Evolution Update: Profile of Harun Yahya

As chance would have it, not long after our Hampshire conference on evolution and the Muslim world, there appears an article nicely complementing Ronald Numbers's keynote lecture. Writing in the current New Humanist, Halil Arda offers a damning profile of the leading Islamic creatonist in "Sex, flies and videotape: the secret lives of Harun Yahya":

Inspired by the high profile of its Christian American counterpart, Muslim creationism is becoming increasingly visible and confident. On scores of websites and in dozens of books with titles like The Evolution Deceit and The Dark Face of Darwinism, a new and well-funded version of evolution-denialism, carefully calibrated to exploit the current fashion for religiously inspired attacks on scientific orthodoxy and “militant” atheism, seems to have found its voice. In a recent interview with The Times Richard Dawkins himself recognises the impact of this new phenomenon: “There has been a sharp upturn in hostility to teaching evolution in the classroom and it’s mostly coming from Islamic students.”

The article focuses as much on Yahya's personal foibles as his fradulent science.

Conclusion: "He is a deluded megalomaniac who has artfully exploited the global resurgence of religious sentiment to cheat us all. A ludicrous man for ludicrous times." (read the rest)