Paradoxical Sajid (প্যারাডক্সিকাল সাজিদ) is a story book about author Arif Azad’s fictional friend Sajid. In the book Sajid argues many logic against atheism.

Most of the chapters are about philosophical paradoxes.There are a few chapters where Sajid talks about science and that’s where it interests me.

Although in the book Sajid says those things, in reality those are actually the author’s arguments. If you try to categorize this book, it falls more under non-fiction genre than fiction. Therefore, it was author’s responsibility to fact check everything and give proper references. 

I read this book when it came out and now I’m re-reading the last chapter after reading ‘The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution‘ by Richard Dawkins.

Some of the misinformation that I have noticed in that last chapter:

1. Humans Evolved from Chimpanzees 

Sajid says “Evolutionists say that one animal evolves to other gradually. They say, We, humans, came from chimpanzees by gradually evolving”.

No! No ‘evolutionist’ says that we evolved from chimpanzees. Rather, they say humans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor.

2. No Missing Link Found

Sajid says “No missing link has been found to this day” (referring to ‘missing links’ in fossil records).

Maybe the author is not up-to-date with the latest information, maybe he is reading really old books (if any), but yes many so called ‘missing links’ have been found. Even if those ‘missing links’ were not to be found, that does not disapproves the theory of evolution.

Here’s just a paragraph from Richard Dawkins’ book:

3. Several Hundred Billion Years Old Fossil

He talks about a fossil named ‘Piltdown Man’ from England. He says carbon dating has revealed that the fossil is only 600 years old which scientists previously claimed to be several hundred billion years old (in his words).

Dear Mr. Arif Azad, the universe is only about 14 billion years old. No scientist would ever claim that a fossil found on earth to be several hundred billion years old.

Could it be he wrote billion instead of million mistakenly? Still, it doesn’t make sense, there’s no way a fossil like that one could exist from hundreds of million years ago.

. . .

I won’t judge how well written it is in the previous chapters, one chapter full of misinformation is enough to give it lowest possible rating.

I give it 1 out of 5.

This book sets an example why some Facebook posts shouldn’t put together into a book. (Yes, he actually started writing these stories in his Facebook page and later it became a book)