ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Salman Rushdie, of all people, weighs in on evolution and atheism in this
short piece from a few weeks ago:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Artic
le_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1116770647079&DPL=IvsNDS/7Ch
AX&tacodalogin=yes
<http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Arti
cle_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1116770647079&DPL=IvsNDS/7C
hAX&tacodalogin=yes>

A defense of atheism, OK-whatever-fine.
But what raised my eyebrows was the line “Muslim voices the world over are
claiming that evolutionary theory is incompatible with Islam.”

Is this true?  I’d never heard that before.  Is this evolution “controversy”
going to be an eventual problem for European science centers as well (to say
nothing of Middle Eastern and Indonesian centers), who presumably serve a
larger Muslim population than North American members of the ASTC Nation?
Did the number of opponents of evolution just increase by a billion?  This,
from the religion that, at its best, brought us astronomy, al-chemy, and
hundreds of years of mathematical progress?

I am somewhat distressed by this news.
N
Nik Charov
Development Associate
New York Hall of Science
E: [log in to unmask]


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