Wednesday, July 16, 2008 | Reason : In the News | print version

Anti-Darwinists turned away by Israeli academia

by Ynet News

Thanks to Noam Zur for the link.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3568715,00.html

Anti-Darwinists turned away by Israeli academia

Turkish scientists receive last minute cancellation from Hebrew University who fears Jewish-Muslim reconciliation conference may give stage to anti-Darwinist propaganda

Avital Lahav

A group of Muslim religious scholars arriving from Turkey to participate in a reconciliation conference at the Hebrew University claim that the head of the Social Sciences Faculty refused to greenlight the event, calling it off in short notice. Professor Boaz Shamir, Dean of Social Sciences explained his decision citing the lack of proper coordination between the Students' Union, which was in charge of organizing the event, and the faculty's secretariat.

However, the correspondence received by Ynet has Prof. Shamir admitting that "we wouldn't have hosted an event supporting anti-Darwinist propaganda."

The Turkish lecturers arriving from Istanbul on a joint initiative between the research and scientific foundation they represent and the Interfaith Encounter Association, were planning to speak at the two Jewish-Muslim conferences at the Hebrew University's campus on Mount Scopus and at Tel Aviv University.

The speakers planned to talk about uniting between the two religions and denouncing Islamic terror – but also against Darwin's theory about The Origin of Species.

But someone at the university must have not liked the idea of giving the stage to a foundation that is busy spreading Creationism, not to mention the foundation president's negation of Darwinism in his books. Hence the cancellation notification received by Prof. Shamir a mere few hours before the event.

'University maintains radical image of Islam'

The dean excused the cancellation by telling the organizers that the conference could not be held in the faculty's building at any time. Later on in the correspondence, the organizers explained that the Darwinist theory had mistakenly been added to the program and that there was no intention of addressing it in the conference, but Prof. Shamir insisted on not hosting the event.

The foundation criticized the event's cancellation, claiming that "the Hebrew University chooses to maintain the radical image of Islam and is preventing us from spreading a message of peace. We see this as an undemocratic way of handling ideas."

The Turkish scholar's friend, Ehud Tokatly, was shocked by the university's stance, especially in light of Israel's struggle against the academic boycott, saying the university should apologize to the lecturers who made it all the way from Turkey to attend the conference: "Where will there be freedom of opinion if not in academia? These are two serious scientists and not some religious Taliban preachers."

Yehuda Stolov, founder and director of the Interfaith Encounter Association said that "the purpose (of the conference ) was to discuss collaboration between Muslims and Jews for peace and against terror. We had no plans of talking against Darwinism. Unfortunately, the anti-Darwinism made it by mistake into the list of topics on the electronic invitation, which in turn caused the cancellation of the event."

Kobi Nahshoni contributed to this report

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1. Comment #212094 by black wolf on July 16, 2008 at 3:38 pm

The article doesn't name the Turkish side on this. The Dean apparently knows more, and if these are indeed people from a creationist organization, it is safe to assume that they would seize the opportunity to spread their false ideology. That's par for the course in their strategy book as we have countless examples for. They may start by discussing religious scholarship, but they will steer any debate or lecture towards un- and pseudoscientific attacks on evolution theory.

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2. Comment #212098 by al-rawandi on July 16, 2008 at 3:43 pm

Israel scores one more point in my book.

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3. Comment #212130 by steve8282 on July 16, 2008 at 4:30 pm

the fact that they could not figure this out until the delegation arrived does not speak will of their professionalism.

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4. Comment #212139 by Vaal on July 16, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Did they bring "Expelled" in Turkish with them?

Turkish scholars were going to talk AGAINST Darwin's theory about The Origin of Species? How then are they scholars? Scholars of deceit, religious propaganda, disinformation and anti-science. That is an oxymoron, if ever I heard one.

Bravo, the Israelis, to kick into touch this boorish stupidity. Is it just me, but whenever I see the expression religious scholar, you can almost guarantee the next few sentences they are going to be spouting is unmitigated bollox.

Other Comments by Vaal

5. Comment #212141 by huzonfurst on July 16, 2008 at 5:04 pm

Perfect! Add "religious scholar" to the dictionary of oxymorons.

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6. Comment #212143 by MPhil on July 16, 2008 at 5:08 pm

Hmmm.... the "religious scholars" I met were actually people studied religions as a sociocultural and ideological phenomenon... not from within... very intelligent people. Perhaps the term has a different meaning in different academic contexts?

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7. Comment #212155 by RamziD on July 16, 2008 at 5:48 pm

Why assume that this Turkish delegation was just a creationist front? I think it would have been more productive to let the conference proceed, but take out the discussion on evolution/creationism. There was a more important "interfaith dialogue" that was nixed because of this. As long as there are people who are going to believe in islam and judaism (and despite our abhorrence of religion, it's not going away anytime soon), then "interfaith dialogue" (especially ones that include denouncing radical islam by both sides) can be very important. Academic debate is an important medium for bringing about social change.

Also, like someone else already mentioned, it's not very professional or constructive to cancel an event like this on such short notice and when the speakers had already traveled to Israel.

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8. Comment #212163 by T4Baxter on July 16, 2008 at 6:11 pm

Seems to me that "anti Darwinian" sentiment works in our favor wherever it rears it's silly swede. If they are stupid enough to pan the parts of his thesis that have subsequently been corrected, they look like morons. If they are arrogant enough to attempt to subvert the credibility of all the fields of study that have subsequently appeared on the back off Darwin's work! I'm sure the academic community would waste no time at all, in giving them the good news.

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9. Comment #212166 by Mango on July 16, 2008 at 6:14 pm

The Turks say that the anti-evolution part was mistakenly included in the event's activities, so if the Israelis would have talked to them first before canceling the entire conference it would have been better handled. Or maybe the Israelis know more than what this story relays.

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10. Comment #212168 by Bonzai on July 16, 2008 at 6:28 pm

Good job Hebrew U!

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11. Comment #212174 by Al420 on July 16, 2008 at 6:49 pm

Religious people are always so touchy. The University didn't want to invite discussion of creationism, so they obviously chose "to maintain the radical image of Islam".
Not to maintain the good name of Charles Darwin

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12. Comment #212182 by Cartomancer on July 16, 2008 at 7:12 pm

These are two serious scientists and not some religious Taliban preachers."

Serious scientists do not deny the validity of evolutionary biology. Whatever else these people were, serious scientists they were not.

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13. Comment #212190 by catskill on July 16, 2008 at 7:33 pm

I had high hopes when I saw the article title. Sadly the talks that were canceled seemed to not be creationist focused, and the details about the whole event seem somewhat... fishy.

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14. Comment #212200 by chuckgoecke on July 16, 2008 at 7:54 pm

I would like to know if there are any Muslim evolutionary biologists... or Baptists ones for that matter.

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15. Comment #212204 by Village_Idiot on July 16, 2008 at 8:02 pm

These are two serious scientists and not some religious Taliban preachers.

Hahaha...they planned to talk about uniting between the two religions, didn't they? Turkey is culturally 500 years behind the rest of Europe and the science there gets very "serious" when it comes to uniting religious nonsense. This is just ridiculous!

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16. Comment #212211 by rydrum2112 on July 16, 2008 at 8:17 pm

Someone tell me they watched the daily show tonight, and saw Deepak get killed.

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17. Comment #212224 by hopeful on July 16, 2008 at 9:01 pm

Comment #212200 by chuckgoecke "I would like to know if there are any Muslim evolutionary biologists... or Baptists ones for that matter."

I remember reading something by Steven Weinberg (I think) regarding how the middle east was a prominent centre of science 900 years ago, at which time a certain king declared everything to be the work of god, effectively putting a stop to science to this day.

It is a very sad story, when one considers how much suffering could have been avoided in that part of the world had they been free to progress scientifically.

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18. Comment #212241 by Christopher Davis on July 16, 2008 at 10:01 pm

I second Cartomancer's above comment (#12).

Also, I call bullshit on this "interfaith initiative" the only thing Muslim and Christian "religious scholars" have in common is their eagerness to denounce evolution.

Furthermore, the idea that the University's decision not to host a farce is somehow reinforcing the image of Islam as a radical religion is bunk. Islam's image a a radical religion is reinforced everytime on of these dirt-worshipping, woman-hating, virgin seekers blows something up and people die.

Oh but wait! These "scholars" are AGAINST terrorism!

How fucking humane of them.

What they fail to mention is that it isn't terrorism if only infidels die...it's Allah's will.

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19. Comment #212278 by Raiko on July 17, 2008 at 12:58 am

hese are two serious scientists and not some religious Taliban preachers.

If they were indeed going to talk about something involving pro-creationism, this statement is questionable - especially the 'serious scientists' part.

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20. Comment #212285 by esuther on July 17, 2008 at 1:14 am

I would like to know if there are any Muslim evolutionary biologists.

Of course there are. Contrary to the image that so many Americans have of ALL Muslims being bearded fanatics or women in chador, there are evolutionary scientists in the big universities. A friend of mine has worked a great deal with geneticists in Cairo studying mummy DNA.

I realize it is much more fun to hate Muslims if you view them all as fundamentalists, but there are secularied Muslims too. Muslim scientists may not be at the forefront of genetics, but they are in the global scientific dialog, and, like American scientists, also at odds with the fundies of their respective countries.

In addition,here is an interesting article from Nature Genetics on a large genetic project being developed by the Arab League

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v38/n8/full/ng0806-851.html

and a quote from it in case you don't want to bother:

Ghazi O. Tadmouri and colleagues (Nucl. Acids Res. 34, D601ï¿½"D606, 2006) have assembled the CAGS database, CTGA, that at the time of that publication listed 692 phenotypes for some 235 genes that have been found to be mutated in people living in Arab countries. About a third of the genes responsible for these genetic conditions have not yet been identified, so even in its current state, the CTGA database indicates that the populations it covers constitute a considerable resource for understanding single-gene disorders. Another useful feature of the database is that it assembles links to a large number of regional English-language medical journals that may be unfamiliar to an international readership.

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21. Comment #212290 by realaphex on July 17, 2008 at 1:25 am

@Village_Idiot, I'd like to know how did you come to the conclusion that Turkey is 500 years behind Europe? Have you ever been there, have you ever met people from Turkey?

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22. Comment #212294 by Enlightenme.. on July 17, 2008 at 1:34 am

Comment #212224 by hopeful on July 16:

I remember reading something by Steven Weinberg (I think) regarding how the middle east was a prominent centre of science 900 years ago, at which time a certain king declared everything to be the work of god, effectively putting a stop to science to this day.

The one you are most probably referring to would be, not a king, but Al-Ghazali:

Wiki:
"He was a Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, cosmologist, physician, psychologist and mystic of Persian origin,[3][4] and remains one of the most celebrated scholars in the history of Sufi Islamic thought. He is considered a pioneer of the methods of doubt and skepticism,[5] and in one of his major works, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, he changed the course of early Islamic philosophy, shifting it away from the influence of ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy, and towards cause-and-effect that were determined by God or intermediate angels."

At the Cheltenham science festival I attended a lecture by Jim Al-Khalili, the one who presented the excellent BBC4 series on the atom.

His lecture was on Arabic Science, but I was disappointed to hear him put the demise of it mainly down to the crusades, which I considered to be disinformation.
When I bought up Al-Ghazali in the Q&A he waffled for a bit, but basically belittled his disastrous effect on Arabic/Islamic science.

I stand to be corrected..

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23. Comment #212298 by shonny on July 17, 2008 at 1:40 am

21. Comment #212290 by realaphex on July 17, 2008 at 1:25 am
@Village_Idiot, I'd like to know how did you come to the conclusion that Turkey is 500 years behind Europe? Have you ever been there, have you ever met people from Turkey?

Ah, after the Turks abandoned Kemal AtatÃ¼rk's visions time reeled backwards in Turkey.
Very, very fast!
Much like in the US with the current W.H. occupant, Vacuity, and his mob.

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24. Comment #212308 by Christopher Davis on July 17, 2008 at 2:15 am

"I realize it is much more fun to hate Muslims if you view them all as fundamentalists, but there are secularied Muslims too."---esuther

It's not fun, or productive, to hate anyone. As for these secularized muslims you refer to, they represent a miniscule minority.

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25. Comment #212339 by noamzur on July 17, 2008 at 3:30 am

Found some more information on these scholars:

Apparently, according to a commenter on the original site:

The two Turkish gentlemen turned away are authors in our book:

Seckbach, J. & Gordon, R. (eds.) (2008). Divine Action and Natural Selection: Questions of Science and Faith in Biological Evolution [in press], Singapore: World Scientific.

Write me for details. Thanks.
Yours, -Dick Gordon
gordonr@cc.umanitoba.ca

I tried google-ing both the title of the book and of Richard Gordon and found nothing relevant...

Does anyone have more information about this they can share with me/us?

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26. Comment #212356 by notsobad on July 17, 2008 at 4:47 am

Turkey is culturally 500 years behind the rest of Europe

What a silly statement. Does you knowledge about Turkey stops before Ataturk's reforms?

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27. Comment #212370 by flobear on July 17, 2008 at 5:15 am

I know a lot of people on this forum dislike Israel, but this article is a testament to the fact that, unlike their neighbors, they have a lot of things right in their country.

Noamzur: Good job digging that up. Funny sometimes how small the world is.

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28. Comment #212372 by noamzur on July 17, 2008 at 5:21 am

@flobear - that was my point submitting this one - to show that the Middle East is not one big, equally backward place. With all the criticism there is about, we should also have a chance to see the things that ARE working properly!

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29. Comment #212375 by al-rawandi on July 17, 2008 at 5:48 am

enlightenme...

Al-Ghazali was an occassionalist. Meaning he thought a candle burned because Allah willed it, and when you put a glass over the flame, it went out because Allah willed it. There was no intermediary reactions, only that of the divine will.

He wrote a number of works on a number of topics, for instance he wrote on "The Duties of Brotherhood in Islam" and his most famous work is "The Alchemy of Happiness". A lot of Muslim thought at this time revolved around celestial bodies. For instance al-Farabi devised the notion that Allah is like the sun and Muhammad like the moon, and that we see the light of god only as reflected by a prophet. He went on to enumerate the various intellects (Potential, Acquired, etc...).

The thing about many Muslim philosophers was their connection to medicine (Qutb al-Din Shirazi, Ibn Sina, et al.).

I don't think it is fair to say the Crusades destroyed this, as they didn't penetrate to the areas where philosophy was centered (Iraq, Persia, E. Syria). What doomed the philosophy was the fact that Islamic religious thought became more solidified and rendered literal readings as the most accurate.

esuther,

I went to a museum in Riyadh (I forget the name). I was shocked to see all kinds of fossils and dinosaurs, and the theories on the extinction of dinosaurs. I don't recall any exhibits on evolution, but I have the feeling it may have been presented... but I cannot promise that.

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30. Comment #212381 by Ishruul on July 17, 2008 at 6:05 am

Ultimate teaching tool of evolution coming soon to all. I'm really anticipating this one.

http://www.spore.com/ftl

Seem childish, cartoony or whatever, but hey! Even mister Dawkins would have used this in Growing up in the Universe.

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31. Comment #212385 by esuther on July 17, 2008 at 6:17 am

Al Rawandi wrote

I went to a museum in Riyadh (I forget the name). I was shocked to see all kinds of fossils and dinosaurs, and the theories on the extinction of dinosaurs. I don't recall any exhibits on evolution, but I have the feeling it may have been presented... but I cannot promise that.

Riyadh! I have this morbid fascination with Saudi Arabia. Politically there is every reason to detest it: it's subjugation of women, it's Wahabiism, it's being in bed with the US oil companies, it's owning a chunk of US assets, etc. (I'm sure you can add more.) But I am fascinated by it (like a child by a dinosaur I suppose) and dying to go there. Unfortunately, as I understand it, unaccompanied women cannot travel there. And I'm (ahem) assuming that a woman accompanied by a lesbian lover would also not be welcome.
So hows about you and me making a little trip. I'll pay for the (separate) hotel rooms.

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32. Comment #212388 by al-rawandi on July 17, 2008 at 6:41 am

esuther,

Saudi Arabia is quite an amazing place, I had a great time. I was driving from Jeddah (on the Western Hijaz coast) to Yanbu' (major petrochemical center and export center) and I saw bedouins just on the side of the free way... herding their goats and what not. Unchanged from centuries ago.

In the desert you can go to sleep near a sand dune, and awake and the dune has moved from the wind. It is easy to get lost, and Muhammad Asad wrote about this in "The Road to Mecca". He was finally saved by some Bedouin.

The most interesting thing about the Arabian Peninsula is the Hejaz (W. region), I published some work on this, its history is amazing. The Egyptians had copper mines in the region and actually had a sea port (Qurayba) dated to the 22-23rd Egyptian Dynasties. Most people were never aware of such a presence, but archaeologists recently discovered terracotta artifacts of Egyptian/E. Med designs at al-Ula (Oasis of Dedan).

Another interesting point is that Arabia has tribes that are black... as in African. When Charles Doughty traveled to the Hejaz with Hajj pilgrims in the 19th century he discovered these tribes (Bani Harb), and wrote that they were "infected with negro blood". These same tribes were able to identify the various tribes of the region by their footprints and were excellent trackers.

I absolutely love the Arabian Peninsula and I will spew facts (which are interesting to me) all day.

I am happy to return to Saudi, if you were to go Mada'in Salih is A MUST SEE. It was the southern most outpost of the Nabataean Empire (it is even mentioned in the Greek histories of the Nabataeans). It was a multicultural city where inscriptions have been found in numerous languages dated to the same period, including parallel texts (Thamudic, and Arabic.... the very first written Arabic document).

Anyway.... absolutely keep your sexuall orientation to yourself. If you partner can pass for your sister, you can take a third male as your brother. That would dodge the Saudi laws, but getting the visa is difficult, as Saudi is a large draw for foreign labor, and it restricts the travel of these people. Once you get there, I know plenty of people that are western educated and are pretty accepting. The west coast is a different world then the Najd (central plateau) and eastern coast. The culture is different as is the Arabic. The west has a history as a multi-cultural trade-route (frankincense and myrrh since time immemorial).

Okay that is enough, sorry to ramble.

*EDIT* My fascination with Pre-Islamic Arabia is due to the largely tolerant nature of the society. It was a brutal tribal society, but many beliefs were tolerated.... Ok, done rambling.

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33. Comment #212392 by Cartomancer on July 17, 2008 at 6:50 am

Al-Ghazali (or Algazel as we Latinists know him) was indeed an occasionalist, at least in his later life when he had allowed his devotion to fundamentalist islam to stifle his passion for Aristotelian science (those agent and passive intellects don't just invent themselves you know!). But simply saying "it's Al-Ghazali's fault for changing his mind" is not a valid historical explanation. Al-Ghazali was one thinker, and the popularity of islamic occasionalism was considerably more widespread. We need to explain why Al-Ghazali and his contemporaries were inspired to pursue this avenue of philosophy, when it had not been seriously pursued for several centuries previously, and why his successors followed his path, rather than reverting to the more traditional scientific mode. The islamic world was not lacking for a source of occasionalist ideas throughout its history, so something must have changed in the early twelfth century to suddenly make them so much more appealing.

I'm not a scholar of middle eastern history, but the kind of answer we would be looking for would probably involve changing cultural and political factors. My guess is that it has a lot to do with the contraction of islamic power, the decline and fall of the caliphate, the reconquista, the mongol conquests and internal instability in islamic monarchies. Unstable, politically riven societies surrounded by aggressors and unable to sustain the conditions necessary for intellectual activity seldom produce great scholarship. The crusades, on the other hand, were a tiny and politically insignificant force in the middle east, their ideological impact chiefly on European self-definition.

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34. Comment #212397 by al-rawandi on July 17, 2008 at 6:59 am

Cartomancer,

To be fair, Islamic doctrines themselves, with the insistence on absolute determinism, is easily fit to occassionalism.

You are right the sacking of Baghdad by Hulagu in 1258, and the end of the Abbasid caliphate was certainly a major factor in the decline of philosophy. The Mongols burned entire libraries, and were all around pretty brutal. Although these rulers eventually became Muslim, it was on their terms, and made control of the populace easier.

The violent destruction of a relatively (historically and geographically) enlightened dynasty (Abbasid) was the death spell for higher erudition. The foundation for more precise literalism was laid in the Mihna years before, but it retained its strength while other influences did not.

As for the intellects, this is Greek in origin? As I understand al-Farabi's enumeration of the "Acquired Intellect" it is specifically a Muslim idea. For instance this is the intellect that is attained when revelation takes place to a prophet, it is a place where the distance between the divine and the prophet is reduced to merely nothing and communication takes place on a completely differet level. I understand the relation to celestial bodies (this wasn't a new obsession).

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35. Comment #212401 by SilentMike on July 17, 2008 at 7:01 am

I first heard about this in a meeting a few days ago. Someone in the meeting wandered if our university would do the same. Another person quickly remarked that sadly our university would gladly give an auditorium to anyone, for the right price. Unfortunately this is true. In the institution I attend we often have religious crackpots (some of them known creationists) speaking. I've seen many flyers promoting talks on souls and spirits and free will and all the rest of that nonsense that religious people seem to think they know something about.

Good for HebrewU.

Other Comments by SilentMike

36. Comment #212414 by kaph on July 17, 2008 at 7:25 am

VillageIdiot,

so now we have a scale that shows how far each country culturally is in terms of years with respect to an arbitrarilty selected given country, right?

Quite surprising to see such stereotype... tsk tsk...

Other Comments by kaph

37. Comment #212447 by Appleby on July 17, 2008 at 8:24 am

If the Christians (at least some) could get over their fear of evolution, I'm sure Muslims will too, someday.

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38. Comment #212450 by Tintern on July 17, 2008 at 8:26 am

How do you mistakenly add Darwinism to an agenda, particularly one as sensitive as this? As others have noted, there's definitely more here than meets the eye.

Other Comments by Tintern

39. Comment #212467 by DamnDirtyApe on July 17, 2008 at 8:41 am

At least we can engage the christian guys like Robertson and the Discovery fools, regardless of their lies and dodgy dealings.

From what I've seen thus far of Arguing with the Islamic creationists is that it is like talking to a wall that occaisionally insults you. The epic Harun Yayha travesty shows that.

Other Comments by DamnDirtyApe

40. Comment #212471 by alexmzk on July 17, 2008 at 8:46 am

hey, so long as they keep finding faults with Darwinism, they might bring themselves up to speed with actual modern evolutionary synthesis.

- you'd think.

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41. Comment #212503 by Border Collie on July 17, 2008 at 9:13 am

Surgical ... perfect ...

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42. Comment #212546 by Enlightenme.. on July 17, 2008 at 10:19 am

al rawandi:

"Carotmancer,"..

*chuckle* :)

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43. Comment #212584 by Cartomancer on July 17, 2008 at 11:42 am

As for the intellects, this is Greek in origin? As I understand al-Farabi's enumeration of the "Acquired Intellect" it is specifically a Muslim idea.

Yes and no. The idea that the intellect is made up of several active and passive components originates with Aristotle - Book III, chapter 5 of Peri Psyches (De Anima), although Aristotle's thinking on the subject is very vague and unspecific:

Chapter 5
Since in every class of things, as in nature as a whole, we find two factors involved, (1) a matter which is potentially all the particulars included in the class, (2) a cause which is productive in the sense that it makes them all (the latter standing to the former, as e.g. an art to its material), these distinct elements must likewise be found within the soul.

And in fact mind as we have described it is what it is what it is by virtue of becoming all things, while there is another which is what it is by virtue of making all things: this is a sort of positive state like light; for in a sense light makes potential colours into actual colours. Mind in this sense of it is separable, impassible, unmixed, since it is in its essential nature activity (for always the active is superior to the passive factor, the originating force to the matter which it forms).

Actual knowledge is identical with its object: in the individual, potential knowledge is in time prior to actual knowledge, but in the universe as a whole it is not prior even in time. Mind is not at one time knowing and at another not. When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal (we do not, however, remember its former activity because, while mind in this sense is impassible, mind as passive is destructible), and without it nothing thinks.

Because Aristotle was so vague his words were wide open for interpretation and expansion by later Greek, Arabic and Latin inheritors. Had be been more expansive and compendious here it is likely the science of the enumeration of the intellects would never have got started. Aristotle seems to think that there must at least be an active intellect of some kind above and outside the "passive" human intellect - because according to his rule of equivalences every action has a corresponding passion and every substance is composed of a matter-like element and a form-like element. He says little more on the issue and it really doesn't seem to have been something that interested him overmuch. Of the later Greek philosophers, Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. 200AD) was probably the most influential on this issue, being among the last antique Aristotelians before neoplatonism became the Hellenic world's philosophy du jour. He put the problem into a form more recognisable as the one the Arabs and Latin scholastics grappled with. Avicenna's three works De Anima, inspired by and commenting on the Aristotelian tradition but going far beyond it, expand the idea significantly (he has four distinct categories of intellection - agent, potential, in effect and in act), and do go into how this theory might affect prophecy. In fact he even goes as far as saying that prophets might do their thing through entirely natural agency, being possessed of a much more powerful agent intellect that lets them understand things outside the normal range of human perception. I suspect Al-farabi (Alpharabius or Alpharius to the Latins) was working in this tradition, though of course the christian inheritors of Avicennism mostly ignored the stuff on prophecy.

Other Comments by Cartomancer

44. Comment #212588 by Village_Idiot on July 17, 2008 at 11:48 am

Whoaaa, I feel like a dog under a massive attack of fleas (eg Realaphex, Shonny, Notsobad...etc )
The fleas apparently cannot simply swallow the following statement that I have made:

Turkey is CULTURALLY 500 years behind the rest of Europe

Well, esophageal stricture is a horrible and painful disease, so I decided to help you with the process.
In November, 2007, Turkish prosecution was officially investigating whether to prosecute the Turkish publisher of "The God Delusion", Erol Karaaslan, for publishing Dawkins' book as the book "incites" violence by pointing out violence in the name of religion and attacking "sacred values". The publisher managed to sell only a laughable number of 6,000 copies of Richard's book. Ironically, this investigation just followed a very loud trial of Nobel Prize-winning author, Orhan Pamuk, in 2006, who was accused of "insulting Turkishness" by making comments(!) about the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in, the early 20th century. Also, YouTube has been banned twice in Turkey for hosting videos of not so holy politicians who wanted to say "too much truth"...
So, why don't you fleas get off my back and drink some of the fine Turkish backwardness to my health, eh? Thanks! And no, I do not plan to visit Turkey (same goes, probably, for R. Dawkins); I rather stick with civilized countries when I make my vacations plans.

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45. Comment #212599 by Edouard Pernod on July 17, 2008 at 12:22 pm

Actually Turkey had an impressive history of resisting Islamic influence in government up until the most recent jackasses got elected. It used to be if a religious fundamentalist tried to run the government, the Turkish military, which is staunchly secular (far more secular than the US military), would overthrow the government. They seem to have a coup there about every 10-15 years. My friend from Istanbul's grandfather was a General in the army's 1960 coup against the government which had passed laws allowing the government to legislate Islamic law.

Imagine if in the US, the military was so devoted to the constitution that if an elected leader tried to legislate Christianity, the military would overthrow the government and allow the populace to put someone else into power? We would have had to have a coup from 1980 until 1992, and then from 2000 until now.

Turkey is also highly civilized compared with other places in the middle east. It's a sad country though, it has a bloody history of all sorts of people fucking the country up, and when you visit Ephesus and think of what could have been, it inspires nausea.

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46. Comment #212608 by Village_Idiot on July 17, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Edouard, thanks for the input to the discussion. However, you only confirm my thesis that whenever fundamental Islam gets grip of politics in a given country it sends it back in the cultural development by a couple of centuries. Turkey today is struggling and struggling hard for enlightenment. You try to be a loud mouth atheist (even in academia) there then you will quickly understand the meaning of backwardness in that country...

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47. Comment #212611 by al-rawandi on July 17, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Village_Idiot,

Recip Tayyip Erdogan said "democracy is like a street car, you get off once you reach your destination".

All Islamists are for democracy, because they live in countries run by dictators and presidents for life. Democracy is the only way they will seize power. But once they get the votes, if there isn't a powerful counterbalance, they will begin to enact laws that prevent non-Islamists from participating.

The battle cry of Islamism:

"One man, one vote, one time".

I am concerned for the administration of Abdullah Gul. He may use the Kurdish situation to placate the military, and distract them from some of his Islamist agenda.

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48. Comment #212617 by Edouard Pernod on July 17, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Turkey is going through a dark period, there's no question about that. But honestly I think the past 50 years of history in that country are more inspiring than some of the rubbish that has gone on in America. I'm not one for martial law, but each time the Turkish military has overthrown fundie leaders, they have helped the populace, made the country peaceful, put into place constitutions granting more rights, and even helped economic growth, all while ceding power back to the public within a year to two years. Of course I wouldn't trust our military to do that, right now it's too close to being an evangelical military, which is down right scary. I'm not just making this up either, my cousin is a cadet in the air force and she's already seen more than her share of state-sponsored Bible thumping.

In the 1980 Turkish coup, the military overthrew the government because the government seemed powerless to stop an Islamic radical party who insisted upon Sharia law and a leftist-extremist party that supported violent action. Those parties weren't even official government parties, the military just tossed the government recognizing that the threat of Sharia or leftist violence was beyond the government's capacity to stop. Furthermore all of the extremist jerks who caused the problme were permanently banned from participating in politics! Now that's what I call principles. Imagine if the military overthrew Bush's administration, and prohibited fundies like Ashcroft from ever participating in politics again? At the same time that would technically violate free speech, so I'm against it, but it's a nice concept, basically a zero-tolerance stance towards those who have proven themselves as desiring to legislate religion.

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49. Comment #212623 by Village_Idiot on July 17, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Edouard, I agree. As for our own backyard, we are closer than ever to having a truly "evangelical military", as you labeled it. "The Army of Our Lord", I prefer. Here is the link, if you and others are interested, on the issue of religion getting a strong grip in the US military:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/07/08/atheist.soldier/index.html

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50. Comment #212693 by Mitchell Gilks on July 17, 2008 at 2:54 pm

I would have a problem with this, if it wasn't for the fact that I (as has already been mentioned) am extremely skeptical of the idea of a "serious scientist" whom does not accept the science of evolution.

The things are clearly mutually exclusive.

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