After making an announcement that iERA will address science I was not exactly holding my breath. Yet, sure enough, they did. In a sense. Well, almost. They issued a few pages on evolution and what it represents for Muslims. The following is a transcript of the associated video:
During the last 500 years, Muslims have not exactly
demonstrated a propensity to contribute to mankind in the field of science. The
Koran teaches not to query or question, but to accept and knuckle under, to
submit. More than half the Muslims can’t read or write and have little or no
education. This shows, as only a single scientific Nobel Prize has ever been
awarded to a Muslim and anything significant, whether a bicycle, a phone or
electricity were discovered or invented by non-Muslims.
These are the facts. Even though Islam is an oral based
tradition, Muslims require a book, the Koran. Because that book is highly vague
and ambiguous, they require explanatory books. Because these explanatory books
are not precise enough they require even more explanations and when those dry
up they resort to interpretations. This has resulted in a huge amount of texts
all dedicated to Muslims and their attitude to life and their god. Because
these texts have been created over large time periods and across regions and
even continents, they contain differences, which are today tearing Islam apart.
1000 years ago, Islam was a coherent worldview, an attitude
towards life and focussed on a god with clear attributes and demands. Over time
humans increased in sophistication and brain activity, which was further
stimulated through the contact with other civilisations. This lead to an
increasingly critical view, as more and more logical contradictions were found
and the critical analysis of the central book in Islam, the Koran, revealed
huge flaws. Instead of tackling the problems head-on and accepting the passage
of time, Muslim clerics refused and still refuse to acknowledge any errors or
mistakes in the book and stubbornly defend their antiquated positions regarding
the entire worldview. 1000 years ago, Arabs of different denominations and
religions worked together and researched for the benefit of all. This ability
seems to have been lost.
With the advent of the internet, the tactic of hiding
anything unpleasant and flaunting only what was deemed positive, broke down. An
initiative, which was highly dishonest and of dubious ethical value, tried to
artificially inject some modern thinking in the way of scientific discoveries
into Islam and the Koran. This was eventually revealed and led to a further
humiliation of the Muslim community and further exacerbating the built-in
inferiority complex.
This stubborn refusal to modernise and restructure Islam
sees a highly divisive and sectarian religion with hundreds of groups now
fighting each other over who has the better implementation of the
interpretation of the Koran and the sole path to salvation while all others are
doomed.
This is the situation and the backdrop where Muslims try and
come to terms with what is going on today. Groups try and gather financial
support from their followers to try and sell their particular version of Islam.
iERA is one such group. In their desperation to secure a slice of the cake of
donations from the Muslim community, they follow the Christian apologetics and
copy them word for word. In the past this was limited to philosophical topics
and is now going into the scientific arena. iERA got badly burnt when they
tried to bring embryology into the Koran and yet, they are now trying something
similar with evolution.
Why evolution? Well, the internet is available to most and
anyone with just a medium education can establish what is fact and what is
fiction. For decades, Muslim apologists have drummed the sentences into the
brains of followers that the Koran encourages thinking and checking, not
knowing this would backfire at a later stage.
But still today, there are Muslims who are being told and
believe that the Koran categorically states that the first human, Adam, was
created by their god. Literally, manually and physically. They don’t check for
themselves to find that the Koran does not explain any of the processes and
does not even state anything about Adam being the very first human or how Eve –
or rather his spouse – was created. The Koran does not specify where this
happened and why clay was used or whether all other humans were direct
offspring from Adam and his spouse. The Koran does say that humans were created in stages and this is taken by
some to mean that the Koran condones and accepts evolution.
So we have different groups propagating different concepts
and versions of interpretations of the Koran. And then we have reality. iERA
has decided to keep their followers dumb and uninformed. They opt for the
method of trying to shoot down the last 200 years of human development and ultimately
return to the 7th century, where people reigned not by intellect,
but the sword. Where a god was not allowed to be questioned and the clergy made
the rules. Everyone was equal, except for the few who were more equal.
Yes, I must admit, I have heard many of the Islamic slogans
and lines of reasoning all the way to the propaganda and hi-jacking of events
and discoveries from Communists in the 70s. Well, we all know it failed then
and it is failing now.
iERA take a silly route of trying to falsify or at least
damage the reputation of science. Because this is all it is: an emotional and
rather primitive whining. Ignoring facts.
Finding a mistake in the calculation of the speed of light
will not affect light itself in any way.
Finding a mistake in the explanation of how evolution works
does not influence evolution.
The Theory of Evolution is an explanation of how we humans
think evolution works. This is based on facts, observations, experiments and
induction – as well as deduction.
Humans being humans, we have learnt from our mistakes and
have devised a methodology to combat fraud and ensure a high degree of
reliability of what we describe. This has been and still is described in the
Philosophy of Science.
That’s why the Scientific Method was introduced; the process
to ensure only valid data is used and a single opinion is unable to induce
authority,.
This is not perfect and mistakes still happen, but they are
not as common and possible as easily as a few decades ago. Because this system
is quite rigid and robust, people who have tried to manipulate a specific
branch of science and failed have vented their frustration in claiming
conspiracies and making movies like Expelled and writing pamphlets like the
people over at iERA are doing.
I will not do a line by line deconstruction because it is
simply too ridiculous and the pamphlet is a disappointing farce. It uses huge
words such as “metaphysical presupposition” or “metaphysical assumptions”, which
are never defined or explained.
Entire sentences such as “Since empiricism is a key
metaphysical assumption used to justify evolution” are thrown out there without
bothering to show what it is or how it is used.
The amount of insecurity, ignorance and sheer stupidity
comes through, when sentences such as “therefore evolution is tentative, in
other words it can change based upon
future observations.” pop up. The person writing this has just used the
expressions “Philosophy of Science” and the “Scientific Method” and then
pretends as though this is something different and new.
The Theory of Evolution is indeed tentative. That is the
entire point. It gets updated on a daily basis.
Why don’t people without any knowledge on a particular
subject first try and get to grips with some facts before embarrassing
themselves and all Muslims who ecstatically click “Like” without understanding
what they are doing?
What absolutely cracks me up is this childish and incredibly
primitive attempt at making science look bad:
Conclusions:
a. Science is a limited
method of study with its own scope and sphere.
b. The philosophy of
science brings to light a whole range of issues and problems concerning the
theory and study of knowledge (epistemology).
c. The philosophy of
science, when applied to evolution, exposes it as not reaching the level of
certainty.
d. Revelation is a source
of certain knowledge.
e. In situations where
science and Divine revelation are irreconcilable, revelation supersedes
science.
The inherent definitions of science are made to look as
though this is a secret and iERA have just uncovered this. Then, the contents
of a religious book is defined as fact.
When I fly I normally wear plastic nose clips when going
above 2000 metres.
iERA now argue with me whether brass or wooden nose clips
are prescribed – without realising they should first establish that I can
actually fly. The material of the nose clip is completely irrelevant if I can’t
really fly.
So we have just learned that you first need to establish the
existence of something before discussing their attributes.
In other words:
First prove that this god you speak of exists before making
the book he supposedly authored a fact or certainty. Easy.
This is now repeated endlessly and on the next 14 pages every
possible –ism is now listed to show what a weak system science with its
philosophy and methodology is - and what science can’t do.
What is happening is that iERA are showing their followers
some cards, briefly, and tell them what it says. Then the next card. And so on.
With these cards they now construct a beautiful, comforting, cosy structure and
place some veils in between this structure and the people. They declare this
the result and ask followers to now verify the result.
Muslims who have been given results and have then verified
them are used to this and willingly comply. They don’t care about reality or
facts and only set out to verify the result. When they were given the result
that the Koran miraculously contains scientific facts million and millions of
Muslims set out to verify this, not caring about reality or facts.
Because Muslims are used to knuckling under and doing as
they are told, they now go and verify the construct iERA puts before them. BUT
there are exceptions. Some use the faculties quoted above and now put them to
use, not to verify but ask questions. They go and lift one veil after the other
and finally reach the cards to see for themselves whether what they say is what
iERA says they say.
One card talks about the definition of science. It is
brought up almost 100 years ago by Bertrand Russell, not a scientist, but a
philosopher. It is cut down to 2 lines.
And this is what he really said, not defining science but
differentiating religion from science. Is this academically dishonest?
You remove the false card.
The next card says that science has no bearing or opinion on
religion and does not concern itself with the super-natural, while iERA says it
says: science has replaced religion, citing a guy researching telepathy and
psychic animals.
You remove the false card.
iERA says the scientific method consists of 4 points and
quote a few points from a Berkley page on understanding science and instead of
reading it and learning, they select a few lines and do a bit of copy/paste and
that’s it. Here’s what it really looks like and what the site itself says about
what NOT to do. They explain everything in an easy to understand fashion using
high-level diagrams and each one opens up for more detailed explanations. So if
iERA had followed just these simple instructions they would have understood
what science is and what it is not and could have saved themselves the
embarrassment of this useless piece of paper.
You remove the false card.
What is worse however is that I can now take their own
sources and refute them – the same phenomenon found in their horribly bad and
flawed embryology pamphlet.
iERA says that a card says that science is limited
because “questions such as does God
exist? And is there a soul? are outside the realm of the scientific method”.
You look at the definition of science and find that science does not concern
itself with the super-natural by definition.
You remove the false card.
It’s like saying: submarines are limited. They can’t fly.
It is truly pathetic. The title says: Has evolution been
misunderstood? How many times is evolution addressed? Never. The entire 25-page
effort is only doing one thing: trying to sow doubt. Doubt that science has a
correct understanding of something. Doubt that a human can never be right when
an invisible, unproven god is believed to say something else. Which in the case
of the Koran, is not even the case. But the Hadiths, which contradict the
Koran, do require the faith of a Muslim to question the veracity of science.
Even if I address every claim made here, I will
automatically be accused of not having read this petty pamphlet and that I have
not understood it. Standard knee-jerk reaction.
Thomas Kuhn, considered to be one of the fathers of the
Philosophy of Science explained the different approaches to scientific
discovery and documentation as puzzles and revolutions.
A puzzle-solver is not entering
completely uncharted territory. Because its puzzles and their solutions are
familiar and relatively straightforward, normal science can expect to
accumulate a growing stock of puzzle-solutions. Revolutionary science, however,
is not cumulative in that, according to Kuhn, scientific revolutions involve a
revision to existing scientific belief or practice (1962/1970a, 92). Not all
the achievements of the preceding period of normal science are preserved in a
revolution, and indeed a later period of science may find itself without an
explanation for a phenomenon that in an earlier period was held to be
successfully explained.
He explained how the different topics required different
approaches and why different time periods seem to switch between discoveries
and stagnation or consolidation.
He also pointed out the problems when comparing mass in
connection with Newton and Einstein. They were different types of mass – or
just more general and specific views of mass. This is how science finds
definitions and explanations, trying to work together instead of against each
other. iERA used him for one of their quotes – why didn’t they read what else
he wrote? Or is it because Dr. William Lane Craig did not mention this?
In their desperation, iERA has to ultimately turn to the
apologists from the US Discovery Institute, who are Christian apologists
without any discoveries, but with wild claims regarding their god. iERA copies
them, without really understanding what they are copying.
The Muslim who has dared to approach the construct iERA has
built up has pulled false card after false card and finally, the entire thing
comes crashing down. Now what?
Well, the shiny and comfortable result is gone and now this
person can take the cards with their correct meanings and put them where they
belong, one by one. Slowly, this leads to result, maybe not as shiny or
comfortable as the iEAR one, but this one delivers the satisfaction that it is
built on facts and not wishful thinking. It is real.
Every Muslim can do this. It is a matter of choice. And if
you shy away from reality, everyone understands that years of brainwashing
can’t be instantly discarded. Just have the tolerance towards others to not
believe what you believe.
The rest of this iERA tripe is making observations like:
most cars can’t fly. How this is supposed to contribute anything is beyond me.
We get the barrage of names I forecast and short, meaningless quotes which do
not serve any apparent purpose other than to introduce as many well-known names
as possible. I am well aware that the introduction says this is just a paper to
get people thinking about the “scientific method” and the “philosophy of
science”. But is this primitive act of quote mining really going to “evoke
thinking” or drive the wedge in even further between scientific reality and
Muslims lacking knowledge and education? Imagine what happens when the school
teacher in some village in Bangladesh or Niger gets this paper and discusses it
in class? The teacher will not know that this is based on fabrication,
disinformation and quote mining. Why don’t iERA also think of their social
responsibility instead of only the cheers they get from their home crowd? But I
suppose money talks louder than compassion.
The absolute and total highlight of this idiotic piece of
nonsense is when iERA deliver their proof for the divine origin of this book:
the Kalam Cosmological Argument! My goodness! Is that all iERA have to offer? I
almost died when I read this the first time round because I was sipping on a
cup of coffee.
I also laughed at this one:
1. All men are mortal.
2. Margret is not a man.
3. Therefore, Margret is immortal.
Idiotic.
As idiotic as a personal anecdote found at the end of the
paper. I only know one person so idiotic as to put this here, and that is the
senior clown of iERA, Hamza “The Liar” Tzortzis. The claim is that there was a
“personal conversation” with Richard Dawkins. I only know of one such
encounter, so if there is another I am mistaken here. The only one I know of,
which was Hamza sticking a microphone under the nose of Professor Dawkins when
he came outside when at a convention. The encounter lasted a full 3 or 3 and
half minutes – what a “personal conversation”. Half the time was taken by Hamza
talking at Professor Dawkins, who indignantly asked “what are you talking
about?”, no pause or silence happened and the question regarding philosophy of
science as opposed to “doing science” was never put. So either this is a
personal conversation I am unaware of or this is just another lie.
So in conclusion we see that the iERA paper lacks a rigorous
structure, does not define the terms it uses, contains useless expressions and
simply repeats the same thing again and again. It does not explain evolution or
what the Koran actually claims and does not show what results a Muslim can find
when comparing evolution to Islam. iERA claim that anyone who accepts evolution
must do so because others say so. This is just another lie. Anyone who is
interested can access the data and can check the assumptions or conclusions.
This is impossible when encountering creation by a god.
The only thing missing from this paper was Adolf Hitler, who
loves to make an appearance when emotional negativity is used.
I would have expected an analysis of what evolution does
using the Theory of Evolution and what process the Koran suggests, to have a
basis for a comparison. I would have tackled the most common misconceptions and
errors Muslims make and shown what actually happens in real life when applying
the Koran. Sadly, iERA is unable to provide the service I would expect, if I
were a paying member of their group.
Fail!
In this video I follow up what was in the announcement made
by Hamza “The Liar” Tzortzis and iERA regarding a pamphlet/article on evolution
and the way humans explain it.
I show that iERA don’t understand evolution and the theory,
don’t understand science in general and fail at providing any kind of useful
information for anyone. It is embarrassing!
All this ridiculously bad paper does, is try and deceive
readers to think that science is highly unreliable and always wrong - if the
Koran says so. They use the old and tired approach provided by Christian
apologists and charlatans without adding any value to their nonsense.
This is 2nd time a pamphlet with a scientific
topic is launched by iERA and completely fails. Why anyone takes this bungling
collection of ignorants serious is beyond me.
This is an example of the level of knowledge within the Muslim community, who quite openly, in this case on Facebook, write highly embarrassing stuff and think nothing of it:
Moataz
Mohamed
And within the land are neighboring plots and gardens of grapevines and crops and palm trees, [growing] several from a root or otherwise, watered with one water; but We make some of them exceed others in [quality of] fruit. Indeed in that are signs for a people who reason.
they claim that different food cause mutation (i.e. the teeth of predators that eats meat or hard stuff & the teeth of preys that eats plants)
do not you see ppl plants share the same sun ,water ,air & soil in " neighboring plots" yet the kingdom of plants contains more than 500 thousand type of plants
this is not evo ,this is a signs for a people who reason.
evo is just a myth
they claim that macro mutation happens just like cancer & both occur because of the same reasons
but cancer takes few months or years to occur while macro mutation did not happen since the days of the "claimed" ancestor of homo-sapiens .
what evolved first the brain or the heart ?
be generous & do not ask how the brain evolved from nothing ?
lets assume that things happen
well, the brain needs blood from the heart ,it wont survive without it
in the same time, the heart needs the brain to operate ,so the heart wont survive without the brain
if one of the 2 evolved first how would it survive with out the other ??
chance do not build systems
oh wait , the brain needs the nutrients from the blood & so do the heart , so the brain & heart needs the digestive system too , in turns D.sys. needs both the heart & the brain & it wount survive without them , they just say "Nature did it" cuz they do not want to admit that "Allaah did it"
And within the land are neighboring plots and gardens of grapevines and crops and palm trees, [growing] several from a root or otherwise, watered with one water; but We make some of them exceed others in [quality of] fruit. Indeed in that are signs for a people who reason.
they claim that different food cause mutation (i.e. the teeth of predators that eats meat or hard stuff & the teeth of preys that eats plants)
do not you see ppl plants share the same sun ,water ,air & soil in " neighboring plots" yet the kingdom of plants contains more than 500 thousand type of plants
this is not evo ,this is a signs for a people who reason.
evo is just a myth
they claim that macro mutation happens just like cancer & both occur because of the same reasons
but cancer takes few months or years to occur while macro mutation did not happen since the days of the "claimed" ancestor of homo-sapiens .
what evolved first the brain or the heart ?
be generous & do not ask how the brain evolved from nothing ?
lets assume that things happen
well, the brain needs blood from the heart ,it wont survive without it
in the same time, the heart needs the brain to operate ,so the heart wont survive without the brain
if one of the 2 evolved first how would it survive with out the other ??
chance do not build systems
oh wait , the brain needs the nutrients from the blood & so do the heart , so the brain & heart needs the digestive system too , in turns D.sys. needs both the heart & the brain & it wount survive without them , they just say "Nature did it" cuz they do not want to admit that "Allaah did it"
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