Christian science deniers and Muslim science deniers are equally insane.

This is from an Islam website at ISLAM & SCIENCE.

"According to the Quran, Adam peace be upon him was created by God as a unique creation, from whom all humanity came from. But according to the current scientific understanding, there was no Adam and Eve. Rather, there was a gradual process of evolution that took millions of years to finally give rise to homo sapiens, which are descendants from a common ancestor shared by all life on this planet. The two narratives are incompatible, which means as a Muslim, one has to reject the scientific one in favour of the Quranic account."

He is saying Muslims must deny basic scientific facts. Substitute Bible for Quran and this bullshit would be exactly what a Christian tard would say. Christians, you must be proud to have so much in common with the world's largest terrorist organization, also known as Islam.

Notice the "peace be upon him" bullshit. The idiot thinks he's educated but he's still an idiot.

I wrote a comment there which of course will be censored. One of the comments is very pro-science. It was published because the writer sucked up to the anti-science idiot. Here it is:

Dear Mo,

I’ve been playing a little catch-up on your blog, and felt the need to continue our previous discussion and provide some general thoughts. I’ll start here, with this article, and segue into some thoughts from earlier ones.

What I’ve taken away from the present one is this:

Science and religion are difficult to reconcile in today’s world, and to accept one set of explanations is often seen as tantamount to the rejection of the other. However, you say, this need not be the case, at least with the Quran, since the Quran is a book that talks about “manifestation” (which to me reads “subjective reality”) rather than “essence” (reads “objective reality”), and science refers to the latter.

This manifestation vs. essence dichotomy is somewhat confusing to me, and the example you give isn’t the most clear. Your statement,

“For example, the manifestation of the moon is that it is a round body in the sky visible on a clear evening and changes phases throughout a 28-day cycle,”

is clearly a set of observations that are objectively verifiable (granted, from a human perspective) and, it seems, could still be seen as claims of its “essence”. Your second statement is perhaps more what you mean by “manifestation”, when you speak of the moon’s beauty. This claim, however, is subjective – many think the moon is pale and ominous, a body which has been used in many dark and suspenseful tales to convey a sense of foreboding. Have old and new tales of werewolves howling under the full moon not shaped our culture as much as any romance poem?

But I do take your meaning, if I’m not mistaken, in that you’re attempting to relate the qualities of the moon that pertain more to our human experience of it. Perhaps you could clarify. I do get the distinct feeling you wouldn’t simply label (as I’m tempted to) manifestation as subjective and essence as objective. Nevertheless, your account of the moon’s essence appears to be more in line with an unattached statement of what is hanging there in space – a set of claims about the factual reality of it. What it is, rather than how it seems to us.

Science, then, is the realm of essence and not this other reality of the human experience, and with science we seek to explain the essential workings of nature, whereas texts like the Quran seek to explain nature’s manifestation in human experience. By doing this little bit of fancy word-work, you seem to be suggesting it’s possible to buy into both “Truths”, as they are truths about different realms. Indeed, you say making the choice to completely reject one truth or the other leads to absurdity due to its extremity.

To be frank, I disagree. And I’d argue that taking a middle position that tries to accept both truths as you attempt to here often leads to problematic logical acrobatics and creative explanations necessary to concoct a consistent outlook. This attempted dichotomy of manifestation vs. essence (at least at first glance) smacks as such, and I feel it is being intellectually dishonest. At very least, it remains unsatisfying to the skeptic.

To start, I’d ask you the simple question whose explicit answer is conspicuously absent from this article:

Is, indeed, the Quran the “Truth”? That is, is it the literal and unaltered word revealed from the creator, God, to his messenger the Prophet Muhammed?

If your answer is yes, as many contend, then claims by God, our creator, about our creation cannot and must not be false. (Unless, I suppose, God would mislead us, in which case we should have no basis for making adequate sense of the rest of his teachings.) How could we doubt the word of the divine?

That Adam and Eve were unique creations by God from whom we have all descended is precisely one such claim. This is not simply a claim of “manifestation”. It is one of our very humanness, our essential origins. It is, of course, unverifiable, though this is excusable due to – and here we agree – the Quran not being a book of science.

But! If we can at all trust the science that has emerged over the past century, we can see clearly that this divine account of the birth of humanity cannot be true in any literal sense. It is at odds with the most basic population genetics, science which does not depend on – yet provides foundational support for – evolutionary theory, which you have expressed your doubts of. Still the most basic truth in the conservation biology is that there MUST be sufficient genetic diversity to sustain a population in the face of environmental adversity. This means a vast number of breeding pairs, and the more the better. Viability requires genetic diversity, there is little if any debate on this. With this in mind, evolutionary theory, unlike the Quran account, provides a clear and coherent account of how we arrived here today that lacks such a glaring (and incestuous) problem.

So here I’m at a loss. I fail to see (and you fail to adequately explain) how these two different accounts of the origins of humanity can be reconciled. One is consistent with a large and continually growing body of historical peer-reviewed evidence and basic scientific fact about the results of inbreeding that are demonstrably true and observable today. The other is an unambiguous claim about our origins from an infallible creator, apparently passed on through the brain of a single man and recorded 1400 years ago. I contend that attempting to reconcile these incompatable views with talk of “manifestation” vs. “essence” is a feeble attempt at maintaining loyalty to two standpoints which, in this case and many others, are at complete odds with one another. They really are at complete odds here, you must admit.

So what are we to do, then, when scientific investigation conflicts fundamentally with the Truth of God?

Personally, I’ve had to take your second option and reject the God explanation, in any sense that I’ve understood it thus far. If this perhaps most fundamental of God’s claims is demonstrably wrong, what about the others? If it is somehow a metaphor, how am I to understand the rest of the scripture if not as allegories on how to live a good life, written in a different era of understanding?

As I’ve mentioned, giving this up was not an easy choice for me (of course, my exposure was to Christianity, but the point remains). I rejected the Bible, but this did not mean I’d rejected spirituality, morality, or even some forms of mysticism. Furthermore, it does not mean I am not open to the distinct possibility of there existing a creator, however unlikely I deem it. What it does mean is that I’ve relegated my need for the spiritual to that which is not well understood and which I reserve judgment on, as well as given up on monotheistic scripture as a complete guide to life.

What you’ve done is a different approach, and one that I would argue is more in line with your first option – ie. the rejection of science. Of course, you don’t reject all science. In fact, you celebrate much of it. Instead, what you do in your writings is attack what you perceive as weaknesses of reasoning, of backwards induction, and of the scientific methods employed to arrive at the theories and conclusions which conflict fundamentally with your beliefs. Though you are a person of science and value many of the insights it affords, you are selective with it, and claim to legitimately throw it out where it does not meet stringent philosophical and methodological requirements.

In the case of macroevolution or speciation by natural selection, since it hasn’t been directly observed it cannot be validated in your mind. The huge body of multidisciplinary work in paleontology, in geology, geography, archeology, biology, etc. that elegantly meshes together within the purview of evolutionary theory be damned! It hasn’t been SEEN, except for a few changes in bacteria which reversed once the pressure was lifted. Nevermind, of course, that this reversion can be seen as further evidence of selection pressures determining trait variation. On this note I find it rather interesting that synaptic plasticity as a foundation of learning, the subject of your neuroscience graduate work, rests on very similarly unobservable ground. How can we be sure that plasticity really is learning? Sure it seems like a good model, but has it really been observed? If not, should we really be proceeding under the assumption that it is? Certainly we should think twice about the synonymity with which we use “plasticity” and “learning” in the neuroscience literature. It has always seemed rather strange that you don’t appear to attack the notion that plasticity=learning with such fervor as you do evolution. Perhaps it, too, should be called the “hypothesis of synaptic plasticity as learning and memory”?

Still, it is your fundamental right and obligation as a scientific mind to question and critique the body of knowledge which exists before you. The problem is that this is typically done with evidence at one’s side, which does not seem to be the case for you. Instead, you are arguing against a large and established body of evidence from a standpoint which is entirely lacking in quantifiability – that is, a creationist view. Still, you say that one need not have a more valid explanation to throw out a bad one, which is quite true. Oddly, though, you very seldomly provide an explicit critique of much of the actual work that has gone into the construction of evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory, you say,

“ relies on a set of postulates that are derived from observations of gene fluctuations, which are unjustifiably, and quite fallaciously induced into an elaborate process of speciation and diversification.”

yet you fail to elaborate on any specific postulates or problems with these postulates. We are left wondering what might be unjustifiable or fallacious, and about the apparent observations of gene fluctuations which are so problematic. This lack of following through with your analyses and critiques is common in your writing, as you regularly fail to illuminate the reader with any supporting statements of your claims. You simply state that something is erroneous or fallacious, and move on. Here is another example of it from your passage on atheists:

“The vast majority of books put out and read by science-worshipping atheists are sophistical in their reasoning and embarrassing in their conclusions.”

What, exactly are the examples of sophistical reasoning? What are the conclusions that stem from them? Please, break them down for your readers so we, too, can understand what is fallacious about them. Which of their conclusions are embarrassing, and why? For whom should we feel embarrassed? There are numerous examples of this in your writing.

Instead of providing us with a real and grounded analysis, you are essentially name-calling and at most relying on philosophical arguments about the limitations of the scientific method and of induction to make your points. Indeed, these are fundamental considerations. The scientific method being governed by established paradigms and authoritative individuals is a constant issue, one that I think most scientists admit. However, there are clear-cut examples over the history of science that demonstrate its self-correcting nature (google Marc Hauser for a recent one). Scientists are many in today’s world, and most like nothing better than to shoot holes in theories and ideas that no longer jive with the data. I maintain that you give a serious lack of credit to a theory like evolution, one that both initiated a massive paradigm shift and has endured for over a century. You present things as though the masses are tragically misguided by their faith in science and belief in evolution, that current understanding is based on inductive fallacy and appeal to authority, but this is simply not true. Given the breadth and scope of the theory of evolution – that is the vast number of fields of evidence that it draws upon for its conclusions – the appeal to authority fallacy is easily shrugged off. How likely is it, really, that hundreds or thousands of scientists from vastly divergent fields, each rife with its own experts and controversies, over the course of the past 100 years (so significant turnover has occurred), would remain united in their understanding of the earth’s history if the evidence didn’t suggest it beyond a shadow of a doubt? Whose authority grants so much power as to silence all legitimate scientific questioning? It must be a grand conspiracy, indeed. Again, this is a moment where providing a serious critique and a collection of dissident works which are sound in their methods would be a welcome rebuttal.

As far as induction goes, it is certainly not the strongest method of coming to a true conclusion. However, you continually call it fallacious. Certainly, it is not deduction, where the conclusions are claimed to necessarily follow from the premises, but induction is not invalid, simply a probabalistic claim based on the information at hand. When it comes to evolution, the information at hand is immense, and if a conclusion achieved by induction appears to hold true across a century of criticism and inquiry, one begins to doubt its falsehood. This isn’t to say that all aspects of evolutionary theory will hold up, but it seems difficult if you accept many of the most basic and well-accepted claims of the sciences that evolutionary theory rests upon (ie. the earth is billions of years old and has constantly changed in climate and geography, that life is coded by genes and gene replication is subject to error which yields measurable changes in phenotype) to deny that evolution occurs. In a clear cut way, once you’ve granted me a few induction-derived premises, natural selection may be as good as deduced. Drastic phenotypic change demonstrably occurs over the course of time when selective pressures are applied – humans have been doing this for centuries (dogs, livestock, wheat, flowers, etc.). Yet there is no need for the selective pressures to have come from us. The environment provides myriad opportunity, and the age of the earth allows for the diversity of life seen today.

Lastly, I’d like to express disappointment at your construction of a straw-man science-worshipping atheist, some hubristic hedonist which you accuse of ulterior motives. Quotes like this,

“It seems that science-worshipping atheists are using science and what they call “reason” as veils to cover their dissatisfaction with being told to bow to something greater than they can comprehend. More interestingly, they also seem to be using these veils to cover up their discontent with being told “do this and don’t do that”.”

and discussions of our atheistic pursuit of constant fulfilling of our “caprices and desires” are not only unsubstantiated, but they demonstrate a self-righteousness inherent in your viewpoint which undercuts the credibility of your arguments. You can feel the scorn dripping from your words, and as such you simply serve to further polarize readers – both those who agree with your point of view, and those who don’t. If your aim is to be divisive, by all means continue. You will continue to gain the adoration of fans who share your point of view, and the hostility of those who don’t.

I apologize, because this has been a rather lengthy critique of your writings, and I know that it has at times been pointed. My intent has never been to offend. I know you respect debate and thought, and I also think that in writing on these topics in the polemic fashion you do, you must be prepared for such responses. Furthermore, I think you’re a smart and well-educated man, both in science and scripture, but I feel you’re being very selective in your analyses at times, and perhaps not as intellectually honest as you could be.

Science certainly does not agree with scripture on pointed issues, and where they are at odds, I believe evidential and rational understanding (despite its shortcomings) of the world should win every time.

Look forward to continuing this conversation further at your leisure.

All the best,

-C