Professor Richard Dawkins Wants to Convert Islamic World to Evolution
TIMES ONLINE: The author of The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene, whose new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, is serialised in The Times next week, has topped bestseller lists all over the world but never in a predominantly Muslim country.

None of Professor Dawkins’ books, on evolution as well as religion, has ever been translated into Arabic, and his work has been heavily censored in Turkey. In an interview with The Times, he said that popularising evolution in the Islamic world, where creationist beliefs are strong, was a challenge he is keen to take up. “To be a bestseller in a Muslim country would be a personal triumph,” he said.

“I would like to see my books translated into Arabic. They haven’t been. They are all translated into Hebrew. Persian, I’m not sure. My books are translated into Turkish and they regularly get censored and suppressed.

“The experience of my Turkish publisher of The God Delusion was that he was threatened with arrest for blasphemy. He may even have been arrested, and my website has been banned in Turkey. I feel amused really. There’s something to be said for being suppressed, it makes people want to read you.”

While most non-fundamentalist Christian traditions have largely accepted evolution, Islam was still much more hostile, he said. “It’s the fact that Islam teaches the Koran is the literal word of God, unlike most Christian sects, which say the Bible is largely symbolic. That could well be the cause.”

Professor Dawkins added that Islamic influence is the likely explanation for the growing popularity of creationist beliefs in Britain, where a recent poll found that 30 per cent of teenagers accept the rebranded idea of “intelligent design”.

“I think that’s pretty clear,” he said. “I hear that from colleagues at the coalface of teaching. There has been a sharp upturn in hostility to teaching of evolution in the classroom and it’s mostly coming from Islamic students. >>> Mark Henderson, Science Editor | Saturday, August 22, 2009

New Dark Age Alert! One in Three Teachers Says Teach Creationism Alongside Evolution
THE TELEGRAPH: One in three teachers believes schoolchildren should be taught that creationism is just as valid as evolution, according to a survey.

The poll also disclosed that pupils in almost a third of schools already learn about the controversial divine explanation of the universe, with even science teachers thinking it has a place in classrooms.

Almost all of those questioned by Teachers TV, a satellite television channel, agreed that children with strong religious beliefs would feel excluded from science lessons if their views were ignored.

The findings support the views of the Rev Professor Michael Reiss, who lost his job as director of education at the Royal Society, Britain's prestigious scientific academy, after calling for creationism to be included in school science lessons.

The ordained Church of England minister said the idea that the Earth was made by God 10,000 years ago should be discussed if pupils raise it, because "banging on" about natural selection would not lead evangelical Christians or Muslims to change their views.

But he was forced to step down after his views were denounced as "dangerous" and "outrageous" by two Nobel laureates and the Royal Society claimed he had damaged its reputation.

Commenting on the results of the survey of 1,200 viewers of Teachers TV, its chief executive, Andrew Bethell, said: "This poll data confirms that the debate on whether there is a place for the teaching of creationism in the classroom is still fierce."

The poll found that 31 per cent of teachers agree that creationism or intelligent design – the theory that the universe shows signs of having been designed rather than evolving – should be given the same status as evolution in the classroom, including 18 per cent of science teachers. >>> By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent | November 7, 2008

TELEGRAPH BLOGS / HOLY SMOKE: Islam Is the Reason British Teachers Are Suddenly Happy to Teach Creationism

One in three teachers believe that creationism should be taught in school science lessonsWhy? It's not because they've developed a sudden respect for fundamentalist Christian interpretations of the Bible. It's because devout Muslim pupils - and their parents - regard Darwin's teachings as blasphemous.

The science of evolution contradicts a literal reading of the Koran, just as it contradicts the seven-day creation narrative of Genesis. The difference is that most devout Muslims - more than 90 per cent worldwide - accept Islam's account of creation as the simple truth, whereas in Britain only a small minority of churchgoers are creationists.

In the last five years, Harun Yahya, a Turkish-based Islamic creationist propaganda machine, has been flooding the developed world with sophisticated material, including an incredibly glossy, huge and heavy 800-page Atlas of Creation which "proves" that all living species were created simultaneously. "Living beings have not undergone the slightest change for hundreds of millions of years," it asserts.

Multiple copies of this "atlas" have arrived at the two newspaper offices where I work, the Telegraph and the Catholic Herald. Schools all over the country are receiving unsolicited copies for their libraries. Is anyone even flicking through them before they go on the shelves? My guess is that the book is fast becoming an accepted resouce for state schools with Muslim pupils. Who is paying for this vast work of fantasy dressed up as science? I bet the funding doesn't all come from Turkey. Saudi, perhaps?

Meanwhile, as counterknowledge.com reports, the influence of Adnan Oktar, the fundamentalist who runs Harun Yahya, is growing enormously. Oktar has managed to block access in Turkey to numerous websites that challenge him, including at one stage Google groups. According to one report, 61 websites have been targeted by Oktar/Yahya, whose work has been translated into 57 languages.

This is a battle that the educational establishment just isn't prepared for. Guardian readers associate creationism with US Republicans, not ethnic minorities. Now they face a painful dilemma: should they fight to exclude the creationist viewpoint from science lessons, risking accusations of Islamophobia from angry parents, or should they embrace pseudoscience in the name of cultural diversity? It's a tough one. COMMENT HERE >>> Damian Thompson | November 7, 2008

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