Two reports on Taner Edis Talk on Islam and Evolution

Taner Edis, a physicist at Truman State University, gave a talk Tuesday night in Lawrence on Islam and creationism and related topics.

Josh Rosenau at Thoughts from Kansas

... science in the Muslim world is seen through the lens of technology. Improvements in living conditions and advancement of a people or a nation through technological advances are good. Connecting those technical advances to broader theoretical frameworks has always been seen as a dangerous and potentially heretical act. Islamic philosophers have would argue that the Quran provides the necessary overarching framework, and that attempts by the sciences to usurp any part of that role have always found resistance.

Thus, efforts to harmonize science and Islam have tended to focus on finding ways to show that particular scientific discoveries are explained by the Quran. The Prophet referred to the seven levels of the heavens, so exegetes seek to identify seven meteorological or astronomical layers. Vague descriptions of the formation of a fetus are presented as perfect brief descriptions of modern embryology. As Edis writes, "it is striking how little writers of the science-in-the-Quran genre know about science. … [T]hey conceive of science as a set of practical applications and concrete facts to be collected and organized like stamps. This view is not even medieval; medieval science at least enriched its stamp collections with an elaborate God-centered perception of nature."

Red State Rable, notes the contradiction between the efforts of the the Discovery Institute to globalize ID and statements like the following on prominent ID blogs

"Islam is a cancer growing on the planet. It needs to be killed not accomodated

Unfortunatley, RSR seems to accepts the myth of Islamic tolerance.

RSR promises more posts on the talk in coming days.

Meanwhile, take a look at The Illusion of Harmony, the latest book by Taner Edis.