mechanical generalizations of the laws of classical mechanics and incorporate all of the uncertainties entailed by the quantum principles. Operating alone, Process 2 would rapidly generate a vast proliferation of possible brain states, simultaneously existing in a state of potentiality. What actually happens, according to the quantum principle, is determined at least in part by a second process (Process 1) of fundamentally different char- acter, which von Neumann himself specifically characterized as arising from, or leading into, the human mind, "the intellectual inner life of the individual" (p.418). These influences are entirely free, in the sense of not being determined by anything in the physics itself. Consciousness itself, in short, is needed to complete the quantum dynamics.

In summary, according to Stapp, the conscious mental activity operates top- down, and in an inherently non-local manner, to select or enforce large-scale, quasi-stable patterns of oscillatory brain activity from the multitude of possible patterns generated by Process 2. These sorts of global activity patterns correspond in a natural way to neural correlates of mental activity, as conventionally conceived. DR. PAOLO CIONI

Increasingly hard times are ahead for pure materialists. American psychiatrist Edward Kelly, with a highly qual- ified multidisciplinary team assembled at the University of Virginia, has produced two very thorough books on the empirical, evidence-based, and theoretical levels: "Irreducible Mind" (2007) and "Beyond Physicalism" (2015). in these books, on the path traced by F. Myers ("Human Personality and Its Survival From Bodily Death", 1907), he outlines some research directions widened to include phenomena, hitherto relegated to the field of "parapsychology", fully inside of the topics pertaining to psychological and psychiatric sciences. Theories must be adaptable to include observed phenomena and potentially significant elements for the advancement of specific knowledge, and not be used to exclude phenomena that are not befitting for their frameworks.

Qualitative progresses of science arise, Kelly points out, not from the observation of the usual phenomena, falling into the theory, but of exceptional, unusual phenomena, that just because of their qualities, falsify the mainstream theory, and lead to drafting a new one. Just as in the field of physics, where some exceptional phe- nomena have led to overcome classical physics discovering relativistic and quantum reality, the same should be expected with the study of psyche. in the psychic sphere we observe, albeit rarely compared to the usual ones, multiple phenomena that refute, and falsify the dominant theory about psyche-matter relationships and reality itself. Hiding these phenomena, or setting them aside under the label of "para ...", just because they are statisti- cally rare and because they are hard to be observed, or to get the approval of mainstream authorities (with relat-

be sufficient, on presently accepted physicalist principles, to prevent their formation." Kelly reports also even more sensational and disturbing cases, which disrupt mainstream theories, of "true precognition", i.e. direct or unmediated apprehension of future events: "Most significant, in our view, are the many well- documented spon- taneous cases involving multiple low-level factual details that are recorded at the time of the original experience (which often takes the form of an unusually vivid or intense dream), and then verifiably occur at a distant point in the future". He maintains, too, that there is "a large further body of evidence directly suggestive of postmortem survival, the persistence of elements of mind and personality following bodily death...

We in fact possess a great deal of such evidence, much of it of very high quality, but unfortunately this work remains practically unknown outside the small circle of persons professionally involved with it". This line of re- search is historically derived from the "trance" studies: "A large proportion of the most important research re- volves around a half-dozen or so such persons who proved especially good at providing, under well-controlled conditions, detailed and accurate information seeming to derive from specific deceased persons about whom they could not have learned in any normal way." Among these stands out the historical case of Leonora Piper, discovered in 1885 by William James, the founder of American scientific psychology.

The research area on post-mortem survival concerns also the so-called "apparitions", in which the percipient may see an actual visual apparition, hear a voice, have a dream, or simply feel the presence of a loved one, at or near the time that the "agent" is undergoing serious or fatal injury at some physically remote location. Bob Rosenberg has built in about the subject an archive of more than 700 individual cases, many of which include detailed documentation, such as: testimonies of people or partners who attended the event, and clinical and legal data. It seems really difficult to overlook the impact of this, taking refuge behind a simple denial.

Famous neuroscientist C. Koch, who has worked for 20 years with F. Crick, co- discoverer of the DNA molecule, has recently (2009) shocked the scientific community by publishing his belief that consciousness probably does not reside exclusively in the brain, but it is an essential manifestation of reality. This view, known by philosophers as "panpsychism", today finds its highest expression in the scientific theory of consciousness of neuroscientist

G. Tononi, in the past collaborator of super materialist G. M. Edelmann, Nobel Prize winner, and co- writer of the book: "A Universe of Consciousness. How Matter Becomes Imagination," 2000.

Tononi has outlined in 2004, and then developed later, the so-called ITT (Integrated Information Theory). Accord- ing to this perspective, "consciousness is a fundamental property, such as mass and charge. Wherever there is an entity with multiple states, there is some consciousness. a special structure (like human nervous system) is need- ed to gather much of it, but consciousness is everywhere, it is a fundamental property." This theory, so distant from the initial purely materialistic mainstream approach, is now subject to serious consideration by the neuro- science world, being based on empirically quantifiable assumptions. the implications are vast, and unthinkable until today: the mathematical value of the information integrated into a network, known as phi, is greater than zero in every living cell, each electronic circuit, even in a proton consisting of only three elementary particles.

Physicists like J. Wheeler have laid the foundation for an understanding of a completely new reality, in which matter, laws and physical constants of nature, and the whole universe are best described, not in terms of physical objects, but through "processing of a fundamental dynamic information".

Quantum mechanics suggests that at the deepest level of nature, the entire physical universe is interconnected.

Could the total information of the Universe be integrated in some deep sense? Is the Universe in some way conscious of itself? Are we ourselves, with our separate and cooperative individual consciences the way in which the Universe is conscious of itself (as astrophysicist C. Sagan stated)?

MYSTERY and AWE ARE PART of OUR LIVES and ACCOMPANY US THROUGH ALL OUR TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES. MATERIALISTIC REDUCTIONISM ONLY DISTANCES US FROM the TRUTH. - DR. PAOLO CIONI

## Adnan Oktar Says: Who Is It That Experiences All These Perceptions?

As we know, the electric signals coming from the cells in our eyes are transformed into an image in our brains. for example, the brain interprets some electrical signals coming to the visual center in the brain as a field filled with sunflowers. in reality, it is not the eye that is seeing.

Therefore, if it is not our eyes which are seeing, what is it that sees the electrical signals as a sunflower field, at the back of our brain, in a pitch dark place, without feeling any necessity for any eyes, retina, lens, visual nerves or pupil and enjoys the view in the sight?

Or who is it that hears (without needing an ear) the voice of a very close friend, be- comes happy on hearing it, and misses it when he cannot hear it, when the brain is totally sound proof?

Or who is it in the brain that feels the fur of the cat when stroking it, without having any need for a hand, fingers or muscles?

Who is it that feels sensations such as heat, cold, and a sense of consistency, depth, and distance, as they originate in the brain?

Who is it that smells the lemon, lavender flower, rose, melon, watermelon, orange, and barbecued meat inside the brain

(even though the brain is smellproof), and feels hungry because of the smell coming from the grill?

We have thus far discussed how every- thing we perceive continuously is actually formed inside our brains. Who is it then that sees the sights in a brain as if watch- ing television, and becomes excited, hap- py, sad, nervous, or feels pleasure, anxiety or curiosity while watching them? Who is responsible for the consciousness which is capable of interpreting everything seen and everything felt?

What is the entity in the brain that has con- sciousness and throughout life is capable of seeing all the sights shown to him in a dark, quiet head, that is capable of think- ing, and reaches conclusions and makes decisions in the end?

It is obvious that it is not the brain, made up of water, lipid and protein, and uncon- scious atoms, that perceives all this and is responsible for consciousness. There must be a being beyond the brain. Despite be- ing a materialist, Daniel Dennett ponders the above question in one of his books:

My conscious thinking, and especially the enjoyment I felt in the combination of sunny light, sunny Vivaldi violins, rippling branches – plus the pleasure I took in just thinking about it all – how could all that be just something physical happening in my brain? How could any combination of electrochemical happenings in my brain somehow add up to the delightful way those hundreds of twigs genuflected in time with the music? How could some in- formation-processing event in my brain be the delicate warmth of the sunlight I felt falling on me? for that matter, how could an event in my brain be my sketchily vi- sualized mental image of... some other information-processing event in my brain? It does seem impossible. It does seem as if the happenings that are my conscious thoughts and experiences cannot be brain happenings, but must be something else, something caused or produced by brain happenings, no doubt, but something in addition, made of different stuff, located in a different space. Well, why not?1

On the other hand, R. L. Gregory questions the existence of the entity in the back of the brain, which sees all sights:

There is a temptation, which must be avoid- ed, to say that the eyes produce pictures in the brain. a picture in the brain suggests the need of some kind of internal eye to see it – but this would need a further eye to see its picture... and so on, in an endless regress of eyes and pictures.

This is absurd.

Materialists who believe that nothing exists except mat- ter cannot understand this particular question. Who

does this "internal eye", which sees and perceives things seen and reacts to such things, belong to?

In the following passage, Karl Pribram describes this important search by science and philosophy for the identity of the perceiver:

It is obvious that it is not the brain, made up of water, lipid and protein, and unconscious atoms, that perceives all this and is responsible for con- sciousness.

Philosophers since the Greeks have spec- ulated about the "ghost" in the machine, the "little man inside the little man" and so on. Where is the I—the entity that uses the brain? Who does the actual knowing? Or, as Saint Francis of Assisi once put it, "What we are looking for is what is looking."3

Although many people venture close to this reality in answering the question "who is the entity that sees", they hesitate to ac- cept all of its implications. as demonstrat- ed in the examples above, in discussing the entity in our brains, some refer to the "little man", while others say "the ghost in the machine", some refer to "the being using the brain" while some say "the inter- nal eye". All these terms have been used to describe the entity beyond the brain which possesses consciousness, and the means of reaching this entity. However, materi- alist assumptions keep many people from understanding the true nature of this be- ing which actually sees and hears.

The only source that answers this question is religion. in the Koran, God states that He created man in a physical way initially and then "breathed His Spirit" to the man He created:

When your Lord said to the angels, "I am creating a human being out of dried clay formed from fetid black mud when I have formed him and breathed My Spirit into him, fall down in prostration in front of him!" (Qur'an, 15:28-29)

(He) then formed him and breathed His Spirit into him and gave you hearing, sight and hearts. What little thanks you show! (Qur'an, 32:9)

In other words, the human being has an- other existence besides its physical body. That entity inside the brain which says "I am seeing" the sight inside the brain, and "I am hearing" the sound inside the brain and aware of its own existence, and which says "I am me", is the soul given to human beings by God.

Any human being with a mind and a con- science can understand this: the being that watches every incident inside the brain— watches as if looking at a screen through- out his life—is his soul. Every human being has a soul that sees without the need for an eye, hears without the need for an ear and thinks without the need for a brain.

The materialistic view—which maintains that matter is the only thing that exists, and that human consciousness is only a result of some chemical reactions in the brain—is in a quandary about this issue. to see this it might be instructive to ask the following questions to a materialist:

Sight is formed in our brains but what is it that watches this sight in our brains?

Try to see in your mind's eye your neigh- bor living downstairs in your apartment building when he is not with you. Who is it that vivifies this person so clearly in your

imagination down to the de- tails of his costume, the lines in his face, the whites in his hairs; the tone of his voice, the way he speaks, the way he walks?

A materialist will be unable to give a satisfactory answer to such questions. the only explanation to these questions is the soul given to man by God. However, materialists make a mistake not accepting the ex- istence of any being other than mat- ter. for this reason the truth explained

in this book deals a massive blow to atheist materialist thought, and consti- tutes a subject that materialists refuse to discuss most.

  1. Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained, Little, Brown and Company, NY 1991, p. 26-27

  2. R. L. Gregory, Eye and Brain: the Psychology of Seeing, p. 9

  3. Ken Wilber, Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes, p.20

## Adnan Oktar Says: Who Is It That Experiences All These Perceptions?

As we know, the electric signals coming from the cells in our eyes are transformed into an image in our brains. for example, the brain in- terprets some electrical signals coming to the visual center in the brain as a field filled with sunflowers. in reality, it is not the eye that is seeing.

Therefore, if it is not our eyes which are seeing, what is it that sees the electrical signals as a sunflower field, at the back of our brain, in a pitch dark place, without feeling any necessity for any eyes, retina, lens, visual nerves or pupil and enjoys the view in the sight?

Or who is it that hears (without needing an ear) the voice of a very close friend, becomes happy on hearing it, and misses it when he cannot hear it, when the brain is totally sound proof?

Or who is it in the brain that feels the fur of the cat when stroking it, without having any need for a hand, fingers or muscles?

Who is it that feels sensations such as heat, cold, and a sense of consistency, depth, and distance, as they originate in the brain?

Who is it that smells the lemon, lavender flow- er, rose, melon, watermelon, orange, and bar- becued meat inside the brain (even though the brain is smellproof), and feels hungry be- cause of the smell coming from the grill?

We have thus far discussed how everything we perceive continuously is actually formed inside our brains. Who is it then that sees the sights in a brain as if watching television, and becomes excited, happy, sad, nervous, or feels pleasure, anxiety or curiosity while watching them? Who is responsible for the conscious- ness which is capable of interpreting every- thing seen and everything felt?

What is the entity in the brain that has consciousness and throughout life is ca- pable of seeing all the sights shown to him in a dark, quiet head, that is capable of thinking, and reaches conclusions and makes decisions in the end?

It is obvious that it is not the brain, made up of water, lipid and protein, and unconscious atoms, that perceives all this and is responsi- ble for consciousness. There must be a being beyond the brain. Despite being a materialist, Daniel Dennett ponders the above question in one of his books:

My conscious thinking, and especially the enjoyment I felt in the combination of sunny light, sunny Vivaldi violins, rippling branch- es – plus the pleasure I took in just thinking about it all – how could all that be just some- thing physical happening in my brain? How could any combination of electrochemical happenings in my brain somehow add up to the delightful way those hundreds of twigs genuflected in time with the music? How could some information-processing event in my brain be the delicate warmth of the sun- light I felt falling on me? for that matter, how could an event in my brain be my sketchily vi- sualized mental image of... some other infor- mation-processing event in my brain? It does seem impossible. It does seem as if the hap- penings that are my conscious thoughts and experiences cannot be brain happenings, but must be something else, something caused or produced by brain happenings, no doubt, but something in addition, made of different stuff, located in a different space. Well, why not?1

On the other hand, R. L. Gregory questions the existence of the entity in the back of the brain, which sees all sights:

There is a temptation, which must be avoided, to say that the eyes produce pictures in the brain. a picture in the brain suggests the need of some kind of internal eye to see it – but this would need a further eye to see its picture... and so on, in an endless regress of eyes and pictures. This is absurd.2

Materialists who believe that nothing exists except matter cannot understand this partic- ular question. Who does this "internal eye", which sees and perceives things seen and re- acts to such things, belong to?

In the following passage, Karl Pribram de- scribes this important search by science and philosophy for the identity of the perceiver: Philosophers since the Greeks have speculat- ed about the "ghost" in the machine, the "little man inside the little man" and so on. Where is the I—the entity that uses the brain? Who does the actual knowing? Or, as Saint Francis of Assisi once put it, "What we are looking for is what is looking."3

Although many people venture close to this reality in answering the question "who is the entity that sees", they hesitate to accept all of its implications. as demonstrated in the ex- amples above, in discussing the entity in our brains, some refer to the "little man", while others say "the ghost in the machine", some refer to "the being using the brain" while some say "the internal eye". All these terms have been used to describe the entity beyond the brain which possesses consciousness, and the means of reaching this entity. However, materialist assumptions keep many people from understanding the true nature of this be- ing which actually sees and hears.

The only source that answers this question is religion. in the Koran, God states that He cre- ated man in a physical way initially and then "breathed His Spirit" to the man He created:

When your Lord said to the angels, "I am cre- ating a human being out of dried clay formed from fetid black mud when I have formed him and breathed My Spirit into him, fall down in prostration in front of him!" (Qur'an, 15:28-29)

## Adnan Oktar Says: Although People Presume That They See the Original of Matter, Light, Sound and Colors Do Not Exist Outside of Our Brains; Only Energy Exists

Although the fact that everything we expe- rience is a totality of perceptions formed inside our brains has been scientifically proven, some people still claim that they see the originals of these im-

ages that exist outside our brains. However, they will never be able to prove this claim. as men- tioned before, light, sound

or colors do not exist out- side of our brains. Light only exists outside in the form of energy waves and packets of energy, and we only become aware of light when it hits the retina. Similarly, there is no sound.

There are only energy waves. Sound only forms when these energy waves reach our ears and are subsequently transmitted to our brains. There is no color outside, either. When we say "there is no color" people might think of a view of black, white or gray. in fact, these are also colors. in the world outside of our brains even the colors of black, white and gray do not exist. Only energy waves in varying strength and frequency exist, and these energy waves are only converted into colors through the cells in the eye and the brain.

Quantum physics is another branch of science which shows that the claims of those who say that they see the original of matter are unjus- tified. the most important truth discovered by quantum physics, which leaves materialists speechless, is that matter is 99.9999999% empty.

In his studies of physics and psychology, Peter Russell often makes comments about human consciousness. in an essay adapted from his book, From Science to God, Russell explains this truth thusly: Take, for example, our ideas as to the nature of matter. for two thousand years it was believed that at-

oms were tiny balls of solid matter-a model clearly drawn from every- day experience. Then, as phys- icists discovered that atoms were composed of more el-

ementary, subatomic, particles (electrons, protons, neutrons, and suchlike), the model shifted to one of a central nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons-again a model based on experience. an atom may be small, amere billionth of an inch across, but these subatomic particles are a hundred-thousand times smaller still. Imagine the nucleus of an atom magnified to the size of a grain of rice. the whole atom would then be the size of a football stadium, and the electrons would be other grains of rice flying round the stands. as the early twentieth-century British physicist Sir Arthur Eddington put it, "matter is mostly ghostly empty space -99.9999999 percent empty space, to be a little more precise."

With the advent of quantum theory, it was found that even these minute subatomic particles were themselves far from solid. in fact, they are not much like matter at all-at least nothing like matter as we know it. They can't be pinned down and measured precisely. They are more like fuzzy clouds of potential existence, with no definite location. Much of the time they seem more like waves than particles.1

We can thus see that science shows us that be- yond the confines of our brain, there are only energy waves and energy packets. Beyond our brain there is no light, no sound and no color. Additionally, atoms and subatomic particles that form a material are actually loose groups of energy. as a result, material is comprised of space. in reality, God creates matter. through a vision with these qualities.

1- Peter Russell, the Mystery of Con- sciousness and the Meaning of Light, 12 Oct 2000, http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/futureedition/From_Science-To- God.htm

## Adnan Oktar Says: the Truth about Matter Shows That God Is the One Absolute Being

One of the most important things implied by this fact is that God is the One Absolute Being. Some people, un-

der the influence of materialist philosophy, think that matter is absolute being. Some of these people believe that God exists, but when they talk about the existence of God, and where He is , they dis- play their ignorance. for example, if they are asked "Where is God?", they will ignorantly answer, "Show me your intelligence; you cannot. So, God is a real- ity like intelligence, but you cannot see it." Others assume in their own minds (God is surely beyond that) that God has an illusory existence like that of radio waves. According to their false view, they themselves and the things they possess are abso- lute existence and God's existence encompasses this material existence like radio waves. However, what is illusory is they themselves and the things they possess.

The One Absolute Being is God. God's existence embraces everything. Human beings are in no way absolute beings but a transient image.

God reveals this truth in a verse:

God, there is no deity but Him, the Living, the Self-Sustaining. He is not subject to drowsiness or sleep. Everything in the heavens and the earth be- longs to Him. Who can intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is before them and what is behind them but they cannot grasp any of His knowledge save what He wills. His Footstool encompasses the heavens and the earth and their preservation does not tire Him. He is the Most High, the Magnificent. (Qur'an, 2:255)

The fullness of faith consists of understanding this truth, avoiding the mistake of associating others with God and acknowledging God as the One Ab- solute Being. Someone who knows that, apart from God, everything is a shadow, existence will say with certain faith (at the level of Haqq-al yakin – truth of certainty) that only God exists and there is no other deity (or any being with strength) besides Him.

The materialists do not believe in the existence of God, because they cannot see Him with their eyes. but their claims are completely invalidated when they learn the real nature of matter. Someone who learns this truth understands that his own existence has the quality of an illusion, and grasps that a be- ing which is an illusion will not be able to see a be- ing which is absolute.

As it is revealed in the Koran, human beings cannot see God but God sees them.

Eyesight cannot perceive Him but He perceives eye- sight... (Qur'an, 6:103)

Certainly, we human beings cannot see the Being of God with our eyes but we know that He com- pletely encompasses our inside, our outside, our views and our thoughts. for this reason, God re- veals Himself in the Koran as "controlling hearing and sight" (Qur'an, 10:31)

We cannot say one word, we cannot even take one breath without God's knowing it. God knows every- thing we do. This is revealed in the Koran:

God – Him from Whom nothing is hidden, either on earth or in heaven. (Qur'an, 3:5)

It is very important that God watches us, sees us and hears us at every moment. Someone who real- izes this, even if he does not see God with his eyes, knows that He is aware of him at every moment. for this reason, no matter what he is doing, he knows that God is a witness of him. Consequently, he is careful not to do anything to displease Him and will be mindful of what he does, says, and thinks. in the Koran, it is revealed that God is close to us in every- thing we do; that He watches us and that nothing eludes Him.

You do not engage in any matter or recite any of the Koran or do any action without Our witnessing you while you are occupied with it.

Not even the smallest speck eludes your Lord, ei- ther on earth or in heaven. nor is there anything smaller than that, or larger, which is not in a Clear Book. (Qur'an 10:61)

Certainly God, Who is Absolute Being, knows every aspect of the human beings He has created. This is a very simple thing for God. but some in their igno- rance may find this hard to understand. However, when we observe the impressions we think are the "external world", that is , as we lead our lives, the closest being to us is not an impression, it is clearly God.

The secret of the verse "We created man and We know what his own self whispers to him. We are nearer to him than his jugular vein" (Qur'an 50:16) is hidden in this fact.

But when a person thinks that his body is composed of "matter, the absolute entity," he cannot conceive of this important reality; this is again because he thinks that the nearest thing to him is his body. for example, if this person conceives of his existence as being his brain, he does not admit the possibil- ity that there is a being closer to him than his jug- ular vein. However, when he conceives of the fact that matter is not absolute, and that everything is a facsimile that he experiences in his mind, then concepts such as outside, inside, far and near have no meaning. His jugular vein, his brain, hands, feet, his house and his car that he thought were outside himself, even the sun, the moon and the stars that he thought were so far away, are all on the same plane. God has encompassed him all around and is eternally near to him.

That God is eternally near to human beings is also revealed in this verse: **"If My servants ask you about Me, I am near (to them)..." (Qur'an, 2:186)** in anoth- er verse the same reality is expressed, "Surely your Lord encompasses mankind round about." (Qur'an, 17: 60). in spite of this, some people continue to err by thinking that the nearest thing to themselves is themselves. However, God is closer to us even than we are to ourselves. the fact that God is the nearest Being to a human being is emphasized again in these verses: "Why then, when death reaches his throat and you are at that moment looking on- and We are nearer him than you but you cannot see" (Qur'an 56:83-85) Indeed, a person on the point of death or lying in a hospital bed may think that the closest being to him is the doctor at his bedside, his mother who is embracing him, or his friends touching him and holding his hand. but as it says in this verse, God is closer to him at that time than anyone else. Moreover, God is the single clos- est Being to him not only at that particular moment, but from the first moment of his existence. But, be- cause people do not see it with their eyes, some of them are ignorant of this reality. the fact that God is not circumscribed by space but embraces all things is revealed in another verse:

Both East and West belong to God, so wherever you turn, the Face of God is there. God is All-Encompass- ing, All-Knowing. (Qur'an 2:115)

In another verse, God explains this reality in this way:

It is He Who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then established Himself firmly on the Throne. He knows what goes into the earth and what comes out of it, what comes down from heav- en and what goes up into it. He is with you wher- ever you are—God sees what you do. (Qur'an 57:4)

All of this implies that God is the One, True, Abso- lute Existence. With His Knowledge, God embraces human beings who are shadow beings and every other thing. This fact is also pointed out in the fol- lowing verse:

Your God is God alone, there is no deity but Him. He encompasses all things in His knowledge. (Qur'an 20:98)

In another verse of the Koran, God warns people against being heedless:

**What! Are they in doubt about the meeting with their Lord? What! Does He not** **encompass all things? (Qur'an 41:54)**

## Dr. Oktar Babuna - "The Secret Beyond Matter"

Hello and Salam ev- erybody. Mr. Oktar's salam, greetings and deep love and respect to all of you.

Now we have listened to the speakers today; it is impos- sible for life to emerge by chance. This is scientifically and log-

ically truth and there is a Creator, definitely. If somebody says, "I am", that means definitely that person is created.

If we look at the scientific evidences, for example, let's say, they say if life emerged by chance. Take a single protein molecule from a cell, there are thousands, even ten billion proteins existing in a cell; one protein to exist by chance is impossible because other proteins must exist. Pro-

teins can only be synthesized by other proteins. DNA must exist, RNA must exist, the complete living cell must exist.

If you look at the history of life, we see the cya- nobacteria, which can do photosynthesis and it emerged 3.7 billion years ago all at once. Now last fossils have actually shown that 4.3 billion years ago actually the first cell appeared all at once. That is a deadly blow to Darwinism. and also the fossil evidence; we have 700 million fossils today. We don't have any transitional forms. the species ap- peared abruptly, completely and in perfect forms. That was admitted by Darwin, that was admitted by Niles Eldredge, all the paleontologists, Darwinists that all species appeared all at once with sudden creation.

Now the subject you are going to listen, my talk reveals a crucial secret of your life. So you should listen to it attentively because it is going to change your outlook into the material world. This is not a different approach, this is not a philosophy; this is a fact supported by science of today.

We observe the external world through our five senses. the vision, hearing, taste, touch and smell. So the man is conditioned right from the beginning that life is an absolute material reality because we observe the outside world through our five senses. If you look at the scientific evidences, science tells us very different.

I am going to go out of these five senses into the chemistry and into the vision and give you scientific evidences. What science tells us today.

You see a candle over here. the electrons of this candle emit photons, these are so-called rays. the photons shower our eyes and these photons, rays, the light is changed into electric signals and electric signals only travel in the brain and the brain inter- prets these electric signals as vision. So the light itself never enters the brain. the brain is isolated to light actually. It is complete darkness in the brain. Only the electric signals. So electrical copy of the outside world exists in the brain.

Now you see an eye over here. OK. I am going to also talk about the eye structure. the light comes into our eyes, it goes through the cornea, through the lens, through some kind of fluid inside the eye, and it travels up to the retina. the nerve cells. These are light sensitive cells. You see there are different layers of the eye. There are at least 40 different components, and these components must exist all at once, all together for the eye to be functional. That is also a deadly blow, of course, to Darwinism. and when we look at the history of life, we see the first eye appeared in the Cambrian life with 36,000 lenses. the fossils show us, 32,000 lenses exist as an organ of the eye, this is the first eye in the history of life.

Now you see some vessels; I want you to pay atten- tion to that. a big cable, that is the optic nerve, there are no light sensitive cells over here, it is called blind spot. We have a big blind spot in the eye. We need to have a large vision defect actually; we can't see. but we don't have any defect. We see every- thing perfectly. and the vessels exist in front of the light sensitive cells. Can we stop here? This is the optic nerve, blind spot, these are the light sensitive cells, but in front of these light sensitive cells, there are two layers of different cells and one million ax- ons. So the light sensitive cells are actually blocked by two layers of cells and these axons, one million axons and in front of that we have vessels. So you know what? It is impossible for the eye to see.

God created this way; technically and scientifically the eye cannot see. Now let's go further actually. of course we have a vision of nature, the birds, the flowers; and the universe is right inside himself, at the center of vision of his brain. We have a feeling of space, for example you are now in the conference room, you see the screen. Are you in the conference room? No. the conference room is inside you, in- side your brain actually. but we have the feeling, the sense of space inside the brain because of the electrical copies. of course I see a distance, for in-

stance I see ten meters or fifty meters, or when we look at the universe we see stars but everything exists in a single spot inside the brain actually. but that gives us the sense, the feeling of space. Now we have the electrical copies. That means we can never confront the original of the matter, because we can never exit the brain to look what is outside. So we can never confront the original of the matter. We are only confronted with the electrical copies inside our brain.

So do we need an external world to generate these senses, these electrical signals in the brain? Scien- tific answer is "No." How do we know? the scientific advancement, the simulators for instance. There are simulators produced, they were put on the blind patients. These simulators they put on the blind patients, they generate vibrating pulses at the back of the head. After a while they started to see actual- ly. When the camera zoomed in, they had the urge to raise their heads to protect themselves, so you know what that means? the external world is not needed to generate senses in the brain. the second powerful evidence comes from our dreams.

But before [that] George Berkeley. George Berkeley is a bishop, a devout Christian and he is a philoso- pher. Let's see what he said. He said, "We think that things exist because we see and touch them; it is

because they give us these sensations that we believe in their existence. but our sensations are but ideas which we have in our minds... We are then deluding our-

selves when we think we know the world and things to be exterior to us, since they exist only in our minds." and he is correct; the level of sci-

ence was not like today's, 21st century's science but he knew it is impossible to check what is outside and an external world is just something happening inside our minds.

Now, I talked about these simulators, so they gen- erate these senses without an external world, so an external world is not needed actually. What about dreams? the dreams are very powerful evidence. We always experience this evidence almost every night. Whenever we fall asleep, we see people. People we have never seen before. Houses we have never seen before, we go to environments we have never been before. and sometimes we behave against the physical laws, but we never question because there is a different memory, different con- sciousness, you never question. for instance I fly sometimes in my dreams, and I never say, "I can't fly because there is gravity force, it is impossible, it is against physical laws", because I have a different memory, different consciousness in my dreams. I have space, I see the sun, I feel the wind, but you are lying in your bed, your eyes are closed, there is no sound, no touch, nothing. Complete silence but perfect senses. and we feel the hardness of the matter. Imagine in your dream, somebody in his dream is trying to object his friend saying that he cannot see the original world, original matter. Now he puts his hand on his friend's shoulder and says, "Well what makes you think that you cannot be in touch with the original world? Let's take a trip on the Bosphorus." of course he gets into his car, he drives the car, feels the wind and when he is ready to object to his friend that he cannot see the origi- nal matter, all of a sudden, the alarm rings and he wakes up. Now this could be in the sleep or awake

to object somebody who says he cannot see the original matter, to object, this could be in the so- called real life.

The reason why we call it real life is because it is waking maybe from a dream. and we will find out about that because we only find out our dreams when we wake up. So one day we will be woken up with death and we will find out that all about this is another dream. So it is waking from a dream of course. Now this is from the Prophet Muhammad (saas). "The Prophet Muhammad (saas) said that, 'people are asleep and wake up when they die.' This is to say that the objects seen in the world when alive are similar to those seen when asleep while dreaming..."

So there is a lot of evidence actually about the na- ture of this life. Not only that; in the Qur'an there are very powerful statements. God says in one verse, I seek refuge in God from the accursed satan:

" **They will say, 'Alas for us! Who has raised us from our sleeping-place?..." (Qur'an 36:52)**

This is important because we are only aware of a dream only when we wake up.

So when they are raised, they say, "...Who has raised us from our sleeping-place? This is what the All-Merciful promised us. the Messengers were telling the truth." (Qur'an 36:52)

So of course the next question is, "Who is the per- ceiver?" If the eyes cannot see, then who is the one that sees or hears or touches or smells or tastes? of course this has to be a supra-material being. Now first, this Richard Gregory, he is a neuropsycholo- gist from Royal Academy, he says in his book: "There is a temptation, which must be avoid- ed, to say that the eyes produce pictures in the brain. a picture in the brain suggests the need of some kind of internal eye to see it—but this would need a further eye to see its picture... and so on in an endless regress of eyes and pictures. This is absurd." of course, he knows if the eyes cannot see, there are electrical signals, copies of the so-called external world, then there must be an internal eye that sees. So "who is the perceiver?" is the question.

Another one, Ken Wilber, he says: "Philosophers since the Greeks have speculated about the 'ghost' in the machine, the 'little man inside the little man' and so on. Where is the I—the entity that uses the brain? Who does the actual knowing? Or, as Saint Francis of Assisi once put it, 'What we are looking for is what is looking.'"

So this material world is perceived by a being which is supra-material being, which is not matter, and which is not image. This is the soul, it is a meta- physical being who can perceive.

GOD CREATED THIS WAY; TECHNICALLY and SCIENTIFICALLY THE

EYE CANNOT SEE. - DR. OKTAR BABUNA

In another verse of the Qur'an, God says: "God keeps a firm hold on the heavens and Earth, preventing them from vanishing away.

And if they vanished no one could then keep hold of them. Certainly He is Most Forbearing, Ever-For- giving." (Qur'an 35:41)

Put scientifically and logically, that follows actually. God says the same thing in the Qur'an. the universe is not stable. This universe, this Earth is not stable. It only exists because of the continuous creation of God. If this creation stops, all the entire universe, everything disappears. Because of the ceaseless creation of God, it exists. Otherwise it does not exist.

" **Both East and West belong to God, so wherever you turn, the Face of God is there. God is all-Encom- passing, all-Knowing." (Qur'an 2:115)**

So the sense of space, I explained you, scientifical- ly only exists in the brain. the entire universe, this room, the conference room, although it looks like

\- this is the artistry of God - like exterior to me, I see you people and everything but everything happen- ing is actually happening in my brain. in my brain, in a single spot. So this is a feeling of the space. and my body is also part of this external world. I see my hands, I see my legs, I see a body moving inside the space but everything is in fact happen- ing inside the brain. I see the electrical copy. This is a scientific fact.

What about the brain? the brain is also part of this external world because we assume something ex- ists in our head. for example, if I open my skull and take my brain in my hands in front of me, I would see a brain. If I say "I see the brain in my brain," so where do I see it? Right there, the brain is there? or I am right here. So you understand logically and scientifically this inevitably follows, that leads us to think, "Who is the perceiver?" This is the soul.

And God is not bound with the space. God creat- ed us, in a dimension of time and space, but is not

bound by space and encompasses everything, our inside, our outside, our ideas, our thoughts, every- thing God encompasses. So God says, "Wherever you turn, there is the Presence of God." So God is everywhere because He is not bound by space. the space is a feeling that is perceived to us. So some- times some materialists say, you know materialism absolutely rejects the existence of anything beyond matter but science is not obliged to accept such a dogma. Look at the scientific evidence, this is not true of course, as we have seen scientifically, and a being which has an image of illusion cannot see an absolute being. We are a being with an image of, with a quality of illusion actually. So we will nev- er be able to see God because God is an absolute being.

However God sees us and that is stated in the Qur'an:

" **Eyesight cannot perceive Him but He perceives eyesight..." (Qur'an 6:103)**

" **We created man and We know what his own self whispers to him. We are nearer to him than his jug- ular vein." (Qur'an 18:106)**

So space, I told you at the very beginning, man is conditioned right from the very beginning that life is absolute material reality, we have the feeling of the space, we have the feeling of time, but God is above that, and this is only created actually as a feeling, as a sense for us. Does it exist in reality? No, as I said the conference room is inside me. So where is the space then? in our dreams we lie in the bed; we drive our car, we travel from İstanbul to Ankara or to New York. We fly in the airplane, so are we moving in a real space? Not at all, but only when we wake up we discover it. So then we will be wo- ken up, then we may discover that this was another dream also. Now it is also a scientific fact, and also a statement from the Holy Book that our movements, all our actions are created by God. Now I will give you the scientific evidence and then I will read this verse to you.

There were experiments done in Berlin, Bernstein, it is a very famous lab actually. They have done ex- periments on several people. They put these peo- ple into the MR scan. It is a different MR scan, it is called functional MR scan. Wherever there is an electric activity in the brain, it shows immediately. So they were given two buttons actually, and they were asked to make a decision. for example there are two buttons, I have two buttons, and I am going to push the right one, I decide that, with my free will, OK? and then they watch that through the functional MR scan and they record the timing of this decision. Every time these people push a but- ton by their free will and make decision. of course, I make a decision, and I immediately press the button. Ten seconds before, ten seconds, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, ten sec- onds before they saw that in the MR scan in the mo- tor cortex, motor area. You know it is like this way, it has crossed pathways, for example if I press the right button, and I make my decision, ten seconds before the decision actually, this area is activated and they cannot change this decision. So who is the one who makes this decision? Who creates these actions actually?

And this fact is also given in the Qur'an:

"... **when you threw; it was God Who threw..." (Qur'an 8:17)**

" **When God created both you and what you do?" (Qur'an 37:96)**

So we only have the imagination, the sense of "we are doing something", but scientifically ten seconds before. for example I am speaking over here, if you put an MR scan in my brain, you would discover that ten seconds before these words were in my language center, it started, I cannot stop that. I feel like I am making the decision, and I am construct- ing these sentences, and I make these gestures over here. I push these buttons, ten seconds before in my brain, the brain is activated, and I cannot change this decision. So the important statement

is of course there is clearly a Creator Who displays a magnificent Creation, Who has Omnipotent in- telligence, eternal power and might and He is the Creator of everything.

Another information is actually given in the Qur'an. It is: "It is in the Source Book with Us, high-exalted, full of wisdom." (Qur'an 43:4)

So our entire life like a dream is actually known by God. It is not known for us. That is the reason why we are being tested, because we don't know what is going to happen tomorrow, what is going to hap- pen next week. but this is not true for God, because time is also another perception. Let me give you an- other example actually, a scientific evidence.

In Princeton Advanced Research Center, where Ein- stein worked years ago, these were very famous technical labs. They did an experiment. One group published this experiment actually. That was in the world media, in the entire Turkish media, in the American media, everywhere. They sent a laser beam into a cesium environment, the environment was full of cesium, the laser beam entered this environment, and you know what happened. the speed increased 300 times speed of light, in this environment. So the speed comes into the environ- ment, the light of speed increased 300 times. You know what happened, they observed that the light exited this environment and then entered the envi- ronment. So all those cause and effect relationship changed. You know what I am saying? the time worked backwards actually. of course scientifically and logically, the light must enter the environment first, and then exit but no, because the speed in- creased 300 times, the light exited first and then entered into the cesium environment. So there is no absolute time. Time is another perception, there is no time for God. God created the eternal life in the infinite fraction of a second, and finished it. That fact is given in the Holy Books actually, in the Bible, in the Qur'an and in the Torah. So the fact is very obvious. We have seen Darwinism is a fallacy,

but a very powerful fact is that we only observe the perception.

OF COURSE IF YOU ASK a QUESTION, "WHO CREATES THESE PERCEPTIONS? WHO CREATES THESE IMAGES?", WE INEVITABLY COME to the FACT THAT GOD IS the CREATOR of EVERYTHING. - DR. OKTAR BABUNA

" **If He did ask you for it (all your wealth) and put you under pressure, you would be tight-fisted and it would bring out your malevolence." (Qur'an 47:37)**

What that means is, you know, somebody who has a bank account, a car, a beautiful house, a swim- ming pool, a boat, and travels, maybe he has an airplane, very rich, holdings, companies, he has all of these as an imagination. Like in a dream, for ex- ample. Having a great love to this and making it the purpose of this life does not make any sense. If this is only a dream and the perceptions we are dealing with are created by God, there is a purpose of this life. the purpose of this life is not to have a good career, a good family, or making a lot of money. You can have it of course but this is not the purpose of life. We know the purpose of this life is to gain the great pleasure of God, to live accordingly. He de- scribed that in His Book. He introduces Himself in the Holy Books, and He describes the way to live. So this should not be kept secret because this is going to change the entire life.

You know they say, "Stress is the disease of this century." Why? Because people don't think about these facts. If they think about the destiny and God creates everything, of course they would have a very secure life and never think about what is going to happen tomorrow, what is going to happen if I lose my career, if I lose my money, if I get sick, if I get old, if I die. Everything is under God's control.

We understand scientifically and logically this is an inevitable conclusion. but there are some illogical deficiencies of materialists. for example, this is very childish, they say, "If for example a bus hits you, you have a broken bone, then you will find out if matter is real or not." "Somebody slaps you, then you will see if the matter is real or not." or "if you have a cut and you see blood, then you will find out." No, we don't say that only the vision is an imagination. the pain, blood, the touch sensation, the sound, the taste, smell, all of them are created as electri- cal copies. We never confront the original matter actually. This is, the bus, pain, broken bone, are all parts and your body is part of this so-called external world which exists, which is created as a perception to your soul.

So sometimes materialists say "We don't believe in God, we don't see God with our eyes." but if this person, all of us of course, is an illusion and being an illusion you can't see an eternal Being. So scien- tifically and logically this is an inevitable fact, and we should live accordingly. So the truth cannot be avoided.

" **God has promised those of you who believe and do right actions that He will make them successors in the land as He made those before them succes- sors, and will firmly establish for them their religion with which He is pleased and give them, in place of their fear, security. 'They worship Me, not associ- ating anything with Me.' Any who disbelieve after that, such people are deviators." (Qur'an 24:55)**

So God promises us, good morality will prevail the world. We know this from the Bible, from the Torah, from the Qur'an and Islamic sources. We are liv- ing in the specific times, called the End Times. the first part of the End Times is wars, violence and the bloodshed. With return of Jesus and appearance of the Mahdi, Moshiach of Judaism and Islam, there will be a Golden Age, and we are living in these specific times. God controls this and God promises that in the Qur'an.

Remember I told you about the destiny.

God created everything in an infinite fracture of a second and fin-

ished it. So the future for us is not future for

God. God sometimes in the Qur'an talks about the future, or the present tense or the past tense. God talks

about the future sometimes in the past tense, sometimes in the present tense, sometimes in the future because future for us is not the

future for God. God created that and finished it. So good days will come, we are very hopeful, we will see Jesus soon. We will see Mahdi, Moshiach, of Is- lam and Judaism soon and there will be a Golden Age.

Thank you very much for listening.

GOD PROMISES US, GOOD MORALITY WILL PRE- VAIL the WORLD. WE KNOW THIS FROM the BIBLE, FROM the TORAH, FROM the QUR'AN and ISLAMIC SOURCES. - DR. OKTAR BABUNA

## Adnan Oktar Says: Who Sees?

subject to the steady indoctri- nation of the society. Part of this indoctrination, possibly the most per-

suasive, holds that reality is what the hands can touch and the eyes can see. This understanding, which is quite influential in the majority of the society, is carried without question from one generation to another.

But without being subjected to any indoctri- nation, a moment of objective thought would make one realize an astonishing fact:

Everything we confront from the moment we come into existence—human beings, animals, flowers, their colors, odors, fruits, tastes of fruits, planets, stars, mountains, stones, buildings, space—are perceptions presented to us by our five senses. to further clarify this, it will help to examine the senses, the agents that provide us with information about the exterior world.

All of man's sensory faculties—sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch—function in the same way. Stimuli (lights, sounds, smells, tastes, tex- tures) from objects in the external world are carried through nerves to the sensory centers in the brain. All these stimuli that reach the brain consist of electric signals. for example, during the process of vision, light rays (or photons) ra- diating from sources in the exterior world reach the retina at the back of the eye and, through a series of processes, are transformed into elec- tric signals. These signals are transferred along nerves to the brain's vision center. There, a col- orful, bright and three-dimensional world is

perceived within the space of a few cubic cen- timeters.

The same system applies to other senses as well. Cells on the surface of the tongue transform chemical traces into electric signals that be- come tastes. Odors are transformed into electric signals by cells in the epithelium of the nose. Special sensors lodged beneath the skin trans- form impulses of touch (such as the sensations of hardness or softness) into electric signals, and a special mechanism in the ear does the same with sound. All these signals are sent to appropriate centers in the brain, where they are perceived.

To clarify the point, assume that you're drinking a glass of lemonade. the hard, cool surface of the glass you're holding is transformed into electric signals by special receptors under your skin and sent to the brain. Simultaneously, the smell of the lemonade, its taste, and yellowish color all become signals that reach the brain. Likewise, the clink you hear when the glass touches the table is perceived by the ear and transmitted to the brain as an electric signal. All these perceptions are interpreted in the brain's relevant centers, which work harmoniously with one another. as a cumulative result of these im- pulses, you sense that you are drinking a glass of lemonade.

Concerning this important fact, consider the thoughts of B. Russell and L. J. J. Wittgenstein, two famous philosophers:

For instance, whether a lemon truly exists or not and how it came to exist cannot be questioned and investigated. a lemon consists merely of a taste sensed by the tongue, an odor sensed by the nose, a color and shape sensed by the eye; and only these features of it can be subject to examination and assessment. Science can never know the physical world.1

In other words, it is impossible for us to reach the physical world. All objects we're in contact with are actually collection of perceptions such as sight, hearing, and touch. Throughout our lives, by processing the data in the sensory cen- ters, our brain confronts not the "originals" of the matter existing outside us, but rather copies inside our brain. at this point, we are misled to assume that these copies are instances of real matter outside us.

This obvious fact has been proven by science to- day. Any scientist would tell you how this system works, and that the world we live in is really an aggregate of perceptions formed in our brains. the English physicist John Gribbin states that our senses are an interpretation of stimulations coming from the external world—as if there were a tree in the garden. He goes on to say that our brain perceives the stimulations that are filtered through our senses, and that the tree is only a stimulation. So, he then asks, which tree is real? the one formed by our senses, or the tree in the garden?2

No doubt, this reality requires profound reflec- tion. as a result of these physical facts, we come to the following indisputable conclusion: Every- thing we see, touch, hear, and call "matter," "the world" or "the universe" is nothing more than electrical signals interpreted in our brain. We can never reach the original of the matter out-

side our brain. We merely taste, hear and see an image of the external world formed in our brain.

In fact, someone eating an apple confronts not the actual fruit, but its perceptions in the brain. What that person considers to be an apple actu- ally consists of his brain's perception of the elec- trical information concerning the fruit's shape, taste, smell, and texture. If the optic nerve to the brain were suddenly severed, the image of the fruit would instantly disappear. Any disconnec- tion in the olfactory nerve traveling from recep- tors in the nose to the brain would interrupt the sense of smell completely. Simply put, that ap- ple is nothing but the interpretation of electrical signals by the brain.

Also consider the sense of distance. the empty space between you and this page is only a sense of emptiness formed in your brain. Objects that appear distant in your view also exist in the brain. for instance, someone watching the stars at night assumes that they are millions of light- years away, yet the stars are within himself, in his vision center. While you read these lines, ac- tually you are not inside the room you assume you're in; on the contrary, the room is inside you. Perceiving your body makes you think that you're inside it. However, your body, too, is a set of images formed inside your brain.

Orhan Hançerlioglu, Düsünce Tarihi (The History of Thought), Istanbul: Remzi Bookstore, 6.ed., September, 1995, p.447

John Gribbin, in the Search of the Big Bang; Taşkın Tuna, Uzayın Ötesi (Far Beyond the Uni- verse), p. 194

## Adnan Oktar Says: "The World of Senses" That We Experience in Dreams

The findings of modern phys- ics show that the universe is a collection of perceptions. Thus the

well-known science journal New Scientist asks: "Beyond Reality: Is the Universe Re- ally a Frolic of Primal Information and

Matter Just a Mirage?"

A person can experience all sens- es vividly without the presence of the outside world. the most obvious example of this is dreams. a person lies on

his bed with closed eyes while dreaming. Howev- er, in spite of this, that person senses many things which he or she experiences in real life, and experiences them so re- alistically that the

dreams are indistinguishable from the real life ex- perience. Everyone who reads this book will often bear witness to this truth in their own dreams. for example, a person lying down alone on a bed in a calm and quiet atmosphere at night might, in his dream, see himself in danger in a very crowded place. He could experience the event as if it were real, fleeing from danger in desperation and hiding behind a wall. Moreover, the images in his dreams are so realistic that he feels fear and panic as if he really was in danger. He has his heart in his mouth with every noise, is shaken with fear, his heart beats fast, he sweats and demonstrates the other physical affects that the human body undergoes in a danger- ous situation.

A person who falls from a high place in his dream feels it with all his body, even though he is lying in bed without moving. Alternatively, one might see oneself slipping into a puddle, getting soaked and feeling cold because of a cold wind. However, in such a case, there is neither a puddle, nor is there wind. Furthermore, despite sleeping in a very hot room, one experiences the wetness and the cold, as if one were awake.

Someone who believes he is dealing with the orig- inal of the material world in his dream can be very sure of himself. He can put his hand on his friend's shoulder when the friend tells him that "it isn't possible to deal with the original of the world", and then ask "Don't you feel my hand on your shoulder? If so, how can you say that you don't see the original matter? What makes you think this way? Let's take a trip up the Bosphorus; we can have a chat about it and you'll explain to me why you believe this." the dream that he sees in his deep sleep is so clear that he turns on the engine with pleasure and accelerates slowly, almost jumping the car by pressing the pedal suddenly. While going on the road, trees and road lines seem solid because of the speed.

In addition, he breathes clean Bosphorus air. but suppose he is woken up by his ringing alarm clock just when he's getting ready to tell his friend that he's seeing the original of matter. Wouldn't he object in the same manner regardless of whether he was asleep or awake?

When people wake up they understand that what they've seen until that moment is a dream. but for some reason they are not suspicious of the nature of the life (what they call "real") that starts with a "waking" image. However, the way we perceive im- ages in "real life" is exactly the same as the way we perceive our dreams. We see both of them in the mind. We cannot understand they are images until we are woken up. Only then do we say "what I have just seen was a dream." So, how can we prove that what we see at any given moment is not a dream? We could be assuming that the moment in which we are living is real just because we haven't yet wo- ken up. It is possible that we will discover this fact when we are woken up from this "waking dream" which takes longer than dreams we see everyday. We do not have any evidence that proves otherwise. Many Islamic scholars have also proclaimed that the life around us is only a dream, and that only when we are awakened from that dream with "a big awak- ening," will people be able to understand that they live in a dreamlike world. a great Islamic scholar, Muhyiddin Ibn al-'Arabi, referred to as Sheikh Akbar (The greatest Sheikh) due to his superior knowl- edge, likens the world to our dreams by quoting a saying of the Prophet Muhammad (saas):

The Prophet Muhammad [saas] said that, "people

are asleep and wake up when they die." This is to say that the objects seen in the world when alive are similar to those seen when asleep while dreaming...

In a verse of the Qur'an, people are told to say on the Judgment Day when they are resurrected from the dead:

They will say, "Alas for us! Who has raised us from our sleeping-place? This is what the All-Merciful promised us. the Mes- sengers were telling the truth." (Qur'an 36:52)

As demonstrated in the verse, people wake up on the Judg- ment Day as if waking from a dream. Like someone woken from the middle of a dream in deep sleep,

such people will similarly ask who has woken them up. as God reveals in the verse, the world around us is like a dream and everybody will be woken up from this dream, and will begin to see images of the afterlife, which is the real life.

## Adnan Oktar Says: Understanding the Reality of Matter Removes Worldly Ambitions

What we have described so far is one of the most profound truths that you have heard in your whole life. We have shown that the whole material world is really a shadow, and that this is the key to un- derstanding the existence of God, His creation, and the fact that He is the one absolute Being. at the same time, we have presented a scientifically undeniable demonstration both of how helpless human beings are and a manifestation of God's wonderful artistry. This knowledge makes people assured believers making it impossible for them not to believe. This is the main reason why some people avoid this truth.

The things that are being explained here are as true as a physical law or a chemical formula. When necessary, human beings can solve the most dif- ficult mathematical problems and understand many very complex matters. However, when these same people are informed that throughout their lives they have experience of only the images formed in their mind, and that they have no con- nection with the original of matter, they have no desire at all to understand. This is an "exaggerat- ed" case of an inability to understand, because what is discussed here is no more difficult than the answer to the questions, "What is two times two?" or "How old are you?". If you ask any scientist or professor of neurology where they see the world, they will answer you that they see it in their brains. You will find this fact even in high school biology text books. but despite the fact that it is clearly ev- ident, information pertaining to the fact that we perceive the material world in our brains and the results that this information entails for human be- ings can be overlooked. It is of major significance that one of the most important scientifically prov- en facts is so carefully hidden from people's eyes. the fundamental reason why people easily accept

all scientific facts, yet are so afraid to accept this one, is that learning the truth about matter will basically change the way everyone looks at life. Those who believe that matter and the self are ab- solute beings will discover one day that they have merely dealt with the reflection in their minds of everything they have worked for and protected based on this idea \- their spouses, their children, their wealth, even their own personalities. People are very afraid of this reality and pretend not to understand it even if they do. They try with deter- mination to disprove the facts, which are simple enough for even a primary school child to under- stand. the reason behind this opposition is that they are afraid to lose what this world offers.

For someone who is attached to his possessions, his children, or the transient offerings of this world, the illusory nature of matter is cause for great fear. at the moment such a person understands this, he will have died before his natural death, and he will have surrendered his possessions and his soul. in the verse,

" **If He did ask you for it (all your wealth) and put you under pressure, you would be tight-fisted and it would bring out your malevolence." (Qur'an 47: 37),**

God reveals how human beings will behave with meanness when He demands their possessions from them.

But when a person learns the real nature of mat- ter, he will understand that his soul and his pos- sessions already belong to God. If he knows that there is nothing to give or to resist giving, he will submit himself and all he possesses to God before

130 2nd International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe -2017

he dies. for sincere believers, this is a beautiful and honorable thing and a way to draw nearer to God. Those who do not believe or whose faith is weak cannot recognize this beauty and stubbornly reject this reality.

### The Environment That Will Come to Be When the Real Nature of Matter Is Not Kept Secret

Those who know that they have no connection with the actual material things, and that they are in the presence only of images that God presents to them, will change their whole way of living, their view of life and their values. This will be a change that will be useful both from the personal and social point of view, because someone who sees this truth will live without difficulty according to the high moral qualities that God has revealed in the Qur'an.

For those who do not regard the world as import- ant and who understand that we cannot have di- rect experience of the original matter, it is spiri- tual things that deserve to be given importance. Someone who knows that God is listening to him and watching him at every moment, and is aware that he will render an account of his every action in the Hereafter, will naturally live a morally vir- tuous life. He will be very careful about what God has commanded and what He has forbidden. Ev- eryone in society will be filled with love and re- spect for one another, and everyone will compete with one another in the performance of good and noble deeds. People will change the values according to which they judge others. Material things will lose their value and therefore, people will be judged not according to their standing and position in society but according to their moral character and their piety. No one will pursue things whose external originals can not be reached; everyone will seek after truth. Everyone will act without worrying about what others will think; the only question in their minds will be whether or not God will be pleased with what they do. in the place of the feelings of pride, ar- rogance and self-satisfaction that come from pos- sessions, property, standing and position, there will be a sense of the understanding of humility and dependence. Therefore, people will willingly live according to those examples of good moral qualities mentioned in the Qur'an. Eventually, these changes will put an end to many problems of today's societies.

In place of angry, aggressive people, anxious even about small profit, there will be those who know that what they see are images God shows them. They will be well aware that reactions of anger and loud shouting make them look foolish. Well-being and trust will prevail in individuals and societies and everyone will be pleased with his life and possessions. These, then, are some of the blessings that this hidden reality will bring to individuals and societies. Knowing, considering and living according to this reality will bring much more goodness to human beings. Those who wish to attain this goodness should consider this reality well and endeavor to understand it. in one verse, God says,

Clear insights have come to you from your Lord. Whoever sees clearly, does so to his own benefit. Whoever is blind, it is to his own detriment... (Qur'an 6:104)

AS for THOSE WHO MAKE GOD THEIR FRIEND, and HIS MESSENGER and THOSE WHO HAVE FAITH: IT IS the PARTY of GOD WHO ARE VICTORIOUS! (QUR'AN 5:56)

## Jeff Gardner - "Picture Christians Project"

Hello, and I want to thank the organizers of this conference, especially Mr. Adnan Oktar, for giving me the opportunity to speak to you. Thank you.

My name is Jeff Gardner and I am scholar who studies images, I am a professional photographer and a journalist. Perhaps an unusual combination to some, but for me, all aimed at the single purpose of communicating the human experience - more about that in just a minute.

To begin, let's address the obvious - this is an extraordinary gathering. Representatives of such dif- ferent faiths, some, even, that the world would assume could not come together as we have. This in itself is an accomplishment worthy of note.

But self-congratulations is not the reason we are here. No, we are here because despite our differences as Mus- lims, Christians and Jews, we all share, we all face, a common enemy - secularism, atheism and violent ideolo- gies.

Of these three - the last, while most deadly, is (thankfully) rarer than the first two. the first two - secularism and atheism, are the most pervasive and thus more problematic.

Although secularism and atheism attack people of faith from various quarters, be that sexual politics, education- al material or opposition to public displays of religion, they share a common tactic in their attempts to silence those that they disagree with - they work constantly at making their opponents disappear.

How do you make someone or some ones disappear in the 21st century? It does not involve a magical formula. No, it is as simple as not showing or discussing them, that is, not allowing them to be heard or seen, especially in public.

Out of sight is truly out of mind - and secularists and atheists know this. If we look back to the book of Gene- sis, that account of God's relationship to creation and humanity, we find that after forming humankind, God breathed life into us - an intimate communication with us, an intimate connection with us.

Why does this matter? Well, we must recognize that unlike anytime in the history of the world, our mental land- scape is dominated by images. Although the printed word is in more laces than it has ever been, people now read less than they did even a year ago.

Images, from small symbols called emojis on cell phones, to building-sized billboards, now dominate how we see, feel and relate to the world around us. Those who control the image control the argument - those who con- trol the argument often control the outcome. Therefore, concerning this struggle with secularism and atheism, our challenge is twofold. First - we must continue to formulate sound, rational arguments concerning the origins of life.

I will tell you that I was an atheist who was converted to Christianity, in part, through rational arguments about the origins of the material world - that is, I knew, by way of reason, that all Creation is dependent on an intentional Creator. We must explain the same to the world at large. Which brings us to our second challenge - to better understand and utilize the means of communication to deliver the message.

In this instance, communicating the message, the challenge is the opportunity. Communication in the 21st century is a moving target, a rapidly developing mix of electronic, so-called conventual and tried and true interpersonal methods of connecting and communicating, a mix that welcomes innovation and is often forgiving of mistakes.

SECULARISTS and ATHEISTS ATTACK THIS CONNECTION BETWEEN HUMANITY and the DIVINE, NOT ONLY by DENYING THAT IT EXISTS, but by REFUSING to EVEN DISCUSS the MATTER, in WORD and ESPECIALLY IMAGE. - JEFF GARDNER

We should embrace this opportunity along with its challenges. for my part, I began the Picture Christians Project in order to use images and supporting media to reconnect distressed peoples, Christians, all around the world, with their brothers and sisters, fellow children of God. to re-humanize them - to transform them from objects back into subjects.

It may surprise you to hear that one of the greatest fears that refugees and displaced peoples have is that they have been forgotten - disappeared by those who wish to harm them and not seen by those whose help they badly need. So I go out to the forgotten places in the world and find those who have been:

To proclaim without fear or being intimidated that each of us, male and female, has been wonderfully

made by God in His image. to proclaim and act on behalf of each other because of our common, divine humanity - to serve and love one

another as God serves and loves us through the very act of His Creation.

That is, at the heart of it, our challenge, our task: to instruct the world that each of us has been made purposefully, and with the purpose of being seen, of being heard and not being silenced, forgot- ten or disappeared.

Thank you.

## Adnan Oktar Says: Darwinism Is a Superstitious Belief That Disparages Women

The alleged scientific support that So- cial Darwinism provided for racism, fascism and imperialism, as well as communism, is a widely known subject that has been much written about. but one lesser known fact is that a great many Darwinists, including Charles Darwin himself, have believed in the fallacy that women are both biologically and mentally inferior to men.

As the evolutionist scientist John R. Durant also acknowledges, racism and sexual discrimination are the two main consequences of the theory of evolution. Durant verbalized the fallaciousness in Darwin's stance regarding women as follows:

... _Darwin extended this placement by analogy to include not only children and congenital idiots but also women, some of whose powers of intu- ition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imita- tion were "characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization."1_

The errors made by Darwin that Durant referred to appear in the Descent of Man, as follows:

It is generally admitted that with women the pow- ers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strikingly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are char- acteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation.2

It is clearly obvious that Darwin looked down on women even while he explains why marriage is useful:

... _children—constant companion, (friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, object to be beloved and played with—better than a dog any- how—Home, and someone to take care of house— Charms of music and female chit-chat. These things good for one's health.3_

Darwin states that he – in his twisted way - regards marriage as necessary using the reasoning which predicates that "a woman's friendship is better than a dog's," yet his statements about marriage made no reference at all to features such as friend- ship, affection, love, devotion, loyalty, closeness, sincerity and trust between two people who spend their lives together. about marriage, Darwin also had this to say:

... _loss of time—cannot read in the evenings—fat- ness and idleness—anxiety and responsibility—less money for books, etc.,—if many children, forced to gain one's bread ... perhaps my wife won't like London; then the sentence is banishment and degradation with indolent idle fool.4_

In the Descent of Man, Darwin also claims that men are superior to women:

The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man's attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can women—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, paint- ing, sculpture, music, ... history, science, and philosophy ... the two lists would not bear com- parison. We may also infer, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on "Hereditary Genius" that if men are capable of a decided pre-eminence over women in many subjects, the average of mental power in man must be above that of women.5

Of course, all of Darwin's negative opinions re- garding women and the misogynistic discourses of some other Darwinists, the samples of which will be given as we proceed, are diametrically opposed to the moral values described in the Qur'an. in the Qur'an, God commands us to be very compassionate, respectful and protective to- wards women. Furthermore, He cites women with superior morality such as Mary and the wife of the Pharaoh as role models. Superiority in the Sight of God is not according to one's race, gender or rank but according to their closeness to God and their faith.

In many verses of the Qur'an God informs us that all those who believe- without any discrimination between man and woman- will be rewarded with what they have done:

Anyone who acts rightly, male or female, being a believer, We will give them a good life and We will recompense them according to the best of what they did. (Qur'an 16:97)

### Examples of the Nonsensical Remarks of Darwinism Regarding Women

Darwin's misogynistic statements are very clear and many scientists are well aware of this fact. Dr. Jerry Bergman, who is against the evolution theory and who explains the negative impacts of Darwinism on social life in his more than 800 published works and more than 20 books, says the following in his book titled the Dark Side of Charles Darwin:

Darwin himself concluded that the differences between human males and females were so large that it was surprising "such different beings be- long to the same species" and that "even greater differences" had not evolved. Natural and sexual selection were at the core of Darwinism, and hu- man female inferiority was both a major proof and a chief witness of this theory.

Darwin concluded that men shaped women's evo- lution the male's liking by sexual selection, just as animal breeders shaped animals to the needs of humans. Conversely, war tended to prune the weaker men, allowing only the more fit to return home and reproduce. Men were also the hunters, another activity that pruned weaker men. Wom- en, in contrast, were not subject to these selection pressures because they "specialized in the 'gather- ing' part of the primitive economy" that did not re- quire the strength or stamina of war or hunting." 6

The major (and mistaken) justifications Darwin gave for his female inferiority conclusions are summarized in his classic work, the Descent of Man. in this book, Darwin argued that adult fe- males of most species resembled the young of both sexes and that "males are more evolution- arily advanced than females." He mistakenly con- cluded that since female evolution progressed at a slower rate than male evolution, a woman was "in essence, a stunted man". This degrading view of women rapidly spread to Darwin's scientific and academic contemporaries.

For example, Darwin's contemporary and disciple, anthropologist McGrigor Allan, states that women are less evolved than men and that "physically, mentally and morally, woman is a kind of adult child... it is doubtful if women have contributed one profound original idea of the slightest perma- nent value to the world." 7

Of course, Darwin had no scientific basis for pro- posing these fallacies, but his biased and preju- diced claims about women spread rapidly among his scientific contemporaries.

For example, the materialist Carl Vogt, a profes- sor of natural history at the University of Geneva, accepted all the conclusions drawn by Darwin, without subjecting them to any scientific analysis, and claimed that "the child, the female, and the senile white" all had the intellectual features and personality of the "grown-up Negro," and that con- sequently they were inferior. 8

Herr Vogt went even further and brought forward the lie that they were actually closer to animals than men. According to Vogt, a woman was "a stunted man" whose development had been obstructed because her evolution had come to a premature halt.9 Vogt even claimed that the gap between males and females increases with civili- zation's progress and is greatest in the advanced societies of Europe.10 Darwin was greatly influ- enced by Vogt's rantings, and stated that he was honored to count him among his most important supporters.11

Evolutionist Paul Broca (1824-1880) of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris was particularly interested in the skull differences between men and women. Broca misconstrued the relatively smaller brain in

women and came up with the fallacy that wom- en were intellectually inferior to men. of course, that is a very irrational claim; today it has been concluded that there is no relationship between human intelligence and the size of the brain. It is absolutely impossible to come to a truthful conclu- sion simply by looking at the weight of the brain. Many other evolutionists following the fallacies of Darwin and continued to claim that women are biologically and intellectually inferior to men. Fur- thermore, some evolutionists even classified men and women as two different psychological spe- cies. According to this fallacy, men are classified as homo-frontalis and women as homo-parietalis. Again an evolutionist writer, Elaine Morgan stat- ed that Darwin encouraged men to work on the reasons why women were "manifestly inferior and irreversibly subordinate."12

### Being a Woman or a Man Would Not Make One Superior to the Other

Obviously, Darwin's theses were based not on sci-

ence, but on the culture and primitive scientific un- derstanding of the Victorian Era he lived in. These theses gave way to harmful behavior, violence to- wards women and caused women to be regarded as inferior beings in many societies. Philosophies such as fascism and communism that disparage women, basically embrace Darwin's misguided understanding regarding women.

The intellectual characteristics that Darwinists use as criteria are abilities given by God, irrespective of gender.

In one verse, God reveals: "You who believe! If you fear [and respect] God, He will give you a standard (of right and wrong)..." (Qur'an 8:29)

As this verse reveals, judgment-and thus, intel- lect-develops not according to gender, but accord- ing to fear of God. According to the Qur'an, men and women are equal, and superiority is defined by heedfulness. God has imposed equal responsibilities on both, and holds both responsible for the same matters.

Whether one is a male or female does not make a per- son superior in the Sight of God, but fear and deep love

of and devotion to Him, and proper moral values do. in one of His verses, our Lord reveals that regardless of gender, those

who exhibit the best behavior will recdeive the best reward for their moral values:

Anyone, male or female, who does right actions and is a believer, will enter the Garden. They will not be wronged by so much as the tiniest speck. (Qur'an 4:124)

Their Lord responds to them "I will not let the deeds of any doer among you go to waste, male or female..." (Qur'an 3:195)

John R. Durant, "The Ascent of Nature in Darwin's Descent of Man" in the Darwinian Heritage, Ed. by David Kohn, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), p.295

Charles Darwin, the Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1871 (1896 print), p.326

Charles Darwin, the Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882 (Ed. by Nora Barlow), New York: W. W. Norton & Com- pany, Inc., 1958, p. 232-233

Charles Darwin, the Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882 (Ed. by Nora Barlow), New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1958, p. 232-233

Jerry Bergman, the Dark Side of Charles Darwin, Master Books, 2011, p. 246 6- Jerry Bergman, the Dark Side of Charles Darwin, Master Books, 2011, p. 246 7- Jerry Bergman, the Dark Side of Charles Darwin, Master Books, 2011, p. 249

Carl Vogt, Lectures on Man: His Place in Creation, and the History of Earth, edited by James Hunt, London: Paternoster Row, Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1864, xv, 192

Stephanie A. Shields, "Functionalism, Darwinism, and the Psychology of Women; a Study in Social Myth," American Psychologist, no. 1 (1975): 749

Evelleen Richards, "Darwin and the Descent of Women," in David Oldroyd and Ian Langham (Eds.), the Wider Domain of Evolu- tionary Thought (Holland: D. Reidel, 1983), 75

Evelleen Richards, "Darwin and the Descent of Women," in David Oldroyd and Ian Langham (Eds.), the Wider Domain of Evolu- tionary Thought (Holland: D. Reidel, 1983), 74 49

EIaine Morgan, the Descent of Woman, New York: Stein and Day, 1972, p. 1

## Adnan Oktar Says: Distinguishing Between Science and Materialism

The theory of evolution has no scientific basis, and on the con- trary, evolutionist claims conflict with

scientific facts. in other words, the force that keeps evolution alive is not science. Evolution may be maintained by some "scientists," but behind it there is another influence at work.

This other influence is materialist philosophy. the theory of evolution is simply materialist philosophy applied to nature, and those who support that phi- losophy do so despite the scientific evidence.

This relationship between materialism and the theory of evolution is accepted by "authorities" on these concepts. for example, the discovery of Dar- win was described by Leon Trotsky as "the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field of organ- ic matter."1

The evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma writes, "Together with Marx's materialist theory of history and society.... Darwin hewed the final planks of the platform of mechanism and materialism."2

And the evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould says, "Darwin applied a consistent philoso- phy of materialism to his interpretation of nature."3

Materialist philosophy is one of the oldest beliefs in the world, and assumes the absolute and exclusive existence of matter as its basic principle. According to this view, matter has always existed, and every- thing that exists consists of matter. Materialism de- nies the evident existence of a Creator.

So the question becomes one of why the materi- alist point of view is false. One method of testing whether a philosophy is true or false is to investi- gate the claims it makes about science by using sci- entific methods. for instance, a philosopher in the tenth century could have claimed that there was a divine tree on the surface of the moon and that all living things actually grew on the branches of this huge tree like fruit, and then fell off onto the earth. Some people might have found this philosophy

attractive and believed in it. but in the twenty first century, it is no longer possible to seriously hold such a belief. Whether such a tree exists there or not can be determined by scientific methods, that is, by observation and experiment.

We can therefore investigate by means of scientific methods the materialist claim that matter has exist- ed for all eternity and that this matter can organize itself without a supramaterial Creator and cause life to begin. When we do this, we see that materialism has already collapsed, because the idea that matter has existed since the beginning of time has been overthrown by the Big Bang theory which shows that the universe was created from nothingness. the claim that matter organized itself and created life is the claim that we call the theory of evolution and which has been shown to have collapsed.

However, if someone is determined to believe in materialism and puts his devotion to materialist philosophy before everything else, then he will act differently. If he is a materialist first and a scientist second, he will not abandon materialism when he sees that evolution is disproved by science. on the contrary, he will attempt to uphold and defend materialism by trying to support evolution, no mat- ter what. This is exactly the predicament that evo- lutionists defending the theory of evolution find themselves in today.

Interestingly enough, they also confess this fact from time to time. a well-known geneticist and out- spoken evolutionist, Richard C. Lewontin from Har- vard University, confesses that he is "a materialist first and a scientist second" in these words: It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, so we cannot allow a Divine [intervention]...4

The term "a priori" that Lewontin uses here is quite important. This philosophical term refers to a pre- supposition not based on any experimental knowl- edge. a thought is "a priori" when you consider it to be correct and accept it as so even if there is no in- formation available to confirm it. as the evolution- ist Lewontin frankly states, materialism is an "a pri- ori" commitment for evolutionists, who then try to adapt science to this preconception. Since materi- alism definitely necessitates denying the existence of a Creator, they embrace the only alternative they have to hand, which is the theory of evolution. It does not matter to such scientists that evolution has been belied by scientific facts, because they have accepted it "a priori" as true.

This prejudiced behavior leads evolutionists to a belief that "unconscious matter composed itself," which is contrary not only to science, but also to reason. the concept of "the self-organization of matter," which we examined in an earlier chapter, is an expression of this.

Evolutionist propaganda, which we constantly come across in the Western media and in well- known and "esteemed" science magazines, is the outcome of this ideological necessity. Since evolu- tion is considered to be indispensable, it has been turned into a taboo subject by the circles that set the standards of science.

Some scientists find themselves in a position where they are forced to defend this far-fetched theory, or at least avoid uttering any word against it, in order to maintain their reputations.Academics in Western countries have to have articles published in certain scientific journals in order to attain and hold onto their professorships. All of the journals dealing with biology are under the control of evolutionists, and they do not allow any anti-evolutionist article to ap- pear in them. Biologists, therefore, have to conduct their research under the domination of this theory. They, too, are part of the materialist order, which re- gards evolution as an ideological necessity.

### The Definition of the "Scientific Cause"

The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth, a promi- nent evolutionist, is a good example of this bigoted materialist understanding. After Ditfurth cites an example of the extremely complex composition of life, this is what he says concerning the question of whether it could have emerged by chance or not: Is such a harmony that emerged only out of coin- cidences possible in reality? This is the basic ques- tion of the whole of biological evolution. ...Critically speaking, we can say that somebody who accepts the modern science of nature has no other alterna- tive than to say "yes," because he aims to explain natural phenomena by means that are understand- able and tries to derive them from the laws of nature without reverting to supernatural interference.5

Yes, as Ditfurth states, the materialist scientific approach adopts as its basic principle explaining life by denying "supernatural interference," i.e., creation. Once this principle is adopted, even the most impossible scenarios are easily accepted. It is possible to find examples of this dogmatic mental- ity in almost all evolutionist literature. Professor Ali Demirsoy, the well-known advocate of evolutionary theory in Turkey, is just one of many. According to Demirsoy, the probability of the coincidental for- mation of cytochrome-C, an essential protein for life, is "as unlikely as the possibility of a monkey writing the history of humanity on a typewriter without making any mistakes."6

There is no doubt that to accept such a possibility is actually to reject the basic principles of reason and common sense. Even one single correctly formed letter written on a page makes it certain that it was written by a person. When one sees a book of world history, it becomes even more certain that the book has been written by an author. No logical person would agree that the letters in such a huge book could have been put together "by chance."

However, it is very interesting to see that the evolu- tionist scientist Professor Ali Demirsoy accepts this sort of irrational proposition:

In essence, the probability of the formation of a cy- tochrome-C sequence is as likely as zero. That is, if life requires a certain sequence, it can be said that this has a probability likely to be realized once in the whole universe. Otherwise some metaphysical powers beyond our definition must have acted in its formation. to accept the latter is not appropriate for the scientific cause. We thus have to look into the first hypothesis.7

Demirsoy writes that he prefers the impossible, in order not to have to accept supernatural forces—in other words, the existence of a Creator. However, the aim of science is not to avoid accepting the ex- istence of supernatural forces. Science can get no- where with such an aim. It should simply observe nature, free of all prejudices, and draw conclusions from these observations. If these results indicate that there is planning by a supernatural intelli- gence, which is the case in every corner of the uni- verse, then science must accept the fact.

Under close examination, what they call the "sci- entific cause" is actually the materialist dogma that only matter exists and that all of nature can be explained by material processes. This is not a "sci- entific cause," or anything like it; it is just material- ist philosophy. This philosophy hides behind such superficial words as "scientific cause" and obliges scientists to accept quite unscientific conclusions. Not surprisingly, when Demirsoy cites another sub- ject—the origins of the mitochondria in the cell—he openly accepts chance as an explanation, even though it is "quite contrary to scientific thought": the heart of the problem is how the mitochondria have acquired this feature, because attaining this feature by chance even by one individual, requires extreme probabilities that are incomprehensible... the enzymes providing respiration and functioning as a catalyst in each step in a different form make up the core of the mechanism. a cell has to contain this enzyme sequence completely, otherwise it is meaningless. Here, despite being contrary to bio- logical thought, in order to avoid a more dogmat- ic explanation or speculation, we have to accept, though reluctantly, that all the respiration enzymes completely existed in the cell before the cell first came in contact with oxygen.8

The conclusion to be drawn from such pronounce- ments is that evolution is not a theory arrived at through scientific investigation. on the contrary, the form and substance of this theory were dictated by the requirements of materialistic philosophy. It then turned into a belief or dogma in spite of con- crete scientific facts. Again, from evolutionist liter- ature, we can clearly see that all of this effort has a "purpose"—a purpose that requires maintaining, at no matter what cost, that living things were not created.

### Coming to Terms With the Shocks

As we recently stressed, materialism is the belief that categorically rejects the existence of the non- material (or the "supernatural"). Science, on the other hand, is under no obligation to accept such a dogma. the duty of science is to observe nature and produce results.

And science does reveal the fact that living things were created. This is something demonstrated by scientific discoveries. When we examine the fantas- tically complex structures in living things, we see that they possess such extraordinary features that they can never be accounted for by natural pro- cesses and coincidences. Every instance of extraor- dinary feature is evidence for an intelligence that brought it into being; therefore, we must conclude that life, too, was created by a power. This power belongs to a nonmaterial wisdom—the superior wisdom of the All-Powerful God, Who rules all of nature... in short, life and all living things were cre- ated. This is not a dogmatic belief like materialism, but a plain fact revealed by scientific observation and experiment.

We see that this fact comes as a terrible shock for scientists who are used to believing in material- ism, and that materialism is a science. See how this shock is described by Michael Behe, one of the most important scientists to stand against the theo- ry of evolution in the world today:

The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth cen- tury who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. but other centuries

142 2nd International Conference on the Origin of Life and the Universe -2017

have had their shocks, and there is no reason to suppose that we should escape them.9

Mankind has been freed from such dogmas as that the world is flat, or that it is the center of the universe. and it is now being freed from the materialist and evolutionist dogma that life came about by itself.

The duty that befalls a true scientist in this re- spect, is to do away with materialist dogma and evaluate the origin of life and living things with the honesty and objectivity befitting a real sci- entist. a real scientist must come to terms with the "shock," and not tie himself to outdated nine- teenth-century dogmas and defend impossible scenarios.

#### Footnotes

  1. Alan Woods, Ted Grant. "Marxism and Darwinism," Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993

  2. Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2. b., MA: Sinauer, Sunderland, 1986, p. 4. (emphasis added)

  3. Alan Woods, Ted Grant, "Marxism and Darwinism," Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993. (emphasis added)

  4. Richard Lewontin, "The Demon-Haunted World," the New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28. (emphasis added)

  5. Hoimar Von Dithfurth, Im Anfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), vol. 2, p. 64. (emphasis added)

  6. Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 61. (emphasis added)

  7. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Metek- san Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 61. (emphasis added)

  8. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Metek- san Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 94-95. (emphasis added)

  9. Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, the Free Press, New York, 1996, pp. 252-53.

# Conclusion

The consensus reached by the scientists, academicians, university students, artists, politicians and members of non-gov- ernmental organizations that attended the conference as audience and speakers is that the theory of evolution has col- lapsed in the face of findings from such branches of science as paleontology, molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, and anthropology, and how not one piece of scientific evidence actually supports the theory.

As mentioned by most of the speakers, the theory of evolution is supported not because there is any scientific evidence in its favor, but because it prepares an allegedly scientific framework for materialists to deny the existence of God. Darwinism is defended not with science, but with philosophy. Random events form the basis of this philosophy. the only explanation of the fact that millions of intelligent people, who have received perhaps the finest education in the world, should believe in such an irrational and unscientific theory is the "spell" that has lingered on since the nineteenth century.

As can be seen from speakers' presentations, evolutionists do not really consider the meaning of what they say and claim. for them, the evidence and the real working of nature are not important. Their only aim is the defense of their ideology at whatever cost. This is why they defend their irrational claims, which violate all known experiments and observations, under a "scientific" mask.

Phillip E. Johnson, known for his books criticizing the theory of evolution, says in his book Defeating Darwinism by Open- ing Minds that evolutionists believe in a preconception without ever thinking about the claims of Darwinism or weighing up what these claims really imply:

My experience speaking and debating on this topic at universities has taught me that scientists, and professors in general, are often confused about evolution. They may know a lot of details, but they don't understand the basics. the professors typically think that evolution from molecule to man is a single process that can be illustrated by dog breeding or finch-beak variations, that fossil evidence confirms the Darwinian process of step-by-step change, that monkeys can type Hamlet if they are aided by a mechanism akin to natural selection.1

In his book Evolution: ATheory in Crisis, Michael Denton describes the oddness of a Darwinist's belief that the superior and complex systems in living things could be the work of random processes:

To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programs of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. but to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt—the paradigm takes precedence.

Someone who believes that the cell—an organism as complex as the city of New York—emerged as the result of inanimate substances randomly coming together, that human intelligence is the result of mutations, and that the world was suddenly filled with 100 different phyla as the result of coincidences must genuinely be under a spell. This spell leads those under its power to an "affront to reason."2

Others are spellbound by people bearing the title of "scientist," or by institutions called "Academies of Sciences." Such people adopt the logic that everything that scientists say is true, and they simply adopt their views without ever thinking about them. the way to break this spell, which has lain over mankind for approximately two centuries, is to reveal the faulty logic of the theory of evolution and to undermine it, both scientifically and philosophically.

In the present century, mankind has to a large extent been freed of this spell. the 2nd International Conference on the Origins of Life and the Universe aimed to diminish the effect of that spell still further, by revealing the invalidity of one of its major sources. and these conferences and joint efforts of various scientists and academicians will continue to lift this spell entirely. People will be amazed at the way they were held hostage by such a specious theory for two whole centuries.

1- Philip E. Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds., Intervarsity Press, 1997 p.11 2- Michael Denton, Evolution: a Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler, 1986, p. 351.

# Captions

 https://harunyahya.com/en/books/273108/The-Origin-of-Life-and-the-Universe---2nd-International-Conference-2017

15

The Goal of This Lecture Is to Give You a Window into Some of the Reasons Why — as a Biochemist— I Think a Creator Must Exist

17

Science Must Be Observable, Repeatable &Testable. Fabrizio Fratus

35

Conifer Cone  
28 23 MILLION YEARS  
OLIGOCENE PERIOD  
Bad Kreuznach, Germany

39

AFTER CONCLUDING THAT GOD EXISTS, I ASKED MYSELF: WHO IS the CREATOR? DO I RELATE to the CREATOR? IF SO, HOW? I BECAME CONVINCED THAT the ANSWER to THESE QUESTIONS WAS FOUND in CHRISTIANITY.  
Dr Fazale Rana

43

William Paley

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there: I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever... but suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? for this reason, and for no other, namely, that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive what we could not discover in the stone that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are . . . or placed after any other manner, or in any other order, than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it... This mechanism being observed... the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker: that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer: who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.

44

Raindrops falling on the leaves are sent to that saame place, to thus wash the dirt away.  
As a result of this investigation, a German company called ISPO produced a house paint brand-named Lotusan.

46

Planes fly much faster than birds, but give off a lot of heat during flight. in a bird's body, however, the air circulation works just like a cooling system. It is therefore impossible to hit a bird with a heat-seeking missile as one can with a plane.

47

There is an incredibly comprehensive information in the DNAs of living beings. Each person has an average of 100 trillion cells, each of which contains a DNA molecule.

51

Trillions of DNA that billions of living things have possessed for millions of years have been used in the most intelligent manner, written in the most perfect manner with no flaws, and placed in a tiny area invisible to the naked eye.

54

Epigenome  
'Epi' means 'above', which refers to the governing mechanism that has influence over the genome, in other words the DNA.

55

IN THIS CONTEXT, IT IS CLEAR THAT EPIGENOME IS a PROGRAM CREATED by OUR ALMIGHTY LORD. ADNAN OKTAR

58

FALSE

The human beings body contains melanin, and this applies to all human populations. Depending on the decrease or increase of the level of melanin, the skin color is lighter or darker.

58

The human beings body contains melanin, and this applies to all human populations. Depending on the decrease or increase of the level of melanin, the skin color is lighter or darker.

61

FALSE

According to Darwin human races represent different stages of evolution and some races have envolved and progresses more than others.

63

Ginko Leaf  
65-74 Million Year  
Paleocence Period  
Sentinel Butte, North Dakota

65

Discovered in Africa 1974, Popularly Known as "Lucy"

FALSE

FOSSILIZED SKULL BELONGED to an APE

66

Guitarfish  
95 Million Years  
Cretaceous Period  
Hakel, Lebanon

69

FAKE

71

Hackberry Leaf   
45 Million Years  
Eocene Period  
Green River, Wyoming, Usa

72

Zika Virus  
Like all the works on earth, this organism proclaims the might of its creator. Anjeanette Roberts

73

DNA => RNA => Protein

74.

Pariacoto Virus

75

AND SO MANY REASONS to MARVEL at GOD'S AMAZING CREATION and PROVIDENCE. THANKS BE to GOD. - Dr. Anjeanette Roberts

85

Plant Cell

86

CHEMICAL STRUCTURE of OLIGOSACCHARIDE

CHEMICAL STRUCTURE of OLIGOSACCHARIDE

87

CHEMICAL STRUCTURE of OLIGOSACCHARIDE'S

89

KINESIN (A MOTOR PROTEIN) PULLING a VESICLE ALONG CYTOSKELETAL FILAMENT SCIENCE.

INDEED, BIOLOGICAL NOVELTY SO COMPLEX, WITH FUNCTIONAL CONSTRAINTS REQUIRING SIMULTANEOUSLY and HOLISTICALLY EXPRESSED FUNCTIONS, IT'S DESCRIBED by INTELLIGENT DESIGN THEORISTS as "IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX", as a WHOLE or in ITS PARTS. - CARLO ALBERTO COSSANO

95

DNA REPLICATION

97

RNA POLYMERASE

101

The flawless databank in the cell, called the DNA, is a two-meter long code when it is opened up. This code fits into an area much smaller than itself and this is a clear miracle.

103

In summary, according to Stapp, the conscious mental activity operates topdown, and in an inherently non-local manner, to select or enforce large-scale, quasi-stable patterns of oscillatory brain activity from the multitude of possible patterns generated by Process 2. These sorts of global activity patterns correspond in a natural way to neural correlates of mental activity, as conventionally conceived. - Dr. Paolo Cioni

The nervous system, at its highest level, produces mental properties. Mind as a seperate entity might even be non-existent.

107

MYSTERY and AWE ARE PART of OUR LIVES  
AND ACCOMPANY US THROUGH ALL OUR TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES. MATERIALISTIC REDUCTIONISM ONLY DISTANCES US FROM the TRUTH. - Dr. Paolo Cioni

109

It is obvious that it is not the brain, made up of water, lipid and protein, and unconscious atoms, that perceives all this and is responsible for consciousness.

111

Nerves interpenetrating our bodies consist of hundreds, and sometimes, thousands of nerve cells called "neurons".

112

Nerves interpenetrating our bodies consist of hundreds, and sometimes, thousands of nerve cells called "neurons".

115

We can thus see that science shows us that beyond the confines of our brain, there are only energy waves and energy packets.

121

God Created This Way; Technically and Scientifically the Eye Cannot See. - Dr. Oktar Babuna

124

OF COURSE IF YOU ASK a QUESTION, "WHO CREATES THESE PERCEPTIONS? WHO CREATES THESE IMAGES?", WE INEVITABLY COME to the FACT THAT GOD IS the CREATOR of EVERYTHING. - DR. OKTAR BABUNA

125

GOD PROMISES US, GOOD MORALITY WILL PREVAIL the WORLD. WE KNOW THIS FROM the BIBLE, FROM the TORAH, FROM the QUR'AN and ISLAMIC SOURCES. - Dr. Oktar Babuna

133

Secularists and atheists attack this connection between humanity and the divine, not only by denying that it exists, but by refusing to even discuss the matter, in word and especially image. - Jeff Gardner

134

1. Stunted in the beauty of the youth like Mary  
2. Forgotten underground in unfinished buildings  
3. Under bridges  
4. in refugee camps

135

5. Simply abandoned on the streets  
6. Forced to live without heat, running water or even walls  
7. Our work is embodied in this little girl

To proclaim without fear or being intimidated that each of us, male and female, has been wonderfully made by God in His image. to proclaim and act on behalf of each other because of our common, divine humanity to serve and love one another as God serves and loves us through the very act of His Creation.

That is, at the heart of it, our challenge, our task: to instruct the world that each of us has been made purposefully, and with the purpose of being seen, of being heard and not being silenced, forgotten or disappeared.

Thank you.

Jeff Gardner

143

Every material entity which we believeexists in our lives, is in fact only a vision which is creat- ed in our brains.

