Charles Darwin
The often-charged debate about the origin of life pitting the science community against doctrinal conservatives is not just a U.S. phenomenon but one the Muslim world is increasingly engaged in, a visiting professor said Thursday evening at Trinity University.
And for the most part, creationists are in the mainstream in the Muslim world, with their views making their way into classrooms and textbooks. Meanwhile, Darwin’s theories such as natural selection are largely downplayed or denied, said Taner Edis, a physics professor from Truman State University in Missouri.
More than 150 people attended his talk at Chapman Auditorium. Titled “Creation vs. Evolution: The Muslim Debate,” it was part of Darwin Week on the campus.
“There’s a God-centered way of perceiving the world, and when scientists do not go along with it, there’s similar discomfort,” he said of most Muslim nations in the Middle East. “Most Muslim countries are not hospitable to evolution.”
That stems from the monotheism at the heart of Islam and a resistance to allowing science into this discussion, he said. At best, some Muslim scholars are open to “guided evolution” that God began the initial process of life and that evolutionary systems took over.
But even this idea becomes “vague” when explaining the genesis of humans, he said. References in the Quran to Adam and Eve and humanity’s reliance on God for survival often are cited.
And Western culture is seen as overly materialistic and secular.
Turkey is a leading country in the Creationist hold on this subject, he said. It was a largely underground movement until the 1970s when there was a culture war against secularism. A key era in the 1980s when a military coup took over ushered in the spread of Creationism across the country, he said.
Creationists are seen as contemporary and embracing of technology. It’s a place where Intelligent Design is increasingly finding a welcoming audience, he said.
via Professor says evolution unpopular in Muslim world – San Antonio Express-News.
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