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How much do we know about the variety of life on Earth as a result of high-budget and wide-ranging studies in the early 21st century?
Important answers to these questions will once again reveal that biodiversity is an incomparable marvel of creation.
Scientists all agree that we still have a long way to go. As Professor Wilson has put it, "only a tiny fraction of biodiversity on Earth has been explored."25 Professor Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, emphasizes that, "the task is one of enormous importance."26
Remember, some 1.75 million known species have yet to be set out and classified according to scientific criteria. As stated by Professor Minelli, "There are serious problems, indeed, even with that part of biological diversity that has been already described and named."27 Another researcher, John Alroy of California University, says that in all likelihood, one-fifth of all species names in the scientific literature are invalid.28
According to World Resources Institute experts, we know more about the numbers of stars in space than those of the species on Earth.29 Norman Myers, an eminent Oxford university environmentalist, expresses this in another way:
While biodiversity, and indeed life itself, is the key characteristic of our planet, we know more about the total numbers of atoms in the universe than about Earth's complement of species.30
Another scientist to express this is Nigel E. Stork, Director of the James Cook University Tropical Rain Forest Ecology and Management Research Centre. Professor Stork says that the data regarding biodiversity are highly deficient:
In recent years biologists have come to recognize just how little we know about the organisms with which we share the planet Earth. In particular, attempts to determine how many species there are in total have been surprisingly fruitless... What these arguments show is how little we actually know about some of the fundamental aspects of the biology and distribution of organisms. We cannot say how widespread species are, we do not know the size of the species pool, and we do not know how specific species are to a particular habitat, type of soil, type of forest, or, in some cases, a species of tree. 31
To summarize, the distribution, densities, positions in their habitats and levels of genetic variety of most named species are not yet known for certain.32 Furthermore, the great majority of existing species have not yet been described. Despite all our efforts, we know only a very small part of the magnificent variety of life on Earth.
As you shall see in the chapters that follow, this magnificent richness of species definitively refutes the theory of evolution, which claims that living things came into being as the result of chance, and proves one single fact in a way that permits no doubt: Creation.
The glorious richness of life on Earth is the result of a very special creation that belongs only to God, the Almighty and Omniscient. His creation of all things is revealed in various verses:
With the creation of the heavens and the earth, they emit all the creatures of His Signs is ... (Surat ash-Shura, 29)
... There is no joint estate Him, He created everything and gave an order, has recognized a certain measure. (Surat al-Furqan, 2)
References
- E.O. Wilson, "Introduction", p. 2, Marjorie L. Reaka-Kudla, Don E. Wilson, Edward O. Wilson (editors), Biodiversity II, Joseph Henry Press, Washington D.C., 1997. ↩
- Peter H. Raven, "Our Diminishing Tropical Forests," p. 120, E.O. Wilson, F.M. Peter (editors), Biodiversity, Washington D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988. ↩
- Alessandro Minelli, "Diversity of Life", Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, 2000, ğ.els.net ↩
- Skeletons In The Closet: One Fifth of Species Names May Be Invalid", Science Daily Magazine, 14/11/2001, http://wwwsciencedaily.com/releases/2001/11/011114071056.htm. ↩
- How Many Species Are There?", World Resources Institute, 2001, http://biodiv.wri.org/pubs_content_text.cfm?ContentID=535 ↩
- Norman Myers, "The Rich Diversity of Biodiversity Issues," in Marjorie L. Reaka-Kudla, Don E. Wilson, Edward O. Wilson (editors), Biodiversity II, Washington D.C. Joseph Henry Press, 1997, p. 125. ↩
- Nigel E. Stork, "Measuring Global Biodiversity and Its Decline," in Marjorie L. Reaka-Kudla, Don E. Wilson, Edward O. Wilson (editors), Biodiversity II, Washington D.C.,: Joseph Henry Press 1997, pp. 41, 61. ↩
- Ayşe Turak, "Doğaya Sıcak Bakmak," Bilim ve Teknik ("Science and Technique"), December 2000, p. 63 ↩