The Darwinian death cult

The original picture is on a webpage of Harun Yahya. I was unable to copy the original picture because it contains an embedded video of a Hitler harangue.

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David Klinghoffer makes some good points in his article "Do Ideas Have Consequences Only When They're Associated with Radical Islam?," posted on Beliefnet and on Evolution News & Views. He says,

Why do so many writers who insist on emphasizing the consequences of radical Muslim belief tend to ignore the social consequences of other belief systems -- for example, Darwinism?

My question is prompted by reflections that are being published about the Fort Hood massacre. Darwinist blogger PZ Myers is among many voices to be raised in protest that shooter Nidal Hasan's Islamic beliefs are getting too little attention: "Unfortunately, there's [a] factor that seems to be getting minimized in the press accounts: [Hasan] was also a member of an Abrahamic death cult" (i.e., Islam).

Well, PZ, there is also a Darwinian death cult. Make no mistake -- Darwinism is a cult. The Darwinists claim that Darwinism is only science and so should not be blamed for any possible negative social or political consequences that it might have. But the Darwinists don't treat Darwinism as just a science -- they treat it as a worldview and a cult. There are Darwin Day celebrations, "I love Darwin" stickers and knick-knacks, Darwin sermons, Darwin parties, "Friend of Darwin" certificates, Darwin-Lincoln essay contests, even Darwin parodies of Christmas carols. There is the ridiculous, often-repeated notion that "evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" (as expressed in the new Florida state standards for science education). Darwinists are intolerant of those who disagree with them and censor criticisms of evolution. I should know about the censorship -- I have been banned from several Darwinist blogs, even though my comments on those blogs have been polite and serious. And you yourself, PZ, along with Eugenie Scott, Ken Miller, and other Darwinists fit the image of the "mad scientist." Judge "Jackass" Jones is a "mad judge."

Klinghoffer also says,

PZ Myers is among those who can be relied on to dismiss every attempt to point out the social consequences of Darwin's famous idea. So too biologist and blogger Jerry Coyne, who mocks what is actually a pretty interesting article in the London Sunday Times by Dennis Sewell on the theme . . . . The piece is worth reading, even though Sewell singles me out for criticism:

The connection between Darwin's ideas and the Holocaust remains hugely controversial, not least because many creationists try to reduce it to a crude blame game. The writer David Klinghoffer, an advocate of intelligent design, which many regard as creationism in disguise, claims: "The key elements in the ideology that produced Auschwitz are moral relativism aligned with a rejection of the sacredness of human life, a belief that violent competition in nature creates greater and lesser races, that the greater will inevitably exterminate the lesser, and finally that the lesser race most in need of extermination is the Jews. All but the last of these ideas may be found in Darwin's writing."

But the last of those ideas, "that the lesser race most in need of extermination is the Jews," is an extraordinary leap and requires some explanation. Under Social Darwinism, "lesser" normally means physically and/or mentally defective, but the Nazis never claimed that the Jews as a group were physically and/or mentally defective. In fact, the first Jews targeted by the Nazis were highly mentally fit Jews -- Jewish managers in civil service and Jewish professionals. So I concluded that Social Darwinism's contribution to Nazi anti-Semitism was promotion of the idea that it is morally OK to get rid of undesirables.

Also, David Klinghoffer is unfortunately a hypocrite -- he condemns others for being closed-minded but is closed-minded himself. When I met him at a screening of the film "Darwin's Dilemma," I invited him to visit my blog but warned him that my blog contains holocaust revisionism. I warned him not because I wanted to change his opinions about the holocaust but because I did not want him to hold my holocaust revisionism against me. He then became very hostile, saying that holocaust revisionism is evil and that I had discredited myself and he refused to have any further discussions with me. My basic views about the holocaust are the following: (1) a "systematic" Jewish holocaust was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews, and (2) as stated above, Nazi anti-Semitism was not -- strictly speaking -- a Social Darwinist idea, because the Nazis targeted fit Jews as well as unfit Jews. There is nothing anti-'Semitic about those ideas.
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Jerry Coyne's demagoguery

In an article with the sensational title, "Axis of evil: Discovery Institute + Harun Yahya," Jerry Coyne said,

According to yesterday’s (Nov. 8) Washington Post, there seem to be some ties forming between the Turkish creationists, headed by Harun Yahya (aka Adnan Oktar), and the Disco ‘Tute. This is truly an unholy alliance . . . .

Coyne's evidence of an "unholy alliance"? The Washington Post article said,

The Discovery Institute of Seattle, which researches and promotes intelligent design as an alternative to creationism and evolution, . . . . sent speakers to Turkey after being invited by the Istanbul municipal government in 2007. President Bruce Chapman said the institute helped bring Turkish evolution critic Mustafa Akyol to a 2005 Kansas school board hearing on teaching critiques of evolution.

However, Harun Yahya (Adrian Oktar) has denounced ID and the Discovery Institute:
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In order to alienate people from true religions, Masons have devised many false religions of complex description assembling them all under the heading New Age.

Their purpose in this is to inculcate in that large segment of people who are abandoning materialist ideas, a new way of living and thinking. They want to establish a new system ornamented with metaphysical language and totally divergent from the true religion and faith in Allah (God) as revealed in the Qur’an. It is an irresponsible system with nothing to offer . . . .

. . . In order to alienate people in Islamic countries from true religion, Masons are intent on offering the idea of intelligent design as the most appropriate alternative in these countries . . . . .

. . . . . the Discovery Institute . . . represents this movement . . .

Salman Hameed, an expert on Islamic views on evolution, said in a comment under Coyne's article,

Actually, Disco institute tried to work with one of Yahya’s former disciples, Akyol. However Akyol now seems to have backed away from ID (he is now a fine-tuner). Yahya on the other hand hates ID – partly because of his early messy split with Akyol. He even links ID proponents with the free masons (hey – why not?).

This was not the first attempt to try to paint the Discovery Institute as being in league with Islamic extremists -- the Little Green Footballs blog also made such an attempt [link].
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Allahu akbar! Darwin-doubting widespread among Moslems

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In order to alienate people from true religions, Masons have devised many false religions of complex description assembling them all under the heading New Age.

Their purpose in this is to inculcate in that large segment of people who are abandoning materialist ideas, a new way of living and thinking. They want to establish a new system ornamented with metaphysical language and totally divergent from the true religion and faith in Allah (God) as revealed in the Qur’an. It is an irresponsible system with nothing to offer . . . .

In order to alienate people in Islamic countries from true religion, Masons are intent on offering the idea of intelligent design as the most appropriate alternative in these countries.

-- Adrian Oktar (pen name Harun Yahya), prominent Islamic creationist [link]

. . . ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

-- from Kitzmiller v. Dover opinion by Judge John E. "Jackass" Jones III

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There are some new articles about the evolution controversy among Moslems, both Moslems in predominantly Moslem countries and Moslems in predominantly non-Moslem countries. [link] [link] [link] All indications are that Darwin-doubting is strong among Moslems, which I find to be very encouraging after being pushed around so much by Darwinists (e.g., getting arbitrarily kicked off of many Darwinist blogs and having this blog sabotaged by lousy Darwinist trolls).

There are some nice things about Islamic Darwin-doubting. For one thing, many of these Moslems are in foreign countries where they are beyond the reach of jerks like Judge "Jackass" Jones and Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education. Also, Islam has hundreds of millions of adherents, blowing a big hole in Darwinist claims that the overwhelming majority of religious people see no conflict between evolution and religion.

The Boston Globe said,
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Americans familiar with the long and bitter battle over the teaching of evolution in our schools likely have a set of images of what creationism looks like: from the Scopes trial, and its dramatization in “Inherit the Wind,” to more recent battles over textbooks on school boards in Kansas and Georgia and in federal court in Pennsylvania. . . . .

. . . . But there is another creationist movement whose influence is growing, and which is fueling challenges to science in countries where Christianity has little sway: Islamic creationism. Campaigners in countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, and Indonesia have fought the teaching of evolution in schools there, sometimes with great success. Creationist conferences have been held in Pakistan, and moderate Islamic clerics are on record publicly condemning Darwin’s ideas. A recent study of Muslim university students in the Netherlands showed that most rejected evolution. And driven in part by a mysterious Turkish publishing organization, Islamic creationism books are hot sellers at bookstores throughout the Muslim world . . .

“[T]he next major battle over evolution is likely to take place in the Muslim world,” Salman Hameed, a Pakistani-born astronomer at Hampshire College who has dedicated himself to researching Islamic creationism, wrote in an article in Science last December . . . .

. . . While Islamic creationists borrow from the literature of their Christian counterparts, their concerns are not always the same. Without a Book of Genesis to account for, for example, Muslim creationists have little interest in proving that the age of the Earth is measured in the thousands rather than the billions of years, nor do they show much interest in the problem of the dinosaurs . . . .

However, there are also many non-Moslem critics of evolution who are not young-earth creationists.

The irony here is that Darwinists in the USA have been trying to associate all criticism of evolution -- particularly intelligent design -- with young-earth creationism in order to argue that these criticisms are solely religious in nature.

The Boston Globe continued,

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a professor of religious studies at George Washington University, has written that evolution “survived to this day not as a theory but as a dogma{hellip}a convenient philosophical and rationalistic scheme to enable man to create the illusion of a purely closed universe around himself.”

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The New York Times said,

Dr. Hameed said a negative reaction to evolutionary theory could reflect a struggle to retain cultural traditions and values against Western influences, even though Islamic creationists readily borrowed many of the arguments from Western creationists, just removing the young-Earth aspects.

Where's the mystery? The Islamic creationists are borrowing what they want to borrow -- duh.

There is now a big new post-label group, "Islam and evolution" (listed in the homepage's sidebar).
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Islamic creationist condemns Intelligent Design

That stupid ignoramus Judge "Jackass" Jones said in Kitzmiller v. Dover, "ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents." Darwinists use the oxymoronic term "intelligent design creationism." Darwinists, who cherry-pick their evidence instead of looking at all the evidence, harp on the typo "cdesignproponentists" -- an error in substituting the term "design proponent" for "creationist" in the book "Of Pandas and People." Ironically, many religious creationists reject intelligent design. One of the reasons why they reject ID is that they feel that god's word does not need scientific evidence to support it. Some creationists feel that it is blasphemous to even imply or suggest that god's word needs scientific evidence to support it. One of the main reasons why Darwinists insist that ID is creationism is to have a basis for using the establishment clause to attack ID.

Adrian Oktar, who writes under the pen name Harun Yahya, is a very prominent Turkish creationist.[1] [2] [3] [4] He wrote,

INTELLIGENT DESIGN: A NEW AGE THEORY

In order to alienate people from true religions, Masons have devised many false religions of complex description assembling them all under the heading New Age.

Their purpose in this is to inculcate in that large segment of people who are abandoning materialist ideas, a new way of living and thinking. They want to establish a new system ornamented with metaphysical language and totally divergent from the true religion and faith in Allah (God) as revealed in the Qur’an. It is an irresponsible system with nothing to offer.

. . . . .In order to alienate people in Islamic countries from true religion, Masons are intent on offering the idea of intelligent design as the most appropriate alternative in these countries.

Of course, they do not pretend that what they are doing is against Islam; on the contrary, they claim that their activities are innocent and even serve to strengthen the foundations of faith in Allah.

However, Western supporters of this movement confess that this is a non-religious system of thought. For example, the American biologist, Michael Behe, one of the noted theoreticians of intelligent design, explains that intelligent design is not an idea based in religion but religious people can make good use of it in their arguments.

Those who accept the theory of intelligent design insist that religion and science should be separate and that science should not support creation and revealed religions.

Yahya (Adrian Oktar) contradicts himself here -- first he said that ID guru Michael Behe holds that "religious people can make good use of [ID] in their arguments," and then says, "those who accept ID insist that religion and science should be separate and that science should not support creation and revealed religions."

Yahya/Oktar then attacks the Discovery Institute:
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They see themselves as outside revealed religions; they think that religion is a matter of faith and outside the parameters of science. Their view is that it would be wrong for science to rely on religion.

The official internet site of the Discovery Institute that represents this movement asks the question. ‘Is the theory of intelligent design the same as the theory of creation?’ The answer:

Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. (http://www.discovery.org/csc/topQuestions.php#questionsAboutIntelligentDesign)

However, in a post last year, the very popular blog "Little Green Footballs" accused the Discovery Institute of being in league with Turkish creationists, including Yahya/Oktar! [link] LOL

Yahya writes,

The Theory of Intelligent Design: Another Kind of Deism.

The theory of intelligent design accepts neither revealed religions nor the existence of Allah. It has an abstract and abstruse concept of a designer.

It is misleading to say that ID accepts neither revealed religions nor the existence of Allah -- or some other god(s) or goddess(es). It is more correct to say that ID does not reject revealed religions or the existence of Allah. There is a big difference.

It is interesting that Masons use the same logic in their writings when they say that the universe is like the intelligent designer -- total conscious energy. They say this energy is conscious and that it is the Great Architect of the Universe.

But Masons insist that that this conscious energy is not Allah. (Surely Allah is beyond that)

We can see that advocates of intelligent design share the same logic as Masons when it comes to explaining their position. Their ideas are very much in tune with Deism which accepts the existence of a Creator while rejecting the validity of revealed religions.

ID may be "in tune" with Deism, but that doesn't mean that ID is the same as Deism or is a kind of Deism. ID is a "big tent" with room for those who believe in Deism, young-earth creationism, old-earth creationism, common descent, front-loaded (pre-programmed) evolution, theism, agnosticism, atheism (yes), etc..

In contrast to Yahya/Oktar, the young-earth creationist organization Answers-in-Genesis appears to support ID -- the AiG website praises Ben Stein's pro-ID movie "Expelled -- No Intelligence Allowed" and sells a DVD of the movie. [link].

More discussion is on Panda's Thumb and Uncommon Descent.
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McGill Symposium on Islam and Evolution

On March 30-31, the McGill University Evolution Education Research Centre held a symposium on Islam and evolution. Recordings of the symposium are here. A list of the symposium panelists is here and the panelists' pre-symposium abstracts are here. A few names are familiar or I have seen them before: Josh Rosenau, Brian Alters, Salman Hameed. I am disturbed that of the scientific specialists on the panel, none appear to be evolution skeptics.

It has been my general impression that Islam is much less evolution-friendly than mainstream Christianity and Judaism. According to Darwinist standards, Moslem countries should be the laughingstock of the world, but I don't see Darwinists doing a lot of laughing at Moslem countries. Maybe the Darwinists, aware that "fatwa" and "jihad" are terms of the Islamic religion, are afraid to laugh at Moslem countries.

Some important points seem to have been ignored by the panelists' abstracts:
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(1) Predominantly Moslem countries have low rates of acceptance of evolution. An article says,

. . . .only 25 percent of adults in Turkey agree that human beings developed from earlier species of animals, whereas 40 percent of people in the United States agree with this scientific fact, Hameed writes. And Turkey is one of the most secular and educated of Muslim countries.

Hameed cites data from a 2007 sociological study by Riaz Hassan which revealed that only a minority in five Muslim countries agree that Darwin’s theory of evolution is probably or most certainly true: 16 percent of Indonesians, 14 percent of Pakistanis, 8 percent of Egyptians, 11 percent of Malaysians and 22 percent of Turks.

Also, in a survey of 34 nations, mostly Christian European nations but also including the USA, Japan, and predominantly Moslem Turkey, Turkey had the lowest acceptance rate for evolution.

(2) Moslem countries do not have so-called "separation of church and state" (or separation of mosque and state). On the contrary, in some Moslem countries, Islamic law -- sharia -- is the basis for civil law. In the USA, a lot of the controversy over evolution is centered around the idea of separation of church and state.

(3) Islamic clergy appear to be less organized and less hierarchical than Christian clergy -- for example, Islam has no counterpart of the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Hence, Islam has no single person or small group of people who are perceived as speaking for the religion's official position on evolution. Some titles of Islamic clergy are ayatollah, caliph, mufti, and imam.

(4) It doesn't seem that Moslems do a lot of hand-wringing about how disbelief in evolution is affecting the technological competitiveness of predominantly Moslem countries. If belief in evolution affects technological competitiveness at all, and I assert that it does not, only a small area of technological competitiveness is affected.

(5) Though the foundations of modern science are imports in Moslem countries, Moslems made important contributions to science and mathematics during the Middle Ages. The legacies of these contributions are still with us -- for example, our numbers consist of Arabic numerals, "algebra" is an Arabic word, and many stars have Arabic names.

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Not surprisingly, one of the most biased abstracts is from Josh Rosenau of the ardently pro-Darwinist National Center for Science Education (the abstract also represents Peter Hess, who is not listed as a symposium panelist). The abstract says, "American Christian creationist movements have three major pillars that have persisted for over a century." The first alleged "pillar" is:

Evolution is a failed science, soon to be replaced by creationism

IMO many creationists think that evolution is too strongly entrenched to be completely replaced soon.

The second "pillar" is,

evolution cannot be reconciled with religious belief, and people must choose between the two

Yet hardly anyone believes that people must choose between heliocentrism and religious belief (the bible implies geocentrism because in the bible, the earth was created before the heavenly bodies were created). The difference here between evolution and heliocentrism is that the evidence for heliocentrism is much stronger.

The third so-called "pillar" is,

. .. .and voters or students in the classroom are entitled to pick and choose between the two.

This is not a pillar of creationism -- people can't be told what to believe.

Another biased abstract was written by Ehab Abouheif:

We may now be witnessing the beginning of what could become a large-scale clash between Islam and the science of evolution. I will argue that this conflict is largely based on political ideology rather than a proper understanding of the “theory of evolution” and what it represents for Islam. Most of the current discussions on evolution taking place within Islamic societies proceed in complete absence of insight from professionally trained evolutionary biologists who are also knowledgeable about Islam, or who are at least able to communicate with the Muslim world.

Darwinists have this fallacy that no Darwin doubters know or understand evolution theory.

A number of articles about the evolution controversy in the Islamic world have recently appeared [1] [2] [3] [4].

This blog has a number of articles about Islamic views on evolution. These articles are in the two post-groups titled "Evolution controversy abroad."
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Darwin called "Satan's biggest trick on humanity"

From the Harun Yahya website

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I have previously posted blog articles about Adrian Oktar, a Turkish Islamic creationist who uses the pen name "Harun Yahya."[1] [2] A Wall Street Journal article said,

ISTANBUL -- As scientists around the world celebrate the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's seminal work on evolution, Adnan Oktar, a college dropout turned theorist of Islamic creationism, is working on the fifth volume of a 14-part masterwork that he says will bury Darwinism once and for all.

"Darwin and his theory are dead," says Mr. Oktar, founder and honorary president of the Science Research Foundation, an Istanbul outfit dedicated to debunking the Victorian-era English naturalist. Darwin, says his 52-year-old Turkish scourge, is "Satan's biggest trick on humanity."

Mr. Oktar, who briefly studied interior design, hasn't had much success swaying scientists with the weight of his research. "He is a complete and utter ignoramus," says Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and Oxford University professor.

The physical weight of Mr. Oktar's work, however, is considerable. Each volume of his anti-Darwin magnum opus, "Atlas of Creation," weighs more than 13 pounds. Also weighing in on his side are very aggressive lawyers. They've repeatedly gone to court in Turkey to silence critics whom Mr. Oktar accuses of spreading "lies and insults." Scores of Web sites have been banned at his behest.

That's very hypocritical -- promoting censorship while decrying censorship.
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The WSJ article says,

A recent survey found that only a quarter of students entering Turkish universities accept Darwin's theory of evolution and that the proportion is much the same when they graduate . . .

. . . . Mr. Oktar's message has won support in some unlikely quarters, most notably among educated, wealthy Turks from secular families . . .

. . . . Unlike strict Christian creationists, who assert the world was created in six days around 10,000 years ago, Mr. Oktar allows for a far longer time period stretching back billions of years. But he agrees with those Christians who insist life didn't evolve, asserting that animals and plants now are exactly as they were at the dawn of time.

I am surprised that Oktar is an old-earth creationist, because I got the impression from his Harun Yahya website that he interprets ancient religious texts literally. [3]
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Catholic church sells its soul

A news article about a Vatican conference that I previously reported on this blog says,

ROME (AP) — A Vatican-backed conference on evolution is under attack from people who weren't invited to participate: those espousing creationism and intelligent design.

The Discovery Institute, the main organization supporting intelligent design research, says it was shut out from presenting its views because the meeting was funded in part by the John Templeton Foundation, a major U.S. nonprofit that has criticized the intelligent design movement. . . . . .

. . . . An official with the Pontifical Council for Culture, which is backing the conference, said the Templeton grant covered almost half the meeting's budget. But the official, the Rev. Tomasz Tramfe, also denied Templeton put any restrictions on who was invited to speak . . . . .

. . . .[The Rev. Marc Leclerc, the conference director and a professor of philosophy of nature at the Pontifical Gregorian University,] denied the decision had anything to do with Templeton's funding for the conference. "Absolutely not. We decided independently within the organizing committee, in total autonomy," Leclerc said.

That's nice. So what the conference organizers are saying is that they were not pressured by the Templeton Foundation to discriminate against critics of evolution but decided to discriminate on their own anyway. And if the conference organizers sincerely believed that critics of evolution should be excluded, then IMO the conference organizers should have rejected the Templeton Foundation funding in order to avoid even giving the appearance that they were pressured by the Templeton Foundation. As Archie Bunker said, the pope has more money than god, so the Templeton Foundation funding should not have been needed. Darwinists are fond of boasting that the Catholic church is very evolution-friendly, but this exclusion of evolution critics from a Vatican conference raises serious doubts about the sincerity of the Catholic church's alleged evolution-friendliness.

The news article also said,

Muslim creationists also complained about the conference.

Oktar Babuna, a representative of a prominent Turkish creationist, Harun Yahya, was denied the right to speak at the opening session Tuesday. Participants took the microphone away from Babuna when, during a question-and-answer session, he challenged them to give proof of transitional forms of animals in Darwinian evolution.

A post on this blog discusses Harun Yahya.

The Vatican conference is discussed on Evolution News & Views [1] and Fatheaded Ed Brayton's blog. [2].
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Religious groups' views about evolution

Source: Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007, released in 2008

For question wording, refer to the PDF of the full report

CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE

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The above graph appears on this webpage of the Pew.Forum.Org.

"Orthodox" is probably Orthodox Christian. There are different kinds of Orthodox Christian, e.g., Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox.
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The big surprise here is Muslims, because acceptance of evolution in predominantly Muslim countries is very low.[1] Islam is an enormously popular religion on a worldwide basis, yet is often ignored or downplayed in discussions of the evolution v. religion controversy.

The high percentage for Judaism -- 77 percent -- might be partially attributable to Jews' false fear that teaching criticisms of evolution in the public schools would threaten the separation of church and state. It would be nice to see the percentages for Jews broken down by branch -- Orthodox (maybe even an ultra-Orthodox category), Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist. Orthodox Jews -- especially the ultra-Orthodox -- tend to be more skeptical of Darwinism than other Jews are.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has several interesting articles about the evolution v. religion controversy. One of these articles, Religious Groups' Views on Evolution, is more even-handed than the comparable National Center for Science Education's article that is linked to by the UC Berkeley Understanding Evolution website's webpage that is the target of the Caldwell v. Caldwell lawsuit.
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Israeli university snubbed anti-Darwinist Moslem scholars

A fairly old (07-15-08) news item I found says,

A group of Muslim religious scholars arriving from Turkey to participate in a reconciliation conference at the Hebrew University claim that the head of the Social Sciences Faculty refused to greenlight the event, calling it off in short notice. Professor Boaz Shamir, Dean of Social Sciences explained his decision citing the lack of proper coordination between the Students’ Union, which was in charge of organizing the event, and the faculty’s secretariat.

However, the correspondence received by Ynet has Prof. Shamir admitting that “we wouldn’t have hosted an event supporting anti-Darwinist propaganda.”
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The Turkish lecturers arriving from Istanbul on a joint initiative between the research and scientific foundation they represent and the Interfaith Encounter Association, were planning to speak at the two Jewish-Muslim conferences at the Hebrew University’s campus on Mount Scopus and at Tel Aviv University.

The speakers planned to talk about uniting between the two religions and denouncing Islamic terror – but also against Darwin’s theory about The Origin of Species.

Because of its strong religious implications, the evolution controversy is an especially appropriate topic for a conference on religious conciliation. This action by Hebrew University shows extreme closed-mindedness.

Darwin-doubting is very strong in Turkey, as it is in other predominantly Moslem countries.

Some Jews -- particularly orthodox Jews -- doubt Darwin, and I am surprised that we have not heard more from them. [1] [2] [3].
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About half of Britons doubt Darwin

The Darwinists claim that Darwin-doubting is primarily an American phenomenon and that the USA is therefore technologically falling behind other countries. Opinion polls in foreign countries show that this is not the case. A news article says,

More than half of the public believe that the theory of evolution cannot explain the full complexity of life on Earth, and a "designer" must have lent a hand, the findings suggest.

And one in three believe that God created the world within the past 10,000 years.

The survey, by respected polling firm ComRes, will fuel the debate around evolution and creationism ahead of next week's 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.
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Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, said the findings revealed a worrying level of scientific ignorance among Britons.

In the survey, 51 per cent of those questioned agreed with the statement that "evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages"

A further 40 per cent disagreed, while the rest said they did not know.

The suggestion that a designer's input is needed reflects the "intelligent design" theory, promoted by American creationists as an alternative to Darwinian evolution.

Asked whether it was true that "God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years", 32 per cent agreed, 60 per cent disagreed and eight per cent did not know.

The findings – to be published tomorrow in a report by Theos, a theology think-tank – follow a row over the place of creationism in education.

A recent poll of science teachers found that one in three believe creationism should be taught in science classes alongside evolution and the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

However, Michael Reiss, a biologist and Anglican cleric, was forced to resign as the Royal Society's director of education after suggesting that creationism should be discussed in lessons "not as a misconception but as a world view".

Darwin-doubting is even more widespread in predominantly Moslem countries -- the National Center for Science Education gives the following figures for predominantly Moslem countries: “Only 16% of Indonesians, 14% of Pakistanis, 8% of Egyptians, 11% of Malaysians, and 22% of Turks agree that Darwin’s theory is probably or most certainly true.”
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Harun Yahya says "Stupid Steven" Schafersman will go to hell

In an article titled "My Comments to the Texas Education Agency About the Proposed Revised Science Standards," "Stupid Steven" Schafersman wrote on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog,

KS(7) Please add "SE(F) identify several primate and hominid fossils, their relationship to modern humans, and features that humans have obtained through evolution from them such as stereo vision, long limbs, fingernails rather than claws, a vestigial vermiform appendix, bipedal locomotion, and a larger brain." In the 21st Century, it is necessary that students learn the scientific explanation for human origins, and it is impermissible to keep maintaining the pretense that humans are qualitatively different from other animals (we are quantitatively different, of course, in several respects). If you really wanted to make sure evolution is presented comprehensively, you could require that students know the features that humans inherited from fish (see Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish).

No, it is not "necessary that students learn the scientific explanation for human origins," nor is it "impermissible to [allegedly] keep maintaining the pretense that humans are qualitatively different from other animals." Stupid Steven's ideological preferences have nothing to do with what is "necessary" and what is "impermissible." Stupid Steven accuses the fundies of trying to inject their ideologies into science classes, but here he is trying to do the same thing. I am not against teaching about human evolution, but Stupid Steven's above reason for teaching it is the dumbest I have ever seen.

Harun Yahya wrote (all emphasis is in original),
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Unbelieving evolutionists spend their whole lives denying (surely Allah is beyond that) Allah’s existence. They have made defending this heretical ideology the main purpose of their lives. There is no doubt that their reward for this in Allah’s presence will be very terrible. But every lie they tell and every unscientific scenario they produce to turn people from belief in Allah will confront them in Hell as the dark world of the evolutionary myths in their own minds. Unbelieving evolutionists will encounter the same horrendous moral conceptions in Hell that they have in their minds now. Unless Allah wills otherwise, deniers will suffer an eternal life full of torment. (Allah knows the truth.) . . . .

. . . . One of the distinguishing features of evolutionist propaganda is that it is made up of stories based on evolutionists’ own imaginations. A scientist telling the story generally sets up evolutionary scenarios with his own personal conceptions and by misinterpreting scientific findings through having adopted evolution as a dogma. That scientist will then seek to impose that scenario on people, suggesting it is a thesis based on sound scientific evidence. In fact, what evolutionists do is to portray wild pigs’ teeth as human teeth or else produce hoax skulls by putting bones belonging to different life forms together. Devoid of any evidence with which to prove their theories, Darwinists have no problem with adding a great many imaginary elements to their tales. The fact is, however, that this is an unscientific propaganda technique based on preconception alone.

1- What Do Unbelieving Evolutionists Maintain?

They Claim Human Beings, That Allah Created with Such Superior Features, Are Descended from Apes

Evolutionists claim that human beings, entities possessed of consciousness and free will and able to think, reason, and make decisions and judgments, are descended from apes, which in terms of consciousness, are no different from horses or mice.

What Will Happen in Hell?

Those Who Deny Allah’s Creation (Surely Allah is beyond that) Will Be Made Despicable Apes in This World and the Hereafter
“We said to them, ‘BE APES, DESPISED, CAST OUT.’” (Surat al-Baqara, 65). . . . . .

3- What Do Unbelieving Evolutionists Maintain?

They Claim That They Are Descended “from So-Called Intermediate Forms That Were Unable to Speak, See or Hear”

According to what evolutionists claim, there should have been many life forms that reflected the transition between two species and that bore the features of both. For example, before fish moved onto dry land and turned into reptiles a great many half-lunged and half-gilled, or half-legged and half finned life forms must have existed. Or until apes finally turned into human beings many half-human and half-ape life forms must have existed over many millions of years. Evolutionists call these fictitious entities they believe once existed “intermediate forms.” According to their scenario, during the time of this intermediary transition, a major stage in the so-called evolutionary process, there must have been many life forms with deficient or missing organs between two different species, for which reason there must have been creatures that could not see or hear. The fact is, however, that no evidence for one single intermediate form has been found in any of the millions of fossil specimens that have been extracted from the different strata of the Earth.

What Will Happen in Hell?

Allah Will Assemble the Unbelievers as Entities “Unable to See, Hear or Speak,” Just Like They Wanted

"But if anyone turns away from My reminder, his life will be a dark and narrow one and on the Day of Rising WE WILL GATHER HIM BLIND.” (Surah Ta-Ha, 124)

“...SO WE PUT OUT THEIR EYES: ‘Taste My punishment and warnings!’” (Surat al-Qamar, 37)

“…WE WILL GATHER THEM on the Day of Resurrection, flat on their faces, BLIND, DUMB AND DEAF. Their shelter will be Hell. Whenever the Blaze dies down, We will increase it for them.” (Sura al-Isra’, 97)

And so forth. LOL

AMEN

Harun Yahya is as zany as the Creation Science Association For Mid-America.
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The evolution controversy in the Islamic world

Top: A Darwin-to-Hitler collage from Harun Yahya's The Atlas of Creation
Bottom: Adnan Oktar, whose pen name is Harun Yahya.
Images courtesy harunyahya.com

CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE

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A number of articles about the evolution controversy in the Islamic world have recently appeared [1] [2] [3] [4].

One of the articles says,
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. . . .only 25 percent of adults in Turkey agree that human beings developed from earlier species of animals, whereas 40 percent of people in the United States agree with this scientific fact, Hameed writes. And Turkey is one of the most secular and educated of Muslim countries.

Hameed cites data from a 2007 sociological study by Riaz Hassan which revealed that only a minority in five Muslim countries agree that Darwin’s theory of evolution is probably or most certainly true: 16 percent of Indonesians, 14 percent of Pakistanis, 8 percent of Egyptians, 11 percent of Malaysians and 22 percent of Turks.

I have not seen much hand-wringing going on these Islamic countries in regard to how widespread disbelief in Darwinism has hurt their technological competitiveness.

The Harun Yahya website is really good, with a lot of scientific arguments against evolution and with articles with titles like the following:

The Darwinist Techniques of Clamor and Demagoguery

Darwinist Dictatorship -- Darwinism is a shamanist religion

Darwinism is the religion of the antichrist

The Global Darwinist Dictatorship Must Apologize to the Entire World!

I especially liked the Harun Yahya article "A whale fantasy from National Geographic." My blog also has an article about whale evolution. This all reminds me of Kirk Douglas singing in "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," "Got a whale of a tale to tell ye lads, a whale of a tale or two . . . . "

A 2006 article says about intelligent design,

Intelligent design, a more recent argument about life’s origins that is championed by U.S. Christian groups, may also be making the leap across the Atlantic.

The concept's proponents say some organisms are too complex to have evolved without some superior cause, but avoid calling that cause God, for fear that such a reference would ban the concept from U.S. science textbooks. Last year, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that even the intelligent-design formulation represented a strain of religious thought that should not be advocated in public schools.

Akyol, a Muslim believer who says Darwinism is incompatible with his faith, has been waging an uphill struggle to popularize intelligent design here. But most Turks show no interest because they see no need to avoid naming God.

His lonely campaign got an unexpected boost last month when Education Minister Huseyin Celik hinted on television that he might want to see it added to Turkish textbooks.

“If it’s wrong to say Darwin’s theory should not be in the books because it is in line with atheist propaganda, we can’t disregard intelligent design because it coincides with beliefs of monotheistic religions about creation,” he told CNN Turk.

So far the Clergy Letter folks have posted letters only for Christian clergy and rabbis to sign -- there is no letter yet for imams and ayatollahs. Maybe those Clergy Letter people are afraid that they would get a fatwa for insulting Islam.
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Another conspiracy theory about the Discovery Institute

First there was the "wedge document" conspiracy theory and now there is a conspiracy theory that the Discovery Institute is in cahoots with radical creationist Islamofascists. Timothy Sandefur said in an article on Panda's Thumb,

There’s an amusing dispute going on between the Discovery Institute and Little Green Footballs, the latter of which recently unveiled some very interesting details about links between Islamic and Christian creationists. Needless to say, the DI folks are demonstrating their usual haphazard acquaintance with the truth.

I agree that the dispute is amusing, but not for the reasons that Sandefur thinks. For starters, the Little Green Footballs blog is highly biased about this subject. Here are some things that Wikipedia says about LGF:
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Little Green Footballs (LGF) is a political blog run by California web designer Charles Johnson. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Johnson -- who describes himself as "pretty much center-left before 9/11"[1] - transformed his blog's discussion of bicycle racing, programming, web design, and the occasional humorous news item into a very active discussion of the War on Terror, Islam and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Media observers have described the site as "right wing";[2] observes Johnson: "I'm not pretending I'm giving equal time to both sides. But I do think what I'm advocating, and what I believe in, is the right side."[3]

For "promoting Israel, and Zionism" and "presenting Israel's side of the conflict," LGF won the "Best Israel Advocacy Blog" award from the Jerusalem Post in 2005 [4]. According to Gil Ronen, a reporter for Internet news outlet, Israel National News:[5] "If anyone ever compiles a list of Internet sites that contribute to Israel’s public relations effort, Johnson's site will probably come in first, far above the Israeli Foreign Ministry's site." . . . .

R. J. Smith, writing in Los Angeles Magazine, stated that LGF is a "dysfunctional mix of beautiful photos Johnson takes on coastal bike rides and constitutionally protected hate speech" which "believes all Muslims are terrorists until proven innocent."[35]

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) called Little Green Footballs "a vicious, anti-Muslim hate site" and claims that the FBI has "investigated several threats of physical harm against Muslims posted by Little Green Footballs readers".[3]

Columnist Antonia Zerbisias has described LGF as a "virulently anti-Muslim/Arab website".[36]

Journalist Eric Boehlert has written that LGF "oozes disdain for Arabs and journalists (and most of all, Arab journalists)" and is "obsessed with proving that all MSM reporting from Iraq and the Middle East is biased in favor of Islamic terrorists."[37]

Columnist Andrew Sullivan described LGF as "enthusiastically pro-torture".[44]

Vanity Fair theater critic James Wolcott characterized the LGF community as "sort of like a disorganized Nuremberg Rally, a lot of angry ruffians with nowhere to go...."[45]

LGF blogger Johnson is also a co-founder of Pajamas Media. A better name would be "BVD media."

LGF has the following message for those who want to register to post comments:

LGF registration is temporarily closed. Please try again later. (We occasionally open registration during weekend afternoons, Pacific time.)

Also, Sandefur's article on Panda's Thumb is closed to commenting.

LGF says in an article titled "Audio: The Discovery Institute Collaborates with Turkish Creationists,"

Last year CBC radio had a segment devoted to Islamic creationism in Turkey, with some amazing revelations:

The Institute for Creation Research has been heavily involved with Turkish creationists for years, supplying propaganda and teaching materials and DVDs, to the point where Turkey’s school system has purged the teaching of evolution in favor of creationist pseudo-science.

The Discovery Institute is also “working closely with their Turkish counterparts,” and the DI’s David Berlinski (CBC mistakenly calls him “Paul”) explicitly says that Islamic creationists are allies of US creationists.

What is wrong about the DI working closely with "creationist" counterparts who share the same idea of doubting Darwinism? And what's wrong with Berlinski's statement that "Islamic creationists are allies of US creationists"? Isn't that what the preceding statement said, i.e., "The Institute for Creation Research has been heavily involved with Turkish creationists for years"?

Another LGF article drivels,

I did not “imply” the Discovery Institute was in league with Islamic radicals. I stated outright that the Discovery Institute is in league with Islamist creationists, a fact that is indisputably true, as we’ll see in a minute . .

(We can argue whether creationism is a “radical Islamic” position, but when even Islamist shill Inayat Bunglawala believes in evolution, it strongly suggests that the creationist position is a radical one).

Here Johnson contradicts himself -- he first says that the question of whether creationism is a "radical Islamic" position is arguable, then implies that he thinks the question is not arguable because even an "Islamic shill" believes in evolution.

And the egregious error: “slander” means a “false spoken statement.” The word for which Chapman was searching is “libel,” meaning a “false published statement.”

That is hardly an "egregious" error -- in informal usage (though not in formal legal usage), both libel and slander can be oral or written.

Johnson then quotes one of Berlinski's statements in a Turkish creationism conference sponsored by the Islamist AKP party’s Istanbul Municipal Authority:

Berlinski: There is astonishingly little experimental evidence in favor of Darwin’s theory. [This is] not about replacing Darwin’s theory, that’s not gonna happen anytime soon. But about areas that I find deeply challenging within biological theory itself, it may be rewarding to you to think about.

Johnson then quotes from a CBC interview of Berlinski:

Berlinski: I think these ideas, these ideas, are current everywhere. There’s a long interesting tradition of design theoretic arguments within Islamic theology that goes straight back to the 9th century. And there are outstanding figures within Islamic theology who participated in these discussions ... there’s no reason to be surprised, this is a very rich tradition. We need to get together, we need to talk. There needs to be an exchange, a current needs to flow.

This is a hot issue. We’re in the midst of a world-wide religious revival. I mean, historians 500 years from now will talk about the religious revival of the late 20th, early 21st century. There are a billion Muslims out there who are taking Islamic doctrine very seriously. Christianity too.

So on the basis of just those few statements by someone associated with the Discovery Institute (who, BTW, happens to be an agnostic), Johnson concludes that DI's agenda is religious:

Notice that despite the Discovery Institute’s frequent denials that their agenda is religious, here’s one of their main spokespersons waxing rhapsodic over a “world-wide religious revival.”

BTW, an article on the website of the National Center for Science Education says,

Adding to the creationism sightings around the world, Reuters (November 22, 2006) ran a story on Islamic creationism in Turkey, where "[s]cientists say pious Muslims in the government, which has its roots in political Islam, are trying to push Turkish education away from its traditionally secular approach." The main source of antievolution propaganda in Turkey is Harun Yahya -- a pseudonym probably for a pool of writers, headed by Adnan Oktar -- which, as Taner Edis told Reuters, "has managed to create a media-based and popular form of creationism." Efforts to popularize "intelligent design" in Turkey are lagging, Reuters suggests, because most Turks "see no need to avoid naming God," but Education Minister Huseyin Celik recently told CNN Turk that "intelligent design" should not be disregarded just "because it coincides with beliefs of monotheistic religions about creation." (emphasis added)

In fact, some Moslem fundies -- like some Christian fundies -- might even regard ID as blasphemous or sacrilegious because they might see it as implying doubt of god's word by suggesting that there is a need to provide evidence to support creationism. Ironically, the Turkish education minister said that ID "should not be disregarded just 'because it coincides with beliefs of monotheistic religions about creation' " whereas the Darwinists say that ID should be rejected for that reason.

Darwinists don't give supporters of ID (or other scientific or pseudoscientific criticisms of Darwinism) any Brownie points for repudiating creationists -- the Darwinists will use the term "intelligent design creationism" in any case. So supporters of ID have no reason to not be friendly towards creationists.
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Hamas leader says Darwinism is a Zionist tool

Following are excerpts from an interview with Saleh Riqab, Hamas deputy minister of religious endowment, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on May 14, 2008:

Saleh Riqab: The goal of the Zionist movement is to establish a state in Palestine, which would become a base for ruling the entire world. Its other goals are to destroy the religions it opposes, particularly Islam; to corrupt values and morality; to spread permissiveness and sex; and to generate moral decline.

They have come up with many means to achieve this, such as inventing philosophical theories that destroy religion and morality . . . . .

. . . . . There are also theories that were invented by non-Jews, but they disseminate them, knowing that they are scientifically false, such as the theory of Darwin. Darwin was not Jewish, but they exploited his theory. Even though new Darwinist theories have appeared, they spread the original theory, because the concept of "survival of the fittest" serves their colonialist needs.

Interviewer: That's what the theory says.

Saleh Riqab: Yes. It serves the goals of global Jewry.

Saleh Riqab is correct to some extent -- some major Jewish organizations, notably the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress, have embraced Darwinism with a vengeance. The ADL's embrace of Darwinism is beyond all sense and reason -- for example, the ADL called the rabidly pro-Darwinist Kitzmiller v. Dover decision a "victory for students." The ADL's opposition to anti-semitism may be assumed to represent all Jews, but the ADL's support of Darwinism certainly does not represent all Jews -- many Jews, particularly orthodox Jews, strongly oppose Darwinism.

However, I think that a large part of the interview consists of demagogic nonsense:

Saleh Riqab: By the way, I'd like to say something... I don't want to mention names. The viewers will know what I mean. There is a book called Les Fous de la Paix, which was written by two Jewish journalists. I have a copy. It was translated into Arabic, and I've read it. It mentions that one of the architects of the Oslo Accords was meeting with the Jewish negotiator at a hotel in Britain. According to the book, in an adjacent room, the son of the Palestinian negotiator was with the daughter of the Jews, and they locked the door. That's when the Palestinian negotiator was brought down.

[...]

We see this clearly in the U.S. elections. Both Democrats and Republicans compete to please the state of the Jews. That's why when a Democrat comes to occupied Palestine, he puts on a religious skullcap, goes to the Western Wall, bangs his head against the wall, and says: "Your philosophy and the need to please you is now inside my head." They all compete with one another, but the Jews maintain a balance, and they always prefer the Christian Zionists.

If a Democrat comes to power, like [Bill] Clinton -- who served them well in Oslo and elsewhere, and almost served them in the second Camp David, but then made statements [they didn't like] -- what did Zionism do? It sent him the Jewish Monica, with whom Clinton had sex in the American White House.

Clinton left [the White House], but there are thousands of pages documenting his sexual depravity, because he had sex in the White House. I read a report that Clinton used to call Arab leaders and talk to them while she was having sex with him.

Interviewer: My God!

Saleh Riqab: These things are documented, but the Arabs don't read them.

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Darwinists' obsession with religion

Darwinists have this crazy idea that the main or even the sole cause of Darwin-doubting is that Darwinism conflicts with religious beliefs. This crazy idea is advocated by an op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman.

The main cause of Darwin-doubting is that people do not find Darwinism to be credible. Geocentrism -- like creationism -- is in the bible, but geocentrism is unacceptable to most religious people because the evidence against it is strong.

The op-ed says,
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The age-old, simmering conflict between science and religion is threatening to boil over in Texas with the usual battle lines being drawn around evolutionary biology and public education science standards. Here's a thought: Instead of a long and potentially bitter stand-off between science advocates and creationist proponents, why doesn't Texas skip that mess and go straight to a reasonable compromise? Instead of arguing about fossils, radiometric dating methods or constitutional law, I'd ask those skeptical of evolution what better natural evidence for the brilliance of a Creator could there be than myriad complex processes unfolding over billions of years through countless steps in exquisite order spanning the entire cosmos?

That is not a "reasonable compromise" -- that is not even a compromise at all. That is a completely one-sided endorsement of Darwinism.

The article then describes the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision as a "blistering rebuke against Intelligent Design Creationism." For crying out loud, this was just a decision of a single judge, and a stupid, biased judge at that. The Dover opinion's ID-as-science section was ghostwritten by the ACLU and Judge Jones showed extreme prejudice against the defendants by saying in a commencement speech that his decision was based on his notion that the Founders based the establishment clause on a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions.

The op-ed then says,

We could discuss the Constitution, most especially our cherished Bill of Rights, which wisely forbids government from taking sides in a purely religious debate.

No, it is not a "purely religious debate." There is nothing in the bible about irreducible complexity, random mutation, bacterial flagella, co-evolution, etc..

The Roman Catholic Church accepts the age of the universe and the validity of evolution. Similar statements have been made by the United Methodist Church, the American Jewish Congress, the United Presbyterian Church, and many others.

So far as I know, the Catholic church does not accept the idea of unguided evolution. Cardinal Christophe Schoenborn, chief editor of the Catholic catechism, is an especially vocal critic of Darwinism. Orthodox Jews tend to be especially hostile towards Darwinism. The op-ed does not mention Islam, which also opposes Darwinism.

And for the faithful who carefully and honestly study the fascinating bounty of scientific evidence, there can be only one liberating conclusion: God is one hell of a scientist, and He's not exactly a bad engineer either.

Anyone who knows anything about anatomy and physiology knows that god is one hell of a bad engineer.
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Hypocritical Ed complains about government censorship

An article posted by arbitrarily censoring BVD-clad blogger Fatheaded Ed Brayton says,

Adnan Oktar, the Turkish nut who goes by the pen name Harun Yahya to pen (or have others pen) his voluminous creationist tracts, has gotten a Turkish court to block all blogs that use Wordpress, probably the second most popular standalone blog software in the world. Why? Because some blogs that use Wordpress published mean things about this lunatic and, being the totalitarian wingnut that he is, he wants them silenced.

Well, Ed -- to me, censorship is censorship. It doesn't matter to me whether the government or a blogger does it; the same principle -- or should I say lack of principle -- is involved.

. . . .the idiot seems to be blissfully unaware of the difference between a blog and the software used to create it. Banning Wordpress is like banning the company that makes the paper someone printed something nasty about you on.

Well, Ed, it's called "collateral damage" -- like when blocking an Internet user's ISP proxy's static IP address blocks other Internet users who share the same address.

Anyway, Ed, it's all just payback for Kitzmiller v. Dover.

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Creationism and intelligent design in Turkey

The info is in this AOL article. Interesting reading.

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International poll on evolution

An international opinion poll of public acceptance of evolution in 34 countries was reported by FOXnews. The poll results are shown on Panda's Thumb. The countries polled were the USA, Japan, Turkey, and countries in Europe and the Mediterranean. Turkey showed the lowest public acceptance of evolution and the USA was second lowest.

I wonder why the poll was so narrow geographically and culturally. All the countries polled were European except for the USA, Japan, Turkey, and the possible exception of Cyprus, and all are overwhelmingly or predominantly Christian except for Turkey and Japan. According to the poll results, the European countries with the greatest public acceptance of evolution are in Western Europe and Scandinavia. Japan is also among the countries with the highest acceptance of evolution.

At least these poll results help correct the common misconception that rejection and skepticism of evolution are mainly American phenomena. And contrary to the fearmongering of the Darwinists, the international differences shown in this study would not be great enough to threaten the international competitiveness of the USA even if public acceptance of evolution had anything to do with that competitiveness.

The FOXNews article also discussed the US trends over the years:

The study found that over the past 20 years:

— The percentage of U.S. adults who accept evolution declined from 45 to 40 percent.

— The percentage overtly rejecting evolution also declined, from 48 to 39 percent.

— And the percentage of adults who were unsure increased, from 7 to 21 percent.

At the outset, it should be noted that caution should be used in comparing the results of different polls because a lot depends on what questions are asked. In a recent formal poll of physicians, the same people were asked different questions about belief in evolution and the results were markedly different, e.g., when asked, "what are your views on evolution -- accept, reject, or undecided," 78% responded, "accept," and when asked "do you agree more with evolution or more with intelligent design -- evolution, intelligent design, or no opinion," 63% responded "evolution." The above poll results in FOXNews show that the public acceptance of evolution in the US has held fairly steady over the past 20 years, assuming that the poll questions were essentially the same. I find that result to be a little surprising because I thought that all the recent publicity about the evolution controversy would have resulted in a significant increase in public skepticism of evolution because people who formerly took evolution for granted would supposedly have started questioning it and seen how many flaws it really has (that was certainly the case for me).

Also, it is unfortunate that formal polls of scientists' -- particularly biologists' -- opinions about evolution have been scarcer than hens' teeth, because the opportunity to observe trends in scientists' opinions has been lost. Despite the great importance that is attached to scientists' -- particularly biologists' -- opinions about evolution, there is no great effort to correct this lack of opinion polls.

The FOXNews article also said,

But the problem is more than one of education — it goes deeper, and is a function of our country's culture and history, said study co-author Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif.

"The rejection of evolution is not something that will be solved by throwing science at it," Scott said in a telephone interview . . . .

Scott says one thing that will help is to have Catholics and mainstream Protestants speak up about their theologies' acceptance of evolution.

"Their theologies' acceptance of evolution"? So far as I know, no mainstream Christian denomination has a doctrinal or official position on evolution. And one of the Darwinists' favorite quote mines is Pope John Paul II's statement that "evolution is more than just a hypothesis."

Also, the hypocritical National Center for Science Education shamelessly uses religion to promote Darwinism while at the same time condemning alleged religious motivations of critics of Darwinism -- see "Hypocritical Darwinists shamelessly cozy up to religion" on this blog.

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