CHAPTER 1

THE EXTRAORDINARY VARIETY OF LIFE

Life can be found just about everywhere on Earth, whether it's visible or not. Almost no place is without life forms of some kind. A vast number of species live in all habitats, in close harmony with both those environments and with one another. From a drop of sea water to the boundless oceans, from a handful of soil to whole continents, from ice caps to thermal springs, from many meters below the ground to the air you breathe, from deep within our bodies to your own skin...

In addition, the Earth plays host to living things with very different body structures, internal systems, forms of behavior and characteristics: From a bacterium just 1 millionth of a meter in size to a giant sequoia tree some 100 meters (328 feet) high and 2,500 tons (5,512,000 pounds) in weight; from deep-rooted trees to terns that fly 20,000 kilometers (12,430 miles) on their migrations or salmon that swim for thousands; from a mayfly with a life span of just a few hours to the creosote bush that can live for more than 1,000 years; from the grouper fish that travel singly through the oceans to ants that live in colonies of several millions; from a delicate orchid to insects that are impervious even to radiation...

As Dr. G. David Tilman, Professor of Ecology from University of Minnesota puts it, "The most striking feature of Earth is the existence of life, and the most striking feature of life is its diversity."2

To describe the variety and richness of life on our plant, scientists use a special term: Biodiversity. This term was adopted from biological diversity and includes animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms—in short, all living things.

The term biodiversity is now widely employed, but contrary to what is often imagined, it has only recently become a familiar term. No matter how far back in history one researches the variety of life, the special term of biodiversity entered scientific circles only in 1986. That year, the concept was born at the Biodiversity Symposium held by the American National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution.3

Following that, there was a rapid increase in initiatives drawing attention to the importance of biological diversity and the need to protect it. Following the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Regeneration, held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, biodiversity became one of the subjects of joint concern for all the countries of the world.

How Many Species Are There on Earth?

In biology, the concept of species is used to describe, understand and reduce biodiversity to a specific number. A living species consists of a population whose members can reproduce only among themselves and that share similar structural and functional characteristics. (This concept will be explored further in Chapter 3, "Evolution's Speciation Dilemma.")

How many species are there on Earth? That question has long intrigued a great many people. Wide-ranging research is now being carried out to answer it. To date, scientific studies have revealed that no definite figure can be given, only that it is exceedingly large.

The eminent zoologist Edward O. Wilson, one of the scientists who first came up with the concept of biodiversity, is regarded as an authority in the field.4 A professor at Harvard University, he offers the following analysis:

No one knows the number of species of living organisms, but there are probably at least 5 million, and the number could be as high as 100 million. Consider first the question of the amount of biodiversity. The number of species of organisms on Earth is unknown to the nearest order of magnitude. About 1.5 million species have been given names to date, but the actual number is likely to lie somewhere between 10 and 100 million.5

Thomas E. Lovejoy is President of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment and an expert on biodiversity:

While the number of species currently described is on the order of 1.4 million, the big question is how many species are there totally? Current estimates of the total number of species run from 10-100 million.6

In a paper, Professor Quentin Wheeler of Natural History Museum, London and Professor Joel Cracraft of the American Museum of Natural History submitted their own estimate of biodiversity:

Despite having accumulated significant knowledge about the world's species over the past 2 centuries, we still cannot provide accurate answers to the simplest of all questions about biodiversity. How many species are there? Estimates vary from 3 to 100 million species.7

Taylor Ricketts of Stanford University says that: "The Earth is home to over 1.7 million known species, and probably 10 times that number have yet to be discovered."8

Alessandro Minelli from the University of Padua states that "Global estimates of existing biodiversity are thus quite uncertain. Figures ranging from 5 to 130 million species have been recently offered for the gross total."9

According to The Encarta Encyclopedia, the identified and named species number 1.75 million, and some scientists estimate the total number of species on Earth to be around 10 million and others, more than 100 million.10 According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, many more species are waiting to be identified and named, and there are currently estimated to be between 10 and 30 million living species.11

Also, these estimates are for species currently living and do not include those that have become extinct.

The Scale of Biodiversity

And in your creation and all the creatures He has spread about there are Signs for people with certainty. (Surat al-Jathiyya, 4)

To provide an idea of the impressive richness of micro-organism, fungi, plant and animal species on Earth, a few examples can be cited. According to Professor Wilson's calculation, a catalogue describing merely a million species would fill a 60-meter library shelf.12

To view biodiversity from another angle, let us now include species' genetic richness in the calculation. The information controlling the body's functions, encoded in the human DNA molecule in the nucleus of every cell, would fill an encyclopedia containing a million pages. Bear in mind that Man is only one of 10 million species, and a truly extraordinary picture emerges: Were we to write down all the genetic information for all those species, there would not be enough paper in the world to do so.

Enough information that controls the body's functions has been coded in the cell nucleus of every human being to fill a 1-million-page encyclopedia. Bearing in mind that man is just one species among tens of millions, a truly extraordinary picture emerges.

The number of single-celled eukaryotes (Protista), algae, bacteria, fungi, seaweeds, flowering plants, sponges, corals, insects, birds, reptiles, fish and mammals—in short, the number of the categories of all living things—is so huge that some scientists and researchers think that the target of determining and describing all species is unattainable.13

Two researchers from London's Imperial College, Andy Purvis and Andy Hector, published an article in Nature magazine titled "Getting the Measure of Biodiversity." They emphasized the point that computer databases and internet technology have prepared far more comprehensive species lists than ever before; and that trillions of bytes of information have been collected together in data banks. However, all this information is no more than "a small drop in the ocean," as Purvis and Hector put it.14

There are hundreds of breeds of dog, all with different appearances, weights, colors, forms of behavior and characteristics. Yet they are all still the same species.

But the really impressive thing is not just the total number and diversity of species. Within each species, there are also a large number of variations. For instance, all dogs belong to the single species of Canis familiaris. But in addition, there are hundreds of diverse breeds with different appearances, sizes, body structures, colors, and forms of behavior.

Another phenomenon is that some animal species exhibit different body structures at different periods in their lives. During its pupa, larva and adult stages for example, a butterfly or moth exhibits an enormous variety in terms of structure, size, color, life style, behavior and biological systems.

Anyone realizing the wealth of biodiversity on Earth needs to ask an important question: How did such a variety of life emerge?

This question has always given evolutionists a major headache, and will always continue to do so. Writing a so-called evolutionary scenario for even a single species is a major problem for Darwinism, and the evolution of millions of species is an irresolvable one. People who set aside preconceptions on the other hand, clearly understand that all living species came into being by the wish and creation of God, Lord of the worlds. This is the sole explanation for the magnificent diversity of species, and looking for any other is a waste of time.

No matter how much large, attractive animals like birds, reptiles and mammals attract notice, insects are actually the group with the greatest diversity. According to contemporary findings, insects represent over two-thirds of the total number of species on Earth.15 Approximately 1 million species belonging to this group have been named and described so far.16

As research deepens, brand- new scientific discoveries are made, and new plants, animals, insects and marine life forms are discovered every year. Every new study sheds light on one unknown aspect of the world's wealth of variety. Therefore, the numbers and proportions in the above table will change over time.

The distribution of Earth's biodiversity is not fully known. One fact observed so far is a general increase in the number of species as one descends from the poles towards the equator. Nothing more definite can be said, mainly because countless ecosystems, on both land and in the sea, are still waiting to be studied. Many regions on Earth have still not been comprehensively examined.

Terrestrial biodiversity is found in only 1.4% of the planet's land mass. Locales that are rich in such diversity are at the same time home to rapidly growing human societies.

Places particularly rich in terms of species are known as hot spots, and found generally in tropical regions and islands. The organization called Conservation International has stated that while land-dwelling life forms comprise only 1.4% of life on Earth, some 25 hot spots contain roughly half of all land-dwelling species.17

Researches in the World of Science

Carl Linnaeus

In the 250 years since the publication of Systema Naturae, a book by Carl Linnaeus, who is one of the most eminent names in the history of science, some 1.75 million species have been named and described—again, only a very small part of the world's total number of species. But these species named by researchers have not yet been collected under a single scientific index. As yet, there is no list containing all the known animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms.18

This state of affairs can be compared to a library with nearly 2 million books, but no ordered index that lists them all.

The lack of a catalog including all species naturally gives rise to some confusion. In order to eliminate this, many scientists are trying to collect the names of all known species under a comprehensive index. For example, the Species 2000 program is one such study, intended to catalog all known species.19 By the end of 2001, this project, had listed some 250,000 species, and existing global species databases may presently account for some 40% of the total known species.20

Other studies are being carried out to identify as yet unknown species. Thousands of scientists from many countries, particularly the USA, are now researching the species on Earth. The total budget set aside for this endeavor is hundreds of millions of dollars. Many institutions whose objective is to discover and understand diversity are active today.

Within the framework of this research, 2001 and 2002 were declared to be International Biodiversity Observation Years, and a special study to which eminent biologists, environmentalists and experts are participating was initiated in order to obtain more information about species throughout the world.21 This research is regarded as one of the most important developments in 21st century science. Diana Wall, a professor at Colorado State University and Director of the International Biodiversity Observation Year Management Board, summarizes the importance of this research:

Scientists have described about 1.75 million species, but we estimate that there are over 12 million species still to be described. For 99% of species we simply don't have good information on their distribution, abundance, whether they are plentiful or endangered, or their role in providing goods and services that we get from ecosystems, such as renewal of soil fertility, decomposition of waste and purification of water…

Research into biodiversity will be of great benefit in many fields, from discovering new genetic compounds and chemical substances to be used in drugs to crop improvement and the cleanup of polluted regions.

Exploring biodiversity will unlock many benefits, through discovery of new genes and chemicals that can be used for drugs, to improve crops, or to restore polluted land. Perhaps even more importantly, learning where species are, their role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, and how we can conserve them will be vital for making more informed decisions about our land, rivers and oceans.22

A new study initiated in this field is the All Species project.23 Eminent biodiversity experts such as Edward Wilson and Peter Raven are involved in this project, whose aim is to name and describe all species, and to prepare an Internet page for each one. This project is far more complex than other studies being carried out in the world of science, and a much wider-ranging one than the Human Genome project, as was made clear in the 26 October 2001 issue of Science magazine. According to All Species Project researchers' estimates, it will cost some $20 billion to establish a data bank of all species.24 This cost alone is enough to give an idea of the project's size.

It therefore seems certain that increasing research will permit us to discover previously unknown species. Every organism newly discovered, from smallest to the largest, once again shows thinking and rational people the sublime nature of their own creation.

The Latest Situation

He cast firmly embedded mountains of the Earth so it would not move under you, and rivers and pathways so that hopefully you would be guided. (Surat an-Nahl, 15)

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:

Among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and Earth and all the creatures He has spread about in them... (Surat ash-Shura, 29)

... He has no partner in the Kingdom. He created everything and determined it most exactly. (Surat al-Furqan, 2)

Ecosystems and Biodiversity

Living things exist in complete harmony with each other and with their surroundings. With the disappearance of a single species, the whole ecosystem is disrupted and balance is damaged.

A specific area's ecosystem includes all the living things in it, as well as their physical surroundings. Lakes, forests, and coral reefs, together with the living things they harbor, are all examples of ecosystems. Lake Baikal in Siberia, for instance, is an ecosystem containing 1,500 plant and animal species.33

Each ecosystem has its own unique variety of life. For example, there are dozens of species of trees in a typical North American forest, and hundreds in a South American rain forest.

The point to be emphasized is that any balanced, healthy ecosystem hosts a wide spectrum of living species. A large number of species are linked to one another within a very complex interconnected system, and these play a greater or smaller part in the balanced functioning of the ecosystem as a whole—so much so that sometimes, the absence of a single species can impair an entire system and damage its equilibrium. For example, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, otters in the Northwest American and Western Canadian coasts were hunted almost to the point of extinction. The otters fed on sea urchins, and when these mammals practically disappeared, sea urchins multiplied rapidly and began damaging seaweed beds. Damage to the seaweed had a harmful effect on several species of fish and invertebrates in those same waters and led to a decline in their numbers.

Toward the end of the 20th century, when otters were made a protected species, the seaweed began increasing, and balance in the region was re-established.34

Many more similar cases have been observed, helping us to understand that species spend their lives in perfect harmony with each other and with their surroundings.

But the term extraordinarily complex utterly fails to do justice to the complexity of the system constituted by the glorious variety of life on Earth. To obtain a closer understanding of this, consider the following: Even if all scientists work together, combining all our accumulated technological and scientific knowledge and material means, not even the smallest imitation of one of these systems can be produced. Professor Wilson says that it is totally impossible for scientists to collect species beforehand from a rain forest about to be cut down and to introduce them all somewhere else:

The biologists cannot accomplish this task, not if thousands of them came with a billion-dollar budget. They cannot even imagine how to do it. In the forest patch live legions of species: perhaps 300 birds, 500 butterflies, 200 ants, 50,000 beetles, 1,000 trees, 5,000 fungi, tens of thousands of bacteria and so on down a long roster of major groups. Each species occupies a precise niche, demanding a certain place, an exact microclimate, particular nutrients and temperature and humidity cycles with specified timing to trigger phases of the life cycle. Many, perhaps most, of the species are locked in symbioses with other species; they cannot survive and reproduce unless arrayed with their partners in the correct idiosyncratic configurations.

Even if the biologists pulled off the taxonomic equivalent of the Manhattan Project, sorting and preserving cultures of all the species, they could not then put the community back together again. It would be like unscrambling an egg with a pair of spoons. 35

From Professor Wilson's statements, you can see that no ecosystem can ever be established using human intelligence and knowledge. Therefore, it is totally impossible for ecosystems to come into being through blind chance, as evolutionists maintain. The following statement by the well-known Professor of Botany Karl Niklas from Cornell University is significant:

I don't think that the ecological patterns that we see surfacing in fossils and living organisms and across the continents are a consequence of chance.36

Ecosystems operating in perfect harmony are no doubt manifest proofs of the fact of Creation and the existence of a sublime Creator. At the same time, the Earth's biodiversity and flawless order completely refute Darwinism, which claims that they formed as the result of blind chance and random coincidences.

Let's have a closer look at the fact of Creation in certain ecosystems with a wealth of biodiversity.

Lessons to be Learned From the Biosphere 2 Project

Our own lives depend indisputably on millions of other living species, flawless balances and perfectly functioning ecosystems. The purification of the water you drink, the production of the air you breathe and the food you eat, the fertilization of agricultural land, the production of raw materials in the objects you use and countless other activities are all carried out by living things. Most people fail to properly appreciate these blessings they obtain from living things that live side by side with them, and most do'nt even feel the need to think about them. Yet to free one from lazy thinking and familiarity, what would happen if the living things that perform these services for us ceased to exist?

Clearly, we, too, would be unable to survive. Even if we mobilized advanced technology and our entire material means, we could never establish the balances and conditions essential to our survival. The latest scientific research to confirm this fact was the Biosphere 2 Project, regarded as the largest and most complex closed study area used in ecological research to date.

This project aimed to establish an ecosystem that would provide a habitat for eight people, plants and animals for a two-year period in a closed area of 13,000 square meters (15,550 square yards) in size.37 The system contained "rooms" resembling such natural ecosystems as agricultural areas, forests and seas. However, the project was a failure, which disappointed a great many scientists. Joel Cohen of Rockefeller University and David Tilman of Minnesota University described the result of this initiative in an article in Science magazine:

Despite the enormous resources invested in the original design and construction (estimated at roughly $200 million from 1984 to 1991), and despite a multimillion-dollar operating budget, it proved impossible to create a materially closed system that could support eight human beings with adequate food, water, and air for 2 years. The management of Biosphere 2 encountered numerous unexpected problems and surprises, even though almost unlimited energy and technology were available to support Biosphere 2 from the outside. 38

Despite Biosphere 2's unique design and the impressive resources employed in its construction, it was impossible for its closed system to recreate the balances that have been operating flawlessly on Earth for millions of years. Therefore, it was not possible to produce a self-sustaining environment habitable by human beings, plants and animals.

Some of the unexpected problems that emerged in the facility between 1991 and 1993 and made life impossible included a drop in oxygen levels to 14%, sudden rises in the carbon dioxide concentration, a rise in the amount of nitric oxide sufficient to cause brain damage, the disappearance of most of the living species (including 19 of 25 vertebrate species and all pollinators brought into the enclosure, which would have ensured the eventual extinction of most of the plant species as well), water pollution, excessive algae, and population explosion of crazy ants, cockroaches and katydids.39

In short, despite all the efforts made, it proved impossible to produce in the closed Biosphere 2 system the balances that have been operating for millions of years on Earth, and thus it was impossible to establish an environment habitable for humans, animals and plants.

In conclusion, Professor Cohen and Professor Tilman summarized the lesson to be learned from the project:

No one yet knows how to engineer systems that provide humans with the life supporting services that natural ecosystems produce for free.40