Harun Yahya’s Muslim creationists tour France denouncing Darwin
France’s staunchly secularist educational establishment was shocked four years ago when schools around the country suddenly began receiving free copies of a richly illustrated Muslim creationist book entitled the “Atlas of Creation.” The book by Istanbul preacher and publisher Harun Yahya had come out in Turkey the year earlier. After the French Education Ministry warned teachers not to use it and held a seminar on how to deal with creationist pupils, the issue dropped out of the public discussion. But the Harun Yahya group has been spreading its view in France and is now holding a series of conferences on them. Here is my feature after visiting one of the first meetings in the current series:
AUBERVILLIERS, France (Reuters) – Four years after they first frightened France, Muslim creationists are back touring the country preaching against evolution and claiming the Koran predicted many modern scientific discoveries.
Followers of Harun Yahya, a well-financed Turkish publisher of popular Islamic books, held four conferences at Muslim centers in the Paris area at the weekend with more scheduled in six other cities.
At a Muslim junior high school in this north Paris suburb, about 100 pupils — boys seated on the right, girls on the left — listened as two Turks from Harun Yahya’s headquarters in Istanbul denounced evolution as a theory Muslims should shun.
“We didn’t descend from the apes,” lecturer Ali Sadun told the giggling youngsters. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, he said, was “the scientific basis to defend atheism.”
Harun Yahya, one of the most prolific publishers in the Muslim world, gave proudly secularist France a scare in January 2007 by mass-mailing thousands of free copies of his “Atlas of Creation” to schools and libraries across the country.
The Education Ministry quickly ordered headmasters to seize and hide copies of the large format book that, over 768 pages of glossy photographs and easy-to-read text, argues that all living things were created by God exactly as they are formed today.
As Darwin Year ends, some seek to go “beyond Darwin”
As this Darwin Year 2009 draws to a close, I have to say a lot of the public debate it prompted came down to the sterile old clash between evolution and creationism. The issue of religion always hung in the air, with the loudest arguments coming from the creationist side defending it or the neo-atheists like the Darwinian biologist Richard Dawkins denouncing it. In the end, the squabbling seemed to be more about ideology than science and told us little we didn’t already know.
So I was intrigued by a conference held at UNESCO here in Paris recently about scientists who believe in evolution but want to go “beyond Darwin.” Organised by French philosopher of science Jean Staune, its speakers argued that Darwin could not explain underlying order and patterns found in nature. “We have to differentiate between evolution and Darwinism,” said Jean Staune, author of the new book “Au-dela de Darwin” (Beyond Darwin). “Of course there is adaptation. But like physics and chemistry, biology is also subject to its own laws.”
Michael Denton, a geneticist with New Zealand’s University of Otago, said Darwinian “functionalists” believed life forms simply adapted to the outside world while his “structuralist” view also saw an internal logic driving this evolution down certain paths. His view, which he called “extraordinarily foreign to modern biology,” explained why many animals developed “camera eyes” like human ones and why proteins, one of the building blocks of life, fold into structures unchanged for three billion years.
The speakers here — all academics from fields such as genetics, neurobiology, psychology and paleontology — are of course neither the first nor the only scientists to argue that life must have evolved by more than just natural selection. Several mentioned the British paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, who argues that the evolutionary convergence of life forms “throws severe doubt on a number of fashionable presuppositions in evolution.” But it was interesting to see how many different arguments the scientists brought to supplement the basic evolution thesis they supported.
Denton is an interesting case because he is a scientist with publications in peer-reviewed journals who was originally close to the intelligent design movement. His 1985 book “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis” helped launch the “ID” movement and he was linked to the Discovery Institute, a leading advocate of the controversial idea. But he later changed his mind and argued in the 1998 book “Nature’s Destiny: How the Law of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe” argued that evolution occurred but was channeled down certain paths by inherent structures in nature.
A few days after the conference, I sat down with Staune and Denton to find out more about their ideas and what they might mean for religion. Excerpts from these interviews are on the following page.
(UPDATE: Due to technical problems, the original “page 2″ option here did not work on this post on all our websites. Following is the second page.)
Evolution can’t explain patterns in nature? Absolute bunk.
There is a reason why common forms of animal exist in nature. Because not all forms are equal in utility or success. Natural selection shows how certain aspects will be more successful in lifeforms, hence these aspects are likely to be more common.
So a scientist claiming that evolution doesn’t explain convergent evolution is just as odd as a scientist saying that evolution as a process is random.
This has nothing to do with going ‘beyond’ Darwin.
This is probably just another attempt to insert the concepts of design into evolutionary theory. Design implies designer. Designer implies supernatural. Supernatural implies religion.
If so, its been tried before. And people are wise to it.
Saudi cleric to king’s university: don’t teach evolution, mix sexes
A senior Saudi cleric said religious scholars should vet the curriculum at the kingdom’s only co-educational university, meant to be a beacon of science, to prevent “alien ideologies” such as evolution.
King Abdullah’s University of Science and Technology (KAUST), designed to produce Saudi scientists, is the only educational institution in the kingdom where men and women can mix. It is located near a Red Sea village away from the clutches of religious police and opened on September 23.
“The recommendation is to set up sharia committees at this university to oversee these studies and look into what violates the sharia (Islamic law),” Sheikh Saad al-Shithri, a member of a panel of top scholars, was quoted by al-Watan newspaper.
“We are looking at some of the sciences that have included some irregular and alien ideologies, like evolution and such other ideologies,” said Shithri, who is one of several clerics who objected to co-education at the university.
Read the whole story here.
What do you think about this? Can a new university for science and technology not teach evolution?
With 2009 being Darwin Year, we’ve had quite a few blog posts on evolution recently. Here’s a selection:
SB.
Whether a company invests billions into evolutionary sciences, has no bearing on whether evolution is correct or not.
And I agree, a person’s opinion has no bearing on whether evolution is correct or not.
Lucky for us, there is a whole pile of scientific evidence supporting current evolutionary theory. Which means we don’t need to take opinions into account. Or faith, for that matter.
PS. Could you please provide examples of companies who are potentially throwing money away on evolutionary theory and on what projects they are funding? Details would be nice.
Evolution book takes aim at “Intelligent Design”
Among the new crop of books with themes that would resonate with readers of this blog, one that caught my eye is Jerry A. Coyne’s recently published “Why Evolution is True”. I rushed out, bought it and read it.
The title says it all and is clearly aimed at an American audience. America’s reluctance to embrace evolution — which is the foundation of modern biology and stems from Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection — sets it apart from almost all other countries in the developed world. Polls generally show that only around 40 percent of Americans believe evolution is true while in most European countries the figure is closer to 80 percent.
A Harris poll in 2007 for example found that only 42 percent of Americans accepted evolution while 62 percent believed in the devil.
Most commentators attribute this to America’s high rates of religiosity. Evangelical Protestants in particular are suspicious of evolution with many accepting the biblical story of creation as they see it as the literal word of God.
There have been various high profile battles over whether or not to teach “alternatives” to evolution in the classroom. “Intelligent design” theory, which has scientific pretensions, is the latest attempt to bring a creationist alternative to evolution into the classroom. In a nutshell, it maintains that the complexity of life can only be explained by an “intelligent designer.”
I despise most or all religion, but I agree with JD that the scientific, rational, atheist perspective can degenerate into religion. This should be discouraged. Science is a precious, fragile thing. Religionists use it constantly in their lives, but have no respect for it, like a child playing with an expensive camera in a sandbox. (Many people who have earned the pro forma title of “scientist” also have no respect for it, like these people who live on grants to prove that unhealthy foods and beverages are slightly healthy, or the people who churn our antidrug research featuring invalid analysis.)
Re my handle, “satan” is an ordinary Hebrew word meaning something like “adversary” or “accuser”. It isn’t a proper noun in Hebrew; that was a Christian development.
Texas reaches evolution compromise: who won, who lost?
The State Board of Education in Texas voted on Friday to remove a long-time science curriculum rule that required “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories be covered in the classroom.
It also struck down two proposed sections that would have required students in high school biology classes to study the “sufficiency or insufficiency” of common ancestry and natural selection of species.
But it settled on a compromise that will require teachers to discuss “all sides” of scientific theories with their students. This may allow both sides to claim a victory of sorts.
Evolution proponents were especially alarmed by the “strengths and weaknesses” clause because it implied a “weakness” where few scientists say one exists. But some biblical critics of evolution will no doubt be happy by the “all sides” provision.
The old ”strengths and weaknesses” wording was regarded by many as an attempt by social and religious conservatives to raise questions about Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which is popularly known as his theory of evolution.
Some of the supporters of the “strengths and weaknesses rule” said they just wanted open discussion and accused the evolutionists of trying to stifle debate.
Evolution is as certain as any fact in science, and has survived for 150 years without a single piece of evidence against it emerging. If we’re going to teach alternatives to evolution, we should also teach alternative theories to natural childbirth (stork theory) and alternatives to gravity (intelligent falling).
Science is sufficiently humble to admit that it doesn’t know everything, which is illustrated by its use of the word “theory” to denote the highest degree of certainty. But that doesn’t give other groups carte blanche to fabricate alternative theories with no evidential backing and claim that they deserve an equal voice.
Intelligent design is simply a fraud. It doesn’t meet any of the scientific definitions of a “hypothesis” – it can’t be tested, can’t be falsified, and makes no predictions. In other words, it’s utterly useless for anything.
The judge in the Dover case had a lot of scathing things to say about the “Intelligent Design” movement. Essentially, he found them deceitful at every turn.
Creationists are fond of drawing a spurious distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. There is no difference between the two – macro-evolution is merely the accumulation of changes from micro-evolution.
A selection of religion reports: week of March 8
Reuters publishes many more reports on religion, faith and ethics than we can mention on the FaithWorld blog. We sometimes highlight a story here, but often leave an issue unmentioned because it was already covered on the wire, or we have neither the time nor any extra information for a blog post. Here’s a sample of some of the stories we’ve published over the past week:
Philippines says open to amending Muslim autonomy law 13 Mar 2009
China says willing to meet Dalai Lama’s envoys 13 Mar 2009
Jews ask pope for Holocaust studies in schools 12 Mar 2009
Turkey denies firing editor over Darwin article 12 Mar 2009
Pope says pained over “hate, hostility” against him 12 Mar 12 2009
Anti-Darwin speaker gagged at Vatican evolution conference
The start of a high-powered Vatican-sponsored acadmeic conference on evolution was anything but fossilized.The third STOQ International Conference, called Biological Evolution, Facts and Theories, began on Tuesday at the Pontifical Gregorian University (picture right) under the patronage of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture.The conference, which has been organised together with the University of Notre Dame to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, had barely gotten underway when charges of censorship and undemocratic and unacademic behaviour began flying.At the end of the first session Oktar Babuna, a Turkish doctor and collaborator of prominent Turkish anti-Darwin campaigner Harun Yahya,asked for the floor to put forward a question. Babuna, a proponent of the Islamic creationist campaign against evolution, spoke about his view that there were insufficient transitional forms from species to species to support the theory of evolution.After he began speaking two professors on the dias, Francisco J. Ayala of the University of California at Irvine and Douglas Futuyma of the State University of New York were visibly irritated. Someone in the hall can be heard saying “turn the microphone off” and seconds later two organisers approached Babuna. One of them abruptly took the microphone away from Babuna and another ordered him to go back to his seat. Watch it all here“After I walked back to my seat someone said “only evolutionists can ask questions,” Babuna told Reuters afterwards. “This is very anti-democratic and very unacademic. If this is a scientific meeting … if you have scientific questions to ask, they should be responded to scientifically, everybody accepts that … if you force people to shut up and don’t let them ask any question … then it is not a scientific theory but an ideology.” The spat was filmed by Babuna’s associate Dr Cihat Gundogdu, who put an edited version on the Harun Yahya website.Both men attended the conference with English and Italian versions of Harun Yahya’s super-slick mega-book Atlas of Creation (picture left) in hand. We have done numerous blogs on Islamic creationism, its proponents and its opponents. Some of the links are listed below. But what do you think about the debate and, more importantly, do you think officials at the Gregorian University were right or wrong to yank the microphone from Babuna at a scientific conference?http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/02/05/just-before-darwin-day-pew-reviews-faith-and-evolution-in-us/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/12/24/a-one-stop-shop-for-the-latest-on-islamic-creationism/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/11/25/harun-yahya-dangles-big-prizes-for-creationism-essays/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/10/27/richard-dawkins-rips-into-harun-yahya-and-muslim-creationism/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/06/19/harun-yahya-preaches-islam-slams-darwin-and-awaits-jesus/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/04/07/harun-yahyas-islamic-creationist-book-pops-up-in-scotland/
I feel that few of your contributors can have attended a genuine scientific conference.
The delegates here were serious scientists, who came to hear presentations given by advertised speakers. They gave up considerable time and money to be there.
There was time for discussion at the end of the presentations, where delegates could pose questions to the speakers. This is usual at such conferences and Babuna tried to hijack this process, which was rude and unprofessional of him.
After a short time, Babuna was clearly and politely asked to pose his question and he simply continued with his ridiculous rant. The organizers were completely correct to remove him and I’m sure that the serious delegates were relieved when he went.
Just before Darwin day, Pew reviews faith and evolution in U.S.
Just in time for Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday next week, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has posted an extensive research package examining the debate about evolution, Darwinism and religion in the United States. “The Debate over Evolution” is a treasure trove of information about the debate and especially useful for the lists breaking down views of the main religious groups and the political fight over Darwinism state by state.
Here are the main entries:
- Overview: Fighting Over Evolution
- Darwin and His Theory of Evolution
- The Social and Legal Dimensions of the Evolution Debate in the U.S.
- Religious Groups’ Views on Evolution
- Fighting Over Darwin, State by State
- Evolution: A Timeline
- Graphic: Religious Differences on the Question of Evolution
Speaking of Darwin, we’ve done several posts about the Turkish anti-Darwin campaigner Harun Yahya and his Islamic creationst campaign against evolution. Most of the attention on this has been on his mega-book Atlas of Creation, how it’s being distributed in Europe and what the reaction to it has been.
His office has just sent me the photo at right of an anti-evolution stand they’ve set up in the mall at the Burj Dubai skyscraper in Dubai. We’re bound to hear a lot more about Darwin, evolution and faith this year, as it’s also the 150th anniversary of the publication of On The Origin Of Species. This debate has been going on for decades and the pros and cons have been gone through a thousand times. Is there anything new to say about this?
What is reality my friend…
nobody with “knowledge of science and enough brains” can demolish his ideas.They tried but they couldn’t.They know that what Harun Yahya says is true thats why they are so intolerant with him and his followers.
You called his ideas “childish”-and tell me is there anything as pure as innocent as a child???
http://en.harunyahya.tv/videoDetail/Prod uct/12945/DOUGLAS_FUTUYMA_FLEES_IN_ROME
And speaking of Darwin …
A new book on Charles Darwin says a passionate hatred of slavery was fundamental to his theory of natural selection, which challenged the assumption held by many at the time that blacks and whites were separate species.
“Darwin’s Sacred Cause” is among the first of dozens of works about the 19th century scientist to appear in 2009, the bicentenary of his birth and 150th anniversary of the publication of his groundbreaking “On the Origin of Species”. You can see a report here about the book by my colleague Mike Collett-White.
I find the choice of title by the authors Adrian Desmond and James Moore to be an interesting one. Other Darwin biographers have written of his gradual loss of religious faith — and he is today a target of scorn by many religious conservatives who would regard his cause as anything but sacred.
A glance at my “Webster’s Comphrensive Dictionary” suggests most meanings for the word do indeed relate to religion: “set apart or dedicated to religious use; hallowed” is the first. But it also says it can mean “dedicated to a person or purpose” and even “set apart from evil” – definitions which do not explicitly evoke things divine.
Still, if my own first reaction is anything to go by, it is indeed a clever word to insert in a title about a book on Darwin.
I may just have to read the book myself to satisfy my curiousity on that score …
Evolution gets added boost in Texas schools
Social and religious conservatives in Texas suffered a setback on Thursday when the State Board of Education narrowly voted to ditch a requirement that high school science teachers cover the “strengths and weaknesses” of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which is more popularly known as the theory of evolution.
A final vote on the entire science curriculum is expected today. You can see reports here and here.
The rule to teach “both sides of the evolution debate” had been in place since the 1980s, but national interest has been rekindled in recent years by attempts to get Biblical creationism taught in U.S. schools in one form of another.
Proponents of intelligent design — which holds that life is so complex that it must have had an ultimate creator — have suffered a number of setbacks.
Some in the pro-evolution crowd — which includes just about all of the mainstream science community in the United States — contend that introducing “flaws” or ”criticism” of the theory of natural selection is a smokescreen for creationists who can claim that just discussing “doubt” does not in itself signal the promotion of a religious agenda.
Many in the scientific community say there is little doubt on this score or at least the kind of doubt suggested by the proponents of creationism and intelligent design.
The scientific method requires hypotheses, tests, peer review, and continual revision as new evidence becomes available.
Intelligent design does not derive its ideology using the scientific method, although it purports to. Intelligent Design is pseudo-science; it is religious dogma (creationism) in a lab coat.
Those desiring to teach the “weaknesses” of the theory of evolution are just trying to get their foot in the door so they can teach religious dogma. Intelligent design is very close to its cousin, creationism, so if you teach it, why not go all of the way and teach children about talking snakes and magic fruit that gives you the knowledge of good and evil when you eat it?
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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