…and this is a 
It could be worse
Category: Creationism
Posted on: February 21, 2008 8:48 PM, by PZ Myers
Taner Edis has written a short summary of Islamic creationism. It's not a pleasant picture.
Muslims hold a variety of views on evolution; Yahya-style creationists do not speak for all. Some Muslim thinkers accept evolution in the sense of descent with modification, provided that this evolution is explicitly divinely guided. Even such comparative liberals, however, almost always reject the Darwinian, naturalistic view of evolution that is current in natural science. Human evolution meets with particularly strong rejection. Indeed, it is safe to say that most committed Muslims take naturalistic evolution to be religiously unacceptable. Most would consider the evolution of complex life forms through natural mechanisms alone, without the visible direction of a divine intelligence, to be an intellectual absurdity. The Harun Yahya material has no scholarly standing whatsoever. But more sophisticated anti-evolution views have wide currency among serious Muslim intellectuals, including very well-known Western-based scholars of Islam such as Seyyed Hossein Nasr.
That's really a shame, that an entire culture has closed itself off to a significant and well-tested scientific concept. I wonder what the Christian creationists here would think of the idea that the Islamic world has achieved the anti-evolution ideal?
Comments
countdown to gerry shrieking about zionist peeyar in 5....4....3....2....
Posted by: MAJeff | February 21, 2008 8:51 PM
The really fucked up thing is that evangelical christian publishers who publish anti-science screeds also publish books that 'prove' islam is false because the Quran makes the same incorrect claims (i.e. flat earth) that the bible does!
Bible vs. Science: Bible Wins
Quran vs. Science: Science Wins!? WTF!
Posted by: Moshe | February 21, 2008 8:56 PM
Science's new battle cry: you're with us, or you're with the terrorists!
Posted by: J | February 21, 2008 9:06 PM
I wonder what the Christian creationists here would think of the idea that the Islamic world has achieved the anti-evolution ideal?
Clearly, the Islamic world must be a utopia free of racism, hatred, despair, and pretty much else every other malady attributed to evolution. I wonder why the evangelicals just don't all move to Iran. Without evolution, there's no chance of an anti-semite like Hitler gaining power there!
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 21, 2008 9:20 PM
If you think that's sad, PZ, consider the following from MemriTV: A physicist and an astronomer, both Iraqis, debate whether or not the world is flat.
Posted by: Elf M. Sternberg | February 21, 2008 9:20 PM
Spending time on youtube has taught me that things can ALWAYS be worse. But nothing is worse than zoo animals on wheels. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmB5I9VmEPc&feature=related
Posted by: October Mermaid | February 21, 2008 9:53 PM
If the discovery institute (which I refuse to capitalize) is truly not religiously motivated, why are they not over in the Middle East performing valuable research? It's a great "design-friendly" environment far beyond the suppressive reach of BIG SCIENCE.
Posted by: Barry | February 21, 2008 10:06 PM
"Some Muslim thinkers accept evolution..."
"Muslim thinker" is an oxymoron.
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 21, 2008 10:06 PM
"it is safe to say that most committed Muslims take naturalistic evolution to be religiously unacceptable"
In the game of religion versus science, religion always trumps science. Please, FSM, please, please, please make this not so....
Posted by: woowoozy | February 21, 2008 10:07 PM
Science is almost a "don't ask, don't tell" field in Moslem countries. They do some but not a whole lot and tend to keep a low profile.
The Moslem world is also largely stuck in the Middle ages. The ones lucky enough to camp on oil bearing rock have money, lots and lots of money. The rest without oil are usually pretty backward. The life expectancy in Afghanistan is 47 years.
The Arabs alone estimate that in the middle east, in the last 30 years, they have imported between 1 and 2 trillion bucks worth of western science and technology.
It is expensive to be ignorant. They will also always be a step or two behind the west or east while waiting for the latest stuff to buy.
Recently the Gulf Arabs have decided that it makes more sense to build a science/technology infrastructure rather than shelling out big bucks to import everything. We shall see how it goes but IMO, it won't go far. As far as I can tell, with oil at >100 USD/barrel, there is so much easy money floating around that no one really feels like they have to you know,...get an education and work. That is what foreigners are for.
Posted by: raven | February 21, 2008 10:18 PM
All religions are inane superstitions, but I gotta say that Islam seems to be about the worst. Culturally and intellectually it seems stuck in the middle ages. It doesn't seem to have been this way always, since it was Muslim Arabs who preserved many of the ancient Greek texts, developed Algebra, etc. But after being under the Ottomans for a few hundred years, Islam seems to have totally devolved into the primitive belief system it is today.
____________________________________________
Posted by: Aris | February 21, 2008 10:20 PM
Aris - The worst?
But there are so many contenders:
Scientology, culturally & intellectualy stuck in bad 1950's sci-fi;
Mormons, culturally & intellectually stuck in 1800's gold rush, promised land mythology;
Catholicism, culturally & intellectually stuck in misogyny, funny dresses for men, and 3-into-1 magic.
The imams just have better control over their flocks bad PR skills. Oh as well as being inane and superstitious.
Posted by: pkiwi | February 21, 2008 10:47 PM
(Should have been "and bad PR skills"). Must have a curse on me...
Posted by: pkiwi | February 21, 2008 10:48 PM
Hold on a second. "An entire culture"? What culture are you talking about? I was raised Muslim and attended school in Pakistan for a while where we were taught evolution in biology class (in sixth and seventh grade, if I remember correctly). No challenges to it, no discussion of creation, nothing. So yes, while there is indeed a fundamentalist movement similar to yours in the US, and while the level of illiteracy in most of the so-called 'Muslim world' leaves it open to the lies and delusions of religious lunatics, I'd urge you to extend to us the same courtesy we do to you when we don't automatically assume that all Americans are gun-toting, fundamentalist, creationist whackos.
Posted by: Nadia | February 21, 2008 11:32 PM
I wonder what the Christian creationists here would think of the idea that the Islamic world has achieved the anti-evolution ideal?
Fundies don't hate Islam because its beliefs are different, they hate Islam because they're beliefs are exactly the same but Islam has achieved greater success.
Posted by: Midwest Product | February 21, 2008 11:36 PM
I am thinking of a meeting between a hypothetical muslim creationist and hypothetical christian creationist. They are in complete agreement that atheists evolutionists are big meanies who are just so intolerant of any creationist talk. They also find common ground in the idea that secular though has so degraded humanity, that morals are going bad. Then they realize the the person they are talking to is an infidel that must be destroyed.
Posted by: Janine | February 22, 2008 12:28 AM
they're beliefs are exactly the same
Really? The are beliefs? Anyhow, the little bit muslims believe about Jesus not being crucified and only being a prophet may be a point of divergence with xtians. But, I'm not a theologian.
Posted by: Brian English | February 22, 2008 12:28 AM
Thanks Nadia, for that balance. What would you say is the dominant form of belief with respect to evolution in the Muslim societies you have experience with?
Clearly there would have to be places where Muslims do learn about evolution, free of Allah's meddling. Still, I would be surprised if the teachers felt free to criticise Islamic creationism.
Anyone have any poll figures for Muslim dominant areas equivalent to those we see being taken in the US and other bastions of christendom?
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck, FCD | February 22, 2008 12:46 AM
A corollary to this story is that the National Secular Society in Great Britain has reported Muslim students walking out of biology lessons in high school to go and "consult their imam" when the teacher mentions the dreaded e-word.
Posted by: Kimpatsu | February 22, 2008 12:57 AM
#14
I appreciate Nadia adding nuance to this issue. Not to accuse PZ of bigotry, but this may be a bit too much of a generalization of so large and still various a culture. E.g. I clearly remember Turkish scientists and teachers complaining about the meddling of the Yahya movement and turning to "contra-creationists" in the Western world for help with this issue.
Admittedly, Turkey has a relatively strong secular movement. I wonder, however, how it is in fundamentalist kingdoms like Saudi-Arabia, and I am really curious as to how science education will turn out in an actually quite literate country like Irag, and perhaps less literate country like Afghanistan.
Anyone got more info? Personal experiences?
Posted by: Fedor | February 22, 2008 1:28 AM
Sometimes I suspect there are two categories of Pharyngula articles - the detailed thoughtful ones, written by an intelligent and witty associate professor of biology from the University of Minnesota, and the others - written automatically by a computer script that links some individual misdeed by a religious type to blanket condemnation of everyone of the same religion. This current piece is clearly the Pharyngu-bot on a bad day.
What proportion of readers of this blog have had encounters with creationists of the islamic variety?
How about of the christian variety?
Speaking from personal experience I have known lots of muslims in my time (including my ex wife who was a saudi feminist- its a long story, don't ask) and have never encountered a single one who questioned evolution. On the other hand I have encountered many christians who did (and every single one of them were members of US based evangelical christian churches). Living in Europe maybe I have a different perspective to the US based readers of this blog and perhaps there is indeed a vibrant islamic creationist group intent on ruining education in Minnesota, but I tend to doubt it. A committed muslim may have problems with many aspects of science, but so too will anyone committed to any other religion that involves intervening gods and miracles (i.e. most religious people on earth).
Is there any major religion that fully accepts the current scientific viewpoint of evolution? The catholic church certainly doesn't, they have just learned not to kick up too much fuss as they realize they will get their ass handed to them on a plate again.
For the record I'm not a religious apologist and would probably place myself in the Weinberg/Dawkins/Larry Moran camp as regards the religion,/science debate (in other words there should be no compromise - down with the framers!). There are many, many problems with islam but individual loons like Harun Yahya aside, promoting creationism is way down the list.
Posted by: Sigmund | February 22, 2008 2:01 AM
I wonder what the Christian creationists here would think of the idea that the Islamic world has achieved the anti-evolution ideal?
Precisely why I lobbied for (and was delighted to receive) a copy of the 'Atlas of Creation.' The cognitive dissonance that this artifact will eventually provoke in my hands will be delicious. As Huxley said, I'm sharpening my claws in readiness.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | February 22, 2008 2:41 AM
You can bring a believer to the facts but you can't make 'em think.
Posted by: tsig | February 22, 2008 3:11 AM
Hello all,
I know that not all Pharyngula readers are left of center but I think too many of comments under this post feed into Islamophobic bigotry. Yes, there are sections of the Muslim community whose beliefs and practice are completely anti-human, but let us not forget that the US and her most sycophantic allies are guilty of killing in the order of a million innocent Iraqi men, women and children, justified largely through normalizing anti-Muslim sentiment.
Some Islamic cultures are so intrinsically backwards that you can't help but despair for their people - but again it was the west that encouraged, or even supported, the worst elements in those countries in order to weaken and (successfully) destroy their organic secular movements. You can't divorce politics from the current high point religion holds in the Middle East and it is this dehumanizing Arabs by arguing that they're all in the middle ages that allows us to give a pass to the leaders of our countries when they argue that the 'war against terror' is a war to protect liberty and freedom (or whatever the current meme is). As a westerner, I can't do shit to stop fundamentalist Islam in Islamic countries (except to support their home grown secular movements), but I can fight against religious fundamentalism in my own country and as it happens, that fundamentalism come largely from the Christian faith.
In my neighborhood, migrant women wear the veil as a symbol of defiance against anti-Arab racism. That's what this kind of rhetoric does; to encourage women to defend the very forces which oppress them. Keep it in mind next time you make an unnecessary and totally obvious snark against the culture we are currently smart bombing.
Posted by: Milawe | February 22, 2008 3:11 AM
You just proved my point by using loaded words.
Why do women have hide from your eyes.
Posted by: tsig | February 22, 2008 3:20 AM
Excellent points Milawe.
Posted by: Chav | February 22, 2008 3:30 AM
The REALLY SCARY thing is that the US fundies actually prefer people to be even (shock horror) muslims rather than, you know, ATHEISTS.
Push come to shove, they would make common cause with the muslims to persecute the unbelievers (us), before they then have their civil war, to control the wreckage of the civilisation they've destroyed between them.
Be very scared.
Posted by: G. Tingey | February 22, 2008 3:48 AM
Islamophobic bigotry.
Does that include making fun of idiots who believe such a load of bollocks? If so, sign me up.
I don't hate them, so "phobic" is probably not the right word. I pity them. 100,000,000 years of evolution applied to the brain, wasted in an instant...
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | February 22, 2008 3:54 AM
"Push come to shove, they would make common cause with the muslims to persecute the unbelievers (us), before they then have their civil war"
This might be true for a tiny minority, but the Christian fundies who are represented by such forums as the Free Republic are fully in support of murdering Iraqi women and children in the name of destroying the heretics.
It's all a part of the rapture logic, come on.
Posted by: Milawe | February 22, 2008 3:58 AM
Milawe: "but the Christian fundies who are represented by such forums as the Free Republic are fully in support of murdering Iraqi women and children in the name of destroying the heretics."
But the bible says, "thou shall not kill."
No, why defend religion at all?
We have enough problems (war, pollution, scare resources) that need to be addressed, religion will only hinder our efforts.
Posted by: battletoad | February 22, 2008 4:39 AM
There are two main factors to consider when you talk about the 'Muslim world' (and I put it in quotes because I don't think there really is one - each country and region has its own beliefs and customs. I can't figure out Saudi or Irani Islam, for instance, because it's so different to what I was taught as a child in Pakistan).
1. That the majority of the people who live in these regions are poor and either uneducated or completely illiterate. If they believe what these religious loons tell them, at least they have the excuse that they really don't know any better.
2. That the few who have the privilege of education are taught math and science and english and everything else. Religion may or may not be taught - most people hire tutors for their kids if they want them to learn about religion. Note I said IF.
For those of us who are educated, there is no conflict because we're not taught a conflict. Creation is not really taught in basic religion courses. Yes there's some vague Adam-and-Eve tale, but at no point is science even discussed. As for religion entering science class, why on earth would anyone discuss religion in science class?
What we were taught, however, is that the very first instruction to people is READ. I was taught that learning, inquiry, research, discussion, debate, and, in the end, knowledge was something every Muslim had a responsibility to acquire even if, if I remember my teacher correctly, he or she had to travel all the way to China to acquire it (China being appropriately far away, I assume).
I don't know where this is from and I don't know if it's a loose interpretation or verbatim from the Koran because I've never bothered to look it up. It's something that was presented to me by my elders as part of what Muslims believed and, like the equality of men and women, it is something I have grown up with. I suppose you could compare it to the bazillions of different versions of Christianity out there.
Personally, I am an atheist, and my family and my peer group, for lack of a better word, is not religious. We are, however, still part of the Muslim cultural world, much like most of the people reading this are part of the Judeo-Christian cultural world. The difference is, every time some crackpot says or does something asinine, every single vaguely Muslim person who speaks a language you understand is plagued with questions about 'beliefs' and 'culture' and what not and expected to provide comprehensive answers. How many educated culturally Christian Americans could at the drop of a hat answer a barrage of mostly uninformed questions about those crazy Scientologists? Oh what? Not all Americans are Scientologists? You don't say! Wow. What a wonderfully complex and intriguing culture you must have.
Sorry...that was snarky, and I'm not trying to be rude. I'm trying to explain that, dammit, we're just people. The US is where this creationist nonsense seems to have started and it seems that because of that, creationists from the 'Muslim world' are being given air time (or maybe people with no previous interest in it are getting in on the action because, hey, if the world's only superpower thinks it's important, why not get a few articles published while the subject is still fashionable?).
I respect PZ for not pussyfooting around sensibilities when it comes to challenging non-science and illogic wherever he finds it. I think it is necessary to do so, and to point it out for all to see. But blanket statements like this are beneath any thinking person. I'm going with Pharyngu-bot being the writer here.
Posted by: Nadia | February 22, 2008 5:34 AM
Battletoad, people use religion to explain the world because everyone wants _something_ to explain the world. They might take the whole bible literally (in which case they'd be in some mental conflict) or they might take palatable bits as doctrine. As a wiser man than me said "Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. "
Battletoad, you need to offer the hope of something better, or more real to the religious than contemptuous dismissal.. Attending midnight mass at Xmas, or donating a couple of thousand to some charity for the dispossessed in Indonesia post-quake is nothing but a manifestation of a desire to do right by their fellow man; it is not really worthy of derision in terms of humanistic morality.
Enough Christians care about the disenfranchised as do militant atheists to make irrelevant questions of moral superiority. and make schadenfreude.(as enjoyable as it may be) embarrassing. .
More to the point, most of the world is religious, you can't just sit there taking the piss out of 80% of the world, you need to be a part of overcoming the problem which means offering a realistic alternative. Yeah look, it's Friday night, I'm a bit under the influence of cheap cask merlot/cab. I hope you understand my point..
Posted by: Milawe | February 22, 2008 5:44 AM
Just because people want an explanation of everything in the universe that doesn't either mean they will get one that they will understand, or that they will be pleased with the answer.
But from an honest (yet deluded) desire to explain the universe, which is what some use to justify the existence of religion, to what we have to day known as 'religious morals' and 'religious ideals' there is a very long stretch.
Posted by: Alfonso Armenta | February 22, 2008 6:08 AM
Plenty of good science comes from Muslim countries, along with good sicnetists, and from Western Muslims. Even biologists, because I see many Turkish, Iranian, and Pakistani, researchers coming into the British system - as post-graduates, and as post-docotoral researchers.
Alas not! In the Middle-Ages, the Islamic enlightenment movement was fed by religious leaders and scholars. It was considered to be the main duty of a Muslim to seek personal education and improvement. Islamic scientists led what might be called the known-world as scientists.
Posted by: Bernard Bumner | February 22, 2008 6:32 AM
Well done, Nadia and Milawe. In the US, we need to get priorities right. Here, Muslim fundamentalism is much less a problem than the Christian variety - it's the relative populations, of course. We need to fight against all fundies, as an intellectual mandate. We also have our local terrorists, like Timothy McVeigh and his ilk, and the KKK. We can't blame it all on those awful strangers.
And we need to work on our vaunted technology to reduce the opportunity for violence engendered by our rapidly changing culture. Violent opportunists have too many points of attack.
Milawe. that famous quotation from Marx is correct, in my view. Marx wasn't disparaging religion, he was appreciating its role. "Opium of the people" was in his day a sort of praise. Then, of course, he pointed out that we would be better off if we abolished the need for that anodyne.
Posted by: Bob Carroll | February 22, 2008 6:51 AM
G.Tingey, #27
"Push come to shove, they (the US Christian fundies) would make common cause with the muslims to persecute the unbelievers"
Interesting. I actually think that this is untrue.
First because two sets of highly deluded people, even if some of their delusions do overlap to certain extent, will focus on the non overlaping areas, and both consider that they are mandated by their God, to convert the other ones. Finding common cause in this context is very unlikely, if not impossible.
Second, because, as I have been witness to, during my years spent in Malaysia and Morrocco, Muslim clerics consider, generally speaking, non believers to be less of a problem than Christian or Jewish fundamentalists.
In many occurences, I was told, they consider it to be a worst evil and even more heretic, to believe in what they consider as false notions, than to not believe at all.
For instance, how many times were I told, as a non believer, "ah well at least you don't believe in these nonsensical ideas that God reincarnated himself, the virgin birth, the resurection from the dead, etc...". Many Muslim fundamentalists view non believers as a kind of "blank state", which is easier to part with, than fundamentalists of other religions, as they say, it is not necessary to "erase false beliefs first".
Let's not forget also, that muslim countries view the US, as the nest of Judeo-Christian fundamentalism, and their prime enemy, and on another hand, view W.Europe, as the nest of non belief, and a lesser enemy. And I do believe, that the reverse is, by and large, also true.
Posted by: negentropyeater | February 22, 2008 6:59 AM
Fuller Marx: "Religion is both a response to real suffering and a reaction against that suffering. It is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the soul of soulless conditions and the heart of a heartless world. It is the opium of the people."
Opium = legal analgesic at the time.
@14: Nadia, you appear to be saying that you can have good science education in an Islamic country so long as you have no Islam in the science education.
s/Islam/Christianity/ as necessary.
Posted by: Stephen Wells | February 22, 2008 7:00 AM
@37. Yes. I am also saying that it did not occur to us as students that the religion and science COULD be mixed. I don't know if the idea of mixing the two ever crossed our teachers' minds, but if it did, they certainly never communicated it. This wasn't some miraculous holding-out against the forces of darkness. It was just, well, obvious.
Posted by: Nadia | February 22, 2008 7:16 AM
Exactly; there are some cultural universals, after all.
But in the main Nadia, Milawe and others makes an excellent case that there is enough diversity that one can't lump all islamic nations into one homogeneous culture. I do recognize the tendency of PZ to do this, and I do think he is trying to discuss the muslim religious culture more than the culture of the muslim nations at large (s/muslim/christian/jew), but it is what amounts to a US-centric perspective that is presented.
As for cultural diversity, I have problems to grok it, as I'm from a basically monocultural nation that now tries to embrace a reasonably large (~ 10-20 %, depending on definition [don't ask - or perhaps, do]) amount of immigrants and their views. Travel and stays help, but this is something better getting used to while growing up.
The point I wanted to make after this prelude was that during my year long stay in US I had this unsubstantiated feeling that while US citizens embraced more diversity within their nation, they never the less weren't particularly subjected to much foreign culture as such. Why would US coffee and bear be watered down variants of the real stuff if not a strong homogenizing factor to embrace the least common denominator were naturally present, either by market mechanisms or by cultural preferences?
So yeah, while religion has some universal evils (coming back to the quote), it is a mistake to lump all nations or their citizens under the same description. Most atheist would agree of course, for example Dawkins makes this point (more exactly, about not defining children after their parents religion) a major part of The God Delusion.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | February 22, 2008 8:03 AM
Not in Minnesota, no...
'Utlub al `ilm hatta fi Sin -- seek wisdom/knowledge/something all the way to China.
I bet, though, that many interpret this as philosophical and/or outright religious "wisdom" rather than as science.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | February 22, 2008 8:09 AM
Hi Nadia - love the posts:
Sounds like the US could do with a few of the teachers you had on their school boards!
Erm, surely the point we are making when we defend science against any flavour of ID/creo-bot is that you can have perfectly good science education in any country so long as you leave religion out of it. The problem seems to be persuading the religious of this.
I find it rather amusing, in a sad sort of a way, that the very people whom fundie creationists Christians in the West vilify the most (fundie creationist Muslims in the East) are the very group with which they have so many things in common (and vice versa), but then self-awareness has never been the hallmark of the religious fanatic (of any stripe).
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | February 22, 2008 8:13 AM
The irony that I'm happened to do exactly what I'm arguing against is not entirely lost on me.
I meant coffee and beer in general, damn it! The micro breweries started a revolution thankfully felt all the way here, and the coffee bean supply at stores where more diverse than those available in the nearest coffee shops here.
@ Milawe #32:
That is another major point in Dawkins TGD [recently read, if it isn't obvious by now] - the alternatives are present, and often much better than the religious - cultural and/or humanistic morality [way superior], secular laws [way, way superior], scientific knowledge of nature [way, way, ..., way superior], secular and/or humanistic interest organizations, secular charities, et cetera.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | February 22, 2008 8:19 AM
Milawi,
You seem to be unduly influenced by the fact that 80percent of the world is religious. Other than being a basic fact, what significance is that regards this discussion? I dare say at one point in history 100% of the inhabitants of the planet thought it was flat. Also meaningless and incorrect.
If you are sensitive to criticisms of Islam, I would suggest you get busy and start doing what you can to influence the radical islamist of the world because things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
We atheist in christian society are doing what we can to point out the utter stupidity of our fundamentalist christians. Science will win that battle here, but science is losing the battle in the fundamentalist muslim societies.
Posted by: Duff | February 22, 2008 8:20 AM
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (as glowingly described on his own foundation web site):
Nasr chose to go to M.I.T. for college. He was offered a scholarship and was the first Iranian student to be admitted as an undergraduate at M.I.T. He began his studies at M.I.T in the Physics Department with some of the most gifted students in the country and outstanding professors of physics. His decision to study physics was motivated by the desire to gain knowledge of the nature of things, at least at the level of physical reality. However, at the end of his freshman year, although he was the top student in his class, he began to feel oppressed by the overbearingly scientific atmosphere with its implicit positivism. Furthermore, he discovered that many of the metaphysical questions which he had been concerned with were not being asked, much less answered. Thus, he began to have serious doubts as to whether physics would lead him to an understanding of the nature of physical reality. His doubt was confirmed when the leading British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, in a small group discussion with the students following a lecture he had given at M.I.T, stated that physics does not concern itself with the nature of physical reality per se but with mathematical structures related to pointer readings.
[...]
Nasr's continued interest in science is made evident by his latest book on this subject, The Need for a Sacred Science. Also, together with one of his former students, Mehdi Amin Razavi, Nasr is now bringing out a major four volume work, An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia which will be published by Oxford University Press. Razavi also edited earlier, The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in Persia, which is a collection of Nasr's articles on Islamic philosophy in Persia written during the last forty years.
Yet another example of someone who stopped thinking after becoming disillusioned with science.
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 22, 2008 9:29 AM
Seyyed Hossein Nasr = Deepak Chopra.
A quotation from The Need for a Sacred Science:
"The Ultimate Self in its inner infinitude is beyond all determination and cosmic polarization, but the Spirit or Intellect which is both created and uncreated, is already its first determination in the direction of manifestation."
Published! In a book!
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 22, 2008 9:38 AM
CalGeorge said:
Reading the quote you provided he sounds more to me like someone who gave up on science once he realised that no, physics wasn't going to give his pre-existing religious ideas a free pass into the classroom, and has been in a snit with it ever since.
This bit gave me a giggle, he was in a physics class for FSM's sake! Why the hell did he enroll he found a scientific atmosphere oppressive?
Silly, Silly little man (Islam has evidently found it's CS Lewis).
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | February 22, 2008 9:49 AM
It's scary that this is the sort of world that the christian fundies are trying to pull us towards, even if they don't know it. I think this might be a good argument to give to moderates, their implicit support and tolerance for religious nuts would eventually take us into this middle ages style society.
Posted by: Santiago | February 22, 2008 9:54 AM
If you think that's sad, PZ, consider the following from MemriTV: A physicist and an astronomer, both Iraqis, debate whether or not the world is flat.
That's probably because as a response to recent events the Iraqis think that the (or at least their) world will be flattened.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | February 22, 2008 10:19 AM
Bah. Late night call into to fix a crashed server and 1.5 hours of sleep is showing.
Should have closed that blockquote and started a new paragraph after "justified largely through normalizing anti-Muslim sentiment."
time for more coffe
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | February 22, 2008 10:22 AM
MAJeff said:
That's a point, almost 50 comments in and not a peep yet. You don't think MOSSAD actually do have him tied up in basement somewhere do you (and if so how large a bribe do you think it'll take to get them to keep him)?
;-)
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | February 22, 2008 10:25 AM
"That's a point, almost 50 comments in and not a peep yet. You don't think MOSSAD actually do have him tied up in basement somewhere do you (and if so how large a bribe do you think it'll take to get them to keep him)?
;-)"
If MOSSAD do have him then they will they will know what he is like. I think they would keep him locked up for free.
I often think the Big Brother TV programs missed a trick. They could have done a really worthwhile public service in inviting some of the worst loons around into the house, locking the door, turning off the lights and walking away.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | February 22, 2008 10:36 AM
The Pharyngu-bot has a purpose. The Pharyngu-bot highlights the wickedness and stupidity of the religious without compromise or amelioration because you can always get the excuses and apologetics from the standard media. The Pharyngu-bot wants to raise your consciousness and make you aware that slapping the name of God on something does not make it noble and wise — it typically makes it stupid and wrong.
The Pharyngu-bot thinks Myers should simplify his blog categories and consolidate "Kooks" and "Stupidity" with "Religion." The Pharyngu-bot considers those words to be synonyms.
The Pharyngu-bot thinks tying bad behavior to whole countries is a good idea — the Pharyngu-bot thinks far too many people use the cop-out of blaming the bad on a subset of their culture, excusing themselves from blame. The Pharyngu-bot computes in America, is part of the American culture, and holds the idiocy of American politics and the creation wars to be part of its responsibility — and does not care how smart and sensible you are, if you claim to be part of a culture, you must bear its failings as well as its glories. The Pharyngu-bot thinks that a deep sense of shame among the secular, intellectual members of the United States, the Islamic world, or the Christian world is a necessary prerequisite to motivate change.
The Pharyngu-bot is not about us-vs.-them, but about we-is-them and they-is-us, and you'd damn well better wake up to the stupid kooks and evil cultural paradigms that are swaddling you.
Posted by: Pharyngu-bot | February 22, 2008 10:39 AM
"I was raised Muslim and attended school in Pakistan for a while..."
Nadia, around here that pretty much automatically disqualifies you from having a valid opinion about Islam.
The real experts are the guys who once took a taxi ride with a driver who was Muslim (or Sikh or something) and are therefore eminently qualified to pronounce on the intellectual inferiority of all Muslims.
Posted by: Ian Gould | February 22, 2008 11:34 AM
Don't fret. One day they'll progress from denying evolution to denying that science can produce truth of any kind and we'll happily welcome them into our midst and pronounce them "sophisticated."
Posted by: poke | February 22, 2008 11:35 AM
"In my neighborhood, migrant women wear the veil as a symbol of defiance against anti-Arab racism. "
And in Malaysia and Indonesia women wear it because it was symbol of nationaliam and assertion of their local cultural identities in the face of British and Dutch colonialiam.
No, wait, they were it because they'e brainwahsed slaves in constant fear of torture and murder by their blood-crazedesadistic male relatives and acquaintances.
It says so on the internet so it must be true.
Posted by: Ian Gould | February 22, 2008 11:41 AM
Sure, there are many smart Moslem scientists. They tend to get their higher education in the west and stay and work in the west. A classic brain drain. The head of the US NIH is a Moslem. IIRC a Pakistani scientist from a Xian derived sect even won a Nobel prize in physics.
For the amount of money and population they have they do very little science and being a scientist in some countries isn't particularly valued. Look what happened in Libya with their AIDS problem. They didn't even understand routine infectious disease control in the medical system.
Posted by: raven | February 22, 2008 11:48 AM
Matt Penfold said (re Jerry)
Only if they've got him gagged or have a deaf guard standing over him, if not I'd suspect they'd pay to get rid of him!
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | February 22, 2008 12:28 PM
"The REALLY SCARY thing is that the US fundies actually prefer people to be even (shock horror) muslims rather than, you know, ATHEISTS."
John Allen, the Vatican Correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, commenting on NPR's Morning Edition, November 29:
"On the other hand, Benedict clearly does want good working relations with Islam because, at the end of the day, the fundamental clash of civilizations that he sees in the world does not run between Islam and the West, it runs between belief and unbelief, that is, between cultures that prize religion, prize the supernatural, and those that don't. And in that regard he thinks of Muslims as his natural allies."
Posted by: Margaret | February 22, 2008 12:30 PM
This seems a rather spurious claim:
"an entire culture has closed itself off to a significant and well-tested scientific concept."
So, Islam is now a "culture?" Though we know that a variety of peoples, from the Gayo of Sumatra to the Morrocan Muslims, have indeed very different "cultures" and interpretations of Islam. Here is another hint, cultures do not do anything. People do. Such essentialist arguments are not just bad social science, they are bad science.
We have known this for awhile now, though we continue to ignore or forget as the case may be. John Bowen's 1992 article, On Scriptural essentialism and ritual variation: Muslim sacrifice in Sumatra and Morocco. American Ethnologist. 19(4): 656-671 is a nice place to start. Good science should be empirical, it should not be based on sweeping generalizations that essentialize complex social realities.
One would, also, of course want to know what kind of empirical research this Edis had done. I am sure, beyond being trained in physics, he also conducted serious empirical research in a variety of Muslim countries. Perhaps he did ethnographic research in a variety of locales? Surveys? Interviews?
Posted by: tyrone slothrop | February 22, 2008 12:44 PM
Thanks, Nadia, for your posts. Your writing is both informative and persuasive, and offers a perspective that is not often heard in most of the online debates I've seen.
Posted by: Bureaucratus Minimis | February 22, 2008 12:46 PM
Science was opposed by Islam even in the Middle Ages. Natural philosophers were always on the defensive and natural philosophy was never institutionalized or considered a part of normal education. It was never a major part of Islamic society. Furthermore, "science" in this context means mostly commentaries on the works of Aristotle; i.e., philosophy. Only historians could consider something that involves no observation, no experiment and no quantification or mathematics "science."
Posted by: poke | February 22, 2008 1:40 PM
Nadia, I am reading, absorbing, respecting, and thanking you for your objectivity, scholarship, and contributions to a critical discussion of our human frailties and political passions from all perspectives - as in the best science.
Innocent people's lives hang in the balance and our most rigorous understanding & humanistic reconciliation of the causal chains in this scientific issue.
Posted by: gerald spezio | February 22, 2008 1:57 PM
Bureaucratus Minimus & tyrone slothrop, how well I know.
I always wondered (and hoped) when and where some other observers would come forth.
Grazie.
Posted by: gerald spezio | February 22, 2008 2:57 PM
@ #32
| "Battletoad, you need to offer the hope of something better, or more real to the religious than contemptuous dismissal.."
Milawe, what is more real than reality? I can only offer that much to the delusional. I can't offer hope for fantastic things like eternal life, virgins in heaven, or using the force. However, science might one day provide extended life, unnatural abilities (human flight), and near perfect paradise (just ask Hue Hefner about Viagra). Oh wait, science already provides these. This is real hope. Science is real hope. That is the better hope, that I propose. And, who knows, the future of science could hold hope for life eternal and things greater than anything in those myths. But at least, if we believe in science, we can keep progressing, instead of regressing.
Science is based on observations of reality, and it cuts across all cultures and religions. My culture is no different (yours too). If 80% of the world is steeped in cultures that cannot see the hope that science offers, and not free themselves from their opiate addiction, then we have to help them break free. I agree with you, we have to offer them an alternative; fortunately, we already have one.
And, if I have to piss on 80% of the world (to wake them up to reality), then watch me die trying to drink enough water.
Posted by: battletoad | February 22, 2008 3:56 PM
PZ, more than most anybody, you have gallantly advanced the banner of objective science against the forces of darkness - especially religious darkness.
Your well deserved status and the respect that goes with it, however, comes with a price - I am just one who pays close attention to your every word and nuance - possibly sometimes unfairly.
Nadia's statement quoted here is precisely why I have taken you to task for some of your posts or some part of your posts.
And almost surely you are innocent of all the possible political implications of those posts - that I claim may exist.
Here is a repeat of Nadia's comment.
"I respect PZ for not pussyfooting around sensibilities when it comes to challenging non-science and illogic wherever he finds it. I think it is necessary to do so, and to point it out for all to see. But blanket statements like this are beneath any thinking person. I'm going with Pharyngu-bot being the writer here."
Posted by: Nadia | February 22, 2008 5:34 AM
Posted by: gerald spezio | February 22, 2008 4:04 PM
Milawe, your precise words are passionately respected and on point in this life or death debate;
" ... but let us not forget that the US and her most sycophantic allies are guilty of killing in the order of a million innocent Iraqi men, women and children, justified largely through normalizing anti-Muslim sentiment."
pkiwi, Fedor, & Sigmund; from one scientific grunt to his fellows;
Grazie, because "A lone baboon is a very lonely baboon."
Posted by: gerald spezio | February 22, 2008 4:47 PM
(Allah is the one God) who made all things He created excellent; and He began the creation of man from clay. Then He made his offspring from the extract of base fluid; then He fashioned and breathed into him of His Spirit; and gave you hearing and sight and the faculty of inferring. And yet how little are the thanks you offer! Qaliluma ma Tashkuroon (Al-Quran, 32:7-9)
Is this idiotic statement part of the Muslim culture we are supposed to respect?
I think I'll save my respect for other things.
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 22, 2008 4:50 PM
"I'd urge you to extend to us the same courtesy we do to you when we don't automatically assume that all Americans are gun-toting, fundamentalist, creationist whackos."
Americans are residents of a continent.
Muslims are people who believe in Allah.
Big difference.
Bashing all the people who live in a particular place: not a good idea.
Bashing all the people who believe a load of crap about Allah: it's always open season on stupidity.
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 22, 2008 5:31 PM
Re Nadia & others
Although it is true that there are competent scientists from various Muslim countries, the sad fact is that only one Muslim, Abdus Salam, won a Nobel Prize in physics and the only Arab to win a Nobel Prize in physics, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, is an Algerian Jew. Although some may attribute this to Western bias, a number of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian physicists have won Nobel Prizes in Physics. This dispite the fact that Muslims make up some 20% of the worlds' population.
Posted by: SLC | February 22, 2008 6:07 PM
CalGeorge; you stated above in an earlier post; "Muslim thinker is an oxymoron."
Now, immediately above you quote the Koran to illustrate the clear idiocy of Muslim religion.
Since you claim to respect clear thinking and you claim to know it when you see it, may I suggest that your quoted passage is a perfect paraphrase of Christian Biblical Genesis.
Such glaring sociocultural similarity might give you scientific pause and suggest that a sound scientific strategy would consider looking for the causal chains of both claims about how the world originated - especially since they approach identity.
A scientist's agenda, so to speak, is searching for the truth - not that it is easy.
Posted by: gerald spezio | February 22, 2008 6:09 PM
Dear CalGeorge,
This is either intentionally dishonest or unintentionally dishonest, either way it is certainly a factually false claim:
"Americans are residents of a continent."
Posted by: tyrone slothrop | February 22, 2008 6:21 PM
"American" is a word that represents an incredibly diverse range of attitudes.
"Muslim" is a word that signifies belief in Islam.
That's all I was trying to say.
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 22, 2008 6:41 PM