Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Stalin used to do that and his lickspittles and lackeys, sphincters a twitter, could be relied on to second his motions.



That's easy. Pipeline tolls and renting out airbases. You needn't be a "prof geologist" to figure a simple thing like that out.

If you find out, let us know. The books sound expensive, it'll be interesting to see who spent so much money on them.

It was your money ros.

Wonder how much they get from ICR?

Adnan Oktar ( Harun Yahya) is the founder of Bilim Arastirma Vakfi ("Scientific Research Foundation"), a creationist organization mounting one of the most potent offensives against evolution outside of the United States.

BAV, founded in 1990, grew from the Turkish fringe into a global media empire. Oktar claims to have 4.5 million followers worldwide, who read his hundreds of books and essays and have seen the dozens of television documentaries that BAV produces and provides free of charge to Turkish TV stations. BAV's Web sites offer downloadable PowerPoint presentations and questions to challenge science teachers. The foundation organizes anti-evolution conferences and petitions and runs a telemarketing scheme to sell books by Harun Yahya (Oktar's pen name), which are available globally in 29 languages. Only Oktar and his lieutenants seem to know where the money for all these initiatives comes from, and they're not telling.

http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/11/not_in_kansas_anymore.php


The following review was published in Minerat, the magazine of Islamic Center of Southern California, after a glowing book review about Harun Yahya's [Mr. Yahya's real name is Adnan Oktar] Evolution Deceit, in Minerat's earlier edition.
Tufail

Book Review by T.O.Shanavas.

THE EVOLUTION DECEIT: A FUNDAMENALIST CHRISTIAN DECEPTION



The book review titled "The Evolution Deceit Reveals Holes in Theory" by an anonymous author in Minaret [vol. 22: 8] is misleading and deceptive. The Evolution Deceit by Harun Yahya is a fundamentalist Christian deception under the cover of Islamic veil. This book misleads those innocent Muslims who lack overall knowledge of theory of evolution and biology. The author of the book review states: the book "gives necessary answers to the evolutionist propaganda." The author adds: the book "displays the fraudulence and distortions [by] evolutionist scientists." NO!!! In fact his book Yahya distorts the honest mainstream scientists by fraudulently manipulating their statements.

This book is a classic carbon copy of fundamentalist Christian arguments of Institute for Creation Research (ICR), San Diego, CA. Yahya cunningly launches the ICR arguments to Muslim community with frequent references to Allah and the Qur'an. Behaving like a good student of the ICR, he transcribed into his book all ICR arguments such as lack of transitional fossils, the impossibility of functioning intermediate forms, the fraud of human evolutions, the unreliability of the dating methods, and the statistical improbability of evolution at the molecular levels.

Following the ICR's modus operandi, Yahya uses psuedoscience to promote his interpretation of the Qur'an. The references from scientific journals that he cites in the book usually support and defend evolution. But he takes just one sentence out of the article that he thinks might seem to support his arguments and use it as his scientific reference. Like the ICR, he generally distorts a single news item from popular journals to "prove" his conclusion. He conveniently ignores the fact that the rest of the article or other articles in the same issue of the journal that defend and support evolution, even though the Qur'an commands, "…Conceal not evidence…" [Qur'an 2: 283].

These tactics and strategies of Yahya in the book are borrowed from and instructed by his fundamentalist Christian mentors from the ICR such as Duane Gish, Henry Morris, John Morris, etc. Yahya and his organization, Bilim Arastirma Vakfi [BAV]-Scientific Research Foundation, has a long history of association with the ICR since 1992 including receiving assistance from it. Yahya became well acquainted with Duane Gish and Henry Morris during their numerous trips to Turkey in search of Noah's Ark [Ref: Acts & Facts 1998a, 1998b]. Duane Gish and Henry Morris were participants in a conference on creationism organized by Yahya and BAV in 1992. Then later in April and July 1998 Yahya and BAV organized three "international" conferences in collaboration with the ICR with a theme of "The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution: The Fact of Creation." Gish and Morris were invited main speakers in the conferences.
http://www.salaam.co.uk/forum/read.php?f=13&i=153&t=138Y


our OFFICIAL program to the Scopes II Kansas Monkey Trial
This week's debate over evolution is Kansas' trial of the century!
By Tony Ortega
Published: May 5, 2005
What a triumphant journey awaits Mustafa Akyol.

Kansas taxpayers are footing the bill to bring the Istanbul resident to Topeka as one of 23 witnesses scheduled to testify this week before a subcommittee of the Kansas State School Board in its unorthodox "trial" over science teaching standards. (Fortunately, Akyol happens to be in Washington, D.C., on other business, so Kansans are paying only to bring him across the country, not all the way from Turkey.)
Born in 1972, Akyol has a master's degree in history and writes a column for a newspaper in Istanbul. He also has identified himself as a spokesman for the murky Bilim Arastirma Vakfi, a group with an innocuous-sounding name -- it means "Science Research Foundation" -- but a nasty reputation.
Said to have started as a religious cult that preyed on wealthy members of Turkish society, the Bilim Arastirma Vakfi has appeared in lurid media tales about sex rings, a blackmail prosecution and speculation about its charismatic leader, a man named Adnan Oktar. But if BAV's notoriety has been burnished by a sensationalist Turkish media, the secretive group has earned its reputation as a prodigious publisher of inexpensive ideological paperbacks. BAV has put out hundreds of titles written by "Harun Yahya" (a pseudonym) on various topics, but most of them are Islamic-based attacks on the theory of evolution.
Turkey is a secular country that aspires to join the European Union and boasts several institutions of higher learning on a par with good Western universities. But beginning in 1998, BAV spearheaded an effort to attack Turkish academics who taught Darwinian theory. Professors there say they were harassed and threatened, and some of them were slandered in fliers that labeled them "Maoists" for teaching evolution. In 1999, six of the professors won a civil court case against BAV for defamation and were awarded $4,000 each.
But seven years after BAV's offensive began, says Istanbul University forensics professor Umit Sayin (one of the slandered faculty members), the battle is over.
"There is no fight against the creationists now. They have won the war," Sayin tells the Pitch from his home in Istanbul. "In 1998, I was able to motivate six members of the Turkish Academy of Sciences to speak out against the creationist movement. Today, it's impossible to motivate anyone. They're afraid they'll be attacked by the radical Islamists and the BAV."
Sayin is well aware of Mustafa Akyol, whom he identifies as one of BAV's many volunteers. (Akyol himself has described his role for the group as that of a spokesman.) The organization's source of funding and internal structure are well-guarded secrets, Sayin says. The Turkish government, he adds, refuses to take an interest, tacitly encouraging the ongoing effort against scientists.
"It's hopeless here," Sayin says. "I've been fighting with these guys for six years, and it's come to nothing." As a result of the BAV campaign and other efforts to denounce evolution, he adds, most members of Turkey's parliament today not only discount evolution but consider it a hoax. "Now creationism is in [high school] biology books," Sayin says. "Evolution is presented [by BAV] as a conspiracy of the Jewish and American imperialists to promote new world order and fascist motives ... and the majority of the people believe it."
The secret to BAV's success is the huge popularity of the Harun Yahya books, says a professor closer to home, Truman State University physicist Taner Edis, who was born in Turkey. "They're fairly lavishly produced, on good-quality paper with full-color illustrations all over the place," he says. "They're trying to compete with any sort of science publication you can find in the Western world. And in a place like Turkey, Yahya books look considerably better-published than most scientific publications."
The books are slick, but BAV has had plenty of help. Sayin says that creationism in Turkey got key support in the 1980s and 1990s from American creationist organizations, and Edis points out that BAV's Yahya books resemble the same sorts of works put out by California's Institute for Creation Research. Except in Yahya's books, it's Allah that's doing the creating.
In 2001, Science magazine called BAV "one of the world's strongest anti-evolution movements outside of North America," and Edis tells the Pitch that Yahya books are gaining popularity in other parts of the world, including London (which is increasingly becoming a global center for Islamic publishing) and Indonesia.
While its Turkish counterpart thrived, however, American creationism suffered repeated defeats in the 1980s and 1990s, and even some of its most ardent supporters have put their hopes in a newer movement, one that calls itself "intelligent design."
Sensitive to the charge that they're just the same religiously motivated effort with slicker packaging, the scientists and lawyers who lead the intelligent-design movement deny that their cause has anything to do with Christianity or with previous attempts to describe biblical accounts in scientific-sounding terms.
Rather than quote Genesis, intelligent-design proponents cite complex mathematical formulas and biochemical analyses to claim that nature shows the characteristics of a purposeful design that can't be explained by Darwinian theory. If such design implies a designer, they say, they make no assumption about who or what that designer is.
To opponents, it's a coy act. Most of ID's leading lights are devout Christians. Earlier this year, the Pitch put it directly to one of the movement's local point men, University of Missouri-Kansas City professor of medicine William Harris: Did he believe the "designer" was the Christian God?
Harris admitted that, for him, that was true. But intelligent design itself had no opinion on the matter, he said. "I know Muslims who equate that designer with Allah," he told us.
Which is why Kansans are paying to bring Mustafa Akyol to Topeka.
Harris included Akyol on a list of witnesses whom he wanted brought in to testify on behalf of intelligent design in this week's hearings.
Harris says he hasn't heard of BAV. Told of the group's harassment of bioligists in Turkey and evolution's defeat there, he replies, "Great! Congratulations! I mean, that is the point, once people start to see science more objectively."
Edis says there's little question why Akyol is on the list of witnesses.
"It's perfectly bizarre, in that Akyol really has nothing to contribute in terms of substance to the whole thing," Edis says. "I think it's fairly blatantly obvious the only reason he's coming in is to present the case that this isn't just a Christian thing."
"It's stupid," Sayin adds. "Akyol's not a scientist at all. He's just an activist."
But imagine the pride that Akyol must feel. (We wanted to ask him about it directly, but Akyol didn't answer our e-mail.) After getting a leg up from American creationists, BAV sparked a revolution in its own country and is now so successful that it's been asked to send an emissary to return the favor.
http://www.pitch.com/2005-05-05/news/your-official-program-to-the-scopes-ii-kansas-monkey-trial/1
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Reception of and Cooperation with Western Creationists/ Rezeption von und Zusammenarbeit mit westlichen Kreationisten
· Bilim Arastirma Vakfi: The Collapse of Evolution the Reality of Creation Confernce Series Istanbul I (April 1998) "starring": Duane Gish, Kenneth Cumming - Istanbul II (April 1998): "starring": John D. Morris (Institute for Creation research, Santee CA), Duane Gish, C. Fliermans, E. Boudreaux

http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~mriexin/EvolutionIslam.html

Very interesting Pauligirl. Your question aout the connection between Yahya and the ICR is compelling.

Pg quoted-



I find that hard to believe.



We are well used to that sort of thing.



That is perfectly reasonable. There are questions relating to all those points which ordinary people have not had satisfactory explanations for although I suppose a good number accept the scientist's authority on the dating methods despite BBB's signature line.



There is plenty of that going on in every field. If this case is presented as sinister why are not all the others?



I find that hard to believe as well. Maybe "some scientists" would be better but it's still an assertion. This same government is an ally and is providing the west with help. They are members of NATO.



That's reasonable too given some of the mehods anti-IDers have used on this very thread. Two of them tried to vote me off the thread last night simply because they can't or won't answer two questions one of which was asked by an anti-IDer and the other by a respected Sunday Times art critic.



Which is perfectly correct. If scientists are to be taken as authority figures, despite BBB's signature, shouldn't the ones referred to here be counted in or are only those scientists who disagree with anti-IDers the mad ones.



There are plenty of devout Christians who accept the theory of evolution.

One could easily write a similar piece describing any campaign in this way with a view to persuading an inattentive readers that it is all a sinister plot to gobble them up down a dark alley.

It is as if one described the agricultural system without any reference to food. There are no references to the social consequences of the policies of either side. It is an abstract confection and has no connection to political realities on the ground in Turkey or, indeed, in the USA.

Basically, it's off topic and another attempt to derail the thread. It is slightly better written than other similar intermediate forms.

I trust anti-IDers on here will not allow it to delude them into thinking that they have escaped the questions on the social consequences point, on the muzzling point and on the future management of lust. And I will add another.

What is the anti-IDer's position on the glaring discrepancies, both nationally and internationally, in the distribution of wealth which seems to be amply supported by Darwinian theory as one might expect since Darwin was a wealthy man of leisure whilst millions of children were working in disgusting conditions for 12 hours a day, living in hovels and people were being strung up for poaching.

How can Christianity be objective when the original basis for the religion was established on myths?

shhhhh, C I, we are in the presence of vast tons of intellect. WE dare not question the buccal emenations of Dr Spendius.

farmerman, What bothers me more than anything about that article is the writer, Robert Harris. I personally know a Robert Harris, but he's a judge and law professor in Utah. I do understand that name is a very common one, but still....

I know 2 Bob Harris's, one teaches Civil Engineering , and another is a carpenter. Ill bet every city in the US has at least one Bob Harris.

Spendi only posts stuff that

1 Hes in total agreement with

2Doesnt understand but wishes to sound like a wizard

3 Wants to throw monkey wrenches into the gear box of conversation.

I have no idea where hes at in this one, I suppose its msotly No. 1

I don't think it's your guy.

http://www.virtualsalt.com/bioblurb.htm

General Information:
ROBERT A. HARRIS taught at the college and university level for more than 25 years before retiring to write full time. He has written on the use of computers and software in language and literature study, using the Web as a research tool, the prevention of plagiarism, creative problem solving, and rhetoric. His most recent work centers on the integration of faith and learning. Dr. Harris holds the Ph.D. in English from the University of California at Riverside.
Curriculum Vitae:
Education:
· B.A. in English, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1972, with High Honors
· M.A. in English and American Literature, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, 1973
· Ph.D. in English, University of California, Riverside, 1982.
Teaching Experience:
· Professor of English, Vanguard University of Southern California, 1996-2001.
· Associate Professor of English, Southern California College, 1990-1995.
· Assistant Professor of English, Southern California College, 1985-1989.
· Part-time instructor in English at the University of California, Riverside and Southern California College, 1975-1985.

Pauligirl, Thanks for that vita. WHEW~!

Oh, god, run for the hills. Spendius has discovered **DECONSTRUCTIONISM**, at least in third hand watered-down form. Of course when he realizes that it says that there is nothing inherent in Spengler, but the only content is what the reader reads into it, that Spengler is not inherently truth and beauty, he's gonna really be up the creek.

I was into deconstructionism when I was a kid UN. I knew what they were up to at an early age.

I once drew a cartoon of Derrida fastened to a post with a firing squad at the ready and the OC reading off a paper.

The OC is saying- "It means we're going to shoot you."

I sent it off to The Spectator but they never used it- too soft.

It's a big problem on here. These anti-IDers read all sorts of things into my posts. They miss a lot of the ambiguities, indeterminacies, metaphors, puns and other such. They even miss the main point. Not to put too fine a point on it they are illiterate by my standards and I'm well aware that I'm not that good. But at least I continue studying to try to improve. They remind me of somebody on a treadmill counting their strides.

But there's no chance of anyone being in the present I'm in when I compose them. Even when I read a post over that present has gone.

I think the biggest problem is between the masculine and the feminine.

But my cartoon was intended to show the primacy of action. Action can't be deconstructed. Darwin tried to deconstruct nature which is nothing but action.

I can subject Spengler to deconstruction. You needn't bother about that. I laugh a lot reading him. He never married you know. He wasn't very good with the ladies. Possibly his severe fissog frightened them. One thing he does do, which can't be misinterpreted, is throw open the doors of erudition. He's a one man university and better than all the rest put together. And way ahead of the time his contemporaries were in. It really depends whether one studies for entertainment, as I do, or simply to get the jump on people which I gather is the American way.

But when Spengler shows you the essential world feeling of a culture, or weltanschauung, which is a congeries of forms in a particular microcosm and the philosophy deriving from it, and uses architecture and music and painting and sculpture and social forms to analyse it all and its connections to other cultures, you can't deconstruct that. There is an objective difference between the Doric columns of the Classical, the enclosed dome of the Magian and the soaring space conquering light machines of the Christian cathedral and the music that fills it just as there is between the perspective painting and garden design of European Christianity and the meandering way of the Chinese equivalents. There's no deconstructing any of that. It's in your face. You just know that you have no chance of ever understanding those peoples and their society. All you can do is describe a few of its recorded surfaces and pretend. Like Settin Aah-aah does.

You have to try to get to his writing desk watching him write it and looking at his lifestyle and environment. Turning it into a live speech in your mind. But it is translated. I learned to do that reading Proust. You have to invent the body language like movie directors have to do.

You need to read all the biographies to even get a slight feel of it.

I can do it in the pub. How can someone who does the screwing understand someone who gets screwed? It's impossible. How can someone with no money understand someone loaded? Or someone good looking with some ugly sod.

One doesn't learn deconstructionism in colleges with all the labels as status symbols. It's a feeling. Formalising it just confuses people and when they feel flattered by how smart they are knowing things others don't with strange words suitable for dropping into a conversation they have lost the plot.

What do you make of that UN? Deconstruct that!

Do not delude yourself that because you know the word you can give me any lessons on deconstructionism. I can deconstruct the contents of your wife's handbag.

ATLAS OF CREATION UPDATE

I will agree about the-



although what the function of the ludicrously long word "undoubtedly" is, aside from getting the author to the bottom of the page with felicity, I can't imagine.

Not that I would ever initiate criticism of the US Postal Services myself.

As for the rest wande, you'll find we have already seen it. It may even be that your source copied from the sources we have been shown.

Counting one's strides on the treadmill again.

hi Pauligirl,

You reading The Pitch[/i] now?

I pulled my copy off the bottom of the birdcage, but it wasn't very readable , so I copied this from their site:


from http://www.pitch.com/about/index.php

Yep, quite a pub , that Pitch. Very popular with the homefolks, as they at the Main St office themselves will tell you. Usually always a copy in the men's room stall at the library. (At least the voluminous 'Personals' section. Not sure what happened to the rest, or if it was needed.)

Their site currently lists :



Glad to see you're citing the Pitch, Pauligirl.

It is difficult to supress a titter on seeing the "*".

In the general slide towards degeneracy the good clean puerilty always precedes the real thing by a decade or two.

It looks quite Christian really at the moment says he sheepishly grinning.

Society is not a stationary entity. It perforce is driven in one direction or another as even a cursory glans through Spengler will teach even the most stubborn souls.

However, rl does admit owning a copy and it's a resonable supposition that he read it before using it in the manner decribed. It is even possible that it was unreadable before it was utilised for the bird ****.

You live in Kansas? For some reason I thought you lived in Australia.