batman writes:
No, it doesn't matter that they are Islamic. What matters is the perception that creation material was allegedly imported from the USA - it wasn't. I was merely attempting to correct what appears to be a mistaken perspective. The message I was responding to stated:
"The site is part of the Harun Yahya network. Empirical proof that creationism makes a great import commodity.
I'd like to sue US creationists for dumping their creationist material to unsuspecting Islamic countries. Especially Turkey."
US Creationists did *NOT* "[dump] their creationist material to unsuspecting Islamic countries..." The Islamics in these countries came up with it all on their own without any help. If you read their material, you'll see that it is Islamic at its core.
Just to clarify some more, the Islamic creationists (aka Bilim Arastirma Vakfi (BAV - "Science Research Foundation"), the creationist group that write under the pseudonym "Harun Yahya" and is led by Adnan Oktar) have close ties to the Young-Earth Creationist organization Institute for Creation Research. However, there are important differences in the groups.
The Islamic creationists don't have any qualms about the old ages for fossils (and the age of the Earth, etc.), since the Quran is pretty vague on ages. So in addition to recycling the ICR material, they borrow freely from the "Intelligent Design" creationists which are led mostly by Old-Earth creationists (although the IDers put their differences aside regarding the age of the Earth and universe to foster their "big tent" approach). For example, they alluded to Michael Behe's "irreducible complexity" claims in the video (without explicit mention of Behe).
See
http://www.ncseweb.org/...entific_creationism_12_30_1899.asp for more information about BAV and its ties to the Institute for Creation Research.
Now, about that video:
Mutation didn't have to be added as an afterthought - Darwin already included heritable variations (i.e. mutations) in
On the Origin of Species.
As for Darwin not being aware of any transitionals, and hoping science would find some later: Darwin mentioned some in
On the Origin of Species, so he was already aware of a few examples. Two that I recall Darwin mentioning were Basilosaurus and Prozeuglodon, IIRC. Archaeopteryx was found within 2 years after the first edition of
On the Origin of Species, IIRC. And yes, those are still excellent transitional fossils, now joined by all the feathered dinosaur transitionals being discovered in China.
The Islamic creationists wheel out the old canard about no multicellular organisms before the Cambrian explosion. Apparently after so many decades, they still haven't heard of the Ediacaran fossils - ironically, they showed a Discover magazine cover with one of the multicellular pre-Cambrian fossils from the Ediacaran fossils. It appeared in the last video segment, with the Discover cover story "Evolution's Odd Experiment". See more photos of Ediacaran fossils at
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com:8100/.../chapter07-4.html
The Oxnard and Zuckerman bait-and-switch is standard creationist fare. The video seems to be referring to statements they made on other species of australopithecines before the discovery of australopithecus afarensis [or, as the video misspelled it, australopitechus]. They need to read the more recent material from Oxnard, which directly refutes the creationist conclusion.
The misrepresentation of scientists abounds in the video. Of course, they present the rhetorical questions that Darwin poses in his book - they fail to mention his answers, and by their omission, the creationists try to leave the impression that these were failures of Darwin's ideas, instead of common questions that readers would likely ask, followed by Darwin's answers.
Darwin's evolutionary tree of life is supported not only by the many transitional fossils, starting with the few he mentioned in his book, but the fossil record as a whole. Darwin's ideas are further confirmed by molecular biology and genetic sequencing, despite the video's silly claims to the contrary. Darwin included one figure in
On the Origin of Species, and the genetic data substantiate this phylogenetic relationship of all life in dendograms (tree-like figures). Even the genetic data from mitochondria (shown in the cutaway view of the cell as the small organelles) support evolution - one of the ramifications is that all known organisms with mitochondria evolved from single-celled ancestors.
Some of the stuff was just laugh-out-loud goofy, such as the characterization of the magazine "Earth" as "one of the leading periodicals of evolutionist literature". Of course, creationists are probably unfamiliar with the concept of peer-reviewed scientific literature, such as
Science and
Nature.
The Marx material was a nice propaganda touch - the video commentary was also available in Turkish, and Marxism is as good a bogeyman in Turkey as it was in the U.S. during McCarthyism.
Turkey is the most secular of the Middle Eastern countries, and the religious right there are fighting modernization and progress. The Turkish creationists have even denounced their opponents in the scientific community through the Islamic Fundamentalist newspapers, and terrorists have acted on these "hit lists". Let's hope that the ICR and the "Intelligent Design" creationists don't import that tactic from their Islamic colleagues.
Stunningly, the video may have revealed the whole problem with creationists - apparently their DNA spirals in the opposite direction than that of all other organisms on the planet. Even worse, when mutations occur in creationist DNA, instead of altering the bases or resulting in insertions or deletions (indels), some individual bases get blasted out altogether, leaving unpaired bases hanging without a partner. That would have to cause a terrible impact on their biology, particularly the neurons, so that might account for creationists asserting lies as facts.
As for production quality, the Turkish creationists should have used an English-speaking editor that could have corrected all the typos [hey, I should get one of those to read my posts before I submit them!] Of course, someone that could actually spell some of the fossils they garbled (e.g. "Zinjantrophus" [sic]) might have done some fact-checking as well, which would have left the video with very little material.
Any good things about it? The video imitated Ken Burn's documentary method of panning across a still photo, which was a good technique. The music was alright, and the narrator did a pretty good job of clearly ennunciating the creationist lies. The user interface was good, and the video ran pretty well even on my squirrel-driven computing device. All in all, it was a slick piece of creationist propaganda.
Their colleagues at the ICR would be proud.
This message has been edited by Ediacaran, 05-31-2004 10:09 AM
This message has been edited by Ediacaran, 05-31-2004 10:13 AM
This message has been edited by Ediacaran, 06-20-2004 10:50 PM
This message has been edited by Ediacaran, 07-07-2004 11:04 PM
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