quran and science

TG:

Can you provide evidence to back up your claim?

I did already, but let's do the exercise again.

The whole "embryological part" goes: (Source http://quran.com/23 )

23:12 And certainly did We create man from an extract of clay.
23:13 Then We placed him as a sperm-drop in a firm lodging.
23:14
a)Then We made the sperm-drop into a clinging clot,
b) and We made the clot into a lump [of flesh],
c) and We made [from] the lump, bones,
d) and We covered the bones with flesh;
e) then We developed him into another creation.
f) So blessed is Allah , the best of creators.
(line breaks and numbering a-f in 23:14 added for reference purposes)

The best is to go through it step by step.
So, I start with the first verse and ask the doctor (Naba) being much better trained in the knowledge about the human body than me:

Can you confirm 23:12 - that we are [initially] made out of clay ?


Airmano



Edited by airmano - 24 November 2014 at 6:04am

TG: What are the other embryological errors?

I come to that, but no hurry, let's finish this point first....

To your sentence "If you read the tafsirs, you will see it is a reference to what the Quran teaches God made Adam from, which is mud. It is not a reference to every human being on earth, or anyone other other than Adam."

Well, QE seriously tried to sell me that this clay sentence is correct because we do have the constituing elements of clay (Al + Si) in our body. ( in stark disagreement with your tafsir) That they don't have any biological function and are only present on a ppm level doesn't seem to bother him.
I also consider the tafsir you quote as rubbish: In the light of modern knowledge it is clear that Adam did never exist in a literal sense.
Now you can pull back and say "I don't care about what modern science says"
Well, if so, why bothering that the sentences about embryology are allegedly scientifically correct ?

That elsewhere in the Quran it says that we are made out of dust or water (feel free to choose) doesn't seem to bother anyone either.

You can of cause still choose the standard escape by shifting it to a metaphoric meaning. But why should this introducing sentence be interpreted in a metaphoric sense where - surprise- all the following verses are supposed to be "a precise description of the embryonic development" ? It just doesn't make sense.

I did deliberately ask Naba to answer, for the simple reason that his professional conscience would  (hopefully) forbid him to say that the clay statement  is correct in a literal sense.   Being a Muslim he can obviously not say the opposite either.
So I suspect he took the chicken route by not answering at all.


Airmano


Edited by airmano - 26 November 2014 at 1:34pm

TG12345 wrote: What are the other embryological errors?

The main problem is that the description is far too vague to be of much use for anything.  What is a "clump", or a "clot"?

However, the two things that jump out for me are:

23:13 Then We placed him as a sperm-drop in a firm lodging.

This is obviously based on the ancient idea of sperm as "seed", which the man plants in the woman's womb.  We now know that the seed is actually the woman's ovum.  The first human cell is formed from the female ovum, which was not known to exist at the time and therefore not mentioned in the Quran.  The male sperm contributes half the DNA, but not much else.

23:14 c) and We made [from] the lump, bones, d) and We covered the bones with flesh;

This seems to say that the bones appear first, and then the soft tissue ("flesh") forms around the bones.  This is not true -- if anything it's the other way around.  Although most of the parts of the body develop simultaneously, the skeleton begins as mostly cartilage.  It doesn't start to become bone until around three months, by which time most of the other organs are already in place and functioning.

Matt Browne wrote: Ironically, there is a scientific hypothesis called clay theory, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Cairns-Smith#Clay_hypothesis attempting to explain the appearance of the first RNA molecules on Earth.

Which, just to be clear, is a theory (hypothesis, really) about the evolutionary origin of the first lifeforms on this planet, which would be prior to and vastly different from cellular life, let alone human life.