I was talking to a Muslim recently, and she tried to dispute evolution with Harun Yahya’s material. Wow. I’m beginning to think of Harun Yahya as the Iraqi Information Minister of Creationism.
A few quotes from the links she provided:
Poll results in France show that 92% of people do not believe in evolution
After the big impact of the distribution of the 1st volume of “Atlas of Creation” in France, the French science website Science Actualités, made an interview with Patrick Tort of Charles Darwin International Institute and put a poll about evolution on line.
The results of the poll showed that Darwinism has come to an end also in France. 92% of people believe that “Humans are not the fruit of an evolution”
%5 of people believe that “the humans and the apes have common ancestors” and only 1% of people believe that “the humans descended from apes”. (Link)
Here’s the Science Actualites webpage in French, and a translated version of the same page here.
The first problem is that this poll was an online poll – which means it’s very easy to spike the poll by sending lots of people there, or create scripts that skew the results (a little fooling around showed that closing your brower and re-opening it allows you to vote again – showing that the poll is obviously vulnerable to scripts). In contrast, the evolution poll results done by Science magazine, have 80% of the French saying that evolution is true, and only 12-13% saying it is false. Some of this discrepancy is due to the questions themselves (some people who would say that evolution is true suddenly get nervous when they are asked whether humans are the result of evolution). I think it’s obvious the majority of the discrepancy is because the online poll is non-representative of French views. Even further, it’s pretty funny that Harun Yahya is attempting to credit it’s “Atlas of Creation” for these imaginary poll results. (It’s so powerful, it converted France’s 12-13% into 92% within a few months!) “Darwinism has come to an end also in France” says Harun Yahya. Sure, it has. And, “Atlas of Creation” gets all the credit. Baghdad Bob says: “There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!”
Update: According to this link, when the poll had 4274 votes, the poll said 64% of the French believed humans and apes had a common ancestor, and only 11% said humans are not a product of evolution. This is reasonably close to the Science poll. To switch dramatically to 5% and 92% with 72166 votes (as Harun Yahya’s image shows) would require that the next 67892 votes fell out this way: 1.3% (870 votes) “humans and apes had a common ancestor”, 97% (65,920 votes) “not a product of evolution”. That seems like a highly unlikely reversal of the poll. Additionally, that particular poll has far more votes cast than any other poll on the site. Sounds like someone’s tweaking the poll results – probably with a script. It’s rather funny that Harun Yahya would use an obviously manipulated poll to claim “Darwinism has come to an end also in France”. Take your victories where you can, I guess.
There are plenty of other ridiculous “news releases” on Harun Yahya’s website:
The Atlas of Creation and Fossil Exhibitions Cause Panic in France and Turkey:
The fossil exhibitions that are continuing at full speed all over Turkey seem to be causing intense alarm and panic among certain media circles. Unable to offer any evidence to the contrary and in a state of panic in the face of these developments, these circles are resorting instead to prohibition and obstruction. Issuing reports aimed at halting the fossil exhibitions and banning the Atlas of Creation cannot stop the collapse of Darwinism, however.
…
Yet not one single intermediate form has been discovered to date, and neither is it possible that any will be found in the future. Indeed, all our calls to evolutionists for them to put any intermediate forms they may have in their possession on show have gone unanswered, and Darwinists have retreated into silence in the face of the fossil findings that prove the fact of Creation.
Sure, there are no transitional fossils. And still more non-existent transitionals. And Baghdad Bob says, “Their casualties and bodies are many.”
The Harun Yahya press release: The Impact Abroad of the “Atlas of Creation”, has all kinds of information about the power of the Atlas of Creation, with little clips from the media:
The 24 June, 2007, edition of The Washington Times carried a report about the Fact of Creation, which is growing increasingly powerful in European countries. The report quoted Hervé Le Guyader, a biologist from Paris University, who called the challenge from Islamic thinkers “much more dangerous than the previous creationist initiatives, which were often of Anglo-Saxon origin.”
Wow. That must make Muslims feel good – those pesky Anglo-Saxon creationists are nothing compared to the *power* of Turkish creationists. They’re like some kind of Muslim Rambo – crushing the Western evolutionists with one hand, far more powerful than those wimpy Christian creationists! Harun Yahya and those Islamic thinkers are truly an intellectual force to be reckon with. The West has no defense! We must submit to their intellectual superiority, and submit to Allah…. Wait, a minute. This all sounds like some big, collective Middle-Eastern fantasy. Isn’t the Washington Times owned by the Moonies? And isn’t the God-incarnate of that church (Sun Myung Moon) the one who told Jonathan Wells to get a PhD so he could “devote [his] life to destroying Darwinism”? Hmmm, could The Washington Times article be leaving something out? Maybe? Oh, (thanks google!) here’s more on what Hervé Le Guyader thinks:
French biologist Hervé Le Guyader, professor at the University of Paris VI, carried out a preliminary analysis of the [Atlas of Creation] for the education minister, reported Le Monde (February 3, 2007). Le Guyader called the book “much more dangerous than previous creationist initiatives,” noting that the book’s lavish production “could convince someone who didn’t know any biology.” But, he added, its scientific content was “appallingly poor.” (Link)
Curse you creationists! You almost had me fooled. The power of your quote mine was almost too much!
As ridiculous and disconnected-from-reality as these Harun Yahya claims are, the group is still an important force in the creationism debate because they’ve got money, churn out propaganda at an amazing rate, and have a large pool of scientifically ignorant people to target. I’m sure they’ll be around a long time since no creationist has ever died from embarrassment (despite their valiant efforts). Harun Yahya has been doing lots and lots of propaganda work all over the internet. YouTube, for example, has 2,010 results for “Harun Yahya”. Many of those are critical of Harun Yahya, but plenty of them are material put out by the group. That’s even more hits than you get by searching for Kent Hovind on YouTube (1,510).
Update: Since I keep getting creationist readers reading this article and commenting that there is no evidence for evolution, I should direct you to my Creationism|Evolution page, where I’m continually adding information supporting evolution.
[…] Harun Yahya = Iraqi Information Minister of Creationism in France and Turkey: The fossil exhibitions that are continuing at full speed all over Turkey seem […]
It is not too surprising to see that an 800 pages long book, with wonderful photos of fossil specimens from all over the world has caused a “stir in Europe” when sent free of charge to universities, scientists, parliamanters, researchers, priests, etc.
People are not used to “think” nowadays other than business, career, money, etc., so when some material appears to question their current dormant status, they get jumbled up easily. However this is to their benefit.
Why is Atlas of Creation such a topic of discussion? Because it is telling the truth, and “YES THERE IS NO EVOLUTION”. Darwin fooled all of us and is still trying to do so with his group of followers who are so dogmatic that they do not want their theory to be criticized in any means.
LET US THINK AND SEE THERE IS NO EVOLUTION, NO TRANSITION, NO CHANGE IN LIVING THINGS WHEN WE LOOK AT THE FOSSIL RECORDS. I believe this is the fact, and yes it is the fact. Let us be sincere to ourselves and try to understand what creationists are trying to tell us.
Otherwise we will be keeping our brains dormant for the rest of our lives.
Thanks for making me think this way. All the best regards.
Greg.
Great impression of a creationist, Greg. You’ve got the two primary features of a creationist down to a tee: ignorance and complete confidence that you are right. (And I say that as someone who was taught creationism – at home and in school – until college.)
We don’t care if the so called poll is ture ou false never mind, you don’t care about news paper feling about harun work, you have to prouf if there is an evolution or not, if you don’t have the brain to defends the evolution then be quite please and listen to harun !
You’re always welcome to visit my Creationism|Evolution page if you’re wondering about evolutionary evidence.
there is also this…..
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/
which of coure you mention at the end of your page, froggy.
Thaks guys
the 2 links are usless, Im not defending creationism, I m’ attacking the idea that spicies can envolve by chance, so do you have a example to illustrate this claim?
Perhaps you mean to say that those links are useless for the question you want answered.
So, you are wondering if species can evolve “by chance” (which actually means chance mutations in the genome + the natural world selecting which organisms survive and thrive – which is not “chance”)? There are a few different ways I could take your statement: (1) *new* species cannot evolve “by chance” (e.g. a species of fruit flies cannot evolve to the point where they are two separate species of fruit flies who are incapable of interbreeding), (2) an existing species cannot evolve at all (i.e. no evolution of any sort can occur), or (3) a new, and radically different type of species cannot evolve (e.g. humans could not have evolved from apes, mammals could not have evolved from reptiles).
Regarding item #2: I’d suggest that you take a look at the evolution of the HIV virus. It happens fast enough that we can track changes that have occurred over the past few decades.
Using genetic analysis on HIV to trace it’s genetic change over time:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/12/libya_vs_evolut.html
HIV has evolved a new gene:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/08/erv_hiv_versus.html
Genetic analysis shows us how HIV evolved from SIV (the simian immunodeficiency virus that affects chimpanzees, but not humans), and shows us that HIV has evolved from SIV several different times. HIV is actually classified into several different groups (e.g. HIV-1, HIV-2 based on their genetics – and they each independently made the chimpanzee-to-human jump):
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/relevance/IA2HIV.shtml
There’s also plenty of information available about how HIV has evolved resistance HIV drugs.
“The first problem is that this poll was an online poll”
Bahaha!
My gosh, these people are quite afraid of honest discourse and reality, aren’t they? The lengths some people go to defend a worthless doctrine; even if it directly contradicts REALITY.
They claim evolution and its proponents is/are immoral, yet they are the ones that lie.
And lie
And lie some more.
Harun Yahya is in desperate need of some real science to read. Unfortunately he is in prison at the present time for trying to blackmail a woman into bed. So he won’t be reading your excellent evidence for evolution page.
Mind you Adnan Oktar, Harun Yahya’s real name, doesn’t write his own books and he doesn’t read any of the science books his lackeys plagiarise either.
Joe Morreale or Jamshed Kunnoth, if you’re reading any of this please tell your so called messiah that he can get a decent understanding of evolution from Tiny Frog’s Creationism/Evolution page.