Reuters Affirms That The Vatican Conference Is Anti-Democratic - 04.03.2009 United Kingdom/Reuters

Read the whole article posted in the Reuters blogs which affirms that the conference sponsored by Vatican at the Pontifical Gregorian University is anti-democratic:

"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/

Notes from Andrew Marr's Interview with Adnan Oktar - 22.02.2009 United Kingdom/The Mail on Sunday

On 22 February, 2009, The Mail on Sunday, one of Britain’s most popular newspapers with a circulation of over 2 million, carried a preview of Andrew Marr's BBC2 film "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" to be shown on BBC 2. The presenter on the film, Andrew Marr, set out his ideas that arose before his meeting with Adnan Oktar:

“... Millions of Muslims, as well as Christians - half the people of Britain, according to one survey - reject Darwin's teaching. One author even asserts Darwinists were responsible for 9/11.
... Another place we visited was Istanbul, where TURKISH AUTHOR ADNAN OKTAR has some claim to be AMONG THE MOST INFLUENTIAL CREATIONISTS ON THE PLANET.
He argues that Darwinism is by its very nature a violent creed because of its insistence on the importance of conflict or struggle. For this Muslim, who wants to convert Europe to Islam, the 9/11 terrorists 'were in reality Darwinists'.”
(You can watch the full interview of Mr. Adnan Oktar, here.)

Adnan Oktar Challenges Dawkins to a Public Debate - 08.08.2008 United Kingdom/Islam Channel

 

Islam Channel, a British TV channel based in London and providing news about the Islamic world, reported in a news bulletin on 8 August, 2008, that Adnan Oktar had challenged Richard Dawkins to a debate, but that Dawkins had declined to take pasrt.

Further detail is available from here.

 

Muslim academics and students are turning against Darwin's theory - 17.11.2009 United Kingdom/The Times

On November 17, 2009, The Times, one of Britain’s best-known dailies, carried a report titled "Muslim academics and students are turning against Darwin's theory" on its web site. The report went on to discuss the impact of web sites describing Creation and referred to Harun Yahya as the only figure in the Islamic world to be engaged in anti-Darwinist activities:

Muslims in many countries ARE INCREASINGLY REJECTING DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION… a science conference was told yesterday.

Dr Guessoum, who is a Sunni Muslim… “THE RATE OF ACCEPTANCE OF EVOLUTION AND OF THE IDEA OF TEACHING EVOLUTION WAS EXTREMELY LOW,” he said. “I wondered, who are all these educated people rejecting evolution? THEY ARE EVEN REJECTING THE FACT THAT IT SHOULD BE TAUGHT AS SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.”

Last year a Muslim creationist … ADNAN OKTAR … OFFERED £4.4 TRILLION TO ANYONE WHO CAN POINT TO A SINGLE FOSSIL THAT PROVES EVOLUTION.

'Who is the most influential Muslim in the world?' - 17.11.2009 United Kingdom/Reuters

 

Mr.Adnan Oktar has been included among the list of figures active in the field of science and technology in the book The 500 Most Influential Muslims, published by Georgetown University in USA. The listing in the book said:

TURKEY / YAHYA, HARUN

Writing under the pen name Harun Yahya, Adnan Oktar has gained international prominence as a spokesperson for creationism but garners influence from his numerous and extensively distributed publications about Islam, and Islamic children’s books.

Reuters, the world’s leading news agency, carried a report on the book on its web site on November 17, 2009, headed "POLL: The world’s top 500 Muslims?" Tom Heneghan, from the Reuters Paris office, sought an answer to the question “Who is the most influential Muslim in the world?" by publishing a new poll. Some 2 million people voted in the poll, with 41% of respondents replying "Adnan Oktar" and 2% "Harun Yahya," thus declaring Mr. Oktar to be the most influential Muslim in the world.

A Powerful Influence on the Global Spread of Creation - 05.10.2009 United Kingdom/Reuters

A report on the Reuters news agency web site dated 5 October, 2009, referred to the growing influence of Creationist belief. The report stressed the impact of the works of Harun Yahya in this:

So why do we "report the controversy"... We do it because creationists are numerous... They’re challenging science teaching... and opening museums that claim to prove evolution never happened. We also do it because their influence is spreading to other countries, most notably to Muslim countries through the work of Islamic creationists like Harun Yahya. And we do it because their arguments... challenge scientists... philosophers and other thinkers to refine their arguments... Attempts to wedge them into high school biology lessons miss the mark by a mile.

Evolution's classroom crisis - 15.11.2009 United Kingdom/The Guardian

The November 15, 2009, edition of the website of The Guardian newspaper, a left-wing British daily, carried a report titled, "Evolution's classroom crisis." The report on the web site, which attracts some 20 million visitors a month, went on to say: "Surveys show that, around the world, teachers and students are rejecting evolution. The results are likely to be dire." For Darwinist-materialist circles to regard these results as “dire” clearly reveals how the mask of Darwinism falsehood has dropped and the panic with which these findings have been received. This panic, which began with Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation, is growing by the day with the spread of the signs of the fact of Creation and the exposure of Darwinist frauds. Indeed, the global collapse of Darwinism was once again heralded in this report:

... They showed to what extent evolution was accepted among students and teachers in Muslim-majority countries. Not much. But then the US was no better, observed Rosenau. It languished in the bottom five of industrialised countries accepting evolution. The others were Turkey, Cyprus, Latvia and Lithuania.

… In Indonesia there was open resistance, said Wiles [from the Evolution Education Research Centre (EERC)]. The leader of one student body objected to EERC's very presence on campus. "Don't give the survey here! How can you believe we are from apes?" he cried. The students rallied behind him. MOST OF THE INDONESIAN TEACHERS SURVEYED USED THE WORKS OF HARUN YAHYA IN SCIENCE CLASSES... all Egyptian biology teachers [surveyed] opposed evolution.

Nidhal Guessoum intervened to say that ISLAMIC CREATIONISM was … not the same as US creationism, WHICH WAS PEDDLED BY HARUN YAHYA.

'Muslim creationism is back in the news' - 16.11.2009 United Kingdom/Reuters

On 16 November, 2009, Reuters news agency, which enjoys an international following and represents a source of information for 1 billion people a day, carried a report titled "Muslim creationism is back in the news, this time in Egypt." Tom Heneghan, from the Reuters Paris office, reported on his FaithWorld blog:

Muslim creationism is back in the news. There’s been a spate of articles in the US and British press recently about the spread of this scripture-based challenge to Darwinian evolution among Muslims, mostly in the Middle East but also in Europe… Reuters first wrote about it in 2006 — “Creation vs. Darwin takes Muslim twist in Turkey” – and this blog has run several posts on the issue, including an INTERVIEW WITH ISLAM’S MOST PROMINENT CREATIONIST, HARUN YAHYA. WHAT’S NEW IS THAT THESE IDEAS SEEM TO BE SPREADING and academics who defend evolution are holding conferences to discuss the phenomenon.

There are too many recent articles about Islamic creationism out there now to discuss each one separately… New York Times… Washington Post… Boston Globe… Slate… Guardian… National… Beliefnet… MANY OF THESE ARTICLES HIGHLIGHT THE ROLE OF HARUN YAHYA… But as Michael Reiss, a London education professor and Anglican priest told the Guardian, “What the Turks believe today is what the Germans and British believe tomorrow… These things can no longer be thought of as occurring in other countries.”

In the Muslim World, Creationism Is on the Rise - 25.10.2009 USA/The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe is a daily published in Boston, Massachusetts with a circulation of half a million. It carried an article titled “In the Muslim World, Creationism Is on the Rise” on 25October 2009. This article draws attention to the impact of Mr. Adnan Oktar’s works on the Islamic world. Some of the information written in the article about the collapse of the evolution theory:

… there is another creationist movement whose influence is growing, and which is fueling challenges to science in countries where Christianity has little sway: Islamic creationism. Campaigners in countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, and Indonesia have fought the teaching of evolution in schools there… Creationist conferences have been held in Pakistan, and moderate Islamic clerics are on record publicly condemning Darwin’s ideas. A recent study of Muslim university students in the Netherlands showed that most rejected evolution. And driven in part by a Turkish publishing organization, Islamic creationism books are HOT SELLERS at bookstores throughout the Muslim world.

And as the Internet facilitates THE SPREAD OF… ANTI-EVOLUTIONARY IDEAS, the debate over evolution seems to be sharpening… More recently, the debate in Turkey has been stirred up by the writings and public pronouncements of Adnan Oktar, who …. HAS BECOME ONE OF MUSLIM CREATIONISM’S LOUDEST VOICES. Oktar, who writes under the pen-name Harun Yahya… waging, through its website as well as videos and lavishly produced books... Yahya’s 800-page, 13-pound opus, The Atlas of Creation, can be found in bookstores all over the Muslim world…

Illustrated in the Atlas with hundreds of full-page photographs of fossils and modern-day animals, Yahya’s argument is that, though Earth may indeed be billions of years old, the plants and animals that live on it have not changed at all over that time, existing today in the same form in which they were originally - and divinely - created. “When one looks at a 100 million year-old spider fossil on one side and to a living spider on the other, he can not see the slightest difference. He witnesses it himself and there is no need to be a scientist to grasp it. Even a primary school student can understand it. THAT IS WHY DARWINISTS ARE AT A LOSS,” Oktar wrote in response to e-mailed questions… Asked why biologists around the world espouse the theory of evolution, Oktar blames “A SCIENTIFIC DICTATORSHIP UNDER THE SWAY OF FREEMASONRY.”

… [It was] found that in Egypt and Pakistan, while the official high school curriculum does include evolution, many of the teachers there don’t believe in it themselves, and will often tell their students so. The McGill researchers also found that in Indonesia, TEACHERS USED YAHYA’S ATLAS OF CREATION AS A TEACHING AID.