Mehmet Gormez has it backward - it's the objection to evolutionary theory that is ideological, not the the theory itself.

Although the objection takes different forms among various religions and philosophies, at its core is the belief in human specialness. Opponents at least as far back as Benjamin Disraeli have misinterpreted evolution as a value position, claiming that it proclaims humans to be no better than animals. What opponents don't understand, or choose not to understand, is that value is a human creation and not a natural entity. Humans choose to deem the species as better than animals. Science doesn't (or shouldn't) assign human value to anything in the universe. Even the word "normal" in a scientific context merely connotes prevalence, unlike the cultural context which treats deviation from normal as wrong or bad.

Accordingly, the evolutionary theory is value-neutral for all species, human and otherwise. Even many people who accept evolution do not understand this, mistakenly believing that the survival or extinction of a species amounts to a judgment of a species. (http://www.smithsonianmag.com­/arts-culture/The-Last-Page-Da­rwin-for-Dads.html) The real problem is that people want to believe that everything happens for a reason or purpose, when in fact there is no evidence for either. The idea that our existence could be due to an undirected process seems terrifying to many. Perhaps that's because again, they misinterpret this as undermining human specialness. Or perhaps the terror comes from the realization that the evolutionary process could have gone in another direction that wouldn't have led to human existence.

Gormez's rant about Masonic scientific conspiracies is reminiscent of the rants by the Pat Robertsons and Bill Donahues about secularist conspiracies against Christianity. I suspect that both have roots in fear of social change. The modern creationist movement in America is mostly a political phenomenon, a reaction to the social changes of the 1960s which included Epperson v. Arkansas as well as Engle v. Vitale. Those two issues, taken together, make convenient scapegoats for Christian Dominionists fearful or resentful of those changes.

I suspect a similar phenomenon is at work with the Muslim movement that Mehmet Gormez exemplifies. Middle Eastern cultures were once leaders in scientific and intellectual pursuits, but the cultures stagnated toward the end of the Middle Ages. The colonial period and the growth of the Western world's economic and information power seems to have produced massive culture shock for many Muslims. My theory is that because of that shock, Gormez and his followers are mistakenly lumping in Darwinism with their other notions about Western imperialism, seeing it as another foreign idea diluting their culture like McDonald's or hip-hop music.

My theory is that because of that shock, Gormez and his followers are mistakenly lumping in Darwinism with their other notions about Western imperialism, seeing it as another foreign idea diluting their culture like McDonald's or hip-hop music.

I don't see how evolutionary theory is NOT a foreign idea which dilutes the culture of a fundamentalist Muslim and the primacy of God in all things. The theory comes from England and a Western scientific tradition. There are some who shoehorn God into the process of evolution in their beliefs but it certainly isn't a particularly comfortable fit.

When you mention "God," are you talking about the Abrahamic deity? What about the stances of polytheists or deists toward evolution? Whether gods are compatible with the theory depends on how one defines one's gods. It's possible to believe in gods who created neither the universe nor human life - some polytheistic religions assert the existence of non-creator gods. Most Christians accept evolution, with some of them subscribing to a variant of the cosmic watchmaker belief held by many deists. I don't know if the same is true of most Muslims.

I would agree that shoehorning divine creators into scientific theories amounts to an unacceptable rewriting of the theories. Unacceptable because those creators are defined in unfalsifiable ways - the definitions are so broad as to cover any possible evidence that may arise. By attempting to explain everything, such definitions explain nothing. Any proposed theory for an event has to be falsifiable, otherwise the proposal is indistinguishable from speculation. We can't say that the creators idea is false since we can't rule out the possibility of such creators existing. But we can say that the shoehorning accomplishes nothing in explaining the events addressed by the original theories.

Fundamentalism in any religion would be hostile to the Western scientific tradition, because the former is really a variety of authoritarian binarism, or binary authoritarianism. Any concept of absolute truth will conflict with the principle of evaluating evidence and making conclusions

Sounds like very Western thinking on your part Carstonio. I still fail to see how accepting evolutionary theory furthers the goals of someone interested in making Turkey a more fundamentally religious nation.

How is the person defining a "more fundamentally religious nation"? If the definition involves Islam becoming Turkey's official or unofficial state religion, that's an authoritarian concept. I wouldn't expect an authoritarian to accept evolution, because authoritarianism is incompatible with not just science but also with intellectual and philosophical exploration in general. But what if the definition involved a healthy interest in the subjective truths about human existence? That would fit America, and there's a strong argument that religions have more vitality in America precisely because we lack an official religion. (Did that argument come from de Tocqueville?) The other side of the argument is this - maybe religions are declining in most of Europe because those nations have traditions of state religions, which may lead citizens to regard religion as merely a civic obligation.

If you want to define evolutionary theory as a strictly western invention or western thinking, then shouldn't you say the same about the theory of gravitation, also "invented" by an Englishman? And shouldn't Islam thus be an anti-gravitational? To be consistent, bsharporflat, then you must reject all western scientific theories, including theories about evolution, gravitation, disease processes, the radio, digital computers, and countless others.

How do you justify rejecting only evolutionary theory and not all the other western scientific theories too?

"Carstonio wrote the following post at 10/22/2009 11:37 AM:

Mehmet Gormez has it backward - it's the objection to evolutionary theory that is ideological, not the the theory itself.etc, ..."

I don't necessarily disagree with with you, but you've got to recognize that it really goes both ways depending on your belief system. Atheists/materialists clinged to Darwinism from the outset, and for example famous athiest Daniel Dennet wrote a whole book on the meaning of Darwin's theory on his philosophy. And you've must have seen that community circle the wagons, and resort to name calling and the like at any seeming threats to Darwinism, such as scientific analysis indicating extreme improbabilities of Darwin's model. Best really to just tamp down the emotions on both sides, and let the best science win.

celtic6:

"Carstonio wrote the following post at 10/22/2009 11:37 AM:

Mehmet Gormez has it backward - it's the objection to evolutionary theory that is ideological, not the the theory itself.etc, ..."

I don't necessarily disagree with with you, but you've got to recognize that it really goes both ways depending on your belief system. Atheists/materialists clinged to Darwinism from the outset, and for example famous athiest Daniel Dennet wrote a whole book on the meaning of Darwin's theory on his philosophy. And you've must have seen that community circle the wagons, and resort to name calling and the like at any seeming threats to Darwinism, such as scientific analysis indicating extreme improbabilities of Darwin's model. Best really to just tamp down the emotions on both sides, and let the best science win.

It's going to be a one-sided fight then as there is precisely zero science on the Creationist/ID side. Proponents of ID seem to think that highlighting any problems (in their view – a serious, evidence based challenge to Darwin is yet to be found) in Darwin's theory is somehow proof of their own. It's nothing of the sort. If just a single fossil bone from a particular animal was found in the 'wrong' strata of rock then Darwin's theory would be disproved and it would be back to the drawing board, but even so it still wouldn't prove in any way the existence of a creator.

"you've got to recognize that it really goes both ways depending on your belief system"

Darwin's theory is not a 'belief system' any more than something like Boyle's law in physics is a belief system. It's a scientific theory supported by empirical evidence that has yet to be disproved. Creationism/ID on the other hand is a faith; a belief with no evidence at all. The two are not remotely the same.

"...scientific analysis indicating extreme improbabilities of Darwin's model."

Meaningless. Just because something is improbable does not make it untrue. If I flipped a coin every second for 4 billion years at some point I will get an astronomically improbable string of heads but that doesn't mean it won't happen. You could theorize that absolutely any event in the universe is incredibly improbable if you worked out the probabilities of all the events that led up to it.

MarkS:

If you want to define evolutionary theory as a strictly western invention or western thinking, then shouldn't you say the same about the theory of gravitation, also "invented" by an Englishman? And shouldn't Islam thus be an anti-gravitational? To be consistent, bsharporflat, then you must reject all western scientific theories, including theories about evolution, gravitation, disease processes, the radio, digital computers, and countless others.

How do you justify rejecting only evolutionary theory and not all the other western scientific theories too?

Nice argument. But who says I must be consistent ;- ).

In seriousness, I suspect Muslim fundamentalists might be against Western theories of gravity, viruses, electro-magnetic radiation, etc. if they were direct competitors to their deity-based philosophy. Perhaps an HIV explanation would be rejected if it negated a view that AIDS is the punishment of God upon infidel nations and perverted sinners.

If gravity is compatible with a God-centered view of the universe I would guess a Muslim fundamentalist would not embrace it, but rather just shrug his shoulders. I didn't mean to suggest only Western ideas would be rejected by a Muslim fundamentalist. As I recall, the Taliban took a very dim view of ancient Buddhist statues found in Afghanistan.

Atheists/materialists clinged to Darwinism from the outset, and for example famous athiest Daniel Dennet wrote a whole book on the meaning of Darwin's theory on his philosophy.

The evolutionary theory itself is neutral on philosophy, and although it doesn't include a creator, it takes no position on whether gods exist. Its endorsement by atheists doesn't mean that the theory itself is atheist.

Sure, some supporters of evolution have a philosophical bent, but they still generally understand the science involved. I have not seen such understanding from most opponents, who start with the assumption of a creator and misinterpret the science to support the assumption. A great example is the exchange between Richard Lenski and Andrew Schlafly, as discussed below. If the evidence had supported, say, Lamark instead of Darwin, the same people would be ranting against Lamarkism as godless humanism. They would reject any model that doesn't include a creator or that doesn't explicitly argue human specialness. If the reverse was true of most supporters, one might expect to find them divided between Darwin and Lamark, or among those and any other non-creator models.

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"Materialism" is a straw man that assumes a material/non-material divide. It's a mistake to start out with that assumption. It's merely a version of the argument from incredulity, where anything that doesn't have an explanation is assumed to be miraculous or an exemption to physical laws. Obviously there could be things that may exist beyond human sensory perception - acknowledging that possibility is simple intellectual honesty. If such things exist, we cannot assume that they would be "non-material." It's possible that such things could be just as "material" as things we can perceive with our senses, and we just haven't discovered why we could not perceive them.

"C-Tips wrote the following post at 10/23/2009 6:55 AM: It's going to be a one-sided fight then as there is precisely zero science on the Creationist/ID side.etc..."

Maybe so, but there still appears to be a lot of scientific questioning of Darwinism (per link.)

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I am going to go WAY out on a limb and suggest that every scientist who questions the validity of the theory of evolution by natural selection is doing so through religious, not scientfic motivation.

I can't imagine an exception. There simply isn't a better scientific theory to explain the current evidence for the natural history of life on earth. Science works not by "proof" but by "best working theory". Creation Science and Intelligent Design are far more flawed and unsubtantiated and would only be accepted by someone with a motive for doing so which is outside science.

celtic6:

"C-Tips wrote the following post at 10/23/2009 6:55 AM: It's going to be a one-sided fight then as there is precisely zero science on the Creationist/ID side.etc..."

Maybe so, but there still appears to be a lot of scientific questioning of Darwinism (per link.)

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As there should be. That's how science works, you create a theory that fits the evidence then try to find further evidence that disproves it. So far, in the case of Darwin's theory, none has been found that comes even close.

I would be highly skeptical of that list from the Discovery Institute, since the group has a religious agenda. Its own manifesto has the goal of replacing what it calls "materialist" science with "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."

First, what exactly do you mena by "Darwinism"? If you're using it as a synonym for evolution, to what purpose--do you habitually refer to physics as "Newtonianism"?

There may eb a lot of questioning, but scientific questioning? Not so much

Svcientists do of course continue to ask questions to improve our understanding of how evolution operates and how it has resulted in the biological diversity we observe. Thousands of papers documenting this ongoing investigation are published in peer reviewed journals every year asking an d answering such questions.

And there are to be sure scientists (most of whom are not trained in biology, like the ICR's tame collection of engineers and hydrologists) who for reasons of religious faith or personal incredulity reject evolution, and creationists do frequently publish opinion polls such as the one you link to in a dishonest attempt to such there's some 'controversy' about evolution that should be addressed by according their preferred alternative "It all happened by magic at the direction of my invisible friend--you know, the one with all the enat superpowers" equal consideration in mainstream public science curricula.

But until one can point to a large body of articles in peer reviewed journals where working biologists are attacking the fundamentals of the current understanding of the evolutionary origin of biological diversity it's simply false to claim that there's a lot of scientific questioning going on.