Harun Yahya, Islamic creationist superstar

Harun Yahya isn't even that original, borrowing much "science" from the loony christian creation "scientists"

Harun Yahya isn't even that original, borrowing much "science" from the loony christian creation "scientists"

Wow. Manning's Corollary achieved on the very first comment! I'm impressed.

Harun Yahya isn't even that original, borrowing much "science" from the loony christian creation "scientists"

That's alright. Mohamed swiped a lot of his stuff from Christian theologians and scriptures, too, as they had from Jewish sources, who in turn had pilfered Babylonian texts.

Rod, your reference to Manning's Corollary here is inappropriate. If the topic being discussed was, say, German politics in the 1930's, it would be sort of inevitable that someone would mention Hitler fairly soon, probably in the first comment. Likewise here: the parallels between Islamic creationists and Christian creationists are blindingly obvious. Do you expect people to ignore that? Or are you just trying to head off the uncomfortable squirming of Christian creationists who read this article and think about what it means?

Interesting how Turkey (#1 in belief in Creationism) and the USA (#2) both have governmental pushing of Evolution (as an ideology) in public schools with a resulting push-back from religious fundamentalists.

Does anyone know the situation in European or other MidEast countries with regard to how they teach about life's origins in schools? I am wondering if there is a lot of teaching about evolution in schools in these places or if they don't "push" evolution. It seems like most of the fervor about Creationism here in the USA is a reaction to the feeling that evolution is pushed in schools (and popular culture) as an ideology as much as it is a scientific topic. I often think if scientists and other promoters of evolution just quit pushing it as an ideology that more people would feel able to accept it since it wouldn't be a threat to their faith (which it doesn't have to be in any case).

The battle between a secular state and fundamentalist/orthodox believers is as old as civilization. Next time the issue comes up in the Texas legislature, at least someone can say, "Hey, we are just like Turkey. Did you hear what Muslims are doing over there?"

Turkey has always been caught between modernity and its past. Despite saying it is a secular country, the role of religion is why the EU doesn't want to let them in (that, and their alliance with the US).

*I often think if scientists and other promoters of evolution just quit pushing it as an ideology that more people would feel able to accept it since it wouldn't be a threat to their faith (which it doesn't have to be in any case).*

What other aspects of scientific research do you feel we should refrain from discussing in high school science classrooms?

Evolution isn't an ideology. Creationism is an ideology. Evolution is science. Creationism is philosophy or mythology, but it isn't science. So I'd support science being taught in science class and philosophy or mythology being taught in a humanities class.

Personally the work Of Luca Cavalli-Sforza changed my mind about being a strict creationist. I'm still a believer, but not like I used to be. He was one the first scientists to ask whether the genes of modern populations contain an inherited historical record of the human species. He combined demography(linguistics, cultural, and archeology) with a newly available analysis of blood. This shows the migration patterns of humans. Long story short, we all come from a single set of parents( father about 60,000 years ago). You can trace the "journey of man" from his associates at Stanford. The truth is an overlap of science and religion that the politically correct on both sides won't acknowledge.

Re: There's no way to accord serious activist theism with Darwinian evolution. The latter insists on the undirected formation of lifeforms, including humanity.

Strictly speaking, Drawinism only requires that life being undirected from within the system. The possibility of external manipulation is allowed for. The Dawkins school of metaphysics does not allow for that, but pure Darwinism still does. Darwinism no more comments on the existence (or activity) or God that Copernican astronomy does. Speaking of which, in Saudi Arabia at least it has only been a generation since the Ptolemaic system was abandoned by religious authorities.
As to the poster who mentions Cavalli-Sforza's excellent genetic sudies, why would this convince you of evolution, since the Biblical account of human origins also posits descent from a common ancestry?

more than 250 million fossils refute evolution

"evolutionary theory is not scientific, but ideological." The ever emerging,lying, ignorant statement from every group which rejects evolution in the name of religion. I can respect a person who simply says that they cannot accept evolution. But not if they think they can rewrite what science is.

And yes Matt - European schools teach, assume evolution - where did you come up with that off the wall idea?

And please check out "The Journey of Man" A Genetic Odyssey. It's on CD from National Geographic. Everyone should watch it. Make you a believer in common descent and evolution.

Matt, do you really believe that French public schools don't teach evolution? Or Japanese schools? Or, say, schools in any other developed country in the world?

Polchinello: The same was thought of the Copernican model of the solar system and Galileo's ideas--but that didn't pan out, did it?

I'd say it panned out pretty well. The intellectual elite of Europe pretty much ceased to be orthodox believers.

So you're saying that because it is true that the Earth goes around the sun and not vice versa, that "the intellecutal elite of Europe...ceased to be orthodox believers"? Is a faith too weak to deal with the truth worthy of the name?

It's odd only if you find philosophical coherence odd.

I refer you to Jon's post. Also, to say that God created the world and caused evolution through secondary causes is not incoherent at all. Even John West of the Discovery Institute, in this article, grudgingly admits, "While [Francis] Collins’ view [of evolution] is logically compatible with the idea that God actively guides the development of His creation, it is still in tension with the traditional Biblical understanding of God." (emphasis added) In other words, he concedes that there is no incoherence--it's just that the Bible as he interprets it doesn't support evolution.

But interpretation is the kicker, isn't it? The "traditional Biblical understanding" had no room for the Earth going around the sun, for the planets moving because of gravity (as opposed to being directly moved by angels sent from God), etc.--but when the evidence was incontrovertible, the "traditional Biblical understanding" had to give way. If some became non-believers, that was for reasons far more complex (think Reformation, the Wars of Religion, the Enlightenment, etc.); but the fact remains that truth is truth, whether it sits well with "traditional Biblical understanding" or not.

Well, the catch with both Collins and Miller is that they both wind up pushing a form of creationism.

Well, it depends on what you mean by that. "Young Earth Creationism" is the proper term for the type of creationism that inteprets Genesis 1 as a literally accurate account. While this may not apply to the type promoted by Harun Yahya (since his sacred text is the Qur'an), his is similar in that it rejects the overwhelming evidence of modern science. This is the type of creationism that is patently absurd, and whose advocates fight the teaching of accurate science.

On the other hand, to say that God created the cosmos in a manner congruent with modern science is "creationism", strictly speaking, but it posists no conflict between science and relgion. The term more commonly used us "theistic evolution".

Strictly speaking, Darwinism only requires that life being undirected from within the system.

No. That would make ID darwinian.

Not quite--there's a subtle difference. The IDers postulate that evolution proceeds along a path, Step 1, Step 2, Step 3--then God intervenes, apparently miraculously, by directly causing Step 4--then it proceeds to Step 5, Step 6, and so on.

Theistic evolution says that all the steps may proceed from internal causes, but God can be the cause behind the cause. Analogy ripped off from C. S. Lewis: In Hamlet, does Ophelia die because the branch broke and she fell in the water and drowned, or because Shakespeare wrote it that way? Of course, it's a false dichotomy. From the viewpoint of the characters "in" the play, the cause was purely natural--the branch was weak, it broke, she fell--the Bard's hand didn't descend from the Danish sky to break it. From "our" point of view, Shakespeare found that the appropriate dramatic thing to happen and so wrote it.

So a mutation that is caused by purely random forces (say, being hit by a cosmic ray) can also be caused by God. He doesn't reach down to "jimmy" things--they happen on their own, naturally, according to the laws of physics, chemistry, and such--but He did "write it that way". Study the types of Aristotelian causes to get a better grasp on this.

In any case, I had originally assumed you were taking a shot at evolution in your remark on Bryan and the Abrahamic faiths, but from your current post, it seems that perhaps you were taking a shot at said faiths. That's irrelevant though--if you are postulating that evolution as understood by science and the existence of God are incompatible, you're incorrect.

My point was exactly the one you made. You don't believe it, yet you indulge and defend it. Instead of staking out an intellectual high ground, conservative opinion elites suddenly become spokesman for the Discovery Institute in their willingness to defend creationism.

Maybe it's the whole question of Christians as victims, so we need to defend even the intellectually indefensible because they are under attack.

You really can't extrapolate to the entire Muslim world because one particular country's blowback agains secularization includes promotion of an Islamic creationism. Westerners really need to get it through their heads that the Muslim world is not a monolith and likely never will be. I grew up in one of the world's most populous Muslim countries (missionary parents) and creationism was never an issue there and still isn't.

Davis: My point was exactly the one you made. You don't believe it, yet you indulge and defend it. Instead of staking out an intellectual high ground, conservative opinion elites suddenly become spokesman for the Discovery Institute in their willingness to defend creationism. Maybe it's the whole question of Christians as victims, so we need to defend even the intellectually indefensible because they are under attack.

You are seriously messed up. I don't defend this stuff. Where am I defending Harun Yahya? I think he's wrong, and I've just said so. Yet you persist in lying about me. Go find another blog to troll. I'm showing you the door.

Evolution says there is no design

Not really, science, and hence evolution can not speak to the issue of design, either for or against. Teleology is beyond the realm of what science can speak to. To use your example of the creation of man, there is really no conflict between the evolutionary account and the theistic account, they speak to different things. There is no reason to suppose that God could not use evolution to "specially" create man. To state that evolution rules out design or teleology is a statement of naturalist philosophy, not science. How would you go about falsifying the claim that there is no ultimate purpose in nature and evolution, or that the universe and the its physical laws are purely products of chance?

Not really, science, and hence evolution can not speak to the issue of design, either for or against.

Darwinian evolution states that speciation occurs on its own, without any transcendent input. Design is input. In Darwin's view, there's no more design in our intelligence than there is in a washed out riverbed. Both are the results of matter and energy behaving under the influence of the universe's natural laws.

Teleology is beyond the realm of what science can speak to.

Any god reconciled with Darwin would be barely theistic, if not downright deistic.

To use your example of the creation of man, there is really no conflict between the evolutionary account and the theistic account, they speak to different things. There is no reason to suppose that God could not use evolution to "specially" create man.

If man arose through the same unguided process that created a slug's digestive tract, the process doesn't seem very special.

To state that evolution rules out design or teleology is a statement of naturalist philosophy, not science.

Oh, but it does rule out teleology, quite explicitly, within the realm of biology. THAT's the point. Now, yes, we could perhaps push this teleology back, back, back to before the Big Bang, but that means such a god has little to no room to intervene.

Even if we grant that such a god did exist and had it all planned out from the beginning, then why not do what the IDer's are doing and look for evidence of this design? Again, they seem to be more intellectually consistent. They, at least, don't say, "Yes, yes, there's a god, but let us pretend he doesn't exist."

Darwinian evolution states that speciation occurs on its own, without any transcendent input.

In which case it is a religion, not science. How could you go about falsifying this assertion?

Any god reconciled with Darwin would be barely theistic, if not downright deistic.

Nonsense. You are assuming that you know what God thinks, what His motives are, and how he works.

Oh, but it does rule out teleology, quite explicitly, within the realm of biology.

You keep saying that, and saying that it is science, but please tell me how you could falsify it. If it is not subject to falsification then it is not science.

SWPL, please. Since Mohammed himself, religion has been used as a tool for gaining power in the Islamic world. They hardly need any lessons from us in this department.

I'm not suggesting that it's a new lesson. And I certainly wouldn't assert that it's a tool of only Islam.

*But it was striking to me that the commentary off an Islamic creationist blog posting went straight to blaming Christian creationists.*

Mr. Dreher, if you do a google search on the name of the superstar cited, you find as the first hit his website.

http://www.harunyahya.com/evolution_introduction.php

A quick read through his "research" shows an incredible number of parallels with the ICR material already mentioned. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with the hypothesis that maybe, just maybe the "superstar" was influenced by ICR.

And then once baconboy mentioned Number's research, it was simple to put two and two together.

I have to conclude that the only reason you find it interesting that such a connection was made so quickly was that you had not bothered to visit the "superstar's" own website.

Google is your friend, Mr. Dreher.

Science (not scientists) states: "This is the best explanation we have for this, today." It implies always and emphatically that tomorrow is another day.

Creationism and ID both violate this statement the same way: "This is how it happened, and if we don't have proof of it now someday -- God willing -- we will have the proof."

Evolution is biology's best explanation for the diversification of organic life on this planet. So far, it has needed only minor adjustments to existing explanations and has spawned a few explanations for things we didn't know the questions for (see genetics).

Science's explanations exist without one's belief in them. They are, as flawed as they are, the most objective approach to our world and existence we have.

The thing about science "denying" God is so clear and easy I find it very difficult to refrain from expressing contempt for those who perpetuate that canard. Science says absolutely nothing about God. Only the religious find a conflict with their beliefs. Science offers no conflict other than the apparently frustrating reply of "no comment."

*but unless you rule out transcendent input, you still can't falsify that an invisible elf did it with a magic wand.*

In most situations it is beholden on the advocates of a proposition to offer proof that their proposition is accurate. This is the whole of the peer review process. Someone "discovers" something and performs a series of tests that "proves" this something exists. They then submit their tests and results to the rest of the scientific community, who then tries to duplicate the results and/or tear down the methodology of the tests. If the results can be reliably reproduced and the methodology has no flaws, then the research is considered valid.

To date I have yet to read any such peer review of any of the creationist research. In the cases I have seen, when creationist research is subjected to this process, either the results are shown to be incorrect or the methodology is shown to be flawed. But I am sure others will correct me on this if such a peer review exists.

In any case, it is not that science has not disproven that an elf did it with a magic wand, it is that all the research that has made this claim has failed to stand up to review. Bring some solid research using solid methodology that reliably shows that an old elf, or an old man upstairs, did it, and you have an argument. Until then, it is mere piffle and does not deserve to be taught in serious educational settings.

In most situations it is beholden on the advocates of a proposition to offer proof that their proposition is accurate.

Only if one adopts some kind of positivism as an epistemology. Since positivism is incoherent and self-defeating I don't feel any particular pressure to do so.

FWIW, I'm not arguing for creationism or intelligent design, at least as it is commonly understood, only that science doesn't, indeed cannot, disprove that there is such a thing as divine design. It is simply not something that science is competent to answer.

Polichinello: You can either accept Darwin and reject the God of the Bible and the Koran, or vice versa. You cannot really accept them both without inconsistency.

This thread is going in the direction of people talking past each other, parsing words (what do you mean by "design"?), and just flatly disagreeing. This is a very frustrating state to be in, and is why I quit posting over at Kingdom of Priests (although I must give Rod major kudos for maintaining a much more civil and thoughtful, and much less rancorous atmosphere over here, by comparison).

All I'll say is this: I disagree with Polichinello's statement here, but I imagine that nothing I say is going to change his mind or vice versa, which is OK. There are great scientific and philosophical minds with a deeper understanding of religion, science, and philosophy than either of us have and who consider there to be no conflict or inconsistency between science and religion (except, of course, for literailsts, which no thinking Christian, Jew, or Muslim is--too bad we don't have more thinking Christians, Jews, and Muslims). I imagine you'd disagree with them, too, though.

In any case, I think this thread has about reached its limit of fruitfulness, so I'm hanging it up.

"All I'm saying is that if Darwin is right, then God has no role in the biological realm. You can either accept Darwin and reject the God of the Bible and the Koran, or vice versa. You cannot really accept them both without inconsistency."

Well, as long as you insist on a literal interpretation of the accounts in those scriptures regarding Deity's intervention in creation, yes you are correct. However, if you interpret those writings as allegorical, illustrative, but not literal, then there can be a very happy co-existence.

Why must Genesis 1 and 2 be literally interpreted? If there exists an account of creation in the Quran, why must it be literally interpreted?

And why, then, shouldn't the countless other creation accounts from other religions and cultures not also be interpreted literally?

*It's hard to consider someone who'd do such a thing to their own admitted Scripture as a serious believer.*

LOL...parsing of the Scriptures in whatever religion you wish to name is considered an honored profession. It's why they pay their clergy so well.

All I'm saying is that if Darwin is right, then God has no role in the biological realm. You can either accept Darwin and reject the God of the Bible and the Koran, or vice versa. You cannot really accept them both without inconsistency.

Don't be silly, of course he does. Where did you get the idea that God can't use natural processes to accomplish his will? He not only can use natural processes, He almost always does, miracles are very rare, even in the Bible.

It's hard to consider someone who'd do such a thing to their own admitted Scripture as a serious believer.

Now you are telling Christians how to interpret their own scripture, and of course, using Enlightenment standards. What you call an "allegorical" interpretation of Genesis has an ancient history and includes such "unserious" believers as Augustine and Origen. Augustine, for example, interpreted Genesis to say that God created the universe instantaneously and in this creation He left "seeds" that would later germinate and to do His will, but all according to nature.

Now you are telling Christians how to interpret their own scripture, and of course, using Enlightenment standards.

No, Larry, I'm using common sense. I've allowed for allegorizing the specifics away. Sure, fine, but if you get rid of the main lesson of the story--that God created man--then you've emptied the story of its import. And, if you accept Darwin, then you've accepted his assertion that God is not needed to explain man's existence. So you don't take Genesis--and by extension, the rest of the Bible--very seriously.

I think that in America evolution and belief in a creator are presented as mutually exclusive ideas. Clearly, they do not have to be presented that way in schools,

They are not presented that way in schools. Science classes talk about natural selection the same way they talk about centrifugal force or continental drift--without mentioning religion at all, since it is irrelevant to the subject. Some believers have made it their ideology to be offended or threatened by the mere teaching of evolution as-is, and so they encourage students to disrespect teachers, repeat idiocy like Jack Chick tracts, and in general subvert the very concept of an education because it doesn't match what they already think they know.

The above post was mine. (I do wish Beliefnet would hire some real programmers.)

"Common sense" sense just means "something that I learned before the age of 12".

And a lot of people spend the rest of their trying to unlearn such basic things black is not white.

Nobody, least of all Darwin, claims that evolution means that God didn't create man, at most evolution furnishes the _how_ of creation...

From which God is excluded as a necessity.

Don't tell me how seriously I take the Bible.

In my view you're not being all that serious. If you don't like my opinion, then perhaps you should ask yourself why it's so bothersome.

That I don't read the Bible like a fundamentalist doesn't mean that I don't take it seriously. But I'll be happy to join the camp of Augustine, Origen (and Ireneaus and Basil and ...) as a "non-serious" Christian.

Well, Origen was a heretic, so I'd be careful claiming him, but even so, none of these figures were willing to concede that God was not necessary to man's creation. Again, Darwin eliminates that necessity. Man's appearance on earth in Darwin's view is no more miraculous than a rock.

Polichinello: If anyone's faith requires some kind of proof or necessity, then it is no faith at all. Darwin did not prove that evolution "just happened," although science fiction writers such as Richard Dawkins like to indulge that speculation. Darwin simply showed that there are complex natural processes which have been at work far longer than our limited species had realized. Arguably, God IS necessary to make the process work, but as Albert Einstein said, "The Lord God is subtle." Whatever the role of God was, chemically speaking, which is a silly way to walk by faith and not by sight, it was more subtle than Creation Science has grasped. Even if God is not NECESSARY to evolution, evolution does not PRECLUDE God. Further, even the atheist astronomer Fred Hoyle admits that the very physics of the universe suggest someone gamed the system to make life possible and probable. Still, there is the matter of the soul, and science has nothing to say about that.

Darwin did NOT make the point that evolution is not a miracle. He made the point that all life did not take its current form on Day One. That primitive vision reduced God to some oversize superhero, sitting in primordial swamps making little mud pies and breathing on them. Darwin offered a glimpse into just how vast and awesome God's creative process really was -- that is, if you believe in God. If you don't, you can pretend it all "just happened." Unfortunately, churchmen like Bishop Wilberforce chained their faith to a scientific postulate, and offered the perverse judgment that evolution is "contrary to the word of God." Rubbish. There is no scientific test for the hypothesis that God exists.

"some government officials in the AKP, the ruling Islamic party, freely criticize evolution"
you're making it sound like it is illegal.
If you read his works with an open mind (although his works are bent to a single conclusion) you'll have to rethink about evolution philosophically. Darwin made his works under the most rudimentary form of knowledge in biological science during his time. That is what science all about: philosophy drives the logic behind science.
Dawkins recently pulled out a software that simulates evolution to "verify" it. Ask any software engineer if that is not using analogy as proof, when analogies being thrown to evolutionists are discredited readily.
I can't accept evolution because:
a) Evolution doesn't explain the very first living organisms forming within chemical means, this means no accepted model has been resolved. If this can't be explained, explanation about evolution for multicelled organisms are redundant.
b) Give any scenario on how wings are formed in flies and I'll give you a laughing crowd.

C'mon. Even Miller (who pioneered the Miller experiment) dismissed theories put forward about how life started chemically as "nonsense" and "paper chemistry".
Hope this is scientific enough.