by Salman Hameed

[Updated below]

It is hard now to keep up with spectacular science news. Nevertheless, it is sometimes good to pause for a bit to appreciate the way scientists find clues about history. Here are three news items in the same issue of Science that I found riveting. This just reminded me of the crude nature of evolution-creation debates - and how those discussion take place in a parallel dumb universe ("where is the missing link?"; "Evolution is just a theory" etc.).

Here is the story of the bubonic plague. It was suspected that the Byzantine empire was hit by a bubonic plague that hastened its decline in the 6th century and later. This decline also facilitated the phenomenal expansion of Islam into the Byzantine territories. But do we know that this was a bubonic plague? Well now we do:

The Justinian Plague, which resurfaced regularly between the 6th and 8th centuries, is thought to have assisted the decline of the Roman Empire, but it has, until now, only been speculatively diagnosed as bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Using stringent ancient DNA anticontamination protocols, Harbeck et al. have genotyped new material from the early medieval graveyard at Aschheim, Bavaria, dating from the 6th century. This graveyard contained 438 individuals, often in multiple burials—a sign of crisis. The amount of bacterial material available was scant, but Y. pestis was identified from one individual using five key single-nucleotide polymorphisms identified in recent phylogenies. Genotyping confirmed this isolate as basal to isolates from the 14th-century Black Death and the modern (19th-century) third pandemic and that, like the other pandemics, it originated in China or Mongolia.

Full article at: PLoS Pathogens 9, 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003349 (2013).

Then we have this phenomenal work of decoding of the Neanderthal DNA as well as another hominid group called the Denisovians. What is fascinating is that the researchers can tell not only that humans and Neanderthals interbred (yes - for those outside of Africa, about 2% of the DNA comes from Neanderthals), but that at least in some cases Neanderthal first cousins had offsprings:

Neandertals, the closest known relatives to modern humans, ranged across Europe to western Asia from perhaps 300,000 years ago until about 30,000 years ago. Their overlap in time and space with our ancestors had fueled debate about whether the two species had interbred. Then, in 2010, Pääbo's group published a low-coverage sequence (1.3 copies on average) of DNA from three Neandertal bones from Croatia, which showed interbreeding: About 2% of the DNA in living people from outside Africa originally comes from Neandertals (Science, 7 May 2010, pp. 680 and 710). 

That first Neandertal sequence was a huge accomplishment, as Neandertal DNA made up just a few percent of the DNA in the fossils, the rest being bacterial and other contaminants. Since then, the Leipzig group has found ways to zero in on human genetic material and to get more from degraded ancient DNA by using a sequencing method that starts with single, rather than double, strands of DNA. The approach provided a startlingly detailed view of the Denisovan pinkie bone (Science, 31 August 2012, p. 1028). 

But this powerful technique had yet to be applied to Neandertals. So Pääbo was thrilled when the DNA in the sample taken from the toe bone proved to be 60% Neandertal. The researchers were able to sequence each base 50 times over, on average—enough coverage to ensure the sequence is correct. This approach also provided low coverage of the genome from another fossil, a Neandertal baby's rib, more than 50,000 years old, from a cave in Russia's Caucasus region between the Caspian and Black seas. 

In a 10 p.m. talk to a full house, Pääbo offered some surprising results from the toe bone. For long stretches, the DNA from each parental chromosome is closely matched, strongly suggesting that this Neandertal was the offspring of two first cousins, he said. Comparing the data with those from the fossils from Croatia and the Caucasus showed that these populations were fairly separated from one another. The group also compared the chunks of Neandertal DNA found in living people with each of these three Neandertal samples. The closest match was with the Caucasus population, suggesting that interbreeding with our ancestors most likely occurred closer to that region.

Okay - so scientists, I think, are now invading the privacy of this inter-species relations. Do we really have to know what our ancestors were doing tens of thousands of years ago on those cold nights? ;) 

Actually we do.

Full story here (but you will need subscription). 

Okay - so moving on from our misbehaving ancestors to the shipwrecks carrying marble for temples. What is amazing here is that scientists can not only identify the dates of the shipwreck, but they can tell where the marble was quarried from and where it was headed. This is pretty cool (and Urdu speakers will know why Marble is called Sang-e-Marmar - the stone of the Marmara): 

Sometime between 100 B.C.E and 25 B.C.E., a wooden ship carrying almost 60 tonnes of

stone foundered in Aegean waters just off the coast of Turkey. It went down bearing its entire cargo, including eight massive drum-shaped blocks of white marble. Those blocks fit together to form part of a tapering column that likely stood more than 11 meters tall, plus a square uppermost piece: a Doric column. 

Two thousand years after the ship went down, archaeologists excavating what is now called the Kizilburun shipwreck have figured out exactly where the marble blocks came from and where they were heading, illuminating the marble trade in the Roman province of Asia Minor.
...
Carlson and classical archaeologist William Aylward of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. first set out to learn where the marble came from. As reported in a 2010 study in the American Journal of Archaeology, the team sent out samples of the marble for stable isotope analysis and other tests. The marble's values of the isotopes δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O and its spectroscopic details led them to Marmara Island, known as Proconnesos in Roman times, in the Sea of Marmara, the inland sea connecting the Aegean and Black seas. This island was the site of an important marble quarry when Asia Minor became a Roman province around 130 B.C.E. 

But where was the marble heading? The blocks' size and style suggest that the column was intended for a major public building, most likely a temple. Carlson and Aylward drew up a list of all the Doric-style monumental buildings under construction in the 1st century B.C.E. on coastlines south of the wreck site, the probable direction of travel away from the quarry. Then they searched for sites with a finished lower-column diameter of about 1.73 meters. They concluded that the marble was headed for the Temple of Apollo at Claros, where people in Roman times flocked to seek advice from oracles, just 50 kilometers from the wreck. That finding is "utterly convincing," says architectural historian Lothar Haselberger of the University of Pennsylvania. 

The data show that the quarry workers on Proconnesos were in close contact with the temple builders some 500 kilometers or more away, shaping the marble to the builders' exact specifications. The findings also show that the builders received columns in pieces in small shipments, hinting at a lengthy construction process. This information, says Carlson, "is the missing link that tells us a lot about this process."                   

Read the full story here (yes - subscription will be needed).                  

[Update - May 29th: So scientists can say quite a bit from DNA analyses about what humans and Neanderthals were doing tens of thousands of years ago, but according to the Council of Islamic Ideology in Pakistan, DNA analysis cannot be used as primary evidence in rape cases (it can be used as secondary evidence). Shame for that]. 

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by Salman Hameed

Carl Zimmer has written some fantastic books on evolution, including this textbook intended for non-majors: The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution. Also check out his blog: The Loom. Here is a short video where he explains the evolution of feathers. Enjoy!

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by Salman Hameed

Earlier today, the Pew Forum has released a survey of Muslims in 39 countries. The report is titled The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society and provides a fascinating look into the complex ways Muslims are negotiating the modern world (thanks to Neha Sahgal!). In the past couple of years I have written several posts that have utilized the Pew data about Muslims. You should check out
Pew Study: Mapping the Global Muslim Population
Importance of religion for Muslims and their religious practice
Pew global religious landscape: Young Muslims and the unaffiliated
How the Muslim world sees American science and the drones
Pew Survey: Mahdi, Jesus, devotional dancing and sorcery

What does the new report says? Well, a lot of focus will be on opinions on sharia, opinions on women's rights, and extremism etc. I will also have later posts on that. But let me focus here on the question on human evolution. In 22 countries, Muslims were asked if they think that humans and other living things have a) Always existed in present form, or b) Evolved over time.

Here are the results:

Several things to comment here.
1) Interestingly, most Muslims around the world (median 53%) agree with the statement that humans and other living things have evolved over time. There is a large variation amongst countries, with Muslims in Kazakhstan (79%) and Lebanon (78%) having the highest levels of evolution acceptance and Iraq (27%) and Afghanistan (26%) having the lowest rates.

2) In 13 of 22 countries, more than half of respondents accept human evolution. On the other hand, in only four countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Indonesia) do more than half of the respondents reject human evolution (for good measure, we can throw in Turkey in this as well, with 49%). 

3) Pakistan has the most undecided population, with 30% accepting human evolution, 38% rejecting it, and 32% undecided.

4) There are some fascinating variations within the same geographical regions. For example, Morocco has a higher human evolution acceptance rate (63%) than Tunisia (45%); Iraq's acceptance is low (26%) compared to Jordan (52%), Palestinian territories (67%), and Lebanon (78%). And Bangladesh has a higher acceptance rate (54%) compared to Pakistan's at 30%. On the flip side, Malaysia (37%) and Indonesia (39%) are almost identical - something that we have also found in these two countries in  our oral interviews of Muslim physicians and medical students. 

What is causing these differences? Well, we can look at some other indicators to make some sense of it. The Pew survey also included a question about science and religion. In particular, if Muslims see a conflict between science and religion. Here are the results: 

It seems that most Muslims do not see a conflict between science and religion. This is not surprising as there exists a strong narrative of science and Islam harmony since the late 19th century. So does the variation in science and religion attitudes explain the variations in evolution acceptance rates within the same geographical region? Well, it may possibly work for the case of Tunisia and Morocco (42% of Tunisians think there is conflict between science and religion, compared with only 18% of Moroccans) if one believes that the conflict idea leads to a greater rejection of evolution. But then the opposite is true for the case of Bangladesh and Pakistan, where more Bangladeshis see a conflict between science and religion, but also have a higher level of acceptance of human evolution compared to Pakistan.

And if you are looking for even more variety, you can look at southeast asia, where less than a third of respondents in Thailand (26%), Indonesia (26%), and Malaysia (30%) see a conflict between religion and science, but more than half of Muslims in Thailand (55%) accept human evolution, compared to Indonesia (39%) and Malaysia (37%). Similarly, only a handful of respondents in Jordan, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories see a conflict between science and religion, but only 26% of Iraqis accept human evolution, compared to 52% and 67% of Muslims in Jordan and the Palestinian territories, respectively. 

So what is the grand lesson from all this? Well, it seems that not only is there diversity in human evolution responses of Muslims around the world, but there is also diversity in evolution acceptance and its relation with science and religion perceptions.

5) It seems like the global median acceptance for Muslims is higher than that of Muslims in the US:

On first glance, it may seem that Muslims in the US are being impacted by the American flavor of creationism. Well, may be. There a number of Muslim countries with acceptance rates similar to the US - and may simply be due to some other internal factors. But this is an interesting question and we definitely intend to look into it a bit more. By the way, here is the distribution of evolution acceptance in the US based on religion: 

6) This is probably just a coincidence, but the lowest levels of evolution acceptance is found in Afghanistan (26%), Iraq (27%), and Pakistan (30%). Hmm. Interesting. These are the three countries with substantial recent US military intervention. 

7) Religious observance is correlated only with countries in Southern-eastern Europe: 

In countries surveyed in Southern and Eastern Europe, more religiously observant Muslims are less likely to believe in evolution. In Russia, for example, 41% of Muslims who pray several times a day believe in evolution, compared with 66% of those who pray less frequently. Significant gaps also appear between more and less devout Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina (-19 percentage points) and Kosovo (-14). Views on evolution do not differ significantly by religious commitment in the other regions surveyed.

Again, this is something that needs to be further investigated. But it is possible that the issue of evolution may have become inter-twined with the religious identity of Muslims in souther-eastern Europe. But it is important to note that acceptance or rejection of evolution is not correlated with religious observance in much of the Muslim world.

Fascinating!

I will post more from the Pew report in the coming days. In the mean time, you can find the full report here.

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by Salman Hameed

The Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies (SSiMS) and the School of Cognitive Science at Hampshire College are hosting a lunch talk tomorrow (Wednesday) by Elise K. Burton. Join us if you are in the area. Here are the details of the talk:


Evolution in Middle Eastern Education Policy: The View from Iran, Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia
by Elise K. Burton, PhD candidate at Harvard University

Abstract: To date, much research on the reception and teaching of evolutionary theory in Muslim societies has assumed that religious attitudes take precedence in determining whether and how evolution is publicly accepted, rejected, or taught in schools. A corollary of these assumptions has been that countries governed on Islamic theocracy models would be more averse than "secular democracies" to including evolution within their national curricula. But are Islam and secularism always the right categories of analysis? A comparative study of science education policy in Middle Eastern states found that neither Islam as a state religion, nor the level of state religiosity, was sufficient to predicting the treatment of evolution within national science curricula. These results call for a nuanced understanding of the position of science in Muslim-majority states today, and understanding that incorporates historical, political and sociological contexts alongside theology, belief, and culture.

Biographical statement: Elise K. Burton is a PhD candidate in Middle Eastern Studies & History at Harvard University. Her dissertation research examines the history of human biology research and its relationship to ethnic nationalist politics in 20th century Iran, Turkey, and Israel.

In the Adele Simmons Hall (ASH) Lobby at Hampshire College.      
A light lunch will be available at noon.

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by Salman Hameed

I have just returned from spending couple of days at the Science Online conference (more on that later). Ironically, because I was there, I didn't get time to post here on Irtiqa. But things will resume back here to start with Saturday Video. BBC recently did a fantastic 3-part series to celebrate 60 years of David Attenborough's explorations of nature  and natural life. It looks back at how what we know and how we know has changed over the past decade. I could not find the first episode to embed, but the last minutes of that were about filming snow leopards in the northern areas of Pakistan. However, here is the fantastic second episode on "Understanding the Natural World". Enjoy!

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by Salman Hameed

This week's Economist has an article that talks about the currents status of science in the Muslim world. It takes a broad approach and starts with the dismal state of current science in much of the Muslim world:

THE sleep has been long and deep. In 2005 Harvard University produced more scientific papers than 17 Arabic-speaking countries combined. The world’s 1.6 billion Muslims have produced only two Nobel laureates in chemistry and physics. Both moved to the West: the only living one, the chemist Ahmed Hassan Zewail, is at the California Institute of Technology. By contrast Jews, outnumbered 100 to one by Muslims, have won 79. The 57 countries in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference spend a puny 0.81% of GDP on research and development, about a third of the world average. America, which has the world’s biggest science budget, spends 2.9%; Israel lavishes 4.4%. 

Many blame Islam’s supposed innate hostility to science. Some universities seem keener on prayer than study. Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, for example, has three mosques on campus, with a fourth planned, but no bookshop. Rote learning rather than critical thinking is the hallmark of higher education in many countries. The Saudi government supports books for Islamic schools such as “The Unchallengeable Miracles of the Qur’an: The Facts That Can’t Be Denied By Science” suggesting an inherent conflict between belief and reason.

But then it also talks about the rising publications from Turkey, Iran and other Muslim countries (I have also written about it here on Irtiqa: See the numbers for 2012 here and 2011 here)

In the 2000 to 2009 period Turkey’s output of scientific papers rose from barely 5,000 to 22,000; with less cash, Iran’s went up 1,300, to nearly 15,000. Quantity does not imply quality, but the papers are getting better, too. Scientific journals, and not just the few based in the Islamic world, are citing these papers more frequently. A study in 2011 by Thomson Reuters, an information firm, shows that in the early 1990s other publishers cited scientific papers from Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey (the most prolific Muslim countries) four times less often than the global average. By 2009 it was only half as often. In the category of best-regarded mathematics papers, Iran now performs well above average, with 1.7% of its papers among the most-cited 1%, with Egypt and Saudi Arabia also doing well. Turkey scores highly on engineering.

The article then goes on to highlight some of the challenges as well, especially those related to biological evolution. It cites my 2008 paper for the dismal statistics of evolution acceptance in the Muslim world. However, our more recent work based on oral interviews show a much more complicated picture. In particular, we find that people hear different things when they hear the mention of evolution or Darwin, and often times, it has little to do with science. This is also highlighted in the article:

Though such disbelief may be couched in religious terms, culture and politics play a bigger role, says Mr Hameed. Poor school education in many countries leaves minds open to misapprehension. A growing Islamic creationist movement is at work too. A controversial Turkish preacher who goes by the name of Harun Yahya is in the forefront. His website spews pamphlets and books decrying Darwin. Unlike his American counterparts, however, he concedes that the universe is billions of years old (not 6,000 years). 

But the barrier is not insuperable. Plenty of Muslim biologists have managed to reconcile their faith and their work. Fatimah Jackson, a biological anthropologist who converted to Islam, quotes Theodosius Dobzhansky, one of the founders of genetics, saying that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”. Science describes how things change; Islam, in a larger sense, explains why, she says. 

Others take a similar line. “The Koran is not a science textbook,” says Rana Dajani, a Jordanian molecular biologist. “It provides people with guidelines as to how they should live their lives.” Interpretations of it, she argues, can evolve with new scientific discoveries. Koranic verses about the creation of man, for example, can now be read as providing support for evolution.

And it is great that the article goes on to talk about the work on stem cells research that is going on in Iran - and also in Malaysia, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan:

Other parts of the life sciences, often tricky for Christians, have proved unproblematic for Muslims. In America researchers wanting to use embryonic stem cells (which, as their name suggests, must be taken from human embryos, usually spares left over from fertility treatments) have had to battle pro-life Christian conservatives and a federal ban on funding for their field. But according to Islam, the soul does not enter the fetus until between 40 and 120 days after conception—so scientists at the Royan Institute in Iran are able to carry out stem-cell research without attracting censure.

Here is a broad swath of issues in a condensed manner. Read the full article here. By the way, if you are interested, you should also check out this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education from last year: Does Islam Stand Against Science?

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by Salman Hameed

A confession first. No, I have not read Moby-Dick. I really want to. In fact, this past summer it was on my reading list and I even bought a new copy, but I didn't get a chance to read it. Next summer, I promise.

But apparently, I'm not the only one. Here is a fantastic project, Moby-Dick Big Read, that brought together artists, scientists, musicians, writers, academics to read Moby-Dick. The motivation was that this is the "great unread American novel". As a result of the project, you can now listen to the whole book here.

But here is a fascinating article in last week's Nature about the way science inspired Herman Melville in writing Moby-Dick (you may need subscription to access the full article):

More than a century and a half after it was published, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick remains a key cultural bridge between human history and natural history — expressed in the vast and ominous shape of the whale. This epic novel is a laboratory of literature, created in an age before art and science became strictly demarcated. 

Melville wrote his book — which drew on his own youthful experiences on a whaling ship — as a tribute to the first period of modern whaling in the eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, which he claimed to be worth US$7 million a year to the fledgling United States. At the same time, science was undergoing a sea change as the gentleman scientists and polymaths of the century's start gave way to more specialized and professionalized successors. 

Melville's attitude to, and use of, science in Moby-Dick was in line with the eclectic ethos of that period. Drawing on the work of luminaries such as William Scoresby, Thomas Beale, Georges Cuvier and Louis Agassiz, Melville used contemporary knowledge of natural history — or the lack of it — to his own ends. 

Seventeen of the book's 135 chapters focus on whale anatomy or behaviour. Titles include 'The Sperm Whale's Head — Contrasted View' and 'The Right Whale's Head — Contrasted View'; such sections lay out the whales' physical structure with a wry mixture of known facts and arch analogy. (In a witty 2011 essay, marine biologist Harold Morowitz speculates on Melville as a “cetacean gastroenterologist or proctologist”.) Melville's must also be the first, and perhaps last, work of literature to feature a chapter on zooplankton. 

In the famous Chapter 32, 'Cetology', Melville attempts to categorize species of whale as he would catalogue his library, in 'folios'. It was a playful gesture that reflected the fluid classification of cetacean species at the time.

Also, the characters embody the change in thinking:

Of course, the greatest scientific figure of the age hovers over Melville. Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, eight years after Moby-Dick came out. Melville's sole mention of Darwin is a quote — from Darwin's Voyage of a Naturalist (sic) — in the extracts at the start of Moby-Dick. He had read Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle (1839) in preparation for his own 1854 work, The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles — as the Galapagos were then known. Melville visited the islands in 1841, six years after Darwin's fateful landing. Darwin's recorded observation of marine iguanas as “imps of darkness” seemed to set the tone for Melville's metaphoric view of the Galapagos, which he saw as “five-and-twenty heaps of cinders ... In no world but a fallen one could such lands exist”. 

Such dark analogies are in line with a man who declared all human science to be “but a passing fable” — and yet created a fable of his own. In Moby-Dick, Ishmael is a perpetually sceptical and questioning figure, a man attuned to science — a stark contrast to the vengeful Ahab and his pursuit of the whale that “dismasted” him. As the critic Eric Wilson, in his essay 'Melville, Darwin, and the Great Chain of Being', notes, a “primary subtext of Melville's novel is the passing of pre-Darwinian, anthropocentric thought, espoused by Ahab, and the inauguration of a version of Darwin's more ecological evolution, proffered by Ishmael”. 

Melville lived through that process. US Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay Nature (1836), with its declaration of moral law at the heart of the cosmos, was the new philosophy of Melville's youth. But as biographer Andrew Delbanco points out, Melville read A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), William Dean Howells's Darwinian-inflected view of society. Moby-Dick itself has been seen as a parody of the Transcendentalists' 'back-to-nature' excesses. But Melville does more than lambast philosophy or use science as interior decoration. He achieved a marvellous synthesis of his own poetic and philosophical impulse with the increasingly science-aware ethos of his age. And he did so with a sense of black humour that transcended Transcendentalism to prove that nature — and its science — was much stranger and more wonderful than they had imagined.

Read the full article here. And in case you are interested in the evolution of whales, you can find some information here, including that of Pakicetus.

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by Salman Hameed

When evolution becomes a political issue, it becomes very hard to trace what is really going on. Just yesterday, I had a post about TUBITAK - the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey - halting further publication of evolution books. These concerns have also been echoed by some Turkish academics as well. But TUBITAK has denied this and says that this is propaganda against them (tip from Don Everhart):

The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) has strongly denied reports that it has stopped printing books on evolution, saying the claims were “black propaganda” against their institution. 

“If we aim to censor Evolution Theory we would discontinue publishing any books containing evolutionist approaches, but on the contrary we are publishing the books that are not being published by other publishing houses,” an official from TÜBİTAK told the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday in a phone interview. 

A number of reports in daily Sözcü claimed Jan. 14 that TÜBİTAK had put a stop to the publication and sale of all books in its archives that support the theory of evolution.
The evolutionist books, previously available through TÜBİTAK’s Popular Science Publications’ List, will no longer be provided by the council, the daily had claimed. 

Titles from prominent writers including Richard Dawkins, Alan Moorehead, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Levontin and James Watson were listed as being among those which would no longer be available to Turkish readers. 

However, the official refuted the claims. “There are two books already in our 2012 catalogue regarding evolution, Richard Dawkins’ ‘The Blind Watchmaker’ is one of them … Dawkins’ ‘The Selfish Gene’ is not being published because of a publication rights issue, but this is being manipulated,” the official said.

Okay that is the first part. But this is where politics, evolution and science gets mushed together:

He claimed that “some circles” had kicked off a “black propaganda” campaign against TÜBİTAK to “shadow its success,” following the successful mission of Turkey’s first Earth observation satellite, Göktürk-2. 

Göktürk-2 was launched Dec. 18 in China, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan followed the launch at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) campus, which witnessed huge numbers of students protesting the prime minister’s visit.  

Erdoğan had called on the academics who supported the students to resign, but the police’s heavy-handed intervention in the protests also stirred a debate among Turkish universities, with some backing the police and Erdoğan and some opposing. 

TÜBİTAK had previously been the target of evolutionist circles for alleged censorship practices.  

In early 2009 a huge uproar occurred when the cover story of a TÜBİTAK publication was pulled, reportedly because it focused on Darwin’s theory of evolution. The incident led to intense criticism and finger-pointing from various representatives of the publication and its parent institute.  

A few months later, the article in question appeared as the publication’s cover story.

As you can see, there is the issue of TUBITAK's reputation, student protests, and the academics - many of whom do not support the ruling party, AKP. Let's see how the dust settles on this matter. 

But if you are interested, here are some past posts that may help in making some sense of the current situation:  

A halt to publication of evolution books in Turkey (2012)

Students attack anti-evoltuion fossils in Turkey (2012)

Protest at creationism symposium at Marmara University (2012)

Turkish government versus academic (2012)

More on Turkey: Religion, Commerce and the Teaching of Evolution (2010)

Is "Islamic Fundamentalism" on the rise in Turkey? (2010)

Controversy over Darwin Censorship in Turkey (2009)

Internet and the spread of Islamic Creationism (2008)

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by Salman Hameed

This is part of a continuing battle over evolution in Turkey - and this battle is also quite political. Here is the news item (tip from Rainer Bromer):

The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) has put a stop to the publication and sale of all books in its archives that support the theory of evolution, daily Radikal has reported.  

The evolutionist books, previously available through TÜBİTAK's Popular Science Publications’ List, will no longer be provided by the council.  

The books have long been listed as “out of stock” on TÜBİTAK's website, but their further publication are now slated to be stopped permanently.  

Books by Richard Dawkins, Alan Moorehead, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Levontin and James Watson are all included in the list of books that will no longer be available to the Turkish readers.

Read the full article here.

I do not have much information about this particular action. But here are a couple of quick thoughts: If this is true, then this is simply idiotic. Evolution has become a political issues between the secularists and the Islamists (terms used very broadly here) for a while - and this may simply be another salvo. The same had happened in 2009, when a TUBITAK magazine cover commemorating Darwin's bicentennial was replaced by a story on global warming (see this post: Controversy over Darwin censorship in Turkey). All said, because of the political underpinnings, we still have to be cautious in believing every reason given by both sides.

Also, for outsiders, this may seem like another episode of Harun Yahya's influence. However, this may have nothing to do with Yahya. Even when I attended the creationist symposium in Istanbul last May, the presence and influence of his group was quite minimal.

I will post an update if I hear something more about this.

Also see:
Students attack anti-evoltuion fossils in Turkey

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by Salman Hameed

Here is the first episode of the BBC documentary, The Incredible Human Journey : Out of Africa. Enjoy! (tip from Khurram Nasser)

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by Salman Hameed

I have an article in today's Guardian on the Islam and evolution debate in London last Saturday. Here is an excerpt (and you can also read a longer post on it here):

An imam of an east London mosque, Usama Hasan, received a death threat for arguing in support of human evolution two years ago. On Saturday, London played host to a riveting intrafaith dialogue on Islam's stance on the theory of evolution. The east London imam was one of the speakers – but this time there were others who shared his viewpoint. 

The event, organised by the Deen Institute, was titled Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution? The speakers included an evolutionary biologist, a biological anthropologist, two theologians and a bona fide creationist. 

It lasted seven hours, yet almost everyone stayed till the end. There were more than 850 people in the audience and even though the topic was sensitive and controversial, there was no heckling or disruption. At least from my limited interactions, it seemed that the audience was comprised mostly of young professionals. Most had no strong opinion, but their interest was evident as they were willing to spend their entire Saturday hearing about Muslim positions on evolution. 

They were not disappointed. 

And here is the concluding paragraph:

Babuna aside, this was a serious debate on an important topic. The rejection of evolution in the face of scientific consensus stands as a Galileo moment for Islam. However, the tone of the debate and the quality of intellectual exchange at the London event is encouraging and it shows modern Muslims have the maturity to address a perceived challenge from a scientific idea.  

Read the full article here.

Also, see another article on the conference by Yasmin Khan - also in the Guardian: Muslims Engage in Quest to Understand Evolution:

More than 850 delegates flocked to a seminal conference in London on Saturday about the compatibility of modern evolutionary theory and Islamic theology – despite scaremongering and the refusal of Islamic student societies to participate. Determined organisers had overcome pressure to cancel by changing the venue from Imperial College to Logan Hall at the University of London. The event was the brainchild of the Deen Institute, which runs courses to promote critical thinking among Muslim students and kindle rational dialogue within Islam. The need for dialogue is urgent, because to date there has been little open discussion within British Muslim communities on this divisive subject. Recent debates in the US suggest that evolution is not as much of a problem theologically to Muslims as it is to Christian creationists, but there is work to be done to clarify the situation.

Read the full article here.

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by Salman Hameed

Since we are coming fresh from the dialogue on evolution and Islam, I thought I'll stay with the topic of evolution. One of the best popular books on evolution is Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin. He is also responsible for the discovery of the fossil of Tiktaalik - an example of animal transitioning from water to land (from fish to tertrapods), about 375 million years ago. If you haven't read the book, you should definitely check it out. The discovery of Tiktaalik is a fantastic example of good science: There was a specific prediction that geologic strata 380-365 millions years should contain examples of animals that may provide hints for fish to tertrapod transitions. I will let Neil Shubin explain this in this fantastic lecture:



Now, Shubin has a new book out that looks at the connection between the universe, our solar system, Earth's history and our own body: The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People. Here is an excerpt from the book's review from this week's Nature:

Shubin starts with the formation of the Universe 13.7 billion years ago, segueing into that of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago. Much later, about 200 million years ago, when the supercontinent Pangaea broke up, the continents and ocean basins we know today began to form. This was accompanied by the rapid evolution of more complex life forms — dinosaurs, mammals and birds. 

Shubin suggests a rather original connection between continental break-up and the evolution of such creatures: mud settling on the vast stretches of coastline created by the break-up of Pangaea buried biological material that would otherwise have decayed in water, using up oxygen. The result, Shubin says, was an increase in atmospheric oxygen, one of the key factors that allowed animals to conquer land. Mammals require a lot of oxygen to maintain their high-energy, warm-blooded lifestyle. Life on the low-oxygen Earth of 200 million years ago would have been like that today at 4,500 metres above sea level. 

Much of the second half of The Universe Within summarizes the history of how our geological view of Earth developed. It incorporates stories such as how the discovery of similar fossil organisms on distant continents led Alfred Wegener and others towards the idea of continental drift. We also meet William Smith, who invented stratigraphy, Louis Agassiz, who discovered ice ages, and geologist Bruce Heezen and oceanographic cartographer Marie Tharp, who were central to developing the theory of plate tectonics. 

Shubin is at his best when he deals with anatomy and biology, as in his discussion of the inventive geologist Michel Siffre. In 1962, Siffre spent two months living in a subterranean cave to gauge whether he could track time without any tools with which to measure it. After two months, he was convinced that only 37 days had passed. This was in line with what we know about the role in 'internal clocks' of the pineal gland, which regulates the production of sleep-inducing melatonin depending on the available light. Shubin's storytelling in such passages is gripping.

Read the full review here (you may need subscription to access that).

Oh - and for your entertainment purposes, here is Titaalik - the song:

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by Salman Hameed

I'm now back in US and I'm glad that I had a chance to attend the London debate, Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution? It was organized by The Deen Institute and I posted some quick thoughts on Saturday.

You can find a good summary of each speaker's presentation at Farrukh's blog.

Here are a few reasons why I think the London debate on evolution and Islam may turn out be a game-changer in the way Muslims look at evolutionary biology, and science, in general.

This was an intra-faith debate. There is no question that the topic was controversial. However, the conversation on evolution often gets derailed by common misconceptions and juvenile creationist ideas. The debate would have been a failure, had it been simply between biologists and those who follow Harun Yahya. There is no common ground - as Yahya's group has no understanding of science.

The reason for the success of the debate was that almost all of the speakers (with the exception of Harun Yahya acolyte, Oktar Babuna) accepted the scientific consensus on evolution. Then the question became: Can Muslims reconcile human evolution with their faith? Now this is an important question.

Here are a few take-aways from the London debate:
1. It is crucial for Muslims (and non-Muslims) to know that there are Muslim scientists out there, who not only understand evolution but have thought about its implications for their own personal faith. Both Ehab Abouheif and Fatimah Jackson talked about their own personal belief and the way they reconcile evolution, in particular, human evolution, with Islam. What is important here is that they accept mainstream evolutionary ideas - and not some fringe ideas of directional evolution or the American version of Intelligent Design (ala Irreducible Complexity of bacterium flagellum). Furthermore, they are first rate researchers who take a no nonsense approach to science, and a no nonsense approach to religion. Fatimah Jackson, a convert to islam, teared up when talking about her faith - and she emphasized that no one can question her Iman. She took the position that science tells the how - and not the why.

Both Ehab and Fatimah are spectacular role models for budding Muslim scientists. When a genetics student asked about potential experiments to test evolution, Ehab invited him to join his lab, which is doing cutting-edge research on ant evolution (he has two papers in published in the prestigious journal Science just in 2011!).

2. The theological debate between Usama Hasan and Yasir Qadhi was also interesting. The important thing to note is that both accepted the science of evolution. Usama Hasan's main position was that science is clear on human evolution as well and Islamic theology has room to incorporate it. Yasir Qadhi, on the other hand, said that he has no problem with almost all of evolution, except for human evolution. However, he made it clear that he is not speaking on the science of human evolution, but rather on human evolution from an Islamic theological perspective. He went after Usama, and I think, he was quite condescending towards him. Though to be fair, Yasir Qadhi had also come really prepared for the debate. But if you listen carefully, the difference in their positions is razor-thin.

Why do I say that? On the one hand, Yasir Qadhi insisted that theologically, Muslims cannot accept human evolution. On the other hand, he said that the "maximum we can go" from the theological perspective is to say that Allah inserted Adam in the natural order - and while we may not see any difference, it is actually a miracle. He used the example of dominos. He asserted that Adam was the last domino. Now, in his perspective, we are seeing the last domino, and that domino is specially placed by Allah. However, for non-believers, it may seem to be connected to all other dominos. This way, the miracle of Adam is preserved.

Usama and Yasir could have easily agreed on this point. However, it seemed to me that Yasir was insistent on inflating the differences between his position and Usama's. As it turns out, they both know each other from way back, and their rivalry goes beyond the topic of evolution. Overall, Usama was interested in emphasizing the lessons from history about the changing religious (including Islamic) interpretations in wake of new sciences (for example, earth-centered to sun-centered universe), whereas Yasir was focusing on a close textual reading of the text, claiming that this current interpretation is really definitive.

But notice that overall, this is a subtle debate on the theological acceptance/rejection of human evolution only. Even if one takes a conservative position, almost all of evolution is okay for both of them.

3. The audience was diverse and deeply interested in the topic. There were 800 people in a packed auditorium. The talks started at 11am and went till 6pm (with lunch and prayer breaks), and it was amazing to see that almost all of the audience stayed until the end. This is all the more amazing since most people lined up to get in the auditorium from 9am. Plus, there was no heckling or disruption. This was a very civil debate on a controversial topic. A lot of it had to do with the host, Mariam Francois-Cerrah. She was fantastic in not getting the debate out of hand, and in handling the questions.

But what struck me the most was the diversity in audience members. There were some whose religiosity was explicit (with hijabs, niqabs, beards, etc) and there were others that did not show that. In conversations, I found a film-producer, a pharmacist, a philosophy undergraduate, a chemist, a science communication professional, a hedge-fund manager, an IT professional, a medical doctor, a nurse, a genetics student, a biology postdoc, etc. Most of them were there to simply hear the debate. None of them had a strong position on evolution, one way or the other, but were interested in hearing Muslim positions on it.

It is a shame that the debate did not take place at Imperial College. I had posted a few weeks ago about the opposition to the debate by the Islamic Society there. The success and the tenor of the debate shows that the Islamic Society at Imperial College may simply be a step behind much of the community. Ultimately, it is the students at Imperial College that may have missed out on a high quality debate.

4. The debate exposed the shallowness of Harun Yahya brand of creationism. Those of us who follow Islamic creationism have known this for a while (for example, see the crude quality of his Atlas here). However, the media has often portrayed him and his group as the leading "intellectual voice" of Islamic creationism. However, they only have a few talking points: Evolution is an evil ideology, evolution is false, quoting Darwin out of context, and a constant reference to fossils. Well, Ehab Abouheif in his opening remarks did a fantastic job of neutralizing most of their arguments by showing the common misconceptions about evolution.

This would not have been enough had the debate lasted only hour. People who are not familiar with the debate would have seen two people disagreeing - and would have left undecided. However, the conversation went deeper, in particular with the introduction biological anthropology by Fatimah Jackson, and then a historical and philosophical discussion between Usama Hasan and Yasir Qadhi. The response of Oktar Babuna was - "fossils". The conversation had moved along - but Babuna had nothing new to add. And the audience figured it out. Towards the end, Oktar Babuna was serving as a comic relief. Other panelists would be talking about something substantial, and Oktar Babuna would bring up his fossils. People were rolling in their seats with laughter. I even started feeling bad for him towards the end.

The bottom line is that the Yahya position of no evolution at all (and with almost no change in the DNA) is akin to those who still believe in a universe where the Sun goes around the Earth. Yahya people have been able to gain traction by using evolution as a synonym for atheism and eugenics and by presenting evolution as an ideology pushed by non-Muslims against Islam. Their claim to present an alternative "scientific" idea, however, did not work when they were confronted by world class Muslim biologists. Furthermore, they don't offer any sophisticated theology either.

London is one of the strongholds of the Harun Yahya group amongst Muslims (much more so than most of the Muslim world). The debate may have permanently exposed their shallowness in both Islamic theology and Islam. And yes, even in the evolution debate, Oktar Babuna brought up Mahdi, and the End of Times. (see earlier post on Harun Yahya's fascination with Mahdi and if sees himself as The One).

5. Ultimately, this was a grown-up debate. This shows a maturity within Islam on dealing with a serious challenge from a scientific idea. Instead of a knee-jerk reaction, The Deen Institute managed to bring together a fantastic panel that engaged with the topic. And this can serve as a good model for other issues as well (freedom of speech, gender equity, etc.). I'm curious to the see the direction they will take after this event.

There is going to be a circus reaction as well. There will be some who will be upset by the debate. The Harun Yahya people will also go on the offensive and may try to manufacture a controversy. It will be unfortunate, if the press focused on some of the outliers.

This is a long post - but I think this was an important event.

Related posts:
A Riveting Session on Islam and Evolution in London
Opposition to Evolution and Islam Debate at Imperial College?

Here is a picture of a section of the crowd at the debate:

And here are the speakers along with couple organizers:

(from left to right: one of the organizers, Mariam Francois-Cerrah, Fatimah Jackson, Adam Deen, Yasir Qadhi, Usama Hasan, Ehab Abouheif, one of the organizers)

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by Salman Hameed

I will be attending a debate on Evolution and Islam in London this week. It is being organized by Deen Institute. I had an earlier post about some of the controversy surrounding the event. You can find more information about the event here.

I am also interested in finding out more about the reaction to the debate. Sometimes stories get overblown in the media, and I'm trying to properly gauge the reaction to this debate. If you know of any Muslim students (in particular from Imperial College or UCL) who wants to chat about the event, drop me a line here or send me an email. Thanks!

Lets see how the event goes. I will have a post on the event from London.

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by Salman Hameed

I had earlier posted about a discussion over Islam's take on evolution in London on January 5th. Now The Independent is reporting that the organizers wanted to host the event at Imperial College, but that they had to change the venue because of opposition from a Muslim student group at the college:

The initial plan was to hold the event next month at Imperial College London, one of the country’s foremost universities for scientific exploration and debate, in cooperation with the local Islamic student society. But the Deen Institute said it was forced to pull out when it became clear that opposition to the event from supporters of creationism began mounting. It is now being held without input from any Muslim student society at Logan Hall, a conference centre owned by the University of London.

Couple of things here. We have to be careful in how we interpret this news item. First, we have to know what the opposition is for? Is the Muslim student group opposing this simply because it deals with evolution or if they want to avoid controversy (however, they perceive it). Second, we have to know if the majority of Muslim students at Imperial College oppose such an event. We have to be careful about a confirmation bias, i.e. it is only news when Muslim students reject evolution - and not when they accept it (and many indeed do - as we found out in our interviews from last year). Some of this has to do with the specific coverage of such items in British newspapers (for an example, see last year's case of London Times). The January 5th event is now taking place at Logan Hall, a conference center owned by University College London. The headline of The Independent, however, is more dramatic: Debate on Islam has to called off after revolt by student societies. And as per queue, this headline provides fodder for websites like Jihad Watch, which started it'd article with the following: "Intimidation and thuggery shut down academic inquiry".

By listing out these caveats I don't mean to imply that an outright hostile reaction to evolution is not possible. We saw that last year in the case of Dr. Usama Hasan - when he received veiled threats in response to his evolution talk in his mosque.

In any case, the event organized by the Deen Institute is taking place on January 5th in London (see this website for more information). It will be an interesting forum and I am planning on attending it. In the mean time, I would like to know more about the opposition of Imperial College Islamic society. If you have more information, drop me a line.

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by Salman Hameed

There are two events in London next month that might be of interest to the readers here. One is a workshop titled, Islam and Science - a reasoned approach, for students and young researchers to be held from January 18th-20th. This is by invitation only and you have submit an application to get in. You can find out more information about the event here. It looks interesting and the workshop will be lead by a number of well known people in the field, including Nidhal Guessoum (you know him from Irtiqa as well), Jean Staune, Bruno Guiderdoni, Ehsan Masood and Dr. Usama Hasan:

This event will be the latest in a series of educational workshops that have previously been held in Algiers, Paris and other locations. A “reasoned approach” will be taken to Islam and Science: one that is well informed, balanced and constructive. The general themes of the workshop will be: Islam and the History & Philosophy of Science, Islam & Modern Physics/Cosmology, Islam & Modern Biology, Science & Islamic Ethics, Islam & New Paradigms of Science. The workshop will represent a unique opportunity for Muslim students and young researchers to discover the contemporary field of ‘science and religion’ through lectures by, and in-depth discussions with, internationally-recognised thinkers and experts in this field, including Prof. Nidhal Guessoum, Prof. Jean Staune, Prof. Bruno Guiderdoni, Ehsan Masood and Dr. Usama Hasan.

Also, if you are interested more specifically on the issue of Islam and evolution, then you can attend a conference on Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution? on January 5th. This one includes a scientific and a theological session.  Dr. Usama Hasan will also be part of this, and it is fantastic that evolutionary biologist, Ehab Abouheif will also be there (he is an outstanding researcher and he also participated in the Boston Evolution and Islam event last month). However, it is unclear how much science will be in the scientific session, as one of the speakers is from the Harun Yahya group (wait - are there still people around who take Harun Yahya seriously??). Here are the details of the conference:

The Deen Institute proudly announces its first ‘Dialogue within Islam’ event. The conference titled: Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution?, will for the first time in the UK, to witness prominent Muslims tackling the controversial topic of evolution in a public forum. 

“Dialogue within Islam” events seek to engage with challenging ideas of concern to Muslims, in a setting that allows for critical dialogue. 

Historically, Muslims have held conflicting opinions on the theory of evolution and whether science and Islamic theology share a point of convergence. In recent years, a polarised debate on the topic has left many Muslims confused as to what Islam does, or doesn’t say, about human evolution. 

The Deen Institute will therefore provide a platform to different viewpoints so that the topic might be debated and examined in an honest, respectful and tolerant environment.
The conference will elucidate the issue of human evolution from an Islamic viewpoint, in order to provide the audience with a clear understanding of the points of convergence between contemporary scientific theories and Islamic theology.

There you go. The next year is starting with a bang.

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