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
Freedom Pope gets tax-paid visit to UK to denounce equality of gays before the law… 2 Feb 2010 I am glad to see I am not the only person who finds this unconscionable… I hope the Grauniad won’t sue me for reposting their piece below the fold. Read More
Epistemology Metaphysical determinism 20 May 201227 Aug 2012 There is a hypothesis called the Sapir-Whorf Thesis (also known as linguistic relativity) in language that one can only think what one’s language permits you to think, and indeed forces you to think. This idea that some conceptual scheme can determine how you think is widely held. It appears again… Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design Objecting to the prevailing tide 12 Jun 2009 My friend and costudent of Gareth Nelson, Malte Ebach, persists in his campaign to bring some clarity to evolutionary and systematics thinking. I may not always agree with him, but he’s often clearer on these matters than his targets, so I refer you to his recent post on paraphyletic thinking…. 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.