{"id":786,"date":"2008-12-12T15:52:37","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T23:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=786"},"modified":"2008-12-12T20:05:07","modified_gmt":"2008-12-13T04:05:07","slug":"priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/priorities\/","title":{"rendered":"Priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/science\/blog\/2008\/dec\/12\/islamic-creationism-evolution-muslim\">Here\u2019s<\/a> an interesting piece from the Guardian by Salman Hameed. He\u2019s arguing that the Islamic world will be the next front in the battle over evolution, and discusses how scientists should respond to the \u201crising challenge of creationism\u201d among Muslims:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Despite surveys showing hostility towards evolution, there is also an overwhelmingly pro-science attitude. This is particularly true for sciences that have practical and technological benefits. The message about evolution in the Islamic world therefore needs to be framed in a way that emphasises practical applications and shows that it is the bedrock of modern biology. This is the approach advocated in the US in the recent National Academy of Sciences publication Science, Evolution, and Creationism. The arguments for evolution will have to be framed differently in each country. The national academies of Muslim countries can tailor the specifics of the message according to the political and cultural realities of their respective communities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hameed warns:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If a link between evolution and atheism is stressed, as some prominent scientists in the west have been advocating, this will undoubtedly cut short the dialogue and the vast majority of people in the Muslim world will choose religion over evolution. Muslim creationists know this and they have been stressing this link in their anti-evolution works.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hameed\u2019s point of view is, I reckon, reasonable. I\u2019ve never felt that religious faith is necessarily incompatible with an acceptance of evolutionary science, and it\u2019s almost certainly counterproductive to argue that it is. The debate over the existence of God is (so to speak) a theological dispute, important to those who like to worry about such things, but not so important, surely, as to be something that should take priority over the defense of basic scientific knowledge\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s an interesting piece from the Guardian by Salman Hameed. He\u2019s arguing that the Islamic world will be the next front in the battle over evolution, and discusses how scientists should respond to the \u201crising challenge of creationism\u201d among Muslims: &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/priorities\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":795,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}