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
Biology What is systematics and what is taxonomy? 5 Feb 201123 Jul 2023 Over the past few years there have been increasing numbers of calls for governments to properly fund systematics and taxonomy (and a number of largely molecular-focused biologists insisting they can do the requisite tasks with magic molecule detectors, so don’t fund old-school, fund new-fangled-tech). But I think that there is… Read More
History Agriculture and the rise of religion 19 Aug 2008 One of my claims is that religion proper arose along with the settlement in sedentary townships made possible by agriculture. The reason why this is religion, and not, say, the shamanic “religions” of nomadic tribes, in my view, is that in the latter, people are all related closely enough to… Read More
Evolution Why do scientific theories work? The inherent problem 18 Jun 2008 In an interesting post, Think Gene poses what they call “the inherent problem” of scientific theories: The inherent problem of scientific theories is that there exists an infinite equally valid explanations. Why? Because unlike in mathematics, we never have perfect information in science. … OK, so our world understanding improves… 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.