Edis on Islamic creationism 21 Feb 2008 One of the more curious episodes in recent cultural history is the adoption, word for word, by Islamists particularly in Turkey of the American Christian fundamentalist antievolution schtick. Nobody knows more about this than Taner Edis, whose book An Illusion of Harmony: Science And Religion in Islam outlines how this came about and the relation between science and Islam (overall: not good). Here’s a nice short article by Edis, from the History of Science newsletter. Evolution History Religion
Humor God causes a Sumerian recession 17 Dec 2009 The Onion, as always, nails it… Members of the earth’s earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth. According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to… Read More
Epistemology Science is not a religion, nor does it involve faith 15 Nov 201115 Nov 2011 Suppose you had a friend who saw the world in terms solely of his football team. If you are discussing politics, he refers to the boardroom of the team; if you are talking morality, the on-field ethics of his favourites stars. Now you start to talk about science, and he… Read More
Rant Atheists aren’t entirely human, part whatever 21 Jun 2011 I’ve lost track of the number of cases I have linked to in which the irreligious are outright or subtly suggested not to be fully human. Here’s another example, in an “uplifting” Father’s Day story about a man who drowned himself to hold his disabled son above a cesspool, by… Read More
Well, at least they’re honest about why they don’t like evolution. At least one can begin the discussion where it needs to start, with the religious beliefs, instead of all the ID hokum.
I thought Harun Yahya was the pseudonym for a real person, Adnan Oktar, rather than a movement, which is how Edis describes it/him. He is certainly well-known in Indonesia, where huge numbers of Harun Yahya books on science have been translated into Indonesian and are prominently displayed in the bookshops. Most look like – I haven’t read them – fairly straight accounts of various aspects of science aimed at schools. It is where evolution arises that he goes totally ape. I have a book (with a CD!) entitled in Indonesian “The Human Disaster of Darwinism”, with photos of such well-known “scientists” as Darwin, Hitler, Mao and Stalin on the cover. A conference on his “works ” was held in Jakarta a year or two ago. It is sad that Indonesian children (and adults) are misled in this manner, but Indonesian debate on science is generally very low level. For example, they seemed not to want to know about the Flores Hobbit, despite it being found in their own country, and despite (or because of) the obvious implications for human evolution.
Oktar may be the figurehead, but he clearly doesn’t pump out the thousands of pages of material – it’s a group effort and often plagiarised from American creationists (and the glossy photographs are also stolen in many cases from real scientific work). He’s also a Holocaust denier and Masonic-conspiracist.
Oktar may be the figurehead, but he clearly doesn’t pump out the thousands of pages of material – it’s a group effort and often plagiarised from American creationists (and the glossy photographs are also stolen in many cases from real scientific work). He’s also a Holocaust denier and Masonic-conspiracist.