 |
| The group's 13-lb. tome sent to professionals worldwide. Yigal Schleifer |
Islamic creationist group launches glitzy, global blitz
A household name in Turkey, the 'Foundation for Scientific Research' is now distributing its books – published in 59 languages including Chinese and Swahili – to 80 countries.
from the August 3, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Harmonizing modernity, Islam
While giving creationism a scientific veneer, "Scientifically speaking, the whole Harun Yahya corpus is a bunch of nonsense, but it is unfortunately very popular," says Taner Edis, a Turkish physicist who teaches at Truman State University in Missouri.
Professor Edis says the success of the Harun Yahya books, at least in the Islamic world, can be attributed to a need for harmonizing modern life with traditional Islamic beliefs.
"Something has to reconcile these two things and it becomes very attractive when someone comes out with a well-packaged message, that they can have both – be fully modern and at the same have science … affirm most of their very deeply held religious and ethical perceptions," says Edis, whose "An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam" was published by Prometheus Books this spring.
"That's a pretty attractive package and that's mostly what the Harun Yahya material provides," he says.
In Turkey, Oktar and his books certainly appear to be having an impact. When Science magazine conducted a survey of 34 countries last August, Turkey had the second-lowest acceptance rate of the theory of evolution (the United States had the lowest).
Creationist curriculum since '85
Creationism has actually been a part of the Turkish science curriculum since 1985, when it was added by government order, and many scientists now fear that it will soon be too hard to uproot.
"The general state of science education is very bad in the sense that evolution and creationism are taught together, and they can't be taught together. If they are, no scientific thinking can be established in these students," says Aykut Kence, a professor of biology at Ankara's Middle East Technical University.
"We are going to fall behind the modern countries in terms of development, economy, culture. Everything."
RSS feed
