The theory of evolution came into view by the re-awakening of 
ancient materialistic philosophies and became widespread in the 19th 
century. This philosophy supposes that matter is absolute and infinite. This 
materialistic philosophy does not hold anything to be real except the 
matter, so it tries to explain the universe and nature through purely 
material factors. Since it denies creation right from the start, it puts 
forward that every being, whether animate or inanimate, appeared without any 
means of creation, but by mere coincidence and then acquired an order.

However, the human mind is organised to comprehend the existence of an 
organising will wherever it sees an order. Materialistic philosophy, which 
is contrary to this very basic characteristic of the human mind, produced 
"the theory of evolution" in the middle of the 19th century.

The Theory of Evolution: Darwin's Imagination
The person who put forward the theory of evolution the way it is defended 
today, was an amateur English naturalist, Charles Robert Darwin.

Darwin had never taken a formal biology education. He only took an amateur 
interest in the subject of nature and living things. His interest drove him 
to volunteer for boarding on the official discovery ship named H.M.S. Beagle 
that set out from England in 1832 and travelled around different regions of 
the world for five years. Young Darwin was greatly impressed by various 
living species, and particularly by various finches he saw in the Galapagos 
Islands. He thought that the variance in their beaks was caused by their 
adaptation to their habitat. With this idea in mind, he supposed that the 
origin of life and species lay in the concept of "adaptation to the 
environment". According to Darwin, living species were not created 
individually by a Supreme Being, but came from a common ancestor and differentiated from each other as a result of natural conditions.

Although Darwin's hypothesis was not based on any scientific discovery or 
experiment, in time, he turned it into a pretentious theory with the support 
and encouragement he received from the famous materialist biologists of his 
time. The idea was that the individuals who adapted to the habitat in the 
best way transferred their qualities to the next generations, and therefore, 
these advantageous qualities accumulating in time changed the individual to 
a species totally different from its ancestors. (The origin of these 
"advantageous qualities" was unknown). According to Darwin, man was the most developed outcome of this blind mechanism.

Darwin named this process "evolution by natural selection". He thought he 
had found the "origin of species"; the origin of one species was another 
species. He published these views in his book titled The Origin of Species: 
By Means of Natural Selection in 1859.

While developing his theory, Darwin was impressed by many evolutionist 
biologists preceding him, and primarily by Lamarck. According to Lamarck, 
living creatures were passing the traits they acquired during their lifetime 
from one generation to another, and were thus evolving. For instance, 
giraffes evolved from antelope-like animals by extending their necks further 
and further from generation to generation as they tried to reach higher and 
higher branches for food.

But both Darwin and Lamarck were mistaken, because biochemistry did not 
exist at that time and genetics was unknown. Therefore, their theories 
depended totally on their powers of imagination.

While the echoes of Darwin's book lingered on, an Austrian botanist, Gregor 
Mendel discovered the laws of inheritance in 1865. These laws refuted the 
idea of passing the acquired traits onto subsequent generations. Not much 
heard of until the end of the century, Mendel's discovery gained great 
importance at the beginning of the 1900's. This was the genesis of the 
science of genetics. Again in the same years, the structure of the genes and 
the chromosomes was discovered. And in the 1950's, the discovery of the DNA molecule that includes the genetic information put the theory in a great 
crisis. The reason was the incredible complexity of the DNA, whose origin 
could never be explained by any random process.

All these developments should actually have caused Darwin's theory to be 
banished to the dusty shelves of history. However certain circles insisted 
on revising, renewing, and raising the theory up to a scientific platform. 
All these efforts were very meaningful in indicating that behind the theory 
laid some ideological intentions rather than scientific concerns.

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