Creation v EvolutionThe Muslim Debate

Dr. Taner Edis Sponsored by departments of:BiologyThe ChapelChemistryCommunicationsComputer ScienceEconomicsEngineeringEnglishGeoscience HistoryInternational ProgramsLibraryMathematicsPhilosophyPhysicsPolitical ScienceReligionSociology & AnthropologyLecturers and Visiting

Scholars Committee

Applied physicsApril 30, 2011

Dr. Taner Edis

Creation v EvolutionThe Muslim Debate

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Islamic Creationism

• “Harun Yahya” materials: Turkish origin, but internationally popular.

• Denies common descent.

• Borrows from Christian creationists.

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US creationism less successful

• Large public support. (Gallup since 1980: 45% YEC, 45% guided evolution, 10% naturalistic evolution.)

• Creationism and ID unacceptable in intellectual high culture.

• Little penetration into public education (informal, private).

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Islamic views ≈ Christian

• Very similar debate over evolution goes on among Muslims, both at popular and devout intellectual levels.

• Theological options, from conservative scripturalism to liberal reinterpretation, are also very similar.

• The history of science and Islam is different and makes a difference.

2012

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Recent history

• Past few centuries dominated by need to catch up to modern, especially Western world.

• West has technological advantage military and commercial power. Need science!

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Importing science

• Borrow technology but guard against foreign cultural influences.

• Materialist aspects of science (as seen in popular 19th century materialist literature, such as by Ludwig Büchner) undesirable.

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Responding to Darwin

• Early response to Darwin and evolution in the context of westernization and elite debates over materialist philosophy.

• Largely ignored, or denounced as an offense to religion. Accepted by a few radical secularizers but not Muslim modernists.

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From the Ottomans to Turkey

• Ottoman responses to science typical of larger Islamic world.

• Carries over into modern Turkey, at the forefront of responses to secular Western ideas.

• Grassroots, modernizing religious movements, such as “Nurcu”s, at the forefront of creationism later.

2012

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Secularist impositions

• Turkish example: most radical secularist experiment in Muslim world. 1920s, 30s.

• Darwinian evolution part of state science education.

• But only minor offense to traditional religion, when compared to much more serious injuries.

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Underground creationism

• Until 1970s Turkey, little public creationism outside of conservative Muslim subculture. (Passive resistance to evolution.)

• 1970s: Islamists in coalition. Opposition to evolution a culture-wars theme. Indirect way of opposing secularism.

• Grassroots modernist movements push pseudoscience.

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Official creationism• 1980: military coup.

Conservative policy.• Mid-1980s: conservative

government, Islamists in Ministry of Education, Nurcu influence.

• Creationism in secondary education. Translations from US literature, distributed to teachers.

• Creationist paragraphs in Turkish textbooks, even today.

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Harun Yahya

• In 1997, Harun Yahya literature took Turkey by storm. Creationism central theme.

• Borrows from Christian creationists; adds more traditional Islamic themes.

• Uses media very well.

• Modern, but religious image.

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Creationists: modern Muslims

• Nur movement famous for non-traditional authority structure, modern orientation, pro-capitalist development, and embrace of modern technology.

• Adnan Oktar (“Harun Yahya”) projects modern image: western clothes, technological and financial competence. They’ve mastered modernity, remained devout, and can challenge materialists even in the scientific arena.

• Muslim creationists are not traditionalists. Thoroughly modern movement.

• Oktar is controversial, but opposition to Darwinian evolution enjoys a broad constituency.

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Successful creationism• Scientists (e.g. Turkish Academy of

Sciences) publicly oppose creationism. Ineffectual.

• Many Turkish academics express skepticism about Darwinian evolution.

• Muslim opposition to evolution is intellectually mainstream.

• Defense of evolution entangled with a discredited secularism.

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Example: TÜBİTAK affair• March 2009: Censorship of popular science

and technology magazine.

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Global Islamic Creationism

• Harun Yahya is now internationally popular.

• Forms of opposition to evolution vary by country, but are usually quite popular.

• Western Muslims may be more creationist.

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Alternative: guided evolution?

• Appealing compromise, outside science.

• Academic theology: metaphysical gloss.

• Liberal churches: usefully vague.

• Common descent OK, naturalistic mechanisms less so. (~ID)

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Portable to Islam?

• Scientists seek allies among religious liberals; avoid confrontation (Turkish defenses of evolution). Independent of US example.

• Some Pakistani biology textbooks lead with Quranic quotation. (Preemption?)

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Nonhuman guided evolution

• Many religious scholars accept guided evolution.

• They often exclude humans from evolution.

• Reinterpretations of verses such as 24:45 “And God created all animals from water. . .”

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Limited evolution

• Many accept limited evolution– Common descent somewhat OK, but more

problematic where humans are concerned.– Explicitly guided, non-Darwinian process.

Creativity cannot reside in the material world.

• Attractive as a middle path, but even guided evolution always controversial.

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Acceptance of “evolution”?

• Interpreting polls: many Muslims who affirm “evolution” have a guided, non-Darwinian process in mind. (~ID)

• Guided evolution does not overtly challenge science education. But it is not an accurate reflection of modern science.

• Is it a politically useful compromise?

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Süleyman Ateş

• Turkish theologian. • Modernist, moderate.

Defends “evolution.”• Headed Directorate of

Religious Affairs.• Prominent public figure,

spokesman for Turkish official Islam.

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Ateş and pseudobiology

• Guided evolution ~ ID.• Ancient Greek “biology”

defending “weakness” of women, gender roles.

• Ambivalence about human evolution.

• Typical of modernist Turkish theologians.

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Academic anti-evolution• Well-known philosophers of

science Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Iran, US), and Osman Bakar (Malaysia, currently US) oppose evolution.

• Darwinian evolution goes against top-down, God-centered view of reality demanded by religion.

• “Intelligent design” also finding an audience.

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Worrying about materialism

• Mustafa Akyol, (liberal Muslim, ID proponent): “ID is indeed a wedge that can split the foundations of scientific materialism… For the first time, the West appears to be the antidote to, not the source of, the materialist plague.”

• Symbolic enemy.

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Responding to materialism

• Technology is attractive to modern religious people. Linked to science. So can’t ignore science.

• Need to appropriate science, and correct science if it disagrees with revealed truths.

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Islam: weaker liberal options

• Liberal Christianity: the supernatural retreats to metaphysics. Science deals with mere details, is autonomous.

• Islam: rarer. Science should be subordinate to revelation and moral concerns. (Even liberals think so.)

• Exceptions: some defend autonomy of science. Abdolkarim Soroush in Iran.

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Doctrinal conservatism

• Liberal Muslim views weaker than Christian counterparts.

• Reinterpretation, seeing religion as human strongly opposed.

• Even modernists, democrats can be cultural conservatives.

• Rejecting materialism conditions both popular and intellectual discourse on science.

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No separate spheres?

• Science and religion in West: intellectual friction, institutional accommodation.

• Separate spheres. Science independent of religion.

• Not in Islamic world?• How much of a practical problem

is scientific backwardness?

Religion

Science

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Plug

Taner Edis, An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam