Harun Yahya Spams the French

Yes, in that Turkey is (a little bit) in Europe. :-)

(posting from France here)

I don't know why this kind of creationist crap has been ordered for our schools/universities.

WTF?

jeannot --- Not clear who ordered the books sent. Maybe some wealthy 'religious' nut?

Terrorism? Are you sure the author's name isn't Ya ha ha ha haaaaaa....

I'm outraged by this. Why have these books not been sent here to the UK? How am I supposed to choose between atheist science, truthful-but-honestly-not-Christian science, and Islamic science without all the info at my disposal?

"Darwinism is the only philosophy that values and incites conflict."

Isn't Adnan Oktar (pseudonym Harun Yahya) muslim (which inspires islamism), abhorring buddhism, and a holocaust denier? Pot. kettle. Black.

Also, he specifically believes that ""Intelligent Design" Is Another of Satan's Distractions" ( http://www.harunyahya.com/new_releases/news/intelligent_design.php ) which could perhaps be said to incite conflict with some circles. :-)

jeannot:

I note that it isn't the first time religious organizations interfere with education either:

"The official said that the Church of Scientology had also embarked on a mass distribution of literature to schools a few years ago."

The author of this book states:

Those who perpetuate terror in the world are in fact Darwinists. Darwinism is the only philosophy that values and incites conflict.

Someone clearly hasn't been paying any f***ing attention to human history.

What I find interesting is this statement reminds of me of a trend I've seen in my surfing of religious discussions - the idea that all bad people are atheists, because even if they SAY they're Christians (or whatever), they aren't REALLY Christians (or whatever), and thus atheists. Because they're bad people - therefore by definition, atheists.

So perhaps calling anyone who starts conflict (in his eyes) a Darwinist is a way of saying all bad people are Darwinists - and thus all Darwinists are bad people.

I'm suspicious about this: my theory is that Prof. Steve organised this himself, as an excuse to visit France for his holidays, and, um, investigate the diversity and evolution of their wines.

Bob

Piece in today's Le Monde about this at
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3226,36-863132@51-863141,0.html

Also intersting to compare the website

http://museedelacreation.com/
with that of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
http://www.mnhn.fr

Sadly, this is only the beginning. What it portends, however, is far far worse. The West is totally unprepared or unconcerned with the spread of global jihad; focusing on 'terrorism' and useless military action, while the true invasion (search: Muslim Brotherhood or Wahhabism) occurs through the spreading of propaganda and hate speech in western mosques, grade schools, and universities.

If the situation doesn't change, there will come a time in the very near future when science supporters and atheists wistfully remember the good old days of struggling against ID.

As a Westerner who has lived in the middle east for the last 3 years, it is unbelievable how little we understand what is going on right in front of us. And it is depressing how few people even care.

The West is safe because it has something much more powerful than any guns or bombs: Free Internet and moderate free newspapers.
Hate speeches have been exposed also in scientology churches etc. I think population of JW's has been shrinking lately here due to free speech internet.. :D

The French have the good sense to have a national education system. What if he sends his books to US schools?

Great.

That's just what young muslims in France need right now.

They're already second-class citizens with a sky-high unemployment rate, so someone hatches a plan that's going to make them even more disconnected from the modern economy with a dumbed down education in the name of religion.

Yeah, that's certainly going to improve their situation.

Dear Friends,
Why do any Darwinist or evolutionist reply the atlas as a scientific way? If this has a scientific ideas,and claims against Darwinism, Darwinist should give the scientific replies to these claims, NOT PROHIBIT THE BOOKS. Do not forgot Europe learned much more thing which were seem as wrong at that time from Cordoba, And Islamic world in 15th and 16th century. So reading a book does not affect a men's ideas if it is proved as a fault. So the only thing must be done is to give necessary replies for the claims made by Harun Yahya, not to PROHIBIT.
If this is really non scientific book, disprove the claims. But may be you know that in Turkey, with this writer's books, the unbeliver to Darwinism increase to 91% and no Turkish Darwinist could have been accepting their open meeting to the society where the Darwinist wants to be.
We, Muslims wants you to reply some our scientific claims with generally accepted modern scientific method which is putting your evidences. Common....

Posted by Muharrem on February 4, 2007 6:12 AM (e) We, Muslims wants you to reply some our scientific claims with generally accepted modern scientific method which is putting your evidences.

Stevaroni --- That was excellent. Now go do it again on the New Mexico thread. Thank you.

I concur. That is concise, polite and uncompromising. With your permission, stevaroni, I would like to add that to my own links for future use.

With your permission, stevaroni, I would like to add that to my own links for future use.

I tried to post this Saturday but somehow it got lost

If you can read French there's a piece in Le Monde at
Un ouvrage turc antidarwinien diffusé en masse auprès de l'éducation nationale

There's also a certain similarity between Harun Yahya's website
here

and that of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle

here

This is for Stevaroni,
dera Friend if you read the book, you see what is wrong on Evolution according to Islamic Creationist. You have never show any fossil records which is the evidence to change from one species to another step by step. In 250 different type of fossil evidences, there is not any fossil. Do you have? If you think so, please call the institutes which accept that there isnot any. Also horse series, coelecanth as a form from water to ground, Archeopterics from ground to flying bird ( in order to catch flying insect it learns how to fly!!! So amazing is not it. noDarwinist or Evolutionist has been asking how the insect to fly), tactiilic (same type of species living now in Australia) and much more of evdence of Evolution are criticised in this books. Could you please reply to them with your scientific evidence. Please donot talk about me there are too many fossils records on the hundred of museums, because all of these fosssils are complete animals and all of their organs are working properly which means that are not the half of pre and half of the future animals. If you have any evidence you should show me the animal which lost one organ and gain the most improved one. For example you should show me how a complex eyes are gained and the steps of it. Or you should show me the evolution process like in a automobile factory designing one car from improving to another model but also they change some parts which they worked on the samples try to renewed and they try to precomplete parts where they decided to use and than throw away them and formed the last one and produced this to use in the new model. You should prove for me that this part's evolution period on the living animal between the old model and new model step by step changes on the organ. Is it possible for you? If it is please describe me how this animal lived with this half organs? I mean how did this organ work properly and support this animal?
Do you think that from a dog to cat or from horse to zebra how the muscles change and during this cahge how its other organ organise according to this change in the DNA?
all these questions or near that is asking on the different books of Harun Yahya. Harun Yahya never says that he proves the scentificly the Creation. He says that there are two theory to explain existence, one is Creation, other is evolution. Evolution says that it is scientific and giving scientific evidence for. But if someone proves that the evidences given by evolutionists, than there is only one alternative which is creation which also must be talked on which type of creationism is true, of course. Harun Yahya at this point saying that islamic Creationism according to Quran is true. Why accordngto Quran, because there are too many scientific worses whose truthness have been founded on 20th century scientific knowledge from finger print to the BigBang.
Please first of all read this book it is free to read from www. harunyahya.com or net than give the critisim againgst his objection for evolution and darwinian theory from Islamic view than we talked on again with you.

it s wonderful, amazing :) but i cant get, how can i get one copy

Muharrem, I read both of your posts and visited Harun's website. I am a bit shocked in his claims, "99% of the fossils in the world have been discovered?" "His showing a fossil with a modern organism to say that it is unchanged?" "Not to mention that out of the 98 pages of reader's comments not one of them challenges his claims?" seems a bit one sided.
If Harun were to look at some basic molecular biology of virus and bacterial generations over time he could witness evolution first hand. I do not want to sit and dispute all of his claims from his website but I can say that most of his claims are twists of commonly used claims by creationists in the US, many of which are just false.
I encourage you to take your time and look into each one of his claims and research the evidence against it by the scientific community.
Just another note, Harun Yahya is the pen name for Adnan Oktar. Adnan Oktar is a known leader of Old Earth Creationism in Turkey as well as the founder / leader of the Bilim Araşırma Vakfı a group known to harass, threaten and slander scientist in Turkey. I have a couple of friends from Turkey that have said this many hold sway over many in Turkey due to his supposed ties with Ataturk. Oh last bit of info, his schooling was in interior design-study at Mimar Sinan University, nothing science related.

I work in a lab where we have received said book, so I had a chance (if I can say so) to get a look at it.
The book itself looks impressive, hardcover with moving pictures of various species on the cover, on heavyweight glossy paper with multiple photographs of high quality (aka it must have really cost a lot, and it was delivered through express delivery, which doesn't also come cheap for this kind of size and weight), and until one looks at the text, most pictures are of the kind that are found as illustrations for fossil books or history of life vulgarisation books.

Looking at the text, though, rapidly changes this.
There are a few parts that are superficially serious about how fossils are extracted and processed, and how DNA labwork works, followed by a very repetitive text about why there is no passage from one form to another and therefore no evolution, complete with ad hoc arguments and the usual misrepresentations.
A fast parsing has not allowed me to find any new argument that would not have been discussed a hundred times here or in the talkorigin archives (mutations cannot be beneficial, complexity is irreductible, evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics...), and the usual quote-mining is also at full work.
Moreover, the book is full of factual errors and misrepresentations (nothing new under the sun) : many pages are devoted to comparisons between fossils and actual forms (with a picture of a fossil, a picture of a present day form, and a short text always ending by "therefore these are the same animals and evolution does not happen" or something to that effect.
The most precise it gets is : "look, these are obviously the same animals, so evolution does not occur", with of course never a precise name given, only vague vernaculars ("shark", "bivalv", "perch"), and often mis-association of a name with the picture (just parsing, perch is used indiscriminately for at least four species from three relatively distantly related euteleost families, and the author really seems to love "herrings") and/or wrong association of the fossil with the actual (a new level of comedy is reached repeatedly when the fossil is of a stalked crinoid and the photograph next to it is of a tubular annelid; legend states that the form has not evolved at all). The photoshoped picture of a gars in a coral reef and those of little bunnies on a background of flowers are also worth seing.
It also contains multiple self contradictions and inconsistencies : I did not get exactly how the timeline works (I have not read the whole book, though), but the author seems to accept an age of earth counting in millions of years, while denying any transitional forms, which could only mean multiple creation acts over millions of years?
There is indeed a part about the crimes linked to darwinism (we are to blame for Hitler and Stalin, and many other things), and darwinism is the reason there is still hate and violence in the world, while only religion can save us from this.
The last part is about why we cannot see the truth with our dimmed senses and should rely on scripture.
Anyway, if anyone is interested in further reads, they should probably see whether the book is really available on their website, and have a look for themselves.

Maybe a message without links will work

There was a an article in Saturday's Le Monde which is still available on their website which anyone who can read French might find interesting

There's also an amazing similarity between the authors website for musee de la creation & the website of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle

(I have tried posting with links but although they work on the preview the messages never seem to arrive on the thread)

Should have been Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle - the Paris based, French national museum for natural history

So does this mean that when a teacher wants his students to work from this creationist text, he'd be telling his students to "Get yer Yahyas out?"

Muharrem: Stevaroni has offered a clear, easily-understandable, and non-insulting defense of evolution, and an invitation to do all the research yourself. Your response did not address any of his points. This leads me to conclude that you either don't understand what we're talking about, or aren't interested in discussing the issues as an adult with adults.

Also, would you care to respond to Tim S's statements about "Yahya" himself? You seem to be hanging with a rather ungodly crowd. Are you sure your Creator would approve?

For example you should show me how a complex eyes are gained and the steps of it.

Muharrem: if your wife spent several hours preparing a roast leg of lamb for you, and you thought it was chicken, she would be offended, right? So if your Creator spent somewhere between six whole days and eighteen billion years creating the Universe and all of the living things in it, and you failed to understand or appreciate the true nature of his work, he'd be all the more offended, wouldn't he?

Science is about taking the trouble to really understand the true nature of God's creation. Even if that leads us to some unexpected and/or unsettling conclusions. Do you not think God wants us to understand what he created?

"noDarwinist or Evolutionist has been asking how the insect to fly"

Googling "evolution of insect flight" shows that Muharrem doesn't know what he's talking about. If he were just some guy you bumped into in the street it would be one thing, but there is no excuse for a person who has internet access and the apparent willingness to lecture others on science not at least doing a bit of googling, if only so as to tell more plausible lies than the usual 'Evolutionists have never asked ...'

BTW, in noodling around verifying what I said above (take notes, Mr Muharrem!), I came across the following on a page for an exercise for biology students: 'Testing hypotheses about the evolution of insect flight from surface-skimming ancestors' by Jim Marden, Penn State University : "Safety precautions, possible permissions necessary: The exercise involves evolution (and scissors), so creationists should exercise extreme caution."

Harun Yahya never says that he proves the scentificly the Creation. He says that there are two theory to explain existence, one is Creation, other is evolution. Evolution says that it is scientific and giving scientific evidence for. But if someone proves that the evidences given by evolutionists, than there is only one alternative which is creation

For example you should show me how a complex eyes are gained and the steps of it.

A follow on article in Le Monde

Hi
i can c a lot of negative arguments about Islam, by the way before you judge read. If u like to know more arguments about creationism or the haruns books visit this website Harunyahya.com

i can c a lot of negative arguments about Islam, by the way before you judge read. If u like to know more arguments about creationism or the haruns books visit this website Harunyahya.com

Muharrem, I read both of your posts and visited Harun's website. I am a bit shocked in his claims...

— Tim S

So All of us our just supposed to except this theory (and it is just a theory by the way) that we all evolved from apes?
Why not put books like this in school? At least that would teach our children How to think and not What to think. Isnt that what maniacs like Hitler and Stallin did to the youth of their countries? Harun Yahya does not deny the holocaust by the way.

For anyone who thinks that Creation cannot be proved Please I urge you to pick up the book :The Bible Quran and Science" by Maurice Bucaille. And you are right Harun Yahya is not an Islamic Scholar. And as a muslim who has read a few of his books Well yes he does beat a few isues to death. But that does not mean that he is the only source of Islam. Many people have such false ideas of what a Jihad is and what islam is for that matter I am a convert of over 27 years My father is an evolutionist to his very bones. So I am not completly misinformed about the subject of evolution. please be carful of what you read and hear about Islam especially from the internet and the news alot of it is false. And of course alot of it is propgated by extremist Muslims themselves. Personally I have never read anything that proves to me that evolution is the truth. Alot of times the Galapogus(spelling?)Island is prime example. But please if you want strange animals nowhere else in the world look at Australia. Heck look under the ocean for that matter.And I read in I believe either Time or Omni Magazine that Scientists have proven that we all came from a single male and a female.(Adam and Eve perhaps?)

Zenah --- The book Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins by Carl Zimmer comes highly recommended.

the author really seems to love "herrings"

Ah, closer reading--hey, I was on a break between runs, already!--shows that Stevaroni anticipated my attempted "red herring" jest.

One virtually free piping hot pizza pie for Stevaroni (who has long deserved one for other reasons), coming right up!

Re "And I read in I believe either Time or Omni Magazine that Scientists have proven that we all came from a single male and a female."

Single? You mean our ancestors weren't married?? ACK!

:)

Zenah,

I suspect you know a lot less about evolution than you think. You say 'it is just a theory'. A scientific theory is an explanation for a body of evidence, that fits all known evidence and which enables predictions to be made (which means it is testable). It does not mean the same as a theory in everyday speech. The way in which you bring in Hitler and Stalin reinforces the view that you know little about evolution. Vavilov, an authority on crop evolution, died in prison in Siberia (as did many others) because he supported the theory of evolution against the wishes of Stalin.

You say you have never read anything that would prove to you that evolution is the truth. What exactly would you accept as proof, if anything?

In fact, strictly speaking scientific theories can never be proven true. They can be proven to be false or, as in the case with the theory of evolution, people could test them thousands of times a year for 150 years and fail to show them false.

You say that scientists have proven that we all came from a single male and female. Not exactly. It seems everyones father's father's father's . . . father is the same person, the Y-chromosome 'Adam'. Your father's father's mother's father's . . . father, however, could have been a different person living at the same time as 'Adam'. Similarly for everyones mother's mother's mother's . . . mother, the mitochondrial 'Eve'. Who might not be the same person as your mother's mother's father's mother's . . . mother. These versions of Adam and Eve are a completely different concept from the Biblical characters.

Single? You mean our ancestors weren't married?? ACK!

Re "These versions of Adam and Eve are a completely different concept from the Biblical characters."

Not to mention that they lived at widely different times - iirc, tens of thousands of years apart.

Henry

Yeah, it's a little sad and ironic that Zenah--who is (correctly) so anxious that "we" not accept a right-wingnut extremist "cartoon" view of Islam--has at the same time so uncritically accepted a right-wingnut extremist "cartoon" view of evolution.

Friends of all faiths (or of none): you have a brain and a keyboard (at minimum, access to a library). Please use them before you allow yourself to have nonsense shoved down your throats.

Sadly, this is only the beginning. What it portends, however, is far far worse. The West is totally unprepared or unconcerned with the spread of global jihad; focusing on 'terrorism' and useless military action, while the true invasion (search: Muslim Brotherhood or Wahhabism) occurs through the spreading of propaganda and hate speech in western mosques, grade schools, and universities.

If this has a scientific ideas,and claims against Darwinism, ...

iirc, tens of thousands of years apart.