Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Intelligent Design & Islam
A recent conference ?The Origin of Life on Earth? about intelligent design and Islam held in Turkey last month featured Mustafa Akyol, David Berlinski, Paul Nelson, John Lennox, and Alpaslan Acikgenc www.thewhitepath.com). The presentations, followed by a Q&A session, have apparently made the conference a fascinating event for the 500 intellectual attendants in the audience. Turkey continues to be the ID leader on the Muslim front. Elsewhere, ID continues to rattle the Darwinist foothold particularly in Australia and Darwin?s homeland, UK. It is encouraging to witness the theory steadily gaining ground, if initially only shaking the nerves of the elite, on the international scene, not the least of which being the Muslim state of Turkey.
Mustafa Akyol www.thewhitepath.com), political scientist, journalist, and freelance writer based in Turkey, is a well-known Muslim proponent of intelligent design. He testified to the Kansas State Education Board during the court hearings on evolution in May 2005. In September 2006, IslamOnline.net organized an online debate "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design" www.thewhitepath.com) between Akyol and Nicholas Matzke, spokesman for one of the chief institutional opponents of ID - the US-based National Center for Science Education. In December 2005, Akyol published an article ?Under God or Under Darwin? in National Review www.nationalreview.com). In his article, he addressed core objections against ID and discussed cultural and theological repercussions of the theory for Christianity and Islam.
He also wrote an article on why Muslims should support ID www.islamonline.net). I would especially like to stress his last few paragraphs (emphasis mine):
?Intelligent Design (ID) is a term that implies creation. The universe and life are not products of blind forces of nature, ID holds, but show evidence that they were designed by an intelligence. The ID Movement has deliberately chosen not to specify the identity of the Designer. Through science you can demonstrate convincingly that there is a designer, but you can?t go further without invoking theology. Everybody has the right to believe in a Designer according his own theology. What makes the movement effective is its emphasis on solid scientific evidence.
This non-theological nature of the ID Movement also makes it inter-religious. Whether you are a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or any other kind of theist, you can identify with the movement. This movement defines the particular paradigm of science we would like to have, and it is science that defines society in the long run.
Muslims should also note the great similarity between the arguments of the Intelligent Design Movement and Islamic sources. Hundreds of verses in the Qur?an call people to examine the natural world and see in it the evidence of God. Great Islamic scholars like Ghazali wrote large volumes about design in animals, plants, and the human body. What Intelligent Design theorists like Behe or Dembski do today is to refine the same argument with the findings of modern science.
In short, Intelligent Design is not alien to Islam. It is very much our cause, and we should do everything we can to support it.?
From Akyol?s TheWhitePath.com, a brief recap of the featured talks in the conference ?The Origin of Life on Earth?:
Mustafa Akyol, ?Rethinking the Science-Religion Debate in Turkey?
Since the end of the 19th century, Ottoman and Turkish intellectuals were increasingly influenced by ?Western science.? And since this science included some materialist teachings which contradicted the traditional beliefs and values of Turkish society, a conflict developed over time between the ?Westernized elite? and the ?traditional believers.? However there was something that the ?Westernized elite? were not aware of: Some of the views they have embraced as ?science? were in fact nothing but philosophical beliefs. This became apparent with the decline of positivism. And moreover, the scientific fidings of the past decades have started to turn against those very philosophical beliefs that was once seen as ?scientific.? There now is the time to reconsider the science-religion debate in Turkey.
Dr. David Berlinski, ?Where Darwin Went Wrong?
Charles Darwin completed his masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, in 1859. At once, the theory that is introduced became popular. One hundred years later, it was widely celebrated as an outstanding success. Thereafter, the time of troubles began. For the past forty years, the great global vision that Darwin introduced into biology has been dying by degrees. Critics and skeptics have never been satisfied with Darwin?s theory. Mathematicians have been especially dubious. But now even the biologists have begun to read those alarming medical reports with a heightened sense of concern. At least five fatal maladies are converging on Darwin?s theory. In the first place, the theory makes no sense. Either it collapses into triviality or it invokes a force with no known cognate to the forces of physics. In the second place, the theory lacks for confirmation from the historical record. In the third place, it lacks for confirmation both from laboratory experiments and research into natural selection in the wild. In the fourth place, the theory cannot be simulated by means of computer algorithms. If the simulation honestly uses Darwinian principles, it does not work; and if it works, it does not use Darwinian principles. And in the fifth and final place, the theory has never been defended in terms that make mathematical sense.
Dr. Paul Nelson, ?Intelligent Design in Biology?
Intelligent Design (ID), viewed broadly, is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence. Within the sciences of biology, ID theorists see strong indicators (evidence) of intelligent causes, such as the information stored in DNA, the molecular machines of the cell, and the higher-level functional properties of organisms. Since Darwin?s time, however, most biologists have argued that organisms should be understood, not as designed, but as the products of randomly-arising variations and natural selection. However many at patterns of evidence from cellular machinery and genomics are best explained, not by any evolutionary theory, but by design. Thus ID holds great promise for the future of biological science.
Dr. John Lennox, ?Reductionism in Science and Ethics?
The science-religion debate is about the status of the universe. The ethics debate is about the status of morality, the bioethics debate in particular being about the status of human life. Contemporary science in the West is dominated by a materialistic/naturalistic reductionism that is increasingly being used not only to undermine the traditional theistic base for ethics but to suggest that science can provide a replacement for it. This means that the science-religion debate has increasing relevance for the much broader ethics debate and therefore for society as a whole. The object of the lecture is therefore to discuss the intellectual validity of such reductionism within the wider context of the science and religion debate.
Dr. Alpaslan Acikgenc, ?Science, Nature and Life According to Islam?
Islam attaches importance to science. In the first century of Islam, while Muslims were not practicing any science at all, it is possible to see the existence of a developed and curious scientific mindset. Thanks to the penetration of this scientific mindset to society, Muslims were able to excel in all areas of science and surpass other societies in this regard. The words used in the Qur?an such as ?earth,? ?universe? or ?world? can be seen as synonymous with ?nature.? However this term, originating from Greek philosophy, refers to an active entity, whereas ?nature? in the Islamic sense is more passive. In other words, it is something ?created.? The Qur?an also tells that life itself is created. Hence it gives life a meaning and explains that it has a purpose.
Nadeem
Mustafa Akyol www.thewhitepath.com), political scientist, journalist, and freelance writer based in Turkey, is a well-known Muslim proponent of intelligent design. He testified to the Kansas State Education Board during the court hearings on evolution in May 2005. In September 2006, IslamOnline.net organized an online debate "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design" www.thewhitepath.com) between Akyol and Nicholas Matzke, spokesman for one of the chief institutional opponents of ID - the US-based National Center for Science Education. In December 2005, Akyol published an article ?Under God or Under Darwin? in National Review www.nationalreview.com). In his article, he addressed core objections against ID and discussed cultural and theological repercussions of the theory for Christianity and Islam.
He also wrote an article on why Muslims should support ID www.islamonline.net). I would especially like to stress his last few paragraphs (emphasis mine):
?Intelligent Design (ID) is a term that implies creation. The universe and life are not products of blind forces of nature, ID holds, but show evidence that they were designed by an intelligence. The ID Movement has deliberately chosen not to specify the identity of the Designer. Through science you can demonstrate convincingly that there is a designer, but you can?t go further without invoking theology. Everybody has the right to believe in a Designer according his own theology. What makes the movement effective is its emphasis on solid scientific evidence.
This non-theological nature of the ID Movement also makes it inter-religious. Whether you are a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or any other kind of theist, you can identify with the movement. This movement defines the particular paradigm of science we would like to have, and it is science that defines society in the long run.
Muslims should also note the great similarity between the arguments of the Intelligent Design Movement and Islamic sources. Hundreds of verses in the Qur?an call people to examine the natural world and see in it the evidence of God. Great Islamic scholars like Ghazali wrote large volumes about design in animals, plants, and the human body. What Intelligent Design theorists like Behe or Dembski do today is to refine the same argument with the findings of modern science.
In short, Intelligent Design is not alien to Islam. It is very much our cause, and we should do everything we can to support it.?
From Akyol?s TheWhitePath.com, a brief recap of the featured talks in the conference ?The Origin of Life on Earth?:
Mustafa Akyol, ?Rethinking the Science-Religion Debate in Turkey?
Since the end of the 19th century, Ottoman and Turkish intellectuals were increasingly influenced by ?Western science.? And since this science included some materialist teachings which contradicted the traditional beliefs and values of Turkish society, a conflict developed over time between the ?Westernized elite? and the ?traditional believers.? However there was something that the ?Westernized elite? were not aware of: Some of the views they have embraced as ?science? were in fact nothing but philosophical beliefs. This became apparent with the decline of positivism. And moreover, the scientific fidings of the past decades have started to turn against those very philosophical beliefs that was once seen as ?scientific.? There now is the time to reconsider the science-religion debate in Turkey.
Dr. David Berlinski, ?Where Darwin Went Wrong?
Charles Darwin completed his masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, in 1859. At once, the theory that is introduced became popular. One hundred years later, it was widely celebrated as an outstanding success. Thereafter, the time of troubles began. For the past forty years, the great global vision that Darwin introduced into biology has been dying by degrees. Critics and skeptics have never been satisfied with Darwin?s theory. Mathematicians have been especially dubious. But now even the biologists have begun to read those alarming medical reports with a heightened sense of concern. At least five fatal maladies are converging on Darwin?s theory. In the first place, the theory makes no sense. Either it collapses into triviality or it invokes a force with no known cognate to the forces of physics. In the second place, the theory lacks for confirmation from the historical record. In the third place, it lacks for confirmation both from laboratory experiments and research into natural selection in the wild. In the fourth place, the theory cannot be simulated by means of computer algorithms. If the simulation honestly uses Darwinian principles, it does not work; and if it works, it does not use Darwinian principles. And in the fifth and final place, the theory has never been defended in terms that make mathematical sense.
Dr. Paul Nelson, ?Intelligent Design in Biology?
Intelligent Design (ID), viewed broadly, is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence. Within the sciences of biology, ID theorists see strong indicators (evidence) of intelligent causes, such as the information stored in DNA, the molecular machines of the cell, and the higher-level functional properties of organisms. Since Darwin?s time, however, most biologists have argued that organisms should be understood, not as designed, but as the products of randomly-arising variations and natural selection. However many at patterns of evidence from cellular machinery and genomics are best explained, not by any evolutionary theory, but by design. Thus ID holds great promise for the future of biological science.
Dr. John Lennox, ?Reductionism in Science and Ethics?
The science-religion debate is about the status of the universe. The ethics debate is about the status of morality, the bioethics debate in particular being about the status of human life. Contemporary science in the West is dominated by a materialistic/naturalistic reductionism that is increasingly being used not only to undermine the traditional theistic base for ethics but to suggest that science can provide a replacement for it. This means that the science-religion debate has increasing relevance for the much broader ethics debate and therefore for society as a whole. The object of the lecture is therefore to discuss the intellectual validity of such reductionism within the wider context of the science and religion debate.
Dr. Alpaslan Acikgenc, ?Science, Nature and Life According to Islam?
Islam attaches importance to science. In the first century of Islam, while Muslims were not practicing any science at all, it is possible to see the existence of a developed and curious scientific mindset. Thanks to the penetration of this scientific mindset to society, Muslims were able to excel in all areas of science and surpass other societies in this regard. The words used in the Qur?an such as ?earth,? ?universe? or ?world? can be seen as synonymous with ?nature.? However this term, originating from Greek philosophy, refers to an active entity, whereas ?nature? in the Islamic sense is more passive. In other words, it is something ?created.? The Qur?an also tells that life itself is created. Hence it gives life a meaning and explains that it has a purpose.
Nadeem