Friday 18 December 2015

Is Reproduction in Nature a Coincidence?


Is there anything that is not a miracle?

The water we drink; the air we inhale; the soil we walk on; the night falling onto us with its stars every day, the sun, the moon

Are all of them not miracles?

Once man believes in Allah, there is no mute stone, mountain and star and there is no being without a miracle. A humble, tiny caterpillar which suffers agony and strives in order to convert itself into a butterfly is a miracle. An egg or a seed is a luminous miracle.

The Divine Power inscribing the life program of a creature into the egg and embedding the projects of giant trees into a seed sends creatures into this field of practice called the earth. Not a slightest irregularity or purposelessness can be seen in the life programs of creatures; their reproduction is not left to chance, either. Creatures in all sort of environments live in a very good harmony. Destruction of this harmony caused by the interference of humanbeings results in damages that are difficult to recover.

If the discoveries of population planning of animals are examined carefully in detail, the way the Planner Divine Wisdom encompasses the earth pointing every point can be understood better. It can again be understood that the One, who planned this superb universe, created the creatures with miraculous attitudes, assigned the sun, air, light, wind to the service of living beings and assigned the plants to the assistance of animals, and made the animals help human beings, and assigned those particles of food to the cells of the body, is the Lord of Glory.

What happens if the population density of the communities of living beings rises? A biologic mechanism which stops population increase becomes active before famine starts. The hormone systems of the creatures work variously. Ovulation stops, the quality of sexual organs deteriorate. Psychologic behaviors changes: as it happens among rabbits, foxes, deer and rats

J. Calhoun revealed this important discovery by means of his experiments on rats in 1962. He gave plenty of food and enough space to wild Norway rats, prevented them from diseases and provided population density to rise. After 27 months, with normal reproduction tempo instead of producing, 5000 rats from 20 couples, only 150 rats remained. 

When the rats, left in a closed, limited place, reached a certain population density their habits started to change. Although at the beginning they got on astonishingly well with each other, later male rats started to treat the females roughly, females did not make nests or they made sketchy and unfinished holes; they gave birth in casual places and left their babies; and unprotected babies were killed and eaten by the others. 

Mortality rate increased up to %90 for babies and %50 for mothers. Most of the males, continually fighting, got weak at an early age and killed. As a matter of, there existed ample food for all of them.

Otto Koenig did a similar experiment too. He gathered some great white herons in a special place in the institute in Wilhenminenberg and fed them with ample food. The social lives of great white herons became upset, copulation rates reached an excessive number but the number of babies decreased. 

Fights continued fights and what remained from great white herons, which had snow-white skins, were miserable animals with dirty, bloody skins, and animals which trampled even their own eggs and babies. The babies who managed to survive could not grow up and even though their bodies grew up and the feeder was full of food, they went on following their mothers. They could not be mothers or fathers.

Similar incidents are beheld in natural life invariably. For example, seals come together in the reproduction season on an island as piled stacks and they lose their normal behaviors. There is an island in the Arctic Ocean around the offshore waters of England, named Farne Island. About 4000 seals gather on this island in the reproduction season. 

The cliffs of the island become like a meat market. Most of the babies that have just been born are trampled over by those animals or die of starvation. It is interesting that seals only gather on this island for reproduction and do not go to the other islands.

It looks as if they measure their population density on this island. Therefore, population explosion of seals is prevented. It looks as if a program embedded in seals DNAs commands them to take precautions against a possible famine which could occur in the long run.


Another example: There is an island called Royale Island in the Superior Lake in Canada. There exists a deer species called Moose; their population is 600, and they weigh approximately 800 kg. Twenty-four years ago, when the lake froze a pack of wolves, consisting of 19 or 21 wolves, from Ontario, crossed the river and proceeded to the island. Dave Mech and Philip C. Shelton observed the relationship between the wolves and deer within the scope of a study lasting 10 years. 

The number of the deer in the herd, which destroyed the island forests like a disaster, decreased rapidly after the wolvess came and stopped at about 600. As it is known wolves are intelligent animals with a strong social organization. They are ruled by certain methods. They walk around the island in two packs. The larger pack consists of 15 to 17 individuals. Their sexual lives are watched closely. Copulation exists. However, not even one baby animal has joined the group for the last 10 years. 

The number of the animals did not exceed 21 or 22. The living space of each wolf is one mile square. The number of deer stabilized at 600. The number of the babies of the herd is 225. Wolfs hunt only the old, ill and crippled deer and babies. They hunt only one animal for every 2 or three days and try not to disturb the balance.

As it is known, lions have a social life living in groups. Their feelings of motherhood, baby guard and care exemplary and perfect. However, when nutrition opportunities start to decrease, the right of nutrition belongs to the ones that are strong enough to survive. A baby lion can be thrown away through a paw hit of its own mother. Not heeding their babies which follow the group in a skinny state and which beg until death but do not get a share of food, female lions survive in order to secure the reproduction function.


There is another way to limit the reproduction in creatures: Smell!...

When the population density of rats reaches at a certain level, a smell starts to spread from the excretion of male rats and this smell sterilizes the female. If an unfamiliar male rat enters into the cage of a pregnant female, because of different smell, the development of fetus stops and this results in the abortion of the baby.

A similar mechanism functions among the flour insects. When the number of larvae increases to two in one gram of flour, reproduction stops. If a tetrad is put into water in which other tetrads live, the small tetrads quit eating and die in a short time. A big tetrad is enough to cause six small tetrads to die on account of starvation in 120 liters water. 

Moreover, when the water in which a big tetrad lives is poured into the aquarium of small ones, the result will be the same. It has been understood that a chemical substance adjusts the number of frogs in the water. The same things were observed for fish.


The adjustment in elephants is completely different. Having very strong social lives and being very intelligent, elephants immigrate to suitable environments when a problem appears. There was not even one elephant in Serengeti Park in the East Africa 30 years ago. Grzimek, a scientist, counted 60 elephants in 1958; their number increased to 800 in 1964 and to 2000 in 1967.

Ten thousand elephants gathered in the national park near Kurkizon waterfall in Uganda. When elephant groups were unable to take shelter in the national parks, they made everything upside down. However, a short time later, it was observed that they started to adjust their population growth. Population increase did not degenerate elephants life. 

Contrarily, as normal and healthy females continued their lives, the females lengthened the intervals between births, and the duration between birth and copulation which was normally 2-3 months was observed to increase up to 6-10 months.

While the population planning is controlled with firm methods in most of the animals, an uncontrolled reproduction is seen in lemmings and grasshoppers. However, it was observed that even rabbits which invaded Australia like a disaster in the past formed an adaptation mechanism eventually. 

Thomas Austin left 24 rabbits in the island in 1959. (Then, it is known that, sailors used to take living creatures with them for long voyages.) The number of the rabbits increased up to 22 million in six years and destroyed catastrophically the natural flora of the continent. Hunting, poisoning, injecting illnesses via viruses did not suffice for the struggle against that disaster. 

However, in the course of time, it was observed that rabbits adjusted their population density. Males did not copulate with females during dry seasons, even if they did, pregnant animals aborted their babies. However, in rainy years reproduction rate increases.

Let us return to lemmings and grasshoppers. Millions of lemmings, a species of rats and gnawing animals living in Scandinavia, covered everywhere and pullulated as if they emerged from the earth in the spring of 1967. Then, as if they became mad all together, they passed, in colonies several kilometers long, the tundra of Alaska, mountains, rivers, and lakes and moved forward to one direction. After 200 miles of a journey, they arrived at the cliffs of Barrow foreland and dropped themselves down to icy water of the Arctic Ocean from those cliffs without any hesitation and died.

A similar incident was observed in Africa on the antelopes which have become extinct now. It is known that when their population increase very much, groups of animals including about 50.000 participants immigrate crazily to the deserts and die there. It is not different for grasshoppers. 

They live in their environment until reaching a certain population density. Once the population density reaches a certain level, a sudden alteration occurs: they get tall, their colors differ, they soon form groups and finally billions of them move away to deserts and seas in groups by ruining all plants they come upon and die.

It is witnessed that some grasshopper groups reach to the middle of Atlantic, 3200 miles away from Africa. There is also evidence about that they adjust not only the birth rate but also the genders.

Male and female organisms have the same chances to come into existence from biological aspect. When something disturbs the balance between the males and females, the balance is maintained again by a regulation mechanism, which the scientist have not comprehended yet. If the number of males is more, the number of birth of females rises and it continues until both sides have equal populations; similarly, if the number of females is more, then the number of birth of males rises.

Those regulation mechanisms are seen among human beings too. It is particularly seen after wars obviously. Most of the newborn babies are male in a country which has lost most of its male population on account of war.

What concerns us is the Power that controls those physiologic mechanisms and the Knowledge and Power that decides it to operate rather than those mechanisms themselves. Neither humans nor animals could determine and affect the gender of a baby. In spite of that, the gender distribution functions as if it is a law; living beings continue their lives in groups and divisions.

Who other than the One possessing boundless power, governing the sun, earth, seas, and mountains in short the cosmos and assigns them to the assistance of life, and infinite wisdom could interfere in this administration which is wondrous to the utmost degree. 

If one, who cannot administer all those species and nations which are one within the other, interferes with one of them, he will cause a lot disorder. A butterfly manifests its Creator; so, is the perfect harmony and plan among the creatures not a luminous wonder manifesting our Lord?












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