Notes on İrfan Yılmaz’s Evolution- Science or ideology?

I have a speaking class with doctors. Few weeks ago only one of them came, so we didn't study much, just spoke a bit about various topics. We had a decent argument on God and evolutionary theory- me, as the rather atheist and pro-evolutionist, and Abdulkadir, the moslim and creationist. It was a pleasure to argue with someone who believes in something completely different and still manages to keep his cool head- we promised each other to buy one-one book which expresses our viewpoint the best. My choice was the God Delusion, I still owe him but he handed me Evolution- Science of Ideology? yesterday after our class. I started immediately, and decided to take some notes about the arguable points. Here is my first take on it:

The title asks a question which the author dismantles in the first 20 pages by saying ‘a theory which does not provide the opportunity to disprove it, and thus is not falsifiable, does not have the qualities required to be accepted as scientific’. Let’s ignore the practical fact that answering our own book’s question in the first pages makes the rest of the book look less interesting, and now linger on a bit on the citation. Yılmaz states that theories can only be scientific if they can be proven/ disproved with various experiments. He follows the same logic while nullifying the scientific origin of evolutionary theory, stating a said-to-be billion year process cannot be tracked down nor observed because of the length of time. 

However he somehow forgets to mention plenty of inventions and eventually proven theories that appeared to be impossible to prove, for instance, a hundred years ago. I’m not a scientist and truth be told my grades never been satisfactory in those subjects but it doesn't need an expert to disprove Prof. Yılmaz. The modern physics, such as quantum physics (which my father’s main field of research) is utterly based on theories. Proving them seemed to be impossible 50 years ago, nay 30, only a small circle of the scientific world was busy creating theories. There was just no way to prove them. These riddles, however,  appear to be closer to a solution nowadays. Take the Higgs particle, which was probably detected in July 2012 (hasn't been proven as a certainty though). Discovering it seemed a mere and daring dream fifty years ago. Today, it’s reality.

Yılmaz apparently doesn't have the trust in science, the trust that has been moving it through the centuries. The fact that evolutionary theory can’t be proved at the moment, doesn't automatically imply that it can never be proved, it just means we don’t  have sufficient knowledge- yet. He also reiterates numerous times that evolutionary theory is the commonly accepted theory for the origin of life and humankind however it’s unproven. Yılmaz definitely makes a point in the dispute with stating that the theory is almost handled as a fact and has become so sacred since it’s creation that questioning it appears to be almost stupid as questioning whether 2+2 equals 4. However, the book is a hard read especially if you read Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion beforehand… take this line for instance ‘However, the weakness of [Darwin’s] religious understanding, namely his lack of knowledge of God’s names and attributes- knowledge that is particularly exclusive to Islam’. Not that I’m a crusader of Christianity but this sentence just convinces me even more why religions can’t dwell within the walls of objectivity. What Dawkins expresses with shining humor and decent objectivity, Yılmaz substitutes with offensive dogmatism.

That’s it so far, the book is enjoyable despite of what I wrote; the sole fact that it stretches my vision on the topic is satisfactory enough. I’ll make this post a series of writings and will update it any given time I have some thoughts to share. Take care people… in Ourselves we trust.