Voodoo historian: Harun Yahya and anti-evolution in Turkey

November 22, 2006

Voodoo historian and crank scientist “Harun Yahya” (it’s a pseudonym) has done the Rev. D. James Kennedy one better — he’s sending books to school libraries in Turkey claiming that Darwin is responsible for terrorism.

For years U.S. creationists have bragged about their reach into Turkey and Islam. Whether Moslems regard it as a toe-hold for Christianity, or whether American creationists have any compunction about working to stir up religious strife in Moslem nations, sane people who work for peace, justice and knowledge should be concerned.

In a chutzpa-filled claim that would take away the breath of Baron Munchausen, Yahya claims that Darwin is reponsible for fascism, communism and terrorism — never mind that fascists, communists and terrorists generally denounce Darwin and espouse the views of Yahya on evolution.

Read the rest of this entry »

19 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, History Revisionism, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Hubble didn’t “kill God”

November 12, 2006

Stu Hasic argues that a photo from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) “killed God,” or at least the notion that God played a role in creation.

Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image Reveals Galaxies Galore

Where do bloggers get such fantastic, erroneous ideas? My educated guess is that most preachers looking at this photograph of hundreds of galaxies (no, not individual stars), deep in space and therefore deep back in time, would be awestruck — and were they to preach about it, they’d call this evidence of God’s hand in creation, making a leap in logic and faith about equal to that of Hasic, but in the opposite direction. Hasic’s post nicely encapsulates some of the knowledge we get from the photo, but then he leaps to an unwarranted conclusion.

Hasic argues that since the photo is a brilliant refutation of some of the less scientific claims of creationism, it disproves God.

If Man is the purpose of creation, why did it take so long to create Man? And what’s with all the over-the-top elaborate sky decorations? Surely some painted white dots on a big canvas hung around the Earth would have sufficed?

Thanks should go to Hubble for opening our eyes. If only some men would open theirs. Being a Christian or being a Muslim means being different. Being a Human means being the same.

I can’t speak for all Christians, of course, but I’d wager most Christians would agree with Hasic’s last sentence there: Being a human means being the same as other humans. That’s rather the point of much of scripture (see Ecclesiastes, for many examples). I would also note that most Christians like the Hubble photos as much as anyone else. Photos of “star incubators” (see end of the post for an example) are among the more popular images in religious publications in the last decade. Contrary to Hasic’s assertion, the photo offers no challenge at all to any belief of most Christians. Read the rest of this entry »

13 Comments | Accuracy, Astronomy, Current History, Physics, Religion, Research, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Inherently dishonest: Creationism

September 16, 2006

If you’re interested only in history and education, and if you think there is no overlap between the people who try to censor biology textbooks and those who try to “reform” history books, you may go to the next post and skip this one.

Quote accuracy is a big deal to me. When creationists can’t look you square in the eye and tell the truth about what another human being said, they lose my confidence, and their arguments lose credence. I think all scholars and policy discussants have an obligation to readers, policy makers, and the future, to try to get right quotations of famous people. I think this responsbility is particularly important in health and science issues. It was in the vein of checking out the accuracy and veracity of quotes from creationist publications some (okay — many) years ago for a minor issue Congress was dealing with that I discovered the depths of depravity to which creationists stoop to try to make their case that creationism is science and should be taught in public school science classes — or that evolution is evil, and shouldn’t be taught at all. Famous writings of great men like Charles Darwin regularly undergo a savage editor’s knife to make it appear he wrote things quite contrary to what he wrote with regard to science and evolution, or to make it appear that Darwin was a cruel or evil man — of which he was quite the opposite.

With the great benefit of having the Library of Congress across the street, I would occasionally track down obscure sources of “quotes” from scientists, only to discover in almost every case where creationists claimed science was evil, or wrong, that the creationist tracts had grotesquely distorted the text they cited. It was as if the creationist authors had been infected with a virus that made them utterly incapable of telling the truth on certain things.

Over the years I have observed that dedicated creationists tend to lose the ability to tell when they have stepped over the line in editing a quotation, and have instead changed the meaning of a quotation to fit their own ends. This the inherent dishonesty of creationism. It affects — it infects — almost all creationists to one degree or another. Many creationists seem to be under the influence of a virus that renders them incapable of telling a straight story about science, or Darwin.

I ran into a raging case recently. It would be amusing if not for the fact that the creationist seems to be an otherwise rational person.

Read the rest of this entry »

13 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Ethics, Evolution, First Amendment, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Public education, Religious Freedom, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

D. James Kennedy’s killer legacy

August 27, 2006

This might be a better topic for another blog I have in early creation stages — except that the difficulties with the anti-science program broadcast this weekend by D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries are exactly the same difficulties the same group has with history, and the concerns about revising history textbooks and history classes — to make them inaccurate and militantly polemic — also come from the same groups. The history errors alone in Kennedy’s program justify discussing it here. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Education, Evolution, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Intelligent Design, Science, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Men make angels?” Darwin, more accurately viewed

August 25, 2006

Public broadcasting’s unpopularity among certain members of the conservative punditry may be squarely laid at the foot of public broadcasting’s tendency to smash inaccurate myths and unworthy icons.  While certain pay-for-pray televangelists like to fill their coffers by bashing Darwin, public radio programs look deeper, and find different answers to some questions.

American Public Media’s Speaking of Faith has an archived program on Darwin and his journals, in which one may see a gentle, religious man struggling with the knowledge that nature rarely shows what the pulpit pounders claim. 

For example, here is an excerpt from Darwin’s journals in which he wonders about the power of ecological niches to pull evolutionary advance from “lower species” — if humans ceased to exist, Darwin wonders, would monkeys evolve to fill the niche?  If angels did not exist, would humans evolve?

Darwin as a religious man, a man concerned with morals and a concern for the donwtrodden of societies, is a picture often hidden by those who attack science.  The picture tends to rebut, refute and make silly so many of the claims of the enemies of evolution. 

Here is another excerpt, in which he notes that humans are one species, not separate species as the creationists of his day claimed.  This is exactly contrary to the views argued by the Coral Ridge Ministries’ anti-Darwin diatribe scheduled for this weekend.  The website for Speaking of Faith has several excerpts from Darwin’s diaries and notebooks in which he explicitly ponders issues of faith and evolution, well worth the read and MP3 listen.

The program’s host, Krista Tippett, has several essays (not necessarily on Darwin, but on other religious people who ponder the meaning of science knowledge) which also provide rebuttal to the distorted views of Darwin popularly held.  She writes about Darwin’s journals, for example, “There is much in Darwin’s thought that would ennoble as well as ground a religious view of life and of God.”

That’s a view D. James Kennedy at Coral Ridge Ministries does not admit.  He is much the poorer for the log that blinds him.

Nota bene:  Also see the link to The Darwin Digital Library.  It is a useful source of original documents and solid commentary.

6 Comments | Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Ethics, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Next Entries »