Contagion

Via the Daily Mail:

Muslim students, including trainee doctors on one of Britain’s leading medical courses, are walking out of lectures on evolution claiming it conflicts with creationist ideas established in the Koran.

Professors at University College London have expressed concern over the increasing number of biology students boycotting lectures on Darwinist theory, which form an important part of the syllabus, citing their religion. Similar to the beliefs expressed by fundamentalist Christians, Muslim opponents to Darwinism maintain that Allah created the world, mankind and all known species in a single act.

Steve Jones emeritus professor of human genetics at university college London has questioned why such students would want to study biology at all when it obviously conflicts with their beliefs. He told the Sunday Times: ‘I had one or two slightly frisky discussions years ago with kids who belonged to fundamentalist Christian churches, now it is Islamic overwhelmingly….They don’t come [to lectures] or they complain about it or they send notes or emails saying they shouldn’t have to learn this stuff.”

Perhaps the most telling thing about this sorry story is the students’ unwillingness merely to study something with which they disagree. What exactly are they afraid of?

In due course, we can, I expect, see an effort made to allow them to be spared the requirement to attend class on the grounds of “conscience”, the miserable, self-righteous and Balkanizing excuse increasingly being used in the United States to secure exemption for religious folk from this rule or that.

And this is interesting (emphasis added):

Sources within the group Muslims4UK partly blame the growing popularity of creationist beliefs within Islam on Turkish author Harun Yahya who, influenced by the success of Christian creationists in America, has written several books denouncing Darwinist theory

The weird ecumenicism of fanaticism never fails to impress.